 Well, good afternoon everybody. There's still some people trickling in Presumably from the luncheon debate. I Personally found that very intriguing because as energy commissioner for ten years I was also the state's liaison to the nuclear regulatory commission, and I've been on both sides of these arguments So anyway, but I won't state my bias at all All right, I think it's we're past time to get started I'm going to get started I Ove my ability to even present my written notes to commissioner Jeff Byron sitting in the audience who's Who's cheater glasses I'm wearing right now because I opened my briefcase, and there were no glasses there, but Since we spent a lot I'll have more to say about former commissioner Byron in a moment Well, good afternoon welcome to what I'm calling the second annual SVS panel on the water energy nexus Or but the program Accurately states because that was an inaccurate description the panel to be the fluid future for California's H2O or water a Very interesting title I never asked who where it exactly came from but but it had to be different than last year Well, I am as advertised in the in the program Jim Boyd the moderator of the panel It's certainly my pleasure to be here Even though I'm a cowman. I'm shoving it in everybody's face I won't get any I won't get any hors d'oeuvres But I really wore it for one reason my dear dear friend and former Commissioner Jeff Byron who is sitting in the audience and how we serve together on the energy commission He's part of the time and I'm Cal. He's Stanford. We bet on the big game every year I had to wear a red tie every year because my my academic institution just couldn't feel the football team during those times So I thought here's my chance to wear my cal tie on his turf Okay, quickly When I looked at the kind I was kind of late as a as a panel moderator and when I and I've been awfully busy lately And when I looked at the program the other day and when I look at my badge this morning is Jim Boyd Boyd group consulting. That's a title. I hide behind When when my wife accuses me of having failed at retirement while I'm working a little bit on the side Whatever I don't know how they came up with it But we did have trouble with my computer getting them But you know it would have been more fashionable to say former energy commissioner like Commissioner Byron says But also might have rationalized for you a tiny bit. What's this guy doing moderating this water energy panel? and And if you were wondering by not figuring out the printed program I'll let me give you just a quick summary of why I have any license at all to be standing here and trying to deal with three experts in the water Arena I as I said I spent 10 years two terms as an energy commissioner and vice chairman of the of the commission and Believe me you get really deeply steeped in the water energy nexus when you're when you're at the energy commissioner dealing with Energy generation in a state and most of you have known or do know and it certainly was a highlight of last year's discussion We use a lot of water In California with regard to to energy we use a significant amount of energy to just move and process water in California It's very significant and during the electricity crisis, which I survived We we it became very important We of course historically have had hydro power in a state you need water to generate that our amount in the state has Been declining. Thank you to climate change sadly We still get a fair amount from the Northwest so it's it's a major slice of our Menu of power sources and power plants use a lot of water for cooling and That has to be taken into the equation but this energy commission quite a long time ago forbade the use of potable water for cooling and at least made that step even before we had drought issues and preceding my energy commission stint, which is probably a product of having worked on the energy crisis or the electricity crisis I Was deputy secretary of the resources agency and we oversaw multiple agencies like DWR and the energy commission that that were dependent on one way or another water and absent from my too long resume I Noticed was the fact I spent eight years of my life at the department of water resources So I'm I've had a lot of exposure to water and the one thing I learned as a very young Idealist adult After my two terms of DWR was that Water was really the modern day modern day starting maybe in 1900 modern day gold in California, and that's That's been true. It's been ignored a lot or it's been battled over as though we're gold But to me we haven't made as much progress as we need to make and that's hopefully what we can talk about today Frankly when I registered to come to this conference. I've been many times. I was going to come I Signed up as nothing more than a retired senior. I just was going to sneak in pay the cheapest rate and and And I qualified for all that That that that only lasted a few hours because former commissioner Byron Mine I did bother to mention to him. I'm coming down to see you in the next thing I know here. I stand as a moderator of a panel on the water energy nexus actually Jeff a planner of this whole conference Moderated the first ever panel this this very panel last year So it was indeed a pleasure for me to to accept Jeff's gracious invitation to moderate And and to have something to do here besides just listen to all this stuff and to pursue an area That's that that is important to me So now let's get down to some important facts about the program for today We have a very distinguished panel as you can see from their resumes in the program And I'm very pleased and grateful for their participation