The Human Costs of Nitrate-Contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley

While most Californians take for granted that safe water is readily available at the turn of a tap, a growing number of communities, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley and other agricultural areas of the state, face very real impacts from nitrate contamination of the drinking water sources serving their homes and schools. New research led by the Pacific Institute, The Human Costs of Nitrate-Contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley, finds that nitrate contamination of groundwater has wide-reaching effects on California’s health, economic vitality, and environmental well being, disproportionately affecting low-income households and Spanish-speaking residents.

Op-Ed: Report Wrongly Excuses Farms From Helping Solve Water Woes

The latest report on California’s water crisis has recently been released by the Public Policy Institute of California, and while there are good things in this work, it has two fundamental flaws that cannot be ignored: It completely lets the agricultural sector off the hook for its part in causing – and ultimately helping to solve – our water problems, and it lays all the pressure and responsibility on urban water users and the environment.

Op-Ed: Another View: Busting Water Conservation Myths

As a solution for California’s complex water challenges, conserving water to get more from every drop stands out for its great potential and the misconceptions around it.

A recent op-ed column, “Putting two myths about the state’s drought to rest” (Viewpoints, July 6), repeated three misstatements about conservation that are often used to delay implementing strategies for more efficient water use. Until these misunderstandings are corrected, common-sense improvements will continue to be underfunded and inadequately pursued. The failure to use proven and cost-effective efficiency programs can be seen in the limited attention to conservation in the state water bond proposals and only modest efforts of some water agencies.

Op-Ed: State Needs More Water Storage – Underfoot

The massive rains over the past month are both a blessing and a curse for California. A blessing because we desperately need the water, having just weathered a serious multi-year drought. A curse because the intensity of rain causes serious problems with flooding, erosion, landslides and contamination with pollutants from the land. And the intensity of the rainfall causes another problem: Much of the excess water runs off in ways that do not help natural ecosystems or provide long-term benefits to our cities and farms.

The CEO Water Mandate: Guide to Responsible Business Engagement with Water Policy

With water issues among the world’s most critical sustainability challenges, businesses are facing increasing water-related risk to their operations. The just-released Guide to Responsible Business Engagement with Water Policy from the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate provides strategies for companies to turn risk into opportunity by advocating for water management approaches that meet the needs of business, communities, and nature.

The Human Right to Water: Emerging Corporate Practice and Stakeholder Expectations

In July 2010, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) recognized access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right. Two months later, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) affirmed this right by a consensus resolution. Even before these UN actions, many governments, NGOs, academics, and companies alike have acknowledged this human right to water and sanitation and sought to find solutions to help realize it on the ground. Further, a number of initiatives have emerged that have attempted to elucidate what this right means for a number of different actors, including companies.

Advancing Community Health through Community Benefits Agreements

The redevelopment of the former Oakland Army Base presents an enormous opportunity for investment in strategies to improve community health. A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with the developer of the former Base is one strategy for the community to directly negotiate the benefits that will meet their priorities, monitor the project’s impact as it moves forward, and hold the developer accountable for the agreement. A CBA is a legally binding contract between a developer and community groups, and sometimes local government, that specifies benefits that a development project will result in for the local community.

California’s Next Million Acre-Feet: Saving Water, Energy, and Money

A new analysis from the Pacific Institute recommends specific actions that can annually save a million acre-feet of water quickly and at a lower economic and ecological cost than developing new supplies. The assessment notes that new actions are immediately needed to reduce the growing tensions over the state’s water resources and to address California’s persistent water supply challenges.

Op-Ed: Moving Forward on Water

Now that California lawmakers have pulled an $11 billion water bond measure off the November ballot, California is facing new questions about how to fix our longstanding water problems, including the long-term health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the future reliability of our water supply. A number of commentators have praised or pilloried the delay of the bond, but one thing we can all agree on is that California’s water challenges have not gone away. The recent State Water Resources Control Board report that finds we must halve our water withdrawals from the rivers and streams that sustain the Delta is simply one more indication that we have over-tapped California’s precious water resources and that we must find innovative ways to do more with less.

Support for SB 51

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

On behalf of the following undersigned organizations representing environmental, hunting and fishing interests, we write to respectfully urge you to sign SB 51 (Ducheny). This important legislation sets forth the implementing structure for the Salton Sea restoration effort. SB 51 is the product of nearly three years of work and discussion between all of the various interests involved in Salton Sea restoration and reflects a balanced approach for integrating local and statewide interests into the implementation of the Salton Sea Restoration plan.

