The Occoquan Reservoir and Development in the Rural Crescent

 Last Monday the Prince William Conservation Alliance sponsored Protecting the Occoquan Reservoir: Our Shared Water Source! with special guest Stephen Souza PhD, past president of the North American Lake Management Society, the article below is based on his presentation.  Dr. Souza addressed how development of the Rural Crescent and essential portion of the Occoquan Reservoir watershed will negatively affect the reservoir and drinking water in our region.

The Occoquan Reservoir is 1,400 acres containing 8.5 billion gallons of water that provides 40% of the daily water supply for Fairfax Water which in turn supplies Prince William Service Authority and a significant portion of Loudoun County. The reservoir is a reflection of its watershed.  The Occoquan Watershed is 590 square miles two thirds of which is in Prince William County including the all important headwaters of the Occoquan.

When the Occoquan Reservoir was first built 1957 it was located in a rural and forested area and the water was pristine. The unrelenting growth and development in this region has changed that.  In 1982 to protect the Occoquan from contamination, Fairfax County turned 5,000 acres bordering the reservoir into parkland and down zoned 41,000 acres. Today in Fairfax there are 51 homes on the shore of the Reservoir. In Prince William County there are 450 homes along the shore of the Occoquan Reservoir and Reservoir and watershed are under threat from the development of the Rural Crescent  as development pressures have moved further out with urbanization of the region. 

 Development in the watershed triggers a number of problems that begin with storm water runoff as the primary driver, though waste water point sources and non-point sources also contribute to the deterioration of the water quality. Pollution from runoff, called non-point source pollution is threatening the health of the Occoquan Reservoir and our drinking water supply. As you can see in the diagram below which originally came from the U.S. EPA and Dr. Souza used in his presentation, the hydrology of an area changes with development.

US EPA 2003

One acre of wooded area produces 1,360 gallons of stormwater runoff. While one ace of parking lot and roadways produces 25,800 gallons of stormwater runoff. According to Dr. Souza, the typical suburban lawn is almost as compacted as a parking lot and produces similar runoff. This increased runoff not only reduces groundwater recharge and stream base flow to the region, but also increases flooding, scour and erosion of the stream banks.

Increased runoff reduces water quality and increases the costs to treat the water to meet drinking water standards. Stormwater can also impact groundwater quality. Contaminants are mobilized by runoff and can infiltrate into the surficial groundwater and the fractured rock system that predominates the northwestern portion of the Rural Crescent. This can carry road salt, petroleum hydrocarbons and heavy metals into the groundwater which is the drinking water supply for the Rural Crescent.

Development of the watershed impacts stream flow and health, water quality, the regional ecology and stability of water supply to our region. Prince William County is in the very early stages of studying whether an “Occoquan overlay district” is needed to help protect the reservoir from becoming further polluted, although the County Board of Supervisors is much further along in planning to develop the rural area that is an essential protection and buffer for the Occoquan. 

According to Dr. Souza, development of the rural area of the county could push the Occoquan Reservoir to a water quality tipping point and the next generation will have to address eutrophication of the Occoquan Reservoir. A memorable legacy.  

Saving the Occoquan Reservoir

Prince William County is considering instituting restrictions in an Occoquan Overlay District. How this planning tool is used and implemented will have long term consequences for the Occoquan Reservoir and our drinking water supply. Fairfax Water supplies drinking water to around two million people in Fairfax County, Loudoun County and Prince William County. An essential portion of the Fairfax Water supply especially during times of drought is the Occoquan Reservoir which supplies the source water to the Griffith water treatment plant. The Occoquan Reservoir holds 8.3 billion gallons of water.

When the Occoquan Reservoir was first built 1957 it was located in a rural and forested area and the water was pristine. Now, however; the Occoquan Reservoir is under threat from the urbanization of the region. Pollution from runoff, called non-point source pollution is threatening the health of the Occoquan Reservoir and our drinking water supply.

Non-point source pollution is fertilizer and herbicides from agricultural land and suburban lawns. The largest crop in Virginia is suburban lawns. Pollution form urban and suburban stormwater runoff carrying oil, grease, solvents and tire rubber; septic systems, pet and recreational animal waste bacteria, nutrients and sediment from improperly managed landscaping; and finally, salt.

Development increases impervious surface area. The physical condition of the Watershed's tributaries has been measured to fall with development. Increased stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces flows into streams and creeks at a higher volume and velocity. The result is increased erosion of stream banks that leaves a degraded ecosystem. However, these roads, sidewalks, parking lots all have to be cleared of snow and ice. Over time this has meant an increasing level of salt.

 According to the Virginia Department of the Environment (DEQ) analyses from three different studies at multiple locations have found increasing freshwater salinization in Northern Virginia. According to Fairfax Water, salt contamination in the source water is becoming a generational problem.

from Fairfax Water presentation

While salts are very effective at deicing roads, when the snow or sleet melts the salts are washed off into local waterways or seep through soils into groundwater systems with negative impacts on water quality and the environment. Salts pollute drinking water sources and are very costly to remove. The current water treatment plants cannot remove the salt. The only available technology to remove salt from the source water is reverse osmosis which is cost prohibitive and requires a significant amount of energy to run. This will significantly increase the cost of water in the region.