because it means I don't have to get very deep Into the water arena. It's been it's been a while for me We have a representative of a local water agency Jim Fiedler here of the Santa Clara water district Who I've discovered is a real boots on the ground individual when it comes to dealing with? In real time water at the customer or consumer level And this is an area taking on even more responsibility and importance In these years and this year of continuing water scarcity and New policy direction as it relates to the role of local water agencies and you'll probably hear more about that next on the agenda and next in line as David said like I I've enjoyed talking to David on the phone as you see from his Resume he is a widely recognized expert in water professor at UC Berkeley go Bears Head of the Water Center there a celebrated author on the subject of water and He is going to Provide I am confident a very interesting perspective in all aspects of water water history water supply development technology and the water energy nexus which and I believe his presentation will probably provide a platform for our future consideration of this subject and Then thirdly in in order is Frans by a V Weber Vice chair of the state water resources control board or SWR CB as we longtime government people always using jargon say She's a longtime member of that board She came to the board some time ago with Local water policy experience and she's someone I've known for quite some time I have interacted on on water issues during all these Ten years in the water arena that I've talked about not as far back as her alkan She's a young woman compared to me, but it's been a delight knowing her and working with her During the time that our paths crossed and the water board of course has really been at the focal point of California water issues In the last couple of years because of the drought they were handed responsibility to deal with his emergency situation and And have handled it Midaly and very well I think is just sitting and watching and knowing as I do a fair amount about about water Fran was a member of last years I call it the premier panel the first panel on water and energy So we have continuity here with regard to What's happened in the next in the past year and she can and will share with us the latest state government policy pronouncements on water conservation and And water use in California, and I know they've been dealing with a water energy nexus issue for some time But once through cooling issue there was an issue even when I was energy commissioner and an issue I'm working on In my little once in a while consulting capacity Okay, a quick comment about the panel program for the day first in the order I just gave you each of the panelists will make Brief introductory remarks. I'll have the time clock on them Following that we intend to have a conversation between panelists and their moderator About the issues and questions Both emanating from the introductory comments, and then they're free to certainly question each other And to particularly deal with the issues and questions that was put to our entire panel Including myself by the summit organizers before I came along as the moderator and As well as a perhaps I think I'm probably moving your slides around by accident. I'm sorry It just just the weight of paper Is doing it I just saw it flashing in front of me and and as I said Yours truly the moderator has given them a couple questions and might have a couple of others as we move along But we're not given a lot of time So it's a very tall order that this panel has to cover things But here are the issues or questions that were put to us by the by the summit organizers number one California has a limitless supply of water in the Pacific Ocean. Why not desalinate that water and supply it to our thirsty state? But what are the costs and environmental impacts of desalination? How does it compare to other potential water sources such as on-site water recycling or centralized recycling? second issue can our existing method of water storage and delivery be expanded What are the costs and environmental impacts of increasing our storage capacity? That's going to be interesting within the water energy nexus as a question But but I'm sure we'll all and they all will try to to to make it touch that point last on but certainly not least For this forum is quote energy consumption is a significant consideration when comparing methods of water harvesting Is the energy calculation enough to tip the scale or the scales make your singular plural approach to one source or another? The moderator here has put a couple of other questions to the panel first one was California's groundwater to me to me personally a much neglected resource in terms of nurturing and replenishing and not just using as It's been delayed or put off in my opinion far far too long when I started my career in government in at the Department of Water Resources In the 60s. Yes, I'm not old Engineers and geologists then we're talking about The groundwater problem that California faces and I have watched from the sidelines or not so much sidelines Little to no attention paid to this other than as a source of water In my opinion. So my question is It's back in the limelight because of the drought We've heard a lot in the past year and a half two years of of this issue You heard a comment this morning about so much groundwater extraction in the valley. There's massive Subsidence etc. So what's the status of our supplies of groundwater? What's the prognosis for the future and what are the energy implications of where we find ourself? Ie use and hopefully recharge and Then secondly