Executive Director of Southern California Watershed Alliance Addresses Water Supply Issues

Conner Everts has been working in water issues for 30 years and has seen a lot of the good and the bad.

Everts is executive director of the Southern California Watershed Alliance and co-chair of the Desal Response Group.

He shared his perspective in Chico, Calif., as the third speaker of the Code Blue Water Series hosted by the Butte Environmental Council.

Everts said the state is about to go through severe cutbacks in water, and some areas will be better off due to efforts that have already been made.

The city of Long Beach, for example, has had an aggressive water-saving campaign including posting photos of water waste on its Web site. Long Beach also launched a water waste hotline Friday that asks citizens to report overwatering of landscaping.

Everts said there have been many other steps in the right direction, including widespread installation of low-flow toilets, cleaning up dairies and installing water meters.

Cistern projects to collect rainwater are being installed at schools for summer irrigation, Everts said.

But there is a still a lot of work to be done.

As for water desalination, Everts said there are too many drawbacks for it to be a solution to water worries.

Desalination uses reverse osmosis, which forces water through a tiny membrane that captures pollutants. But the amount of energy needed for the process is enormous, Everts said. Also, desalination is known to kill sea life. The brine leftover from the process does not break down and the companies that want to do the projects are profit-motivated, he continued.

Everts said he is not anti-desal; He thinks the technology makes sense in brackish wells. But for water supply, it is not a simple solution.

He also criticized dams that are built then fill up with silt, and delta pumps that kill fish.

Blaming agriculture, which uses about 80 percent of water in the state, is not the solution, he said. If agriculture is taken out of production "we end up with more homes."

Meters, for both ag and residential, are necessary Everts said, and have proved to cut back on water usage.

Some areas, such as Los Angeles, have requirements to have water systems retrofitted when a home is sold. Everts would like to see that in other areas, such as San Francisco.

There are, however, areas in agriculture that can be addressed, such as farms that use water inefficiently.

He said he would like to see water viewed as a basic, universal right, not something political or to be bought and sold.

"As long as water is seen as a commodity, it will be abused," he said.