Planning to protect the Occoquan Reservoir is planning to maintain forested areas, not build more roads, homes or businesses in the Occoquan Reservoir. If we fail to plan for the future and protect the Occoquan Watershed and source water we will have failed the next generation.  To learn more watchthe linked video of Greg Prelewicz and Nicki Bellezza from Fairfax Watertalking about water supply and water protection in the Occoquan Watershed andthe Occoquan Overlay District under consideration in Prince William County.

The Groundwater in the West is being Used Up

From Castle et.al.

A new study released last week by scientists at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and University of California at Irvine has found that groundwater storage within the Colorado River Basin has been depleted by 41 million acre feet since late 2004. Most of the depletion has come since 2010 as the region endures an extended drought. This study is the first to quantify the amount groundwater used in the seven western states of the Colorado River Compact. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the federal water management agency, the basin has been suffering from prolonged, severe drought since 2000 and has experienced the driest 14-year period in the last hundred years.

Observing the groundwater buried beneath layers of soil and rock was almost impossible until, the twin satellites known as the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, were launched in March 2002. At the time few believed the satellites could measure changes in groundwater, but thanks to work of Dr. Jay (James S.) Famiglietti and his graduate student (at the time) Matt Rodell, who were then working at the University of Texas at Austin the techniques for measuring groundwater using the GRACE satellites were developed and proven. Expanding on that work is this new paper by Stephanie L. Castle, Brian F. Thomas, John T. Reager, Matthew Rodell, Sean C. Swenson, and James S. Famiglietti.

While the need to use groundwater resources to meet Basin water demands has long been recognized, the quantity of available groundwater and the sustainable rate of groundwater use are not known. As the drought in the western states has persisted for most of this century, water management under drought conditions has focused only on surface water resources- the flow of the Colorado, the levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell. There is neither enough data nor a regulatory framework to fully manage groundwater. However, as this study shows us, by only managing the water withdrawals from the reservoirs (Lake Mead and Lake Powell) water use may not have been reduced at all, but instead groundwater may have made up more of the shortfall in water.

From Castle e.t al.

The study found that the Colorado River Basin lost almost 53 million acre feet of water over the study period with 12 million acre feet coming from the falling level in the two reservoirs and the remaining 41 million acre feet being pumped out from groundwater. The scientists estimated changes in groundwater storage during the 9-year drought period, when reservoir volumes were intensively managed to maintain hydropower production, maintain water levels above the public supply water intake pumps, and to meet surface water allocations to the Basin states using the methods developed by Drs. Jay Famiglietti and Matt Rodell.

The total water storage in a region as seen by the satellites is comprised of soil moisture, snow water equivalent, surface water (including river flow and reservoirs), and groundwater. Accessible water is assumed to be surface water reservoir storage and groundwater storage. They assumed Lakes Mead and Powell accounted for the majority of the observed surface water change as they comprise approximately four times the annual flow of the river and make up 85% of surface water in the Basin at any time. So the flow of the river was ignored introducing an error of 5%-15%. USGS and ADWR monitoring wells in the Colorado Basin showed good agreement with the GRACE-based estimates further confirming the methodology.

A brief recovery in groundwater storage was observed in the data from June 2009-March 2010, when moderately wetter conditions provided a combination of potential groundwater recharge and temporarily alleviated the need to augment surface water supplies, but the overall observed trend is not good. As the Bureau of Reclamation more tightly controlled and limited surface withdrawals, groundwater reserves were tapped to make up the loss, demonstrating the close connection between surface water availability and groundwater use. As available water in the west has been diminished by an extended drought and demand for water has actually increased over these years, solely managing surface water in the Colorado Basin, without regard to groundwater loss, has resulted in the 41 million acre foot reduction in ground water reserves which predominately occurred from April 2010 to November 2013.

Groundwater is typically used to augment the limited surface water supplies in the arid, Lower Colorado Basin and across the entire Basin during drought. Groundwater represents the largest supply of water for irrigation within the Basin and against all reason irrigated acreage in the Colorado Basin increased during the study period. Furthermore, according to Drs. Famiglietti and Rodell, the prolonged drought across the southwestern region of the United States has resulted in overreliance on groundwater by public water to minimize impacts of the drought on public water supply. The decrease of an average of 4.5 million acre feet of groundwater each year may merely reflect the problems with the Colorado River Compact, the regulatory framework already in place to manage surface waters. The Compact which allocates the flow of the Colorado River to Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California and through a 1944 treaty to Mexico promised what turned out to be more than 100% of the water available at the time and the current researchers believe that the over allocation of the Colorado River’s water was 30% during the study period based on the groundwater loss of 4.5 million acre feet a year from the groundwater reserves.

Specifically, the amount of water allocated under the Colorado Compact was based on an expectation that the river's average flow was 16.5 million acre feet per year. According to the University of Arizona, a better estimate would have been 13.2 million acre feet at the time of the Colorado Compact and the records going back to Paleolithic times (more than 10,000 years ago) indicates periods of mega-droughts in the distant past and climate forecasts for the future are dire. The political hurdles the Colorado River Compact may need to be renegotiated and include groundwater resources. During the drought of 2001-2006 the Colorado River flow was estimated at 11 million acre feet and hit a low of 6 million acre feet in 2002. The situation was critical bordering on regional rationing when the drought ended.

More than 23 million people of the lower basin are at least partially dependent upon the water resources of the Colorado River. Almost 74% of them reside in the greater Los Angeles and San Diego areas. The current drought in California has only emphasized the need for more active and enforceable groundwater management throughout the Basin, in particular, during drought. During the study period the scientists observed that groundwater is already being used to fill the gap between Basin demands and the annual, renewable surface water supply.

