"How can a project this big go forward with an unusable water supply?" Suzanne Forster asked the California Coastal Commission at a June hearing. The vice-chair of the Banning Ranch Conservancy was asking the panel about the 1,300 homes planned for the Banning Ranch open space in Newport Beach. Though voters decided back in 2006 that the entire area should be permanently protected, the developer's plan is moving forward.
The Sierra Club Banning Ranch Park and Preserve Task Force and other environmental groups are fighting the development.
The task force need you to tell the California Coastal Commissioners to protect our precious coastal wildlife areas, home to the threatened California coastal gnatcatcher and the cactus wren. Tell them to save Banning Ranch as 100% open space as the Newport Beach General Plan requires. The developer's application to the Coastal Commission has been accepted as complete and they are one step away from having their massive development plan approved. The final hearing could come as early as October.
The next California Coastal Commission meeting is planned to take place in Chula Vista, south of San Diego. Please stay tuned to Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s e-mails and website notices for updates on a petition that needs supporters as well as information on coordinated bus travel to the October hearing that will take place in Long Beach.
Here's come of Forster’s comments:
"Where is the water coming from?
"California is now in the fourth year of the worst drought in 1200 years based on studies by NASA and others. According to the American Geophysical Union, Central and Southern California have experienced some of the lowest water year precipitation totals in the observational climate record, the effects of which have been amplified by record high temperatures. Diminished snow packs, stream flows, and reservoir levels have resulted in a convergence of reduced water supply with heightened demand that appears to be unique in modern California history. The study also predicts that future hot droughts driven by increasing temperatures will have a substantial influence on future water resources supply in the western United States.
"The most current document that deals with the project’s water supply is a 2010 Water Supply Assessment Report (WSAR). This report was done by the City of Newport Beach as part of its environmental review under CEQA. By law the report must evaluate the water supply for the project over a 20 year period which in this case goes to the year 2030. The report was based on a 2005 urban water management plan, and it concluded that there was enough water for the project. However, a disclaimer in the last paragraph of the report puts the entire report into question.
"The disclaimer states, “It’s acknowledged that uncertainties have come to light since the 2004 urban water management...however, record drought, climate change and environmental conditions are beyond the scope of this assessment.” The report acknowledges that record drought conditions have not been taken into consideration in evaluating the project’s water supply.
"The disclaimer also says updates from the City, from Municipal Water District of Orange County, and from the Metropolitan Water District will address these issues. I checked for updates from all of those agencies. I found none. I also called the City and was told that there was no plan to update the WSAR despite it being virtually unusable for water supply analysis.
"So this raises another question. In the throes of record drought, with more of the same predicted, how can a project as massive as NBR go forward with an unusable water supply. (Note that this project has a density higher than the last five large Orange County coastal developments combined.) According to the WSAR the project’s water demands are estimated at 613 acre feet a year, which is about 200 million gallons of water.
"On page 20, the report states that the City receives all of its ground water from the lower Santa Ana Basin, but according to the Orange County Water District’s 2015 Ground Water Management Plan, the Santa Ana basin is already seriously over drafted. The river’s base flow has declined from a high of 158,600 acre feet in 1999 to a low of 64,900 acre feet in 2014. That’s a loss of 93,700 acre feet, or 60%, of the water basin’s water supply. That’s a very steep drop.
"Our other water resources are in trouble too. The snow pack which supplies 1/3 of the state’s water is expected to be at 6% of normal this year. 30 million people depend on the Colorado River for drinking water, but water deliveries from the basin dropped to their lowest in 2014. And the State Water Project plans to deliver just 20% of contracted amounts to water agencies this year.
"And here is where the 2010 WSAR goes off track. It states on page 22 that from 2007 to 2030 ground water supplies will increase by 622 acre feet and imported water supplies will nearly double and that’s how they are able to say that there is enough water for their project. But remember this is a 2010 report that was based on a flawed 2005 report.
"So today in 2015, we know that there is significantly less ground water to draw on. Allotments are going down not up as are imported water sources. The only thing going up is demand. Projected water demands for Newport Beach will increase over 1,000 feet by 2030, so that’s over 326 million gallons, and that is despite all the new conservation and water use efficiency measures. And there are many – there has been no lack of effort to come up with conservation measures.
"Another growing concern is the depletion of ground water around the country and around the world. According to the U.S. Geological Survey our global ground water levels are now at historic lows. In California Central Valley, they pump so much water out of the ground that the land is dropping by a foot a year in some areas. The earth is caving in. You have bridges sitting in water. The water is not rising, the bridges are sinking.
"This raises the question of whether the water supply for the project is consistent with the ground water protections of the Coastal Act. Section 30231 of the Coastal Act requires preventing the depletion of ground water. The Santa Ana Basin has already been depleted by 60%. How much more water are we going to take, and how much more can we take before we risk disasters like salt water intrusion that could destroy the entire water supply.
"On May 12, the City voted to declare a Level 3 water shortage, which comes with mandatory 25% water restrictions that could trigger fines and penalties. So now we’re cutting our water usage by 25%, and I think everyone understands the need to do that. But how much more will we have to cut to accommodate a project like the one proposed on Banning Ranch and all the other projects that are going up – there are a lot them – and all the projects that are already up. Orange County is in a development boom. Orange County is number 3 in the nation in construction jobs. If you combined us with Los Angeles County, we would be number one. So how much more water do we have to cut to accommodate all that. 50%? Even more? At some point this is not just a quality of life issue, it becomes a human health issue.
"And when we force all these cut backs on residents and businesses, aren’t we robbing Peter to pay Paul?
"The Banning Ranch development is a massive project that’s going to take hundreds of millions of gallons of water every year – at least 200, we know that. We’re in the throes of record drought with predictions of more to come. I have heard there is some possibility of an El Niño. But given that it will take 11 trillion gallons of water just to recover what we’ve lost since 2011, even the mother of all el Niños is not going to not fix that.
"That’s why I’m urging you to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the project’s water demand is going to be accurately estimated and reconciled with future water supply, not just for the present but dating to 2030 as the law requires. Please put all of your available resources into ensuring that our depleted ground water sources are not being exploited but instead are being protected and wisely used as required by the Coastal Commission and the Coast Act."