School of Public Policy

Intro: Welcome to Policy Chats the official podcast of the School of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside. I'm your host, Kevin Karami. Join me and my classmates as we learn about potential policy solutions for today's biggest societal challenges. 

Andrew Shannon: Joining us today is water consulting expert Les Chau. My fellow classmate Kevin Karami, chatted with him about California's water policy challenges. 

Kevin Karami: Thank you so much, Mr. Chau for taking the time to join me on the policy chats, podcasts, I really appreciate it. I know California's water is one of the most pressing and important issues in the state and the implications go beyond our borders. I think it's really significant for everyone in the country and even the world to understand why the situation in California is super important to learn and potentially apply those talking points and discussions and solutions to other places. So I think an interesting place to begin is climate change. I think maybe starting off a little broad and setting the scene. Why is California's water policy so important? How has climate change affected our state specifically in the context of drought? Because drought is that kind of recurring, nagging talking point that always comes up. And even when we get rainfall like we have this year, it's still a really significant talking point, especially in the last 10-15 years. So can you speak on the impact climate change has had on California. And specifically maybe to touch on the idea or the talking point of the drought that's been plaguing the state. 

Les Chau: Thank you. So I think there are two major impacts to California because of climate changes. Whether it is man-made or it is a normal change in climate according to nature. The first one, and I actually think it's as important. Then let me talk about that first. Sea level rise, it starting to impact or it will impact our subsurface utilities. Sea level rise, that saltwater and it would start to corrode our water lines and our sewer lines. And that isn't a very expensive mitigating measure. So many of the coastal communities, not just in California, Hawaii, and in the East Coast, they are starting to look at how sea level rise and seawater intrusion into our utility corridors is going to impact capital projects and also operation, maintenance of existing infrastructures, and water infrastructures. Because you still have to provide reliable services, water sewers to millions of people. So sea-level rise is a major impact to communities in the coastal areas? Yes. Secondly, it is as important that we have a prolonged drought. And that has a lot to do with water scarcity. For California is mainly a scarcity for agriculture and things. If you have water scarcity in the ground, then you're going to have water quality degradation. And that's a major problem also because less water into the ground, you would concentrate a lot of the contaminants and a lot of the toxic contaminants in some areas. And that's a major issue that we have to really, really pay attention to. Secondly, the drought is starting to create or indirectly create land subsidence. We are drilling deeper and deeper wells because the shallow wells are drying up and because the shallow groundwater is like the checking account. If you don't replenish your checking account, have job, then you're going to need to dip into your savings account. And a lot of the municipal wells as well as agricultural wealth. I'll go in deeper because the shallow groundwater are either less than quality because there are less of it, or there's just no water in there, shallow wells. So if you go deeper, that means that you are going to have potentially a land subsiding effect. And land subsiding is irreversible. Most cases is inelastic. That means once compaction occurs, you've lost the storage capacity of groundwater. So we are going to see quite a few subsidence issues in the Central Valley in particular. And then, yes, surface water depletion, meaning for the ecology, the fisheries, and wildlife. We're going to have a major issue because water may actually go into the river system, but less of it. Because we're gonna be using more and more upstream waters for municipal use, for agriculture. So if we are depleting groundwater, then the water, the river system will, will be more and more reliant on. We will rely on more and more of the river system to recharge the groundwater and therefore the river system will have less flow. Those are the major issues that we're facing because of climate changes. 

Kevin Karami: Definitely, I think one of the interesting things is it seems like every few years when we do get a little excess and precipitation of the conversation shifts to, well, now the drought is solved. We have, we've got a bunch of rain, you know, like recently. I've definitely heard that kind of that that phrase thrown around. And so when it comes to the precipitation that California's experienced, I remember seeing a stat this was, I think, mid-to-late January that over 24.5 trillion gallons of water, the California experience that much water. And then I think I saw another over 32 and we got more precipitation recently. So I think there has to be obviously a good thing. I think you can also talk on the nuances of that. There's also the factor of being cautious and not letting that influence the reality that we are still experiencing a drought. And so can you maybe talk about the significance of the rainfall that we've experienced? I know in LA in some parts, even in Riverside, it snowed, which is not a common occurrence. What does what does that mean? And also from an infrastructure perspective, do you think as a state, we capitalize on the rainfall of 2023?