last year the state of California as I said in the person the water board took charge of managing the crisis After four years of drought They should water conservation and emergency regulations aimed at achieving a 25% overall reduction in potable water use The time period was June of 2015 through February 20 or to February 2016 now the governor's Extended the date as I understand it to October of this year in February the water board issued amendments to it regs that have many Conservationists last environmentalists up in the up and arms. How does all this relate to our water conservation water energy? And and the energy Nexus how does this relate to to the progress that we're supposed to be making and to the future? We'd like to see and and there's so much more we could talk about but as I said we have limited time And I'm eating into it already, so let's move to the introductory remarks Jim will come up first or sit there Well, I guess you have Jim has got a presentation which I have watched up so he can back it up I'll go fast and the other two as I understand don't have Slides so let's move through Okay, thank you, Jim. Let's see. Well, in conclusion I won't see if I can move this backwards Yes, okay No, let's see here. I won't put the clock on you for what I did to you Very good. All right. I don't know how you moving forward, but I'll move on forward Great. All right. Thanks again. I'm Jim Fiedler. Happy to be here I'm going to give you a brief synopsis of the water situation for Santa Clara County You know here from the other presenters as they describe a more of a statewide perspective again Our agency is the Santa Clara Valley Water District And we have three primary functions water supply for Silicon Valley flood protection kind of an agency that covers both those functions And we do that trying to be really respectful of the ecosystem in our county So making sure we can provide healthy ecosystems in our streams On the ground on the clean reliable supply. We are the ground water basin manager We talked about that a second ago with Jim. We also import water into the county where the importer We also manage and operate the local surface storage reservoirs And so who we serve Silicon Valley as you see it was already on this slide earlier Get the statistics of who we serve in this county thriving population We're all well aware of this is the map of Silicon Valley or Santa Clara County It doesn't show the road system It shows with the exception of the red line on the very top is the infrastructure that's managed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District This is infrastructure that's been put in place over the last 80 years Local reservoirs a lot of treated and raw water pipelines and these are the raw trend These are the wholesale lines a large diameter pipelines that transmit water throughout the valley We're in the portion of the county In Sanford that is served water from a contract that Stanford has with the city and County of San Francisco So the water you're enjoying today is Hetch Hetchy water is derived from O'Shaughnessy Dam in the Sierra and brought down and convey Through the San Francisco system and that's not sure that that line is just the red line at the top of the screen But anyway, we put together a pretty extensive infrastructure over the last 80 years of groundwater management We have over 400 acres of recharge ponds We recharge on average about 100,000 acre-feet a year of water into the groundwater and that waters local stored water in our Local reservoirs as well as why that we import from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta So we see you saw the slide earlier in our region here Over half our supplies are imported Which is different than other parts of the bay in the San Francisco service area over 80% of the water is imported East Bay mud a great a great majority of water imported half our water supply here 40% through the Delta the other percentage is really local water that we're able to manage sustainably through a storage in our reservoirs and then percolation into our groundwater basin and then we talked about groundwater earlier And that subsidence issue. This is a chart that shows us the historical record of the Centricular Valley Water District the blue line is basically a depth of water in a groundwater index well in San Jose The green lines population growth that's occurred over the last 80 or so years the top line is subsidence in this county We've had land surface subsidence historically in fact it shows up there 13 feet between 1915 and 1970 of subsidence Which is why some of the areas the north San Jose are protected by levees and parts of Palo Alto because the land has subsided Due to over pumping of the groundwater basin, but you see what we've done in our agency is but through the management of groundwater and Basically recharging you see in the late 1920s the first drop there our agency was formed We built local reservoirs the groundwater table rebounded but post-warward to boom in Silicon Valley or before Silicon Valley You see the groundwater table falling to the 1960s. That's when we brought imported water into the county You see the rebound of the the blue line forward in the late 80s We brought in additional imported water and you see the rebound there was also coincide with drought periods You see at the very end the current drought and you see that the groundwater table continuing to fall there We've had a rebound due to the incredible conservation efforts of our region And this is the graph not not of water. This is the graph Moving really fast. How do you pay for it? This is a chart that shows our historical and projected