Ecological challenges– CALFED: 1990s - present

1. Ecological challenges– CALFED: 1990s - present

2. Purpose/evolution of CALFED • Established 1995 to “develop long-term comprehensive plan (to) restore ecological health and improve water management for beneficial uses of the Sacramento-San-Joaquin Bay-Delta.” • Divert freshwater flows through delta & into the bays: 400,000 acre feet in normal years, 1.1 million acre feet in dry years. • 15 agencies (& an inter-disciplinary staff of scientists) implement water quality standards, protect endangered species, determine how Central Valley projects shall be operated to balance environmental/economic values. • Employs combination of regulation and markets (surplus water) to meet Endangered Species Act requirements (Environmental water account for Delta smelt).

3. What CALFED’s achieved/has not achieved • Alternatives generated through public meeting process –more than 500 statewide advisory meetings to establish goals & objectives. • Several key groups –agriculture, large water users, environmental organizations, urban water agencies play advisory roles throughout the process. • Public/stakeholder input resulted in new environmental studies of problems, refinement and revision of project components.   • Costs shared among users, state and federal governments. • Over time state & federal leaders have grown weary of debate, lack of policy closure; Decisions take too long to resolve according to critics e.g., • Delta smelt • Flood risks • Many proposals to satisfy farm, urban interests hinge on new/raised dams (e.g., Shasta); billions of $ in bond issues. • Apprehension that providing more water (e.g., 9.3 million acre/ft.) will attract more people/more uses – rather than conservation. • Since early 2000s – drought, water shortages lessen enthusiasm for collaboration.

4. Urban growth patterns and regional collaboration Highest rates of use statewide: Inland Empire (Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial counties) – Cal DWR data.

5. Conclusions • Continued provision of cheap, abundant water + refusal to adjust our demands to regional ecology = current problems. We should: • Reduce/cease profligate water uses. • Consider equity concerns associated with recycling and supply innovations (hidden growth subsidies and environmental legacies). • Ensure new development has reliable water supply before being built – current policy has insufficient “teeth” (apply to 500+ unit plans). • Encourage adaptive management – demand-side remedies more resilient & fair to future generations – especially in light of climate change.

6. Ethical challenges of water policy – justice and fairness • Introduction: • Ethics is embedded in the idea of sustainability – using water in ways that do not compromise needs of future generations/other species. • Throughout history, nations and peoples have tried to adopt certain ethical principles for water resource policy and management: • Justice – fair allocation of water & its benefits. • Democracy - all who want to participate can have a say in decisions. • Resolving conflicts - over water use, diversion & pollution amicably.

7. Criteria Definition Maintaining human health A basic water requirement will be guaranteed to maintain human health. Maintaining ecosystem health A basic water requirement will be guaranteed to maintain and restore the health of ecosystems. Minimum Standards of Quality Water quality will be maintained to meet at least minimum standards. These standards may and will vary depending upon the location of the water, and how the water is to be used. Long-term Freshwater renewability Human activities will not impair the long-term renewability of freshwater stocks and flows. Data collection and accessibility Data and other information on the availability, use, quality, and quantity of water will be collected and made available and accessible to everyone. Institutional mechanisms for resolving conflict Institutional mechanisms will be established to prevent, alleviate, and resolve conflicts over water. Democratic decision-making Water planning and decision-making will be democratic, ensuring representation of all affected parties and fostering the direct participation of affected interests. Sustainability Criteria for Water Resources Planning (Gleick, 1998)

8. Ethical Alternatives are difficult to adopt, implement • There is little agreement about what makes something ethical: e.g., • Should we aim to satisfy the “greatest needs of the greatest number?” • Should we aim to “treat others as we wish to be treated?” • Should we aim to “care for those unable to care for themselves?” • Ethics are hard to rationally defend – i.e., to “prove” true. • Implementing ethics requires deep personal & professional commitment – policymakers and the public must explicitly incorporate in decisions. • Be explicit and transparent in your defense of a position.

9. Three ways of thinking about Ethics and Water Policy • Utilitarianism- greatest good for the greatest number: • Economic growth through development of water resources. • Economic efficiency through providing “cheap” water and its benefits to many. • Categorical imperative –treat others as we wish to be treated/golden rule: • Emphasis should be on doing what is fair, keeping promises & commitments. • Would we agree with a water decision if we were subject to it? • Stewardship– we are required to care for all other forms of life that cannot prevent harm to themselves: • As “rational” creatures, it is in our self-interest to care for other life forms. • If we’re made in the image of a deity, then we’re obliged to care for all creation.

10. Utilitarianism and water policy • Water policies should aim to: • Promote economic opportunities and development. • Produce benefits (e.g., electricity, irrigation, flood prevention) for many. • Examples: • Large water projects (e.g., dams and river system improvements). • Problems: • Assigning an economic value to nature – and “monetarizing” the environment (e.g., flood protection, pollution reduction, using benefit/cost assessment).

11. “The farms, cities, & people who live along the many thousands of miles of this river and its tributaries – all of them depend upon the conservation, the regulation, and the equitable division of its ever-changing water supply. Distributive works, laws and practices . . . will insure to the millions of people who now dwell in this basin, and the millions of others who will come to dwell here in future generations, a just, safe, and permanent system of water rights. . . .As an unregulated river, the Colorado added little of value to the region this dam serves.” - President Franklin Roosevelt's Dedication Day Speech at Hoover Dam, September 30, 1935

12. Hoover Dam* *U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

13. Categorical Imperatives and water policy • Water policies should aim to: • Promote fairness & the just allocation of benefits and costs. • Compensate for promises and commitments made in the past. • Examples: • Protecting wild and scenic resources in natural condition. • Problems: • Guaranteeing that a commitment can be carried out indefinitely – (need for “stewardship?”)