Les Chau: The answer, the short answer is that we have capitalized on the rainfall for municipal use. So let me back up. I think in one of your podcasts and it was my friend West Willebrand mentioned that 40% of our water is for ag use, 50% of our water it is for rivers and streams and so on. And only 10% of our water, this for municipal use, drinking water, industrial. So we filled up our reservoirs. The reservoirs are now supplying us with lots of drinking water. Just yesterday, the California State Department has declared a department, DWR, Department of Water Resources has declared that now only half the status can have a drought environment. What they're saying is that in urban use, we are looking, looking, looking good. The trend is looking good because the reservoir is filling up. But farmers were Ag use and for some river systems, they rely on naturally occurring water resources, groundwater and snowpack and so on. And I'm afraid the answer is no. We need six more of these kinds of episodes. Whether you call them Pineapple Express or you call them mango express of storms. We need six more of them to refill our groundwater systems so that we can continue growing food as the breadbasket of the country. So what's available water that's not flowing into rivers and going into the ocean. Only 50% of the water is available for both ag and urban use. And that means that the ag is using almost 90% of available water and 10% of urban use. So we can continue to be, to conserve water in urban areas. We view conserve 15%. That means you only conserve 15% of 10 percent of water. And that's where people are not understanding that we do need yearly rainfall to refill all of our water systems. Both in again, the checking account and the story and the savings account, we need both of them to be filled. We can't be using our savings account if we are not replenishing it. So that kind of answers your question. We need six more of these kinds of episodes.

Commercial: Social injustice, health disparities, climate change. Are you interested in solving pressing challenges like these currently facing our region and the world? Then consider joining the next cohort of future policy leaders like me. By applying for the UCR Master of Public Policy program. Learn more at mpp.ucr.edu. You can also find the link in our show notes.

Kevin Karami: Yeah, I think I love that you broke it down in that way. I think it's really important to understand, like you'd also mentioned the beginning where our water goes, whether it's urban. Industrial agriculture wherever it goes, it's important to, to indicate very clearly that each situation entails different problems and different solutions and different people working on them. And so it's interesting that in some capacities the rainfall has really made a positive impact. But when it comes to, like you said, we didn't really capitalize on the fact that what you said, we need six more of these. That's pretty unlikely. It seems, based on California's history. And that entails talks about, well, what are the other options we have, which I'm sure we're gonna get into. I want to shift to the infrastructure and economic side of this problem because I think that's one of the parts of the environmental aspect. The management and the usage side is really important, but also how this water is actually, how it works. The projects that we have in California bringing water from the north to the south and then, you know, and so can you maybe describe some of the major infrastructure and financial problems that we as a state face. And then also what kinds of options do we have to address these problems? 

Les Chau: As your other podcasts mentioned, there's the Federal Water projects and the state water projects. Those really have benefited California for many years, six years. The federal project started in the 1920s and the state project was 1960s. So these really have benefited California in the overall conveyance of water. Meaning where there is more water in the state, it is being conveyed to areas there's less water. Let me just back up. State of California is much like other countries that are very long in latitude. It spans many latitudes. So we're in a very long state. That means that we spend many ecological and natural resource environments. Northern California has quite a bit of water. They have lots of water. And therefore we need to convey those water to Southern California. And it goes through Central California. And as you know, the delta is kind of the gateway of all these water transfers. That's fine. That's the overall system. But what's more important now is that large water purveyors, such as Metropolitan Water District, such as SAPUC, you see these payments, water districts and Silicon Valley's Valley Water District. They are now facing issues of failing infrastructure, old infrastructures. And that's where we lacked investment historically in water, sewer and storm water to focus on how we are going to mitigate this long prolonged drought? If infrastructure are aging, they could fail and therefore they're not reliable. To rehabilitate and replace these infrastructures is a huge investment. And we have not really focused on that. We always lacked investment in fixing our infrastructures. And now we are paying the price. Water coming from the snowpack to supply 2.8 million people in the Bay Area. It's all gravity flow, but it's the most expensive water in California. I dare to say that because the Hetch Hetchy system is hundred years old and things need to be replaced and repaired. So again, the investment was not there historically and now we're paying the price for it. What is even more important is that looking to the future, not just the present, the future. The future is about water reuse and new water. What are they? Water reuse this about recycling water, dirty water, processed industrial water, wastewater and stormwater. And then new water, where we're gonna get new ones. We're not going to get any more rain. We need new water. And these recycled water or even desalination of sea water can be considered new water. The other method of getting new water is raising our dams of our reservoirs to store even more water. Well, there's not really new water, but we can store more water. So amongst the stormwater, recycled water, only desalination is drought proof. When there's a drought. We're going to have less stormwater, of course. But while ]we are going to have less wastewater because we conserve. So recycling wastewater and stormwater does not really drought proof. Only desalination is drought proof. But desalination is so energy intensive that Is not very cost-effective for non-urban use. I am, I congratulate the Orange County Water Department to construct the largest desalination plant in the United States. Though its water is very expensive, it does supply reliable water for urban use. Farmers can never afford to use those waters. Farmers can only use groundwater. So, to preserve our economic standing in the world, we are the fifth largest economy in the world. We need to preserve both urban youth and agriculture in the state. 