water revenue our water rates That is that's going to pay for much of the infrastructure that we're enjoying and so you can see the cost here We are 19 or 2017 fiscal $1,000 an acre foot for treated water in Santa Clara County and you see that going up to about 2300 by 2026 and that's due to a number of factors We're spending millions of dollars close to billions of dollars on infrastructure in our county and We pay for that through volumetric rates and that's how we fund our programs So looking at the energy connection, we're certainly trying to drive for carbon neutrality I'm certainly your conference here is on energy We're doing that through a number of different means as we consider our energy footprint in water Here's a chart that shows and gives you a description of the energy uses in California it was talked about in some of the other sections You see about 15 to 20 percent of the the energy used in California is in the water supply chain You don't think about that much in fact two to three percent of the entire state energy is used to pump water in the California State water project of which we're a participant of and you see the other distribution of energy usage in Regents from the California Energy Commission in 2016 Let me look at the intensity of energy in terms of water deliveries It will touch upon that with the other panelists you look at the various costs of energy Excuse me the the energy usage per acre foot of water. You see recycled water That's basically title 22 water for landscape irrigation or cooling towers You see imported water costs and the about close to about close to 1500 Kilowatt hours per acre foot then you look at advanced purified water with waste water treating that to a high quality Then you look at desalination taking basically ocean water and converting that to drinking water in the energy footprint That that would take about over 2500 kilowatt hours per acre foot Then you look in our region. How does energy used in the delivery of water that we delivered to Santa Clara County? We conveyed the water through The water that's imported into our region that energy cost in a word for a zero to about close to a thousand kilowatt hours per acre foot We treated it three conventional water treatment plants. There's an energy footprint there We distribute that there's an energy footprint to pump that and distribute that and then look at the end user kilowatt hours Which is substantial because the biggest one of the biggest sources of energy uses in water is heating water in the homes And then you know there's a wastewater component that processes at the back and puts it back into the hydrologic cycle So if we think about what's driving us thinking about how do we make better use of our limited water resources? Certainly the droughts been a factor our limited supplies You saw an earlier photo one of the other sessions that showed this is Lake Orville in 2014 was pretty luck pretty dry This is the basically the backbone of the state water project north of the Delta Extraction of groundwater certainly subsidence issues that's happening in the Central Valley and then a major concern of ours as well We don't want the re-initiation of land subsidence. So we're looking very carefully at Recycle water purifying water It's a local source We can locally control it We can drought proof it because we're not it won't be subjected to the variability of hydrology And it certainly is a source of water. We're actively involved and engaged in so this chart earlier The region's been expanding the use of recycled water currently about 5% of the water use in Santa Clara County is recycled We have great aspirations that really make great strides to increase that mostly if non potable uses that is for landscape irrigation Cooling towers. In fact, you remember the Super Bowl of Levi Stadium 80% of the water used at Levi Stadium is recycled water From the city of town is from the city of San Jose that's processed through our advanced purification plant But we have great aspirations for the future as shown on here We want to develop over 45,000 acre feet of recycled water purify that for groundwater recharge potentially for direct potable reuse and Here's kind of an idea what the potential is what you see there is the average 215 wastewater treatment at the four wastewater plants in Santa Clara County produced in about 167,000 acre feet of wastewater of that amount We use about 12% currently, so there's great aspirations to potentially make additional use of this resource as a water supply and Then we have put online and you're welcome to tour it we give public tours our silicon valley advanced purification center It's located in north San Jose. It's an 8mgd facility brought online in 2014 It uses a great technology of microfiltration reverse osmosis and UV light disinfection to really show how we can treat wastewater secondary effluent from wastewater plant to basically drinking water quality and how we can apply that in our future to meet our long-term needs Here's how they're thinking about doing that Currently the purple line the purple pipe is really the traditional way of using Recycled water from wastewater plant. We put online our purified Facility we're hoping to and we're blending that that water from that facility to help improve the quality of the non potable water But we're looking at now How can we expand the use of that advanced purification to recharge in our groundwater basin? Or potentially if regulations allow to allow us to use that water as a source water a raw water source water for our Conventional surface water treatment plants for delivering to homes and businesses And this is an outline of