State Needs Innovative, Aggressive
Water Solutions

By Peter Gleick, 06/01/2008

For more than a decade, California has had relatively adequate winter rains and mostly full reservoirs. No longer. We had the opportunity to fix many of our water problems while the state had more abundant water, but that chance has been squandered. And though we've never been very good at making rational water decisions in a crisis, the time to change that is clearly and urgently here.

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Every Drop Counts

By Heather Cooley, 02/10/2008

In January, it rained a lot in Southern California. The usual street intersections flooded. Water tumbled down the Los Angeles River. And houses in areas ravaged by fires last fall seemed in danger of sliding off their hilltop perches.

It was chaotic, as always -- but desperately needed. The wet weather came after the driest year on record in the L.A. Basin -- less than 3.5 inches of rain. Coupled with below-average rainfall in 2006, lack of rain in 2007 had fed fears of a drought. Do last month's downpours mean we can stop worrying now?

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Billions of drops in the bucket

By Peter Gleick, 01/06/2008

After more than a decade of generous rainfall and healthy river flows, the dry years are back. Much of the state, notably Southern California, has been experiencing sever drought. The major reservoirs along the Colorado River are less than half full. Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada last winter was half of normal, and meteorologists say we may be headed into another dry winter despite this weekend's rain.

The possibility of water shortages has spurred more talk than action. Despite holding a special session on water, Sacramento lawmakers did not come up with a borrowing bill to pay for new dams, additional storage space and fixing up the levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Meanwhile, a coalition of business, labor, agricultural and water leaders recently said it was going to push for bond proposals to finance new dams.

Fortunately, there are cheaper, quicker and greener alternatives to huge, expensive water projects. But this requires rethinking how to manage and consume our water.

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Turning the Delta ruling into opportunity

By Peter Gleick, 09/09/2007

On Aug. 31, a federal judge acknowledged what many people have long known -- we have run up against the limits of our water supplies. U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger ruled that state and federal water managers must change how they operate California's water system to reduce environmental harm.

It now seems inevitable that the total amount of water taken from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will have to be scaled back. While the details and magnitude of these changes still must be worked out, we're already hearing the predictable cries of catastrophe, economic collapse and impending doom.

This crisis has been coming for a long time, but it isn't a surprise and need not be a disaster.

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Salton Sea-A time for action

By Michael Cohen, 08/19/2007

The Salton Sea lies 470 miles southeast of San Francisco, a vast, cursed salt lake far from the minds of most in the Bay Area. Part of the Salton Sea's curse is that it is so distant, so different from most people's experiences. Today, temperatures at the sea are likely more than 40 degrees hotter than San Francisco. Irrigated fields stretch for miles to the north and south of the sea. To the east and west, mesquite and creosote bush dot the landscape, before the Chocolate and Santa Rosa mountains rise sharply from the desert floor. The total population of Imperial County, locus of most of the sea, is about a tenth that of Alameda County, despite having almost six times the land area. If the Salton Sea - roughly the size of San Francisco Bay - were next to San Francisco or to Sacramento, its problems would have been addressed long ago.

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Saving water makes cents for valley businesses

By Heather Cooley and Ian Hart

A version of this essay was originally printed in the San Jose Mercury News on August 13, 2007.

Contrary to popular belief, growth in California's population, economy and water use is no longer linked. From 1975 to 2001, our population increased by 60 percent and gross state product increased by 250 percent. Yet during that same period, total water use decreased statewide. Improved efficiency technology, forward-thinking lawmakers and changes in our industries have helped make this possible.

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Panic makes for poor water policy

By Peter Gleick, 07/22/2007

Ignoring a problem tends to make it worse. A worsening problem tends to lead to panic. Panic tends to make for bad public policy. Welcome to 21st century California water policy.

We are experiencing our driest year in more than a decade, and our policymakers are panicking. They are proposing that you and I cough up billions of dollars in new bonds to subsidize new dams and other large infrastructure that, at best, won't contribute to meeting our needs for decades to come and, at worst, will siphon off precious funds needed for faster and more effective water solutions.

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The fish and the whales

By Peter Gleick, 05/31/07

The Terminator may soon become Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's official title, not just his humorous nickname. Earlier this month, media and public attention has been riveted on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as two wayward whales made their way back to the Pacific Ocean. At the same time, and of far less apparent public interest, another crisis below the surface of the delta has reached a boiling point. New scientific surveys revealed that a tiny fish -- the delta smelt -- appears to be heading for rapid extinction.

