Drip irrigation is often used in vineyards.
Recycled water is used to water large tury areas such as parks and golf courses.

Water Management Strategies

Within a span of four years, voters passed two important bond issues that provided nearly $3 billion for a myriad of water programs statewide. Both passed easily, indicating a public interest in water resources and a concern for reliable supplies in the future. Each contained funds for communities, including some SWP contracting agencies, to invest in their water systems and water resources with alternative strategies to manage or augment their current supplies.

Such strategies include water recycling, water conservation, groundwater recharge and banking, conjunctive use of surface and groundwater resources, treatment of contaminated groundwater basins, and water transfers and water marketing. With reduced opportunities for building new storage facilities, these technologies will play an increasing role statewide in meeting the needs of 47.5 Californians forecasted for the year 2020.

Water conservation is a way of life in California. Both agricultural and urban SWP water users are making an effort to use conservation to stretch their local water supplies. Both groups have signed “best management practices” mandated by legislation to develop efficient water management strategies for both urban and agricultural uses of water. Urban water management planning includes long-range planning to ensure an appropriate level of reliability in water service to meet the needs of water suppliers’ customers during normal, dry, and multiple dry water years. Urban measures that could be important elements in the plan include water audits,review of commercial and industrial water use, public information, ultra-low-flush toilet replacement and plumbing retrofit programs, and conservation pricing for water and sewer services. Each plan must also establish a contingency plan for shortages during multiple dry years.

Agricultural management plans must develop water conservation and drainage reduction programs, and efficient irrigation practices.

While conservation is generally accepted by the public, the use of recycled water for uses other than irrigating parks and golf courses and flushing toilets in commercial buildings remains open to public debate. Some communities have successful programs which inject recycled water into groundwater basins for later use as drinking water. The recycled water used is treated to potable water standards before it is recharged into the basins and is retained there until it is pumped out.

However many other communities are still very skeptical about the safety of the resulting drinking water because of the “toilet to tap” public perception.

Groundwater recharge, groundwater development, and conjunctive use of groundwater and surface water are other promising water management strategies to augment existing supplies statewide.

In groundwater recharge, water, not previously used, is percolated into aquifers for storage. During wet years, many SWP contractors use Project water to recharge their aquifers. These supplies are reserved for use during dry years, enabling some contractors to free up their Project water for others in need.

In many contractor service areas, groundwater basins have been contaminated by toxins, closing down wells that provide drinking water. As technology and financial assistance advance cleanup methods, lost groundwater storage may become accessible once more to “bank” water to meet shortages or augment supplies for the future.

Water transfers and water marketing can reallocate supplies in a willing buyer-seller market, but such transactions are mired in water rights and other legal and economic concerns. Regions are reluctant to allow water transfers or sales outside their jurisdictional boundaries, and water rights holders are fearful that buyers may attempt to permanently wrest control of their rights.