some potential projects that we could have online to help move that water from an advanced purification facility down to our recharge areas and So certainly a sustainable tomorrow for us is going to involve using recycled water It's good for the environment and provides that drought-proof supply and certainly the technology as it gets improvements through the years can certainly allow us to Save on some of the energy costs that it takes to really operate a system of nature With that I'll stop and I know we have the other panelists and we'll take questions Thank you He's got it right down to the minute So I'm not going to use any slides at all and I'm going to take advantage of Jim's remarks to not say too much about the energy water nexus I appreciate the Invitation to come here because too often I spend my time talking to water people and not energy people and It's the same discussions over and over again, and we talk about the progress We're making we try to compare notes on the technologies We're excited about but you know there's this whole other world here of energy that is Making a big difference to how the state thinks about sustainability how it shows us how Infrastructure can change over time and how the confluence of technological innovation government regulation Political will can bring about big change And so we look to the energy sector to teach the water sector how to move forward and what I'd like to do today is to tell you what's going on a little bit in the water sector and how it might be connected to energy and Not to talk about the usual Truisms about the water energy nexus that you've heard so much about in the past but to touch on where I think California is going especially with respect to the municipal sector. So you heard from Jim about the water Energy nexus maybe another way to think about it if you don't think about acre foot too often Or even if you're not always thinking about kilowatt hours is that the average California family has a 50 watt light bulb burning in their house all the time and that light bulb is the water Infrastructure that's providing them with residential water And so when we think about how to reduce energy use we think about what we could do on that piece of the water pie But that's not what's driving change in the urban water sector these days It's really about supply reliability and so Jim doesn't wake up every day thinking about. Oh my goodness It's gonna cost a lot of money to have the power for this energy It's that my community could be running out of water some day And so how do I plan ahead and the way in which California cities are going is Taking on four different approaches the first one is demand management I think you think a lot about demand management in the electricity sector. We think about it in the water sector Urban stormwater capture that is the rain water that falls on cities being captured and put into the ground as a water supply Water reuse you heard Jim talk about a little bit and then Sea water desalination which Jim the other Jim Introduced in his remarks as it's something that we should try to touch on during this meeting And I want to talk a little bit about all four of those and the energy implications And then give you some things that you might not expect based on your instinct as energy people when thinking about water Which could be perilous traps as you try to apply what you've learned from energy to water So let's start first of all with demand management We hear a lot about the analogies between demand management in water and the demand management energy Certainly, there's room for conservation So indoor conservation is a great thing to do in terms of saving money and having a return on investment Especially if it has to do with hot water That's why front-loading washing machines and things that reduce Heating of water are so attractive to utilities in the water and power sector But what a lot of people don't realize is that we're going to reach a point with indoor water conservation where it's going to Bottom out so an electricity you'd like to drive Electricity use in the house to zero in the water sector We are only going to drive it down to about 25 to 35 gallons per person per day Because if we drive water use down below that the sewer stop working and we have massive corrosion in our sewer system And we can't just abandon the sewer system as it is So we have a lot of policies in place that are going to drive indoor water conservation down But at some point it's going to stop and we're going to be like Israel or Australia or those existing technologies And then there are going to be few opportunities for indoor water conservation Outdoor water conservation is a huge opportunity and we saw that during the current drought That it's pretty easy to replace lawns with California friendly landscaping But there are two traps here The first trap is the urban heat island effect if you rip out all the plants you rip out all the shade trees The cooling demand grows and people don't like living in cities that are just concrete jungles And so the public is going to push back at some point and it's going to be wise to not push beyond a certain point anyway So with those two we could probably reduce water use urban water use by somewhere around 30% just like we did during the current drought There's also another area of demand management and that's pressure management and leak control if you think about managing pressure within the water distribution system and replacing pipes to to stop leaks in California something about like 5% of the water we put in our urban water systems leaks out and that's a waste of energy We've done the analyses