Managing groundwater is a daunting task. Even today groundwater sustainability is still not fully understood. In addition, there are droughts, climate changes; water draws from surface water changes the recharge rate of the groundwater. The U.S. Geological Survey did not begin quantitative analysis of the major groundwater systems of the United States until 1978 and since that time there has been tremendous evolution in the understanding of and ability to model groundwater systems. Before the groundwater basin is irreparably overdrawn, we need to understand what sustainable water use in the region is and embrace it. Otherwise the groundwater will be pumped until it is gone.

See the excellent blog post by Jay Famiglietti

Sustainable Agriculture Equals a Sustainable Prince William

early summer at Yankey Farms

Since World War II, the world’s agricultural production has almost tripled while cultivated land area has grown only by 12%. This feat is often called the agricultural miracle or “Green Revolution” and was accomplished by doubling the amount of land under irrigation combined with the development of the chemical processes to manufacture fertilizers and pesticides, hybrid crops that more readily absorb nitrogen and mechanized agriculture. In the United States where agricultural production has even exceeded the world growth level, government policies were created that favored maximizing production. These changes allowed fewer farmers to feed more people and significantly reduced the relative cost of food, but favored mono-culture agriculture and have taken a toll on the environment.

For centuries the common practice in agriculture was a diversified farm integrating both crops and livestock in the same farming operation. Then with the advent of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the government policies and economics resulting from those policies farmers were pushed to become more specialized, creating industrial agriculture and confined feeding operations and farms growing a one or two crops and a significant reduction in the diversity of those crops. Food security was vastly improved, but hunger was not eliminated. Today federal, state and local government policies often impede sustainable agriculture and local government seemingly encourages the conversion of agricultural land to suburban/urban uses and the continued consolidation of agriculture. Instead we should look to implementing sustainable agricultural practices. Sustainable agriculture within a community contributes to the quality of life and the overall sustainability of that community.

While post World War II government policies and farming practices increased agricultural yields and reduced the financial risks associated with farming, they also have resulted in the depletion of topsoil and contamination of groundwater and streams, the decline in family farms and rural communities. “In real life” I am the Treasurer of the Prince William Soil and Water Conservation District and I care deeply about the survival of our Rural Crescent as a sustainable agricultural community, the conservation of our soils and protection of the streams, rivers and groundwater. Sustainable agriculture is agriculture that does not deplete the soil, but builds it, does not contaminate groundwater or surface water, but uses water sustainable and responsibly, uses pesticides and fertilizers sparingly if at all, uses non-renewable resources responsibly and rests on the principle that we must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Sustainable agriculture is stewardship of the land and natural resources to maintain and enhance these vital resources for the long term, for the future generations. Organic, conservation and conventional agriculture can be practiced sustainably.

For the most part irrigated agriculture is not sustainable over the long run. Unless there is sufficient rain during the year, salinity will ultimately destroy the soil. In arid environments fresh water with very low levels of salt evaporates concentrating the salt over time and ultimately will make the land useless for agriculture. Low volume irrigation can slow this effect as can tile drainage, but over time the land builds up salt. Salinization of the land is a huge problem in California and parts of the southwest. However, large sections of the northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwest have adequate rainfall (most years) to support agriculture. Even with supplemental irrigation to assure the success of valuable crops (think berries) these lands can be cultivated indefinitely. Water availability is the major limiting factor in much of agriculture, but mismanagement of pesticide and fertilizer use can contaminate groundwater and surface water with pesticides, nitrates and selenium.

Sustainable agriculture must utilize specific strategies that take into account topography, soil characteristic, climate, pests and water. Chemicals if used at all should be used strategically. Soil is a fragile and living medium that must be protected and nurtured to ensure its long-term productivity and stability. A "healthy" soil is a key component of sustainability; that is, a healthy soil will produce healthy plants that are less susceptible to pests. Properly managed diversity can improve soil. For example crop rotation can be used to suppress weeds and pests; cover crops can stabilize the top soil by holding soil and nutrients in place, conserving soil moisture by using the mowed mulches of the cover crops and by increasing the water infiltration during precipitation because of the root actions. Cover crops can also attract and sustain beneficial arthropods.

In addition, diversified farms are usually more ecologically (and economically) resilient. While it is more difficult to manage multiple crops, by growing a variety of crops, farmers spread their risks. A strategy that works particularly well with crop diversity is the locally popular community supported agriculture, CSA, model. Properly managed crop diversity can also buffer a farm in a biological and ecological sense. For sustainable agriculture to work consumers must play an important role in creating a sustainable food system. Through their purchases, consumers can send a powerful message to producers and others in the system about what they think is important. Food cost has always been at the top of the list, but buying a farm share or CSA is an important statement and support of farming. Sustainable agriculture providing local food to our community is what the Rural Crescent in Prince William County should be used for- connecting us to the land and the environment. In addition, the costs of conversion of local farmland to suburban/urban uses have to be considered as well as the loss of locally grown food.

