Today Governor Newsom released a comprehensive plan to accommodate the state's hotter, drier future by capturing and storing more water, recycling more wastewater, desalinating seawater, and desalinating brackish groundwater.
The "Plan" lays out a series of actions aimed at preparing California for an estimated 10% decrease in the state's water supply by 2040 due to decreased runoff as a result of permanently hotter, drier conditions. In general, the "Plan" emphasizes the acceleration of currently planned infrastructure projects, upgrading inefficient water systems, and boosting conservation. In specific, the "Plan" calls for expanding average groundwater recharge by 500,000 acre-feet, accelerating wastewater recycling projects to reuse at least 800,000 acre-feet of water by 2030, constructing the infrastructure required to capture more runoff during storms, and more actively pursuing desalination of ocean water and brackish groundwater.
A loss of 10% of current supplies translates into the loss of 6 to 9 million acre-feet per year of water. To put that into context, California's largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, holds 4.5 million acre-feet of water when at full capacity.
Click here to read the 16-page plan released by the Governor today. Keep it for reference. Plans change, and the plans contained in this 16-page document will certainly change many times between today and when some of these ideas come to fruition, but it should be crystal clear to everyone by now that California is on the cusp of another era of massive investments in water infrastructure similar to the one that characterized the first 60 years of the 20th Century. It's not whether these investments are going to go forward; it's only a matter of precisely when and how. For a water consumptive sector like golf the "how" can spell the difference between success and failure. And there is only one way to affect that "how," and it's to get much more engaged in the public policy arena than golf is today. Not as a cheerleader of its irrigation efficiency virtues, nor as a whiner and complainer, but as an initiative-taking and positive participant in contributing to effective investments, policies, and solutions.
Next week's "Water Summit" in Chino Hills couldn't have come at a better time. If it is a one-and-done check-the-box exercise, it will have been a waste of time, effort, and money. If it is a first step in coalescing the game around being an "initiative-taking and positive participant" in promoting effective investments, policies, and solutions, it will have been what SCGA, USGA and the other sponsors of the summit had hoped.