on this and we put it in kind of the context of the McKinsey curve that you may be familiar with And it's negative in the McKinsey curve That is it's there's a good return on investment from doing both pressure management and leak detection in urban water systems And it's not being exploited enough by water utilities due to some logistical and institutional issues Switching now to stormwater capture. This is something that's becoming very popular in Southern, California A lot of political will behind this idea of capturing stormwater and putting it back into the ground It's not quite as proven to technologies as the other ones. There needs to be more research and development There needs to be more demonstration projects so these projects probably are going to grow more slowly and some of them are going to be green infrastructure that is going to Satisfy members of the public but not yield a great deal of water for water utilities So it's going to we're going to make investments in it But it's probably not going to yield a lot of water for urban districts immediately and that's why the urban water Districts are more interested in water reuse and desalination as a reliable supply Because they're proven technologies and engineers feel comfortable with them. So with respect to water reuse Jim mentioned the purple pipe system like South Bay water recycling a number of cities in California have these so-called purple pipes or non-potable water and I could tell you that if I had a crystal ball here I tell you that we're not going to build too many of these in the future that is the centralized non-potable water reuse systems turn out to be economically unattractive not only that but they they facilitate the proliferation of golf courses and lawns and the kinds of water uses that we're not so comfortable with and So utilities are doing just what Jim was talking about pushing towards potable water reuse because the technology has been proven By projects like the groundwater replenishment project in Orange County That's been operating for I mean the water factory 21 plus the groundwater replenishment project going on 40 years now So it's a proven Permittable designable buildable kind of technology and that's why there's so much enthusiasm for it I think you're going to hear more and more talk about doing water recycling at the office park scale or The individual housing development scale so-called distributed water reuse there are a number of Institutional challenges associated with doing this there's going to be a session after this to talk about that But I'll just say for now that it's a very small fraction of the plans for future water supplies And it's going to take some time and effort to actually yield substantial amounts of water from those distributed projects Desalination we were asked to talk about it Desalination is is a really interesting story in California One of the challenges with desalination I think some of you know that the largest desalination plan in the Western Hemisphere was opened and commissioned in Carlsbad north of San Diego This year 50 million gallons per day There are two things you might want to think about with respect to the future of desalination in California The first of which is that it's an issue that's tied up with once through cooling That is a lot of the planned and proposed seawater desalination plans are Co-located with power plants and they rely upon those once through cooling intakes and so there's going to be this kind of tension between Those who want to close down these coastal power plants with once through cooling and people who want to build seawater desalination plants they are using the same intakes and so there's a political and permitting cap complexity and then there's also The fact that everyone's concerned about the energy demand of seawater desalination. It's Jim showed you the figure there It's about 3.5 kilowatt hours per cubic meter The theoretical minimum is when you when you add in the frictional loss and the actual operation of a plant somewhere around 1.5 kilowatt hours per cubic meter So with the technologies that are being developed by this maturing industry We'll see some additional savings in energy, but we're not going to see the kinds of savings and energy that we've seen over the past 20 years We're really leveling out on the efficiency of seawater desalination Systems, but there are is some good news and some opportunities for us to think about One of which is integrating seawater desalination plants with the grid so we heard about the duck curve this morning if we can find ways to store energy and Use that energy to run a desalination plant or you know There are all these connections between pump hydro and water supply and also the possibility of Producing water at night when when energy prices are low There are lots of opportunities here to think more about how desal plants integrate into the management of the grid There's a and along those lines the Department of Energy and the White House are pushing this Pipe parity initiative that they really hope to drive the price of seawater desalination Down by 80% and so there's going to be some efforts happening at the federal level With some of the national labs in the next few years to try to really create a game-changing technology by reducing the cost of Desalinated seawater from $2 a cubic meter to 50 cents a cubic meter And I think that would really change a lot of our thinking and discussions that we would have here today So before I wrap up I just wanted to add a couple of things to think about as energy people when you look at the challenges the water people face First of all, I want you to realize that