Kevin Karami: I was just gonna say, you know, I love that you brought up. It was really interesting and I think the infrastructure is, like you mentioned, is getting old and that investment is not there. And one kind of question that I love asking when I talk about water with experts is already brought up as desal. I always found it to be one of the more interesting options that we have. Like you mentioned, it's not the most cost-effective, but just as a really quick side piece, do you in the future, maybe 10-20-30 years from now, do you see desal being more popular, maybe it'll be more cost-effective with new technology. Do you think that's something that, you know, down the road will grow in popularity. Not just in California, but maybe elsewhere in the country and also the world. 

Les Chau: Oh, yes, absolutely. The answer is affirming yes. Desalination will be more cost-effective because we're going to have new technology and new membrane technologies and know our own technologies. And we need to get rid of the grim. We need to manage the DRL concentrate. So those are just engineering details, I think. But the energy issue could, could be a long road ahead. Now, I think the advanced small nuclear power devices that are being developed in MIT and so on, could be a game changer. I think nuclear power is absolutely necessary for the future of producing water, food, and supplying electric cars. We cannot be using fossil fuel. And also renewable energy is not industrial scale. It doesn't produce enough energy. So I think desalination is absolutely in our future because it's drought proof. We have plenty of it in the ocean water source, but we just need to advance the technology which is already advancing. It is using less than this energy. But I think we need to have a very reliable and clean energy source to produce, produced the distilled water. Because many of these desalination plants are not just going to be near the ocean, it is going to be inland. And it could have just psalters in an invalid, right? So we already have brine lines bringing the brines from the Inland Empire out to the coast. So those are already there. And I think desalination is part of it. 

Kevin Karami: Yeah, I've always desalination has always been one of the go-to questions I like asking, looking toward the future and what that holds. And I think the idea you brought up, the new technology, specifically nuclear power. I think that's a really, really interesting, interesting idea. And I think you were probably, I think you're probably right. It's just a matter of when it will happen. And so I like looking forward to those kind of new developments and how technology, new technological developments changed the conversation. 

Les Chau: And it's, it's the next-generation, generation of engineers like yourself. Scientists who are going to really advocate and champion these kind of projects, which I think we can talk more about when your next question.

Kevin Karami: Yeah, definitely. I think that is a perfect transition to the next question. We talked a bit about AG, here and there. What are your thoughts on the idea of repurposing and reforming farmlands in the Central Valley of California to benefit water management in the state. And also how would that actually look like if you can kind of walk us through what kind of project would look like and why it's something we should be looking into. 

Les Chau: Okay, Let's talk a little more about the background. 75% of the land real estate in California is used for farming. And it's mainly the Central Valley, meaning Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley. And also I'm absolutely in an empire as well. Many of those lands can be repurposed to use less of our natural resources, less water, less energy to really look at how we can repurpose them to higher value commerce, such as manufacturing, such as higher paying jobs, higher education. UC Merced can span the transportation system and the infrastructure in that area and so on. So there are other commerce that are, I think, more advantageous to the growth, to the economic growth of California. Again, California is a very long state, and I think Southern California's economy is ten times, ten times that of central California. To be more equitable, not only in jobs, but in all kinds of investments, we need to have a transportation system that can expedite commerce between Southern, Northern and Central California. If we decided that we're going to stay as one state and not three states. We need to have a transportation system that would benefit manufacturing and also transport of goods. And guess what that is. And that is the high-speed rail. And do you know that the Airbus is built on landlocked farm, French farmland? Because the French realized after World War II that agriculture will not sustain the French economy. So they built the TGV, that the high-speed rail. And now manufacturing and you build it, you build it, they will come. And that's mainly my, my message is that if you build a transportation system, housing will come and a lot of the farmlands can be leased to build the right of way off the high-speed rail. They don't have to be eminent domain transfer or sold to the government. Farmers can keep their land. They can lease it 99 years to the state. And the state can bill the high-speed rail with less cost. So these are the things that are way outside the box and not many people would know, not everyone would agree with these things. But we need to agree that the natural environment is changing, not only just climates. We have to be one state to manage all these things. 

