BIOMASS INTEL

Last week, the California Legislature enacted legislation to shore up legal protection for the state’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.  Almost half of the water used for California’s agriculture comes from rivers that once flowed to the Delta, and more than half of Californians rely on water conveyed through the Delta for at least some of their water supply.

The package of five bills, which include SB 7X 1, SB 7X 2, SB 7X 6, SB 7X 7, and SB 7X 8, is the culmination of months of behind-closed-door wrangling and deal-making.  Accordingly, it fails to enact sweeping policy changes that many experts contend are overdue and necessary to protect California’s diminishing water supplies.  Providing a neutral overview of the bills, Legal Planet: Environmental Law and Policy explains:

[The legislation] adopts the Task Force recommendation that restoration of the California Delta’s severely damaged ecosystem and preservation of a reliable water supply for all Californians are co-equal policy goals and legal requirements. It revamps California’s existing, largely dysfunctional governance system for the Delta, principally by creating a new, state-level Delta Stewardship Council. It proposes an $11 billion Bond Act–subject to voter approval in 2010–to fund a variety of future ecosystem restoration and water improvement projects. And the bill package makes changes to California’s statewide system of water conservation, water rights and water rights enforcement.

Yesterday, the Governor signed into law SB 7x 7, which requires California to achieve a 20% improvement in urban per capita water use by 2020.  The bill creates financial incentives for water districts to improve efficiency.  In connection to the issues discussed in Wading Through the Biomass Thirst Issue, the bill requires agricultural users to adopt only basic best management practices, primarily in the form of water management plans, which will not have a substantial impact on biomass feedstock producers.

The agricultural sector accounts for 80% of the water use in the state, and as the Pacific Institute has noted, there is still substantial room for improving agricultural water efficiency throughout California.  The package of bills has received heavy criticism from the Pacific Institute’s President, Dr. Peter Gleick, an internationally recognized water expert.

Image: Flickr/svanes