Maintaining the rural nature of the Rural Crescent can ensure that Prince William County is sustainable. The Rural Crescent also provides a significant portion of the green infrastructure that connects the still intact habitat areas providing corridors for wildlife movement and trails as well as pathways for pollinators. Maintaining intact, connected natural landscapes is essential for basic ecosystem and watershed preservation to ensure that there will always be clean air and water in Northern Virginia. The Rural Crescent is also about water, groundwater and watershed preservation. Maintaining adequate open ground surface for groundwater and surface recharge are vital to ensuring safe water supplies, water recreation and the ecological integrity of the region. Sustainable agriculture is an important part of a sustainable Prince William County.

What’s EPA Doing about Fracking?

EPA will be holding a webinar on their fracking studies that includes research approach, status, and next steps if you are interested. The webinar will be presented on two different days, Thursday, January 3rd and Friday, January 4th 2013. Jeanne Briskin, Hydraulic Fracturing Research Coordinator, Office of Science Policy, Office of Research and Development will be the instructor and the webinars are: on January 3, 2013, 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM, EST and January 4, 2013, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, EST. Just click through on the links and sign up.

The United States has vast reserves of natural gas within shale and rock formations. During the past decade, extracting that gas has become commercially viable as a result of the advances made in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) techniques. With the rapid increase in fracking has come the increase in concerns about its potential impacts on drinking water. In response to public concern ignited by the film Gasland and protests by anti-fracking groups, the US House of Representatives requested that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) examine the relationship between fracking and drinking water resources in 2009. In 2011, the EPA began a series of research projects into the impacts and potential impacts of fracking on water. Also, in April 2012 EPA released the first federal air rules for natural gas wells that are hydraulically fractured, specificallyvrequiring operators of new fractured natural gas wells to use “green completion,” which is a series of technologies and practices to capture natural gas and other volatile substance that might otherwise escape the well during the completion period when most volatile release takes place.

Hydraulic fracturing has its own water cycle and involves the pressurized injection of fluids commonly made up of mostly water and chemical additives into a geologic formation. The pressure used exceeds the rock strength and the fluid opens or enlarges fractures in the rock. As the formation is fractured, a “propping agent,” such as sand or ceramic beads, is pumped into the fractures to keep them from closing as the pumping pressure is released. The fracturing fluids (water and chemical additives) are partially recovered and returned to the surface. Natural gas will flow from pores and fractures in the rock into the wells allowing for enhanced access to the methane reserve. Two to five million gallons of water are typically necessary to frack one horizontal well in a shale formation. Water used for fracturing fluids is acquired from surface water or groundwater in the local area. Wastewaters from the hydraulic fracturing process (flowback or water produced in the well) may be disposed in several ways. The water that flows back after fracturing may be returned underground using injection well, discharged to surface waters after treatment to remove contaminants, or applied to land surfaces. Not all fracturing fluids injected into the geologic formation during hydraulic fracturing are recovered. The EPA estimates that the fluids recovered range from 15-80% of the volume injected depending on the site. The long term fate of any residual fluid has not been studied.  

Each stage of the fracking water cycle is a potential area for impact to drinking water supplies especially from human error and irresponsibly and improperly handling chemicals and contaminated water and poorly managing and protecting our water resources.  The steps in the fracking water cycle are:

Water acquisition. Chemical mixing. Pressurized Well injection. Flowback and produced water (collectively referred to as “hydraulic fracturing wastewater”) recovery. Wastewater treatment and disposal. Geology, hydrology and human behavior will produce vastly different outcomes for different regions of the county and different gas companies.

from US EPA

EPA is engaged in a number of research projects that will be the basis of their actions and future regulations for oil and gas operations. Whether the EPA will regulate oil and gas exploration nationally or leave the oversight in the hands of the states is an open question. There is an argument that water resources and geology are very local phenomena and cannot be generalized over the nation and that hydraulic fracturing should remain under local oversight. The 2005 energy law exempts fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act based on the 2004 EPA study “Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs.” In that report EPA reviewed 11 major coal basins mined for coalbed methane and saw no conclusive evidence that water quality degradation on underground drinking water supplies had occurred as a direct result of the injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids, but fracking of coalbeds generally involves a fraction of the water used in hydraulic fracking of shale gas.

The current fracking projects are a series of studies. Existing Data from multiple sources have been obtained for review and analysis. Well construction and hydraulic fracturing records provided by well drillers are being reviewed for 333 oil and gas wells across the United States; data within these records are being examined to assess the effectiveness of current well construction practices at containing gases and liquids before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing. In addition information on the chemicals and practices used in hydraulic fracturing has been collected from nine companies that hydraulically fractured a total of 24,925 wells between September 2009 and October 2010. Data on causes and volumes of spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids and wastewater are being collected and reviewed from state spill databases.

Computer models are being developed to identify conditions that may lead to impacts on drinking water resources from hydraulic fracturing. The EPA has created hypothetical scenarios for  water acquisition, well injection, and wastewater treatment and waste disposal stages of the water cycle that they hope to have the models evaluate. Computer models are also being used to explore the possibility of subsurface gas and fluid migration from deep shale formations to overlying aquifers in six different scenarios. The effectiveness of the models would be dependent on how closely the model predicts transport behavior in rock and shale and the similarity in behavior of different formations.

Laboratory studies are being performed to identifying potential impacts of inadequately treating hydraulic fracturing wastewater and discharging it to rivers. Experiments are being designed to test how well common wastewater treatment processes remove selected contaminants from hydraulic fracturing wastewater, including radium and other metals. Since wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove more than biological waste and bacteria, any removal of fracking chemicals and contaminants would be incidental. I do not expect that wastewater treatment plants would be able to treat flowback water for the contaminants associated with geological formations and fracking chemicals.