Kevin Karami: I think that's a really, really powerful message, regardless of what position one might take. I think that's a really, really fascinating idea that I, you know, I was not familiar with. And I think considering the situation and that we are in the 2020s, I think thinking outside of the box and considering options that we may have not considered 15, 20 years ago, I think is really important, even if not every party might agree. I think that's, I don't think a single perfect solution exists to the problem. I think it's really, like you said, it's really important to consider some out-of-the-box ideas that might sound a little out there at first, but that's how you come to these solutions. That's how you solve problems that are so significant that affect millions of people. Yeah. 

Les Chau: And it's not just climate. You're, one of your questions was, what is an issue in distance? And most people are unaware of it. It's not just climate impact. We are now in a global economy. Not all the crops need to be planted, needs to be harvested in California. There are lots of places in this world can grow food. We need to really have a futurist strategy on how to grow the California economy. And that I think requires us repurposing some of our existing commerce, which is agriculture, uses a lot of water and many of the crops, many of them, such as alfalfa, are not consumed here. They are exported to China, to Saudi Arabia for feed. Do we need to grow a lot of those kinds of food? Maybe not. We can convert some of those flattened into other types of commerce.

Kevin Karami: And I love, I love the phrase use of futurists mindset. Thinking about it from an IT perspective and you're right, I think the fact that as we, as the 21st century, we're, we're in such a different place. Not just California, but the world is so different than it was in the past and it's so much more interconnected that you can consider these more out of the box, solutions and ideas. And there are options and I think it's important to at the very least have these discussions and talk about it. Because again, there is no single perfect solution that will solve all of our problems immediately if only there was, but there isn't. And so I love that you have that mindset, like we have to think about it from a futurist perspective and we can't get too hung up on how the world was 20,30, 40 years ago because it's different. On that note, I also want to ask, we already talked about this, but in terms of other solutions specifically to the drought or other options, maybe not solutions. What are some ideas that you think California hasn't considered yet? In terms of taking advantage of the resources that we have. Is there something that you think we as a state should be looking into more, investing more. And if so, is there a reason we haven't looked into those options? Is it too costly? Is it not cost-effective? Are there other problems that exist in that space?

Les Chau: I think this is the crux of what everyone should be talking about. And I'm glad, Kevin, that you want to ask this of me. And I think a lot of people are much smarter than me to talk about these things. Because first of all, it's the political will and the legislation that we create for the future in managing on what natural resources. We never did have the political will to manage water. California has always been kinda the wild west. Let me just back up. Nobody owns water in California. We have water rights. We have the right to use water. State owns all the water. And whoever has senior water rights, pre 1914 rights has a lot of influence. They can just help others. We're not going to share water with you because they have senior rights. While there are many, many water rights issues that we can talk about some other time. But the legislation that was passed in 2014, which is called the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, sigma. It was passed to really start managing by rule how we use groundwater and share groundwater and share water. But sigma does not conserve water rights. It does not tell senior White right water holders that you need to share x amount of water. So these people can actually go to their lawyers and tell the states to ignore the state. But sigma could change. I think that is really good legislation. And the next generation of scientists and engineers will really rely on that to achieve sustainability. Sigma requires, by 2040, all groundwater needs to be sustainable or imbalanced, meaning the checking account and savings account needs to be filled and it cannot all these 550 groundwater basins in California needs to be imbalanced, meaning they need to have the equal amount of supply to meet the demand. And unfortunately, right now, again, answering your question, right now, many of the groundwater basins are not imbalanced. They are really good in predicting the supply. I mean, predicting the demand side, population growth, commercial, industrial. But, because of climate change, it's really a very difficult question to predict the supply of water because there's gonna be more drought of course, but climate changes and so on. So I think that's the major issue that we need to really think about. There are options to address the drought. Of course. I mentioned that is stormwater capture, recycled water, wastewater, and industrial water desalination. But those are existing technologies. What I think one of your podcasts mentioned, sharing of water, transfer of water. It's very important. But transfer water can be actually physical transfer of water through pipes, through long distances. It also can be paper transfer, meaning one district can just have paper on paper banking water for another district in case of a drought, then those water will be pulled out of the bank by the other district to be used. These are paper transfers. So I think that is absolutely important that sigma would, would regulate water districts and basins to share water if needed. Right now it is not quite like that. And I think the legislation needs to change a bit for what we always call the beneficial use of water.