water isn't energy and the things that you learned about rooftop solar and distributed generation Don't necessarily apply to water There are technologies out there that allow us to recycle water at the building scale and at the development scale But they're very energy-intensive So those membrane bioreactors that people talk about putting into office parks or the basements of buildings are about as Energy-intensive seawater desalination So I'm always a little bit dumbfounded when I hear people saying that they want to build this because it's a green technology But then they're opposed to seawater desalination because it's an energy hog It just doesn't add up to me and when you look at the cost of doing water recycling at the centralized level like the project that Jim Described it's much more energy efficient and cost effective the second thing I wanted to mention is that You think a lot about energy demand and how it varies over time in the water field We think about how water demand varies over time, but we don't think in terms of days We think in terms of decades We have some decades some years that are that we have plenty of water And we have some years where we don't have much water at all And we have to have the storage there to get us through those dry years And so some of the things that we're doing now of Outdoor landscape conservation and making the system more efficient is cutting our elasticity So in this current drought we had the elasticity of all these lawns that we could let go brown But as we get more and more efficient as we reduce the low-hanging fruit We're going to be at running this system at a much tighter place when it comes to droughts And we're going to have to build more storage or we're going to have to over build our systems If we're going to get rid of these sources of water that can be adjusted in times of drought And I think you run into similar things in the energy world where you look for certain uses of energy To reduce energy use during particularly hot days or periods of high demand We're going to have to be more intelligent and take some lessons from you as we think about how to evolve the water grid in The future and with that I think I'll stop and let Fran Thank you David. I too am very glad to be here I was here last year and so this is very nice to be coming back and talking to an audience that is not as familiar as As water audiences and yet much very much able to To influence how water gets used in the future and I'm also pleased to be following Jim and David because that I think they have given you a very very strong overview of how how water works in in California and How what are some of the things that we should be thinking about as we move forward? Clearly costs will be a big issue climate Will be a big issue because the variability that we're seeing that was referred that David just referred to is Going to probably be even greater and perhaps We don't really know for sure exactly where it's going to to fall less water more water But but we at least we're Suspecting that there will be a lot more variability than we have had in the past And so what's the what's the way to go? In energy what you have done is It happened in the marketplace You have largely a few players some in Southern California some in Northern California and There is a an effort to to Work in in a very big palette with a very very big palette in water in Contrast there are hundreds there are thousands There are little ones little little little little ones and big ones. Yes for sure ladwp, but largely, it's it's very it's quite varied and So I think go back to what Jim was talking about it at the beginning There are differences Regionally in terms of where the water is coming from what the challenges are is it imported it? Do you have groundwater basins? Do you have? Ways in which to to do something and then how do we actually figure out how to get all these very interesting Different groups to work together and that's where the water board comes in we are very are charged With protecting water quality We are charged with allocating water rights and making changes in those water rights and and as of two years ago We also are charged with Drinking water and making sure that there is clean reliable drinking water for most of California and the the the key Seems to be and it's based largely on some of the experience that we've had with the with the drought is to establish standards that The that the water agencies can understand and can can Adapt based on their region can adapt to based on their region and then hold the water agencies accountable To those standards that's the current theory that we're operating on and therefore it will be a very decentralized regional approach Southern California Northern California inland desert Coastal and so you're going to for those of you in the energy world I Think that will be helpful to you because you will be there will be Natural allies that you can work with in the region where you are working now as as you move forward the another Factor that has gone into helping us get to this point is Is Governor Brown? Because Governor Brown has came in to his new job Several years ago not seven years ago. I guess six years ago Having done it before and being older He has really Emphasized as has his governor's office integration of the various agencies so well While Jim and I work together a lot on the water energy nexus Now we work more on the water energy nexus and it's not easy to work with agencies that are like yours Or that are different from yours, but we're learning how to do it We're spending a lot more time together and the governor's office is spending a lot