The EPA has identified chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids from 2005 to 2011 and chemicals found in flowback and produced water. The EPA is performing toxicity assessments based on chemical, physical, and toxicological properties for chemicals with known chemical structures. Existing toxicology models are being used to estimate properties in cases where information is not available. The important thing that EPA is doing is bringing together all the data and previous work to get as complete picture of what we know about how hydraulic fracturing may be impacting our water resources.

More Thoughts on Groundwater Management in Virginia

In its most recent session the General Assembly of Virginia passed senate bill 569 which creates a State Water Supply Plan Advisory Committee as an advisors to assist the Department of Environmental Quality in developing and implementing the state water resources plan. The committee will meet twice a year and be composed of citizen representatives of most of the water stakeholders. The committee is not compensated and will consist of citizen members representing industrial and municipal water users; public and private water providers; agricultural, conservation, and environmental organizations; state and federal agencies; and university faculty with expertise in water resources-related issues.
Who on this committee will represent me. I am one of the 1,000,000 Virginians dependent on a private well. I am a landowner and a stakeholder in any resource allocation plan because I own my water resources. I do not think that the State Water Control Board can adequately develop a state water resources plan; without the input of the citizens of Virginia any water plan will impact sustainability of our way of life, property value, personal freedom and economic opportunity. There is no life without water. The beauty of Virginia the quality of our environment is dependent on water. The Director of the Department of Environmental Quality needs to consider the citizen in planning of water supply and water resources planning in Virginia.

Though the focus of the concern has been the two groundwater management areas, one on the Eastern Shore and another covering the James-York Peninsula and Southside Virginia, Fairfax County is vulnerable to running out of water in the next drought. Our freshwater resources need to be managed as a whole. The utilization of groundwater resources in an unsustainable manner can result in impacts to the entire region, including the decrease in water level and aquifer storage, reductions in stream flow and lake levels, loss of wetland and riparian ecosystems, land subsidence, saltwater intrusion and changes in groundwater quality. Each groundwater system or basin is unique and must be managed individually, and the data necessary to understand and manage water resources must be gathered locally over time to track and respond to changes in groundwater quantity and quality as well as stream flow. All groundwater is not equal and there a consequences of withdrawing water from an aquifer beyond its recharge rate.

I personally sit on the northeastern most portion of the Culpeper Basin. Fairfax county is only a couple of miles away and when they run out of water, I fear they will look to Prince William and I recall that Los Angeles destroyed the Owens Valley when it took the water rights to the entire Owens River. Owens Lake and the surrounding area became a desert dust bowl. The water and its wealth were taken elsewhere.

Irrigation and Sustainability in Water Use

"Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own need is sustainable." (World Commission of Environment and Development, 1987)

Irrigation has the potential to increase farm yields dramatically. Irrigated land is far more productive than the same lands fed only by rainfall. However, irrigation can also impact the condition of natural resources (riparian zones, wetlands, etc), while impacting the balance of surface and ground water. Not all irrigation is bad nor is it good. Irrigation like all agricultural practices must be preformed sustainability and often it is not.

In 1996 it was estimated that developed countries, irrigate on average 10% of their agricultural area, and countries in development irrigated 23% of their agricultural land, and that combined they irrigated 18% of the total agricultural area. Chronic water scarcity is away of life in large parts of Africa and the Middle East, the northern part of China, parts of India and Mexico, the western part of the USA, north-east Brazil, and in the former Soviet Union and the Central Asian republics. China, India, the United States and Pakistan have the largest quantity of land in irrigation; however, the United States with the largest total area of cultivated land has only about 9-10% of that land in irrigation. (FAO AGROSTAT Database 1998)

In 1900 the world’s population was 1.6 billion; by 1950 it had increased to 2.5 billion and 6.1 billion by the year 2000. Despite a general decline in human fertility rates world wide, world population is still growing. It is projected that world population will reach more than 7.5 billion by 2050. This alone will increase demand for food and place enormous pressure on the environment. The increased need for water to support the growing population is becoming urgent, and environmental degradation related to water usage is serious.

Fresh water (not locked in ice caps) represents less than 2% of all water on earth. Agriculture is the major user of freshwater, with a world’s average of 71% of the water use. In agriculture water is used for irrigation, and small quantities for watering animals. There are large regional variations in water use. In Africa 88% of fresh water is used for agriculture and less than 50% in Europe. The USGS estimates that 40% of fresh water in the United States is used for irrigation. There are huge variations in water use across the country. In California it is estimated that 80% of fresh water is used for irrigation that is approximately 30,700 million gallons a day for irrigation. In Virginia, in the far wetter southeast, agriculture uses only 1.5% of the annual fresh water used annually, which translates to 21 million gallon a day for irrigation. The differences between the states is the climate, California is semi arid and requires irrigation on almost all crop land, but can produce several crops a year. It rains in Virginia, but the growing season is confined to the warmer half of the year.

What the above data tells us is that California needs to get more agricultural value out of their water usage. They are producing more than three time the revenue per agricultural acre but it is requiring 123 times the water for each dollar of revenue. California is mining their water. They are using more water than is renewably available. Water is a resource that needs to be valued. The nominal price of water in California does not reflect its value and scarcity, nor does it reflect the amortized cost for mining this resource. They are misallocating this resource. The price of the food produced does not reflect to costs to produce it.