How Much Will We Use? Forecasting Urban Water Use in California with Changing Climate, Demographics, and Technology

Global climate change is clearly acknowledged to pose risks to California’s water, though the focus has primarily been on water supply-side changes (e.g. decreased snowpack, earlier snowmelt, and more extreme floods and droughts). Yet along with these shifts in the quantity, timing, and reliability of freshwater supplies, climate change will also have important impacts on water demand. In particular, increased temperatures and altered precipitation patterns will affect the evapo-transpiration of plants and thus, total outdoor water demand. In addition, increased temperatures will impact cooling requirements, and therefore total indoor water demand. At the same time, a variety of other factors will continue to influence water demand such as population growth, development patterns (e.g., where the population grows), changes to the state’s industrial mix and employment (e.g., manufacturing jobs being replaced by service jobs), and on-going water conservation programs and standards (e.g., 20% reduction in per capita water use by 2020 and new water-use efficiency standards for fixtures and appliances).

Pacific Institute Analyzes the 2010 California Water Bond

At the end of 2009, a series of water-related bills was passed by the California Legislature, with the intent of moving the state out of decades of gridlock over water resource management. Simultaneously, the Legislature approved an $11.14 billion bond called the “Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010” to fund water system upgrades. This is the largest water bond in 50 years, yet the costs and benefits of the bond have not been fully assessed by an independent organization. The water bond has been postponed to 2012, but actions must be taken by the Legislator to ensure a responsible and effective water bond is proposed two years from now.

Comments on Public Review Draft of the SBx7-7 Urban Technical Methodologies

What happens after a bill becomes law? The answer may be more complicated than you think. The Pacific Institute has been involved in determining how the Water Conservation Act of 2009 (California Senate Bill x7-7) will be implemented by participating on both the Agricultural and Urban Stakeholder Committees. The legislation requires that the Department of Water Resources work with these committees to develop policy, guidelines, and regulatory rules that meet the intent of the law. This page provides links to letters submitted or signed onto by Pacific Institute staff and brief summaries of the major issues.

Framework for Responsible Business Engagement with Water Policy

Access to water is an important strategic concern for many companies, but increased threats to the supply, quality, and reliability of global water resources add substantial pressure and immediacy for businesses to improve the way they manage water risk. Recognizing that business, government, and civil society share a critical interest in reducing water-related risks through common solutions, the UN Global Compact’s CEO Water Mandate has released a Framework for Responsible Business Engagement with Water Policy to facilitate effective water policy engagement.

Peak Water Limits to Freshwater Withdrawal and Use

A new journal article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) highlights new “peak water” limits to global and regional freshwater availability and use. The May 24, 2010 early edition of the journal includes the new article Peak Water Limits to Freshwater Withdrawal and Use by authors Dr. Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, and Meena Palaniappan, director of the Institute’s International Water and Communities Initiative, and brings sharp focus to understanding the world’s water issues in new terms of “peak renewable water,” “peak nonrenewable water,” and “peak ecological water.”

Water: Facts, Trends, Threats, and Solutions

On the subject of water, three key trends confront us: climate change will affect rainfall and runoff patterns and seriously impact our water supplies both in the United States and abroad; 780 million people in the developing world still don’t have access to clean drinking water – and pressure from pollution, wetland destruction, and climate change is threatening to make this worse; and the dangers of water privatization demand greater scrutiny from governments and the public.

Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water

Bottled water is just one aspect of the global water issues Peter Gleick addresses as one of the experts featured in the new documentary Last Call at the Oasis from Participant Media, producers of the groundbreaking documentaries An Inconvenient Truth and Food, Inc. Read Participant Media’s interview with Dr. Gleick on the implications of bottled water here.

Corporate Water Accounting: An Analysis of Methods and Tools for Measuring Water Use and Its Impact

Effective business water accounting methods are critical for sustainable water management, according to the new Pacific Institute report, Corporate Water Accounting: An Analysis of Methods and Tools for Measuring Water Use and Its Impact, prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme and the CEO Water Mandate. Current methods are a good start for measuring water use and impacts, but they are inadequate for benchmarking. Advancing effective and coordinated accounting methods for corporate water use and impacts is essential to help companies identify risk, drive improvement, and address stakeholders’ needs.

Clearing the Waters: A Focus on Water Quality Solutions

Every day, 2 million tons of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste are poured into the world’s waters. The result is that more people die from unsafe water annually than from all forms of violence, including war. A new Pacific Institute report released by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for World Water Day, March 22, 2010, lays out steps and solutions to address our urgent water-quality challenges––and they start with awareness and will to action.

Understanding and Reducing the Risks of Climate Change for Transboundary Waters

Global climate change will increase the risk of conflict over shared international freshwater resources. Treaties and other cross-border agreements can help reduce those risks, but existing agreements are inadequate for dealing with the impacts of climate change. A new Pacific Institute analysis for the United Nations, Understanding and Reducing the Risks of Climate Change for Transboundary Waters, identifies these growing risks and proposes methods for reducing them.

