Smart Conservation Package Will Save Water
Energy Storage Policy: An Essential Next Step
Sierra Club California Summit: Update on Resistance Date Change
Smart Conservation Package Will Save Water
By Kyle Jones
Some water agencies in California just can’t give up on their lawns.
Despite the public stepping up and providing tremendous water savings during the drought, there is staunch water agency opposition to moving forward with continuing efforts to make water conservation a way of life.
Water conservation is the best way for California to get new sources of supply. For every drop we save at home or in our yards, another drop stays in the environment, and less is spent on our water bills.
Water conservation measures reduce the demand used to justify devastating new dams and desalination plants.
Governor Jerry Brown has offered a smarter approach to water conservation that should be adopted by the legislature. It builds on what Californians have learned throughout the drought.
Specifically, the approach develops targets for each water agency based on population, irrigated landscape acreage, leak detection, and climate. These targets are based on existing goals in place in law, such as the goal of reducing indoor water use to 55 gallons per person per day.
The approach also addresses drought planning, standardizing contingency plans so that the state will be far more prepared when the next drought comes. Water agencies should spell out what actions they have to take when they lose over half of their water supplies, because that’s exactly what has happened over the past five years, and what is likely to come with climate change. Lack of planning cannot again be an excuse to relax environmental standards to divert more water from the environment.
The water conservation proposals are also reflected in a budget bill and a trio of policy bills, AB 1667, 1668, and 1669 by Assemblymember Laura Friedman.
Water agencies, however, have come up with their own alternative plan.
The water supplier package of bills allows agencies to choose multiple pathways to compliance, including averaging new water conservation goals across regions. That would allow some communities to continue to use far more than their fair share as long as their neighbors are saving.
The water agencies also want to prevent the state from having the option of imposing mandatory water conservation measures, which helped get us through this last drought.
In short, the water agencies’ bills don’t face up to the reality of climate change and won’t prepare the agencies or their customers for the swings in water availability expected in the future.
The legislature should not let one wet year wash away the painful lessons we have learned from a five-year drought. Too many species are on the brink of extinction, and too many Californians lack access to safe drinking water for Californians and water agencies to take it easy on water conservation.
Sierra Club California staff and volunteers and allies are pressing the legislature to adopt the package backed by Assemblymember Friedman or the governor to keep California saving water.
Energy Storage Policy: An Essential Next Step
By Edward Moreno
The massive methane gas leak at the Aliso Canyon Storage Facility last year shed light on the risks associated with gas storage and reliability issues that come along with such a disaster.
While a moratorium remains in effect at Aliso Canyon, concerns about the region’s ability to provide stable and reliable power stir up a rush to prepare for 2017’s summer demand.
Energy storage, both large-scale and customer-side, has emerged as one of the most common sense solutions not only for Aliso Canyon, but as a grid solution state-wide. That’s because it is a flexible resource that can store energy when consumption is low and put it back into the grid when needed at peak demand times.
Energy storage is also critical in revolutionizing the electric grid system by enabling increased renewables integration and thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and getting us a step closer to reaching California’s climate goals.
This year a number of bills have come to life that embody the State’s efforts to make storage an integral part of the electricity grid system.
Among those, some directly tackle the reliability issue at Aliso Canyon. One of those, Senate Bill 801, by Senator Henry Stern, would increase utility storage procurement in the area hit hardest by the Aliso Canyon leak as an effort to improve reliability in the region. Others, like Assembly Bill 1405, by Assemblymember Mike Mullin, and Senate Bill 338 by Senator Nancy Skinner, would help clean up costly peak load by developing policy at the Public Utilities Commission and setting requirements for utilities to meet that need with storage, among other clean resources.
The legislature is also working to increase energy storage deployment on demand-side as well. SB 700 by Senator Scott Wiener would establish an energy storage rebate program to help with the cost of installation of customer-sited energy storage.
With a possible future where California meets 100% of its electricity need through clean renewable energy generation, the legislature’s efforts to create policies to improve storage technology and increase deployment of such technology reflect much-needed foresight.
Sierra Club California Summit: Update on Resistance (Date change! See below.)
Open your calendar and save this date: Saturday, October 28, 2017.
That’s when Sierra Club California will hold a day-long event to bring Club activists in California, including new members, together to share experiences and learn new skills to protect the environment and keep building the movement to advance important environmental and environmental justice policies.
The summit will be held at a charming school camp tucked in rolling hills and valleys outside of San Luis Obispo. Activities are scheduled from morning into the evening, so there will be options to stay overnight at the camp. Comfortable motel accommodations are available within a 15-minute driving distance, too.
Watch for registration information this summer. Until then, mark your calendar to spend a full day at the Sierra Club California Summit on October 28th.
Follow Us:
  |
Thank you for being a part of our work! Consider making it monthly. You may securely donate online or by sending a check to Sierra Club California at 909 12th Street, Suite 202, Sacramento, CA 95814.