The large and growing proportion of the population living in urban areas will put considerable pressure for continued transfers of water out of agriculture to supply growing urban centers in California and the rest of the world. Other competing uses include hydroelectricity, protection of aquatic ecosystems (e.g., restoration of Delta estuary), and recreation will put severe pressure on fresh water supplies. It is important that our farming practices as well as all of man’s activities have the smallest impact on the natural balance; we can only do this by valuing and allocating our resources appropriately.

Water Sustainability

Without water there can be no life. Water is our most valuable resource and how we manage its use or allow its abuse may determine the fate of mankind. The earth's total water supply is vast, estimated to be about 333 million cubic miles of water, over 96 % of which is saltwater. Fresh water represents only 4% of the total water of the earth. Over two thirds of the freshwater on earth (68%), is locked up in ice and glaciers, about 30% of freshwater is in the ground as groundwater, and thus, surface-water sources (such as rivers) only represent about 2% of the fresh water and 1/10,000th of 1% of total water, yet rivers are the source of most of the water people use. The interaction between surface water and groundwater is complex, site specific and not fully understood.

According to the US Geological Survey about 26 % of the freshwater used in the United States in 2000 came from ground-water sources; the other 74 % came from surface water. Groundwater is an important natural resource, especially in those parts of the country that don't have ample surface-water sources, such as the arid West. Groundwater is a renewable resource, but not in the way that sun light is. Groundwater recharges at various rates from precipitation and other sources of infiltration. The US Geological Survey estimated that the nation receives about a trillion gallons of recharge to the groundwater aquifers each day. (USGS circular 415). The recharge is not spread evenly across the nation or even where the water is needed.

There are costs and limits to the amount of groundwater available for extraction from the aquifer. Wells need to be drilled, pumps installed and operated and water moved through a delivery system. These represent the direct expenses of groundwater pumping. There are indirect costs. The amount of groundwater removed from an aquifer needs to be sustainable and should ideally match the recharge rate. Water captured by pumping a well will result in changes in the local or regional hydraulic balance- a reduction in discharge to surface water at some other location, an increase in recharge from surface water, or a loss of storage in the aquifer by falling water table or some combination of these effects. Changing the recharge rate by diverting water from the system can change the entire water balance and ecology of a region. Pulling large quantities of groundwater from one well rather than a series of smaller geographically spaced wells will have a much larger impact on the groundwater basin.

Groundwater availability and recharge rates vary locally and regionally and can be impacted by man. Over pumping of groundwater that results in compaction of the soils and subsidence which is permanent loss of water storage capacity in the region. Over pumping of groundwater in costal regions can lower groundwater tables or in a confined artesian system result in salt water intrusion. Development often is characterized by pavement and building that prevents the infiltration of precipitation that occurred before development. In some areas of the country (and world), groundwater currently being pumped entered the aquifer a millennia ago when the climate in that area was wetter. That water is not being replaced under these climate conditions and may ultimately be used up. Centralized wastewater systems further compound the problem by collecting the used groundwater, treating it and releasing the water into a stream or to the ocean in costal areas. Decentralized, managed and density controlled alternative onsite sewage systems may be a better solution for maintaining the groundwater resource, or as is done in areas of Florida and Long Island land application of the treated water from waste water systems.

Our freshwater resources need to be managed as a whole. The utilization of groundwater resources in an unsustainable manner can result in impacts to the entire region, including the decrease in water level and aquifer storage, reductions in stream flow and lake levels, loss of wetland and riparian ecosystems, land subsidence, saltwater intrusion and changes in groundwater quality. Each groundwater system or basin is unique and must be managed individually, and the data necessary to understand and manage water resources must be gathered locally over time to track and respond to changes in groundwater quantity and quality as well as stream flow. All groundwater is not equal and there a consequences of withdrawing water from an aquifer beyond its recharge rate. Water is critical to life and we need to manage this most valuable resource before our cities and western states run out.

Water is still the Fluid of Life

Our quality of life and life itself is dependent on our access to water. Mankind cannot survive without water. One of the world’s most critical problems is a lack of quality water. More than a billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 1.5 million deaths, mostly among children underage five, are attributed to unsafe drinking water each year. People are dying today for lack of clean water. The projections for 2030 are for significant and potentially life threatening water shortages in parts of the world.

Though I tend to distrust all long term modeling efforts for their simplifications and straight line projections; however, water planning ten and twenty years out is a standard practice in the US west and other water critical areas of the world. Water supply projection a decade or two out is a much simpler model than say climate projections, but still are impacted by non correlated variables and limited knowledge of groundwater recharge and reserves that would make it difficult to accurately projects water demand and availability.

In California, the combined demand for irrigated agriculture, expanding suburban footprint, habitat protection, and drought have stressed the water supply. For more than a half a century the Central Valley of California has been one of the most productive agriculture regions of the world. On less than 1% of the total farmland in the U.S. the Central Valley produces 8% of the agricultural output (as measured by value). In 2002 this translated to $17 billion in crop value. This is all made possible by irrigation. Approximately one sixth of the irrigated land in the United States is in the Central Valley of California (Bureau of Reclamation, 1994) and approximately one eighth of all groundwater pumped in the United States is pumped in the Central Valley. According to the US Geological Survey the Central Valley of California was mining groundwater at approximately 1,900 cubic feet per second from 1962 to 2003. As California learned this is an unsustainable practice.

