Congressional hearing will focus on Southern California's drought-coping
strategies
By: Janet Zimmerman

Southern California's water conservation, recycling and other strategies for dealing with chronic shortages caused by three years of drought will be the topic of a rare congressional hearing in Los Angeles next week.

The session is intended to help other parts of the state handle growing demands and limited supplies.

Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Norwalk, head of the House natural resources subcommittee on water and power, has called for expert testimony to detail the state's problem and determine how federal lawmakers can help. Among the topics to be discussed
Monday at the Metropolitan Water District headquarters are groundwater supply and quality, Colorado River supplies and long-term trends tied to climate change.

"The innovations Southern California water agencies have developed can help our entire state deal with the drought and prepare for the future," Napolitano said. "If we want California to deal with this drought and come out strong enough to withstand the next one, we have to learn and take action."

An official list of speakers had not been released Wednesday, but an Irvine scientist and a Southern California water agency head said they have been called on to testify.

The state, which has struggled to come up with remedies, recently passed sweeping water policies and an $11.1 billion bond measure for the November ballot that would pay for new dams, repairs to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and other projects.

Some water experts and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are pushing for a peripheral canal around the delta, which would cost billions and take years to complete.

The nation has a lot at stake in this, too, since one-fourth of the country's fruits, vegetables and nuts are grown in California's Central Valley, where water woes have cost tens of thousands of farm-related jobs and spurred emergency declarations for devastated communities.

The subcommittee, which includes Rep. Joe Baca, D-Rialto, helps shape federal policies on water and power. Similar hearings about water have been held in other parts of the state, but it has been more than a decade since any have been conducted in Southern California, said Nathan Landers, a spokesman for Napolitano.

UC Irvine professor Jay Famiglietti said he will be among the presenters.

Famiglietti and NASA scientists used a two-satellite system known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, to examine the groundwater basin in the Central Valley. The system maps very small variations in the earth's gravity field, largely driven by changes in water storage.

Because it is difficult to compile an accurate picture of groundwater storage changes from well monitoring alone, GRACE is an important tool for water managers making decisions about surface water allocations, Famiglietti said.

He plans to expand on the technology and his findings at the hearing Monday.

Famiglietti, an earth science professor and director of the UC Center for Hydrologic Modeling, said he was shocked by the rate of depletion in the Central Valley.

In the past six years, water lost in the valley's Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins totaled more than 5 trillion gallons, enough to fill two-thirds of Lake Mead in Nevada, the nation's largest reservoir.

The drop is a result primarily of aggressive agricultural pumping and drought, which has not allowed for recharge of the aquifer.

"That's a lot of water," Famiglietti said.

Last year, farmers in the Central Valley got only a fraction of their allocation from the water system fed by Northern California reservoirs, which are at historic lows. Many farmers drilled wells to get water to irrigate their crops.

Those who couldn't dig wells fallowed and abandoned fields, resulting in more than 16,000 lost jobs and a farm revenue loss of more than $325 million, according to a 2009 drought update to the governor.

"There are huge implications for food production not only for California but for the country," Famiglietti said.

Continued depletions also pose significant threats to water quality and would aggravate the subsidence -- sinking -- of rich agricultural land in the delta, he said.

Because it is difficult to compile an accurate picture of groundwater storage changes from well monitoring alone, GRACE is an important tool for water managers making decisions about surface water allocations, Famiglietti said.

Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager at Metropolitan, said the hearing will spotlight some of Southern California's water issues that may bring funding for projects such as recycled water systems.

"We have had a very challenging period of time here, and it is continuing," said Kightlinger, who will testify at the hearing. "We need some interim help in the next several years for ways in which we can bring local projects on line quicker."