14. “The established national policy of dam(s) must be complemented by preserving other . . . selected rivers” and avoiding significant future harm to them through adopting a uniform national policy” • Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, 1968

15. How Wild & Scenic Rivers Act is an “imperative” • Intended to compensate for previous losses of historical as well as natural significance. • Defended on basis of “just desert” – “established national policy of dam(s) must be complemented by preserving other . . . selected rivers.” • Significant harm must be avoided – through uniform policy (an imperative, not an option).

16. Stewardship and water policy • Water policies should aim to: • Care of resources that cannot care for themselves. • Insist that we “serve” nature; not “rule” over it. • Examples: • Preservation of endangered/threatened species; using resources wisely: rational, spiritual, and U.S. and international legal perspectives. • Problems: • Stewardship for what objective? Conservation or preservation? • Will not necessarily resolve conflict – e.g., Muir vs. Pinchot on HetchHetchy dam.

17. “A thing is right if . . . It preserves the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biosphere . . . .”- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949“In . . . examples from around the world, we see the powerful meanings of water in creation stories, myths of initiation and purification, (and) tales of healing . . . . Water is often the very “stuff” from which the universe, all creatures, and human sprang.” - Gary Chamberlain, Troubled Waters: Religion, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis, 2008.

18. Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion… over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Genesis 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”

19. “Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because the river flows there . . . . Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail because the water flows to them.” – Ezekiel, 47: 8-12

20. The Holy Qur'an[2.164] – “Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, and the ships that run in the sea with that which profits men, and the water that Allah sends down from the cloud, then gives life with it to the earth after its death and spreads in it all (kinds of) animals, and the changing of the winds and the clouds made subservient between the heaven and the earth, there are signs for a people who understand.”

21. Earth, in which lie the sea, the river, and other waters, in which food and cornfields have come to be, in which live all that breathes and that moves, may she confer on us the finest of her yield. . . . Set me, O Earth, amidst what is thy center . . .Purify us from all sides. Atharva Veda 12.1 (Hinduism)

22. Confucius fished with a line but not with a net. While fowling he would not aim at a roosting bird. Analects 7.26If you do not allow nets with too fine a mesh to be used in large ponds, then there will be more fish and turtles than they can eat; if hatchets and axes are permitted in theforests on the hills only in the proper seasons, then there will be more timber than they can use... This is the first step along the kingly way. Mencius I.A.3

23. “(V)arious species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development . . . . (Other species) have been so depleted in numbers that they are in danger of or threatened with extinction. . . . (They are of) esthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value and (agencies must ) use all methods and procedures . . . to bring (them) to the point at which the measures provided pursuant to this Act are no longer necessary.” - Endangered Species Act, 1973

24. National Park Service Organic Act (1916) • (Commitment to) conserve scenery and natural and historic objects . . . and provide for enjoyment of same. • Resources must be unimpaired for enjoyment of future generations; must be protected “in perpetuity.” • Reserved water rights: if conflict arises over protecting water quality/quantity, must hold to a high environmental protection standard (stated in NPSOA of 1916). • Because we benefit from commitments our ancestors made to protect/care for resources, we are obliged to hand them down, unimpaired, to future generations.

25. International significance for water policy? • If you have a set of principles that are widely shared across nations and faiths, can you agree on a set of policies? • If you can agree on these policies, can they be enforced?

26. Water Available vs. Water Used – Five Countries Renewable Freshwater Available per Person per Day Water Withdrawn per Person per Day

27. A Global Perspective - UNESCO Commission on “Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology” (2002) • Human dignity – water is a basic human right. • Participation – encourage citizen participation in decision-making. • Solidarity - we all rely on the ecosystems and are linked through our upstream and downstream dependency on these systems. • Human equality – we should incorporate the values of justice and equity in decisions. • Water is a common good and essential to the realization of full human potential and dignity. • Stewardship - move toward sustainability, find a balance between using, changing, and preserving our land and water resources.

28. UN Commission on Sustainable Development (2002) – another example of water and ethics • We need a “global deal” to bridge policy differences on sustainability between developed nations of the North and less developed countries of the South. Must consider: • Equity : eradicate poverty through equitable & sustainable access to resources (including water). • Rights : secure environmental and social rights in all countries • Limits: reduce resource use to “within sustainable limits.” • Justice :recognize ecological debts and cancel financial debts – to be fair. • Democracy :ensure access to information and public participation. • Ethics : rethink values and principles that guide human behavior toward resources/consumption.

29. Global freshwater availability – United Nations data

30. Public water supplies – United Nations data

31. In an ethical water policy possible? • Sustainable water management requires an ethical outlook to match our scientific understanding: • Inclusiveness of values – encourage broad debate; participation of many groups. • Clarity and transparency –defend views with facts/awareness of consequences. • Willingness to collaborate with those we disagree with – tough obstacle in international forums. • Blend local knowledge with “expert” opinion – beginning to be done in developing countries. • Resist actions that knowingly deny freedom of action to others, including future generations. • Mechanisms to enforce not present in international relations arena!