In Virginia, the Water Resource Research Center at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, WRRC, has been studying the projected future demand for water in the Commonwealth and examining the options. From 1999 to 2002 many localities in Virginia experienced a severe drought, but periodic droughts in Virginia are not unusual. In the past, the groundwater had served as the backup resource during critical water shortages. The recent drought was note worthy because the population shifts and growth had caused declining groundwater levels and increased demand in some regions. The WRRC states that there is a high probability that the costal areas and northern Virginia face a sever water shortage in coming decades because of the periodic droughts and increased water demand. Traditionally, building dams and reservoirs and inter-basin transfer of water were used to supply the state. However, these methods would face significant economic, environmental, regulatory and societal challenges in the future.

The WRRC suggests several options to supplement water supplies in these critical areas: water conservation, water reuse, groundwater recharge and desalination. Water conservation is the low lying fruit, but is unlikely to meet the increased demand. Water is the fluid of life and should never be wasted. My years in California make me acutely aware of and careful of my water use. It is important to teach the next generation to use water more wisely than the current generations have. Nonetheless, conservation alone will not be enough. Though we could limit population density by water carrying capacity of the area, the WRRC makes other suggestions.

Desalination techniques are being developed and planned in Florida and California. Their pressing needs will allow others to learn from their experiences, but their ability to supply any significant amount of drinking water is many years in the future. Enhancing groundwater recharge would improve groundwater supplies by an unknown amount. Certainly, elements of long-term water supply planning should be part of all development and growth planning. Groundwater sustainable development would include protection of aquifer recharge zones along with increasing subsurface infiltration and groundwater recharge by implementing low-impact development techniques, such as forestation and bioretention in urban and suburban areas. However, recharging groundwater with reclaimed water and the reuse of the reclaimed water, though practiced in many areas, is of real concern.

When the USGS began looking into a series of fish kills in the southern branch of the Potomac River, they found fish suffering from a variety of lesions. Some fish had bacterial lesions, some fungal lesions, and some fish had parasite. The USGS concluded the fish appeared to be immunosupressed so that any pathogen in the water could attack the fish. A series of studies were performed over a period of years. During the investigation it was discovered the bass suffering from lesions were intersexed. It had previously been demonstrated that estrogen and estrogen mimicking compounds can cause intersex. The occurrence of intersex among the lesioned fish prompted further studies. Since 2004, unexplained fish kills have occurred in the Shenandoah River basin. During 2007 and 2008 similar events took place in the upper James and Cowpasture rivers. Fish kills occur in various parts of the country and seem to occur for a variety of reasons.

The studies of the Potomac fish kill found the problem of endocrine disruption in fish to be widespread within the study area, a portion of the Chesapeake Water Shed, but increased in proximity to and downstream of the waste water treatment plants. Chemical sampling that took place along with the fish sampling found higher concentrations of waste water chemicals near the waste water plants. Pesticides currently used in agriculture were detected at all locations. Hormones were not detected in the samples, but analysis using yeast screening assays found estrogenic endocrine-disrupting chemicals at all locations their specific source is not yet known. Though they cannot identify a single chemical or group of chemicals responsible, the US FW and US GS have embarked on further study.

This reclaimed water implicated in the study is the same reclaimed water the WRRC suggests we all drink and forcibly use to recharge previously pristine groundwater. Due to its protected location underground, most groundwater is naturally clean and free from pollution. Recharging groundwater with reclaimed water may not be the best of ideas until more is known about the causes of the lesions and intersexed fish and the implications to human life. In April of 2009 the US EPA issued the Final List of Initial Pesticide Active Ingredients and Pesticide Inert Ingredients to be Screened under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act as potential endocrine disruptors. Pesticide runoff is a large contributor of known pollutants to the watershed. Water is the fluid of life.

Regulation of Groundwater Use in the West

Over the last several decades, water users in the western United States have increasingly turned to groundwater resources to support agriculture, enhance economic expansion, and spur urban growth. As can be seen above in the US Geological Survey chart, the western 16 states account for the lion’s share of groundwater use in the United States. It is reported that the western states account for approximately two-thirds of the groundwater use in a “typical” year.

One of the defining features of the western U.S. is its aridity. In an arid environment, water is often diverted from streams and transported, sometimes great distances, to mines, farms, cities, and towns. Developing surface water supplies requires two intensive expensive efforts. The first is to plan, build, and maintain a surface water transport project. This entail building diversion structures, a distribution system, and storage reservoirs. Second, administrating and maintaining the system, including developing information about and monitoring the physical setting, negotiating over the location and design of the water system, and monitoring and enforcing agreements, are significant. Managing water allocations in a western state is very much managing the economy of the state. As water demand raises past supply the regulatory scheme or the state economies are doomed to failure. We are incapable of designing the right economy to allocate scarce resources to over time. What is right for today is not adoptive to the future. Central planning and allocation is rigid.

The development of groundwater resources and their use occurred after the system of surface water management was in place. The west had already developed the institutions necessary to allocate, diver, distribute and use the surface water. The rapid development of groundwater in the west occurred before any limits were placed on its use. Initially many of the western states recognized some variant of the “reasonable use” doctrine. The reasonable use doctrine allows landowners overlying a groundwater basin to pump as much water as they can put to reasonable use on their land. This doctrine was intended only to limit waste of water not limit pumping. Groundwater codes were adopted in response to the intense conflicts that broke out.