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U.S. dumps state plan for saving water

By Peter Gleick, 01/06/07

For six years the Bush administration has refused to take any serious actions nationwide to improve energy and water efficiency. Now it is actively thwarting the efforts of Californians to take such actions on our own. Our state, the federal government would have us know, does not have a compelling interest in conserving water or energy.

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The best plan for the Salton Sea is yet to come

By Michael Cohen and Kim Delfino, 10/28/06

Right in the middle of one of the driest deserts in North America lies California’s largest lake, the little-known and oft-maligned Salton Sea.  The Sea and its environs are one of the most important spots on the map for birds, with more than 400 species of birds – often numbering in the millions of individual birds --visiting the Sea every year.  Despite its importance, the Salton Sea is the Rodney Dangerfield of California’s lakes, enduring insult after insult.  Within the next 20-30 years, the Sea will be dealt the greatest insult, as the volume of water that sustains this 360-square mile lake will decrease by more than 40 percent, rapidly shrinking the lake and increasing the amount of dust and salt that blows through the Imperial and Coachella valleys.

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Flushing water and money down the drain

By Peter Gleick, 10/12/06

Exciting developments in the high-efficiency toilet market may sound like an oxymoron. But installing these water-efficient fixtures throughout California could free up more water than any proposed reservoir or water-supply project - with none of the adverse environmental consequences and at a tiny fraction of the economic or political cost. Recognizing this potential, the Assembly and Senate passed AB2496, a bill that would have paved the way in the coming years for the adoption of new, high-efficiency toilets throughout the state. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, however, vetoed the bill, and in doing so flushed away enough high-quality potable water to meet the needs of millions of Californians.

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Selling Out California's Water
Central Valley Water Project Contract Renewal is a Big Giveaway

By Peter H. Gleick, 2/25/05

The federal government is on the verge of destroying for decades any chance of peacefully and economically solving California's water problems.

Unless the governor and our U.S. representatives intervene immediately, the Department of Interior's Bureau of Reclamation will push through new long-term contracts to provide heavily subsidized water to a small number of powerful irrigation districts at the expense of California's cities, family farmers, environment and economy.

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Read our response to Wayne Lusvardi

After the Asian Tsunami Disaster, Water Crisis Will Remain

By Peter H. Gleick, 1/5/05

The tragedy that has unfolded over the past week in Asia reminds us of the power of water to both give life and take it away.

But hidden behind the current disaster is a greater tragedy too often ignored by governments and the world community: According to the World Health Organization, billions of people in the developing world lack safe water and sanitation systems and, as a result, 5,000 to 10,000 people, mostly children, die every day from preventable water-related diseases. More...

Public or Private Water Management? Cutting the Gordian Knot

By Gary H. Wolff, Principal Economist and Engineer and
Meena Palaniappan, Senior Research Associate, January/February 2004

Public versus private is not the bright line that separates efficient from inefficient management. Like Alexander the Great, who untied the Gordian Knot with one slice from a sharp knife, we believe that the real solution to water problems worldwide has been overshadowed by the ideological debate between advocates and opponents of privatization.

This essay originally appeared in the January/February 2004 issue of the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management and is posted with their permission.
Read the essay in PDF format.

Lomborg Reprimanded by Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty

Update published 1/8/03

The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty reprimanded Bjørn Lomborg for inaccuracies in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist. According to the BBC, the Danish organization found that the book violates "the standards of good scientific practice." The Danish Committees also wrote that Lomborg's best-selling book was "in conflict with normal scientific procedure," blatantly one-sided, and short on source material.

Read the BBC's coverage of Lomborg's reprimand.

"The Skeptical Environmentalist" Riddled With Errors

By Peter Gleick, July/August 2002

A new review (PDF) of Bjørn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist by Peter H. Gleick focuses specifically on water issues (PDF). This review was orignally published in Environment, July/August 2002, Volume 44, Number 6, pages 36-40 (© Heldref Publications, 2002. Posted with permission.)

A review Dr. Gleick wrote for the Union of Concerned Scientists focuses on the book more broadly (PDF)

The Union of Concerned Scientists has published a series of rebuttals to the book, which can be found on their Website.

Grist Magazine has also created a special Webpage with a collection of rebuttals to the book by leading environmental scientists.

When it Comes to Saving Energy, CAFE is the Way

By Nicholas L. Cain, 1/27/02

Improving corporate average fuel efficiency standards -- also know as CAFE -- is the single biggest step we can take to reduce our dependence on imported oil and improve our energy security. More...

Don't Drill the Arctic: Renewable Energy is Safer, Cleaner, More Secure
By William C.G. Burns, 11/1/01

Reducing our demand for imported oil is certainly a laudable goal, but we can't drill our way to energy independence. The reason is simple: America has, by best estimates, only 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. More...