The CEO Water Mandate: Fourth Working Conference

In July 2007, the UN Secretary-General in partnership with international business leaders and under the auspices of the UN Global Compact launched the CEO Water Mandate – an initiative established to better understand and advance water stewardship in the private sector. The Mandate was built upon six core elements considered to be critical in addressing corporate water management: Direct Operations, Supply Chain and Watershed Management, Collective Action, Public Policy, Community Engagement, and Transparency.

Sustaining California Agriculture in an Uncertain Future

The report Sustaining California Agriculture in an Uncertain Future shows that California agriculture can flourish despite diminishing water supply and future uncertainty from climate change, but it will require great strides in increasing the water efficiency of the agricultural sector.

Water‐Related Public Policy Annotated Outline

The preface of the Guide will include a summary of current societal and water resource trends affecting business operations. It will define the origins, scope, and objectives of the Guide, and will provide background on the Mandate and its activities, particularly with respect to its work‐stream on public policy.

Truth Drought: California’s Real Shortfall

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar came to California on Sunday to hear firsthand about California’s drought. Unfortunately, some of what he heard was misleading or false. Certainly farms and farmers are suffering, so are fish and ecosystems. But so is the truth. Here are three oft-repeated falsehoods.

Testimony on Global Warming’s Effects on Agriculture and Forestry

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the effects of climate change on agricultural production in the United States. Our testimony will focus on those impacts related to water resources – a critical connection especially in the western United States. These detailed comments are intended to supplement our oral testimony.

Measuring What Matters: Neighborhood Research for Economic and Environmental Health and Justice in Richmond, North Richmond, and San Pablo

Published by the Pacific Institute and seven local partner organizations, Measuring What Matters: Neighborhood Research for Economic and Environmental Health and Justice in Richmond, North Richmond, and San Pablo quantifies how serious, avoidable problems have become chronic and offers solutions for a better, more equitable way of life in West County.

Water Disclosure 2.0 Assessment of Current and Emerging Practice in Corporate Water Reporting

The CEO Water Mandate report, Water Disclosure 2.0 – Assessment of Current and Emerging Practice in Corporate Water Reporting, examines and analyzes corporate reporting on water sustainability for 110 companies across 11 water-intensive sectors. The assessment tracks the six key elements addressed by the CEO Water Mandate: Direct Operations, Supply Chain and Watershed Management, Collective Action, Public Policy, Community Engagement, and Transparency.

The CEO Water Mandate 3rd Working Conference

In July 2007, the UN Secretary-General, in partnership with international business leaders and under the auspices of the UN Global Compact, launched The CEO Water Mandate – an initiative established to better understand and advance water stewardship in the private sector. The Mandate was built upon six core elements considered to be critical in addressing corporate water management: Direct Operations, Supply Chain and Watershed Management, Collective Action, Public Policy, Community Engagement, and Transparency.

The Impacts of Sea-Level Rise on the California Coast

In an analysis prepared for three California state agencies, the Pacific Institute estimates that 480,000 people; a wide range of critical infrastructure; vast areas of wetlands and other natural ecosystems; and nearly $100 billion in property along the California coast are at increased risk from flooding from a 1.4-meter sea-level rise – if no adaptation actions are taken.

CEO Water Mandate: Footprint to Public Policy

In response to growing concerns of water scarcity and unchecked water consumption, the concept of “water footprint” has been drawing attention among businesses, policy makers, and the public over the last few years. Originally developed as an analogy to the more widely recognized “ecological footprint” and “carbon footprint”, water footprint has emerged from an advocacy tool to a measurement for assessing the total freshwater requirements to produce goods and services.

Water Integration Act of 2009

Mr. Chairman, Senators: thank you for inviting me to offer comments on the critical connections between energy and water in the United States. Water use and energy use are closely linked: Energy production uses and pollutes water; water use requires significant amounts of energy. Moreover, the reality of climate change affects national policies in both areas.

The Need for Integrated National Water Actions

Mr. Chairman, Representatives: I would like to thank the Committee for inviting me to offer comments on the critical issue of 21st century water planning in the United States. The water crisis around the nation is growing and the need for better and more coordinated responses is urgent. We have long known that we need coordinated federal planning for water; but such coordination remains an elusive goal. And new water challenges such as climate change, new pollutants, and decaying infrastructure face the nation.

Energy Implications of Bottled Water

In an article published in the February 2009 edition of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters, the Pacific Institute analyses the energy requirements for various stages in bottled water production, including the energy to manufacture the plastic bottles, process the water and the bottles, and transport and cool the final product.

Op-Ed: Peripheral Canal Idea Still Thin on Details

The governor’s Delta Vision Committee recently announced its recommendations for addressing the decades-old challenges facing California’s water system. Taken all together, the recommendations are comprehensive and thoughtful. The media and public, however, have focused on only one –- the proposal to build a peripheral canal.

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