NRDC: The Thirsty State
Q&A with Noah Garrison, an attorney in NRDC’s Santa Monica office, specializing in stormwater pollution and water supply issues in California.
Is groundwater pollution in California limited to the communities in Tulare County featured in this story?
No, the problem is widespread. While nitrate pollution is particularly common in the Central Valley, pollution from pesticides, salts, and other contaminants is a constant threat to drinking-water supplies for millions of Californians. NRDC brought a series of successful lawsuits against dairy farms in the Chino Basin that resulted in efforts to clean up these operations and prevent further pollution of surface water (our rivers, lakes, and streams) and groundwater. But in other parts of the state, agricultural and industrial activities still threaten groundwater quality.
Why exactly is the groundwater system in such trouble?
California is by far the country’s largest user of groundwater; roughly 11 billion gallons are pumped from our aquifers every day. Yet we have the weakest groundwater laws in the nation. In most parts of the state, you don’t even need a permit for withdrawals. The result is often "overdraft," meaning that more groundwater is pumped from aquifers than can be replenished naturally. This can lead to falling groundwater levels, land subsidence, contamination of water supplies, and harm to ecosystems that rely on groundwater for a steady, year-round supply. Worse, when more water is pumped from an aquifer than is replaced, the voids and spaces in the surrounding rock that hold water can be flattened under the weight of earth, and that water storage capacity is lost forever. A recent report by NASA estimated that overdraft in the Central Valley averages nearly one and a half trillion gallons a year. Californians are literally pumping their state dry.
What is the impact of the prolonged drought in the West?
Groundwater meets 30 percent of California’s annual water needs, and in periods of drought that can rise to 40 percent. So it’s a vital source of supply and a critical hedge against shortages. Unfortunately, as pollution and overdraft increasingly threaten our groundwater, climate change is threatening our surface water supplies. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which forms California’s largest reservoir of freshwater and is a major source for stream and river flows, is projected to shrink by as much as 70 percent to 90 percent by the end of the century. So groundwater will only become a more critical resource -- and one that the state should be doing much more to protect.