In adopting groundwater codes, most western states extended the prior appropriation doctrine to cover groundwater. Beginning with New Mexico in 1931 and ending with Montana in 1961, groundwater in 11 of the 16 western states was governed by the prior appropriation system. Existing wells were given priority dates, new wells were allowed only with permits granted by state water agencies. Permits could be denied where an aquifer was over appropriated. The priority system was extended to groundwater because it was familiar, well accepted and seemed to work for surface water. It was believed that this system would allow satisfactory regulation of groundwater use much in the same way that it had allowed regulation of surface water. In states that do not apply the prior appropriation doctrine to tributary groundwater, intense conflict has emerged around the effects of pumping on surface water flows. Arizona is an extreme example of a state that uses distinct bodies of law and regulation to govern ground and surface water with no legal recognition of the physical connection between the two sources of water (Glennon 2003).

Unfortunately, the hydrologic connections between groundwater and surface water were not understood at the time. Hydrology determines the long term success of prior appropriation as a groundwater management scheme. Where groundwater basin is not hydrologically connected to a surface water source, prior appropriation has resulted in groundwater mining, non renewable use of groundwater. In locations where the groundwater basins are hydrologically connected to surface water sources the prior appropriations has had the effect of protecting surface water flows from over pumping because surface water rights holder are invariable senior to well pumpers. The prior appropriations doctrine has not resolved intense conflict between groundwater, surface water users and ecological demands.

The prior appropriation doctrine has failed to resolve the conflicts between groundwater and surface water users or adequately managed groundwater basin storage. The prior appropriation doctrine as conceived and administered was not designed to conserve water. It was developed in a time when population was still sparse, water supplies were believed to be plentiful and development and growth were to be encouraged. This management scheme has resulted in non sustainable use of groundwater. Today, the “reasonable use” doctrine is still in effect in Arizona, Oklahoma and Texas. Nebraska attempts to coordinate the management of ground and surface water recognizing their hydraulic connection. As stated above 11 states govern groundwater under the prior surface water appropriation. California does not fall under any of these schemes but locally restricts well permits and has a total of 27 local ordnances under which local governments attempt to regulate groundwater. . The eastern states do not as a rule regulate groundwater use.

California Water Wars

Friday night the California State Legislature ended its session for the year without taking any action in regards to the state’s water supply issues. There were a set of bills that reportedly would have both diverted water from the Sacramento San Pablo Delta and restored the habitat while potentially adding damns that would somehow add additional water along with the storage. The bills would also require a reduction of 20% in per capita urban water use and created a monitoring system for groundwater statewide. The legislation reportedly lost support of the Sierra Club, the Republicans and some other environmental groups. The fundamentals of the water supply system for California need to be addressed carefully and in a coordinated manner. The legislature has essentially chosen to continue the status quo which is unsustainable. The entire economy of California and possibly the United States will be impacted by the way in which California chooses to allocate water. Slapping another band-aid on the California water supply system is not how to address the complicated ecological, economic and human issues; nor is doing nothing. Cutbacks in surface irrigation water will results in increased pumping in the Central Valley which is nothing more than a geologic trough filled with sediments containing groundwater.

For more than a half a century the Central Valley of California has been one of the most productive agriculture regions of the world. This has been made possible by the ample supply of water used for irrigation. On less than 1% of the total farmland in the U.S. the Central Valley produces 8% of the agricultural output (as measured by value). In 2002 this translated to $17 billion in crop value. This is all made possible by a combination of surface water diversions and groundwater pumping. Approximately one sixth of the irrigated land in the United States is in the Central Valley (Bureau of Reclamation, 1994) and approximately one eighth of all groundwater pumped in the United States is pumped in the Central Valley.

According to the US Geological Survey the before the extensive development of irrigation of the Central Valley the natural recharge of groundwater from precipitation and surface water inflows equaled the outflows to evapotranspiration and surface water. After development of irrigation in the Central Valley the balance changed. Recharge to the groundwater was from irrigation return flow, precipitation and surface water inflow. Outflow was from groundwater withdrawals and increased surface water outflows. The net result was that the Central Valley, a 20,000 square mile area of California was mining groundwater at approximately 1,900 cubic feet per second from 1962 to 2003.

When you withdraw the groundwater from fine-grained compressible confining beds of sediments and do not replace it, the land subsides. The incredibly fertile Central Valley was identified by the research efforts of Joseph Poland as the location of maximum subsidence in the United States. Though the tremendous amount of subsidence was famously documented in 1977, it was not until 2003 that the water balance changed to slow the subsidence. In 2007 the USGS estimated the rate of groundwater mining to be 300 cubic feet per second. This change is due to the surface water agricultural deliveries of 13,000 cubic feet per second while groundwater irrigation deliveries are now (or at least were) at 5,900 cubic feet per second. When I was consulting, I saw vineyards and orchards in the Central Valley with groundwater irrigation wells. These vineyards were mortgaged. If the surface water allocation is reduced, how much groundwater are they going to pump? It is their livelihood, it is their investment, it is their way of life. Even if the surface water allocation to irrigation is not reduced the Central Valley is still mining groundwater that is not being recharged. The problems in the Delta estuary maybe more visible, but the long term viability of groundwater is our future.