Sunrise Powerlink and Peripheral Canal: It’s up to us how we manage our critical infrastructure

December 19, 2008

sunrise-powerlink-image1In California, the names of two important public projects – one now approved, the other still in our dreams – have taken on boogie-man status in the public mind. The one just approved is the Sunrise Powerlink in San Diego County. The other still in our dreams is the Peripheral Canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The Sunrise Powerlink has been called a $2 billion boondoggle, a blight on the environment and an open faucet to dirty coal-fired energy plants in Mexico. In reality, it’s just a big power line, like many others that drape our state and country.

The Peripheral Canal – which has never been built – also has been called a giant boondoggle, a blight on the environment and an open faucet to drain water from Northern California to Southern California. In reality, it’s just a big canal, like many others that cross our state and country.

What’s important is how we use the canal and the power line.

The Delta is in a very bad state for both environmental protection and  fresh water conveyance. The current situation, in almost everybody’s view, is untenable. Drawing water through the water using fragile dikes and manmade islands is not working. To some, the answer is to stop exporting fresh water altogether and use conservation and desalination plants to take the place of Delta water. (Note that the Peripheral Canal is no longer a north-south problem; the Bay Area and regional farmers have become dependent on Delta water over the years.) But near unanimity among urban and business water users holds that cutting off Delta water experts would be a disaster for the state.

Ending all exports might be the most environmentally sound decision, if you don’t include humans in the environment. The second most environmentally sound decision, one that does include human needs, is the Peripheral Canal.

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Similarly, opponents of the Sunrise Powerlink say that conservation and distributed renewable energy are the best solution. But I can’t find any report (link me up if you can) that shows that distributed renewable energy and conservation alone will end our need for major power sources, those 500 to 1,000 megawatt power plants.  Distributed renewable power with energy storage for permanent load shifting will increasingly become more important. But it won’t replace the need for big power plants. Not yet, anyway. But who says those big plants can’t be green? With the Sunrise Powerlink, Imperial Valley can build giant renewable energy stations, just like the 800 megawatts of solar photovoltaic in two stations coming online by 2013 in San Luis Obispo County.

The canal and the power line are merely conduits for resources – water and electricity — that  human civilization needs to survive. Whether we use these conduits in an environmentally sound way is up to us — through our State Legislature, regulatory agencies and the ballot box.

If we drain away all the fresh water from our rivers or rely only on dirty coal-fired power plants for electrons, we’re doomed. But, if we don’t build vital infrastructure for water and electricity just because we’re afraid we might misuse it, we’re also doomed.

2 Comments | Bay-Delta, California, Drought, Energy, Peripheral Canal, Sunrise Powerlink, Water, renewable energy | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by jgogek

Disaster looms, but Californians keep fighting about water

July 11, 2008

It’s long past the time for Californians to stop fighting about how the state should solve its water crisis. New reservoirs vs. conservation. Environment vs. cities. Industry vs. agriculture. North vs. South. Add to these battles a prolonged drought plus climate change plus antiquated water conveyance and storage plus court cases — and we’re creating a certain crisis. We need both new reservoirs AND conservation, we need to protect the environment AND capture more water, we need more water for North AND South…and a lot more.

So, instead of arguing over the deck chairs on the Titanic, Californians need to unify behind the Dianne/Arnold $9.3 billion water bond initiative and then move on to what needs to be done next to improve water supply and protect the environment, cities and ag.

It’s sad that so many Californians seem oblivious to the enormity of water supply issues in their own semi-arid state. I often hear simplistic statements about water from intelligent people. They usually begin, “Why don’t we just…?” I recently heard, “why we don’t just spend a couple billion on desalination?” Yes, desal may be part of the solution. But desal can’t possibly provide the amount of water our state needs. Also, desalinated water created on the coast cannot economically be used inland. Plus, desal uses a lot of energy. We don’t know enough about desal yet. The fact is, there’s no one solution; the only solution is a broad array of solutions.

Are there some flaws in the Arnold/Dianne water bond formula? Sure. In any piece of omnibus legislation or big bond initiative, you have to throw some coins to get people’s support. For example, what is money for the Salton Sea doing in there? Answer: molifying enviros and Imperial Valley ag. Will this big bond harm the environment? Yes, raising dams does. We can push for more underground storage, though expanded surface storage will be necessary. But the bond initiative also will benefit the environment through waterway habitat restoration, watershed restoration in fire areas, invasive species removal, coastal water quality improvement, etc. Overall, this is a good bond initiative for the environment — and  for cities and ag.

We’re facing a disaster here. The main conduit for water in California, the Bay-Delta, is held together by fragile earthen levees. One good earthquake and we’d all be drinking seawater. Meanwhile, global warming is inexorably diminishing the snow pack that feeds the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Colorado Rivers, where we get nearly all our water. We’ve got to capture more runoff as snow melts come earlier and more precipitation comes in rain.

And yet, Californians still can’t help themselves but to fight over water. We still have people saying “no dams!” Or, “we can’t afford a $9.3 billion water bond!” Can’t afford it? We can’t afford to not do it. Our water system is under threat, and we must begin fixing it now. Upgrading California’s complex water system will take a long time, and we’re already behind.

This isn’t only important for California. Remember that the Golden State is one of the biggest economies in the world, and that our farms are the breadbasket of the nation. If severe water shortages hurt the biggest state economy in the United States, everybody gets hurt.

3 Comments | California, Drought, Water, climate change | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by jgogek