Kevin Karami: I'm going to say it's a complicated issue. And then like you mentioned, there are so many factors to consider. And especially when you incorporate the point of like new technology, new new options like the transfer of water. You mentioned the paper option, that was something that I wasn't aware of, but it intuitively makes a lot of sense. The idea of like different districts working together. And I think something you said in the beginning really caught my attention to that. There is a political aspect to it as well. In that aspect. As everyone knows, can really impact the decisions legislators and lobbyists and important organizations make in terms of where they want their water going. Maybe they have an interest in another organization's water. So that ultimately, that does affect the speed at which new policies passed and new ideas are discussed. But it is also important to recognize that there is a political aspect to the issue. Mr. Chau, to close this out, I thought I'd ask actually 

Les Chau: I wanted to add one more thing. So there's the political side of things, but there's also the financial side of things. I think the P3 investments. So Wall Street is now starting to invest in water infrastructure and other infrastructure. And it's called public private partnerships, P3s. I think that's a very viable approach. We just want to be very careful when Wall Street wants to invest, then all of a sudden, our water and other natural resources become commodities. Water should not be a commodity where prices can be raised because of demands and things like that. Water is a basic human right, basic human resource. And we need to invest in it with public money. But we also want to make sure that Wall Street has that kind of investment to help with these kind of infrastructure. 

Kevin Karami: That's a really interesting point and I think it's important that, that's a really, really significant point and even connects to the last question I was going to ask because preventing water from turning into a commodity like that is really, really important. And when you have powerful figures getting involved, it can change the landscape a lot. 

Dr. Chau: The P3 approach, more and more large utilities, it's like even Metropolitan Water is, it's kinda more rely on it because they actually are transferring the risk in investing in new infrastructure to investments on investors in Wall Street. So they don't have to take the risk. So these are kind of things that we need to be. We need to be vigilant. We need to make sure that it's in the best interests for people who used to water. 

Kevin Karami: Yeah, definitely. And back perfectly transitions into what I was going to ask at the end. If you could kind of overview everything we've talked about. I know this is, you know, we can talk about water issues for hours on end. There was a message you can kind of give to the audience, especially like prospective students and maybe younger Gen Z folks who are interested in the space. What's the main message you would give? I know we've talked about a few different ones. If you could give one, what would be your favorite?

Les Chau: Well, I think I gave a guest lecture at UCR two years ago. And the message I gave two undergraduates and graduates is that graduate and be a champion of your own community. Be a champion of safe drinking water. Be a champion to represent underrepresented communities, represent economically depressed communities. So that there is equality. Everybody should have safe drinking water. Nobody should go to Costco and buy water to drink. And I think that's the message that I liked the next generation of engineers and scientists to focus on. But how do you, how do you become a champion of water? Well, aside from being an engineer and scientist and re-inventing the next generation of nuclear power. Some of us, some of you guys need to be legislators, you need to be the political mind, to have the political will, to make sure that projects are planned for the future and completed. Only 1 out of 15 water projects in California ever gets built. We need to have a better average then that. So I think for me, my last message is working in academia. Meaning if you get a PhD, you're always seen obviously going to do a lot of research and things. But people like me who have been around as hydrogeologists, I would be in consulting. But I think there are going to be water lawyers and also gonna be legislators. So there are many fields to go into and there's a long road ahead. And for a lot of people who want to help solve our water issues in California. And yes, it's not engineering science at the forefront. It's really our political will that's going to help us solve our problems. 

Kevin Karami: I think that's a fantastic way to end the episode. It is an issue that requires unity and requires a plethora of fields and backgrounds to solve. And I think, I like ending episodes on an optimistic mindset. And like you said, it's a long road ahead. But I think as long as we focus and we continue the discussion, I think that's really important is continuing discussion, not letting it fall to the wayside. There's always a possibility that we can get to a place where lawmakers, lawyers, the political whales there, the science, the engineering, all aspects come together and maybe we can address the challenges, ensure that water is a basic human right and that everyone has access to it. And I think that's the best way to end.

Les Chau: To even end it with a graph. I gave a presentation and I think I sent you that presentation. There is a graph in there that shows how much rainfall has been below the normal on the zero line in many years. And that graph shows that since 1922, we have seen a negative accumulation or rainwater all the way into 1972, actually 92. So for 70 years we know that climate is changing and we didn't do enough to look to the future because of that. And we need to do better than that. We knew about this since 1922. 

Kevin Karami: We know about 100 years ago, but it's been, it's been a century, but I think, I think hopefully we can change that and another round and start considering all the different solutions we talked about. And like you said, I think we talked about earlier, we can talk about this issue for hours on end because there's so much so much to talk about that being said, Mr. Chao, Thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast. I really, really appreciate it and I'm really excited to share this episode. 

Les Chau: Thanks Kevin pleasure's all mine. 

Conclusion: This Podcast is a production of the UC Riverside School of Public Policy. Our theme music was produced by C codaine. I'm Kevin Karami. Until next time.