more time pulling the various agencies together to get this kind of of integration at the at the regional level as well as at the at the state level so that is That has been extremely helpful and and it has helped us Particularly in this whole new world of climate change Since we don't know exactly where things are going to be or what is going to happen We are looking at at things like new water That would be desalination. It could be recycled water the emphasis has largely been on Recycled water and right now the division of drinking water is overseeing the the rules that will apply to serve to augmenting or increasing the amount of water in a surface water reservoir Reservoir with recycled water. They have already created some regulations for Groundwater recharge using recycled water to recharge Groundwater so this underscores what what David mentioned that we are moving I won't say we're moving away from purple pipe because purple there is a lot of purple pipe out there But whether there'll be a lot more purple pipe in the future is I would have to agree with David that it's somewhat unlikely it's much more Advantages to go with groundwater recharge and with with surface water augmentation and we're looking at the feasibility of direct what's called direct potable reuse taking recycled water and Spending a lot of money to treat it, but making it more usable directly that's still that's still a At the research level But it's not it's certainly not out of the out of the realm of possibility in the show in the what I would call the medium term in the next five to ten years on desalination desalination is is very attractive I call it the bright shiny object and I Can't tell you I do not go to a party that someone doesn't ask me about desalination as the answer Well, it's just not it just it just isn't for all kinds of reasons, but is it a component of some Communities Solving their water their water problems of course of course, but it's not the panacea It's not the thing that's going to save us in San Diego. They have very few groundwater basins and so Looking at desalination makes some sense to them in Monterey They have very little water lots of big developments And so they are looking at desalination as a as a possibility But again, it's very regional and it's very it has to be integrated because the people who get the water Where there be desalinated water recycled water imported water whatever water you get the people are going to have to pay for it and they cannot even Even with the numbers that that Jim Fiedler put up as to what are what the cost of water is going to be in The future and it is going up. No doubt about that it is it is going to be extremely important to conserve to reduce To the greatest extent practical just like you've done with with energy to reduce the amount of water Just as you've done with energy of To the reduce the amount of water that you need in order to flush the toilet in order to Grow a garden in order to keep trees in your area and and avoid the heat island effect Conservation is going to be the most cost-effective the most the the centerpiece of every region that that pursues that pursues a water plan and I think that is a smart way to go and then you start to add to it depending on your local conditions those other things that that you can do and The law and technology will be your friend in all of these efforts. Thank you Okay, since I chewed up some of the time at the beginning and in messed up Jim's presentation I'm going to limit any pursuit of questions. I did ask I am going to ask Well, I'm going to make an observation one the purple pipe thing. That was very interesting to me because As a commissioner for ten years, that's what we were requiring purple pipelines to power plants new proposed power plants for their cooling water So I presume that purple pipe won't go away Unless we stop building power plants and go other other ways But in any event that's just just not a question. Just an observation interesting thoughts about recycled water I think I think all the panelists touch upon all the questions that were asked of us With one exception my question, which really goes to Fran if she wants to say anything about This your regulations Proposals with regard to the conservation program and I'm bringing it up only because as I In my limited knowledge about what you're doing see it You're bringing the local just your local water agencies more into the picture being responsible and having a role in this No correct me if I'm wrong and say whatever you might want to say about that because it has caused a lot of concern on the part Of people think oh, they're not gonna you know the state needs to do it They're not they're not going to achieve the goals that we said Well, we've learned over the last several years in working on conservation is that we really do need We do need to do more to enable local water agencies to to do the right thing to Pursue conservation to pursue other other sources So what what are we going to do the governor has extended actually? Until the until January of next year has extended the executive order But has given a lot of leeway to the state board as to what they should do particularly over the long term and so we'll be putting together an advisory committee in the next month and We will be developing regulations That probably around the idea of standards that would then go out and get implemented locally by by water agencies But exactly what those standards would be whether it would be 55 gallons per capita per day indoors as on the books now or Are we striving toward the 25 or our 30 gallons per capita per day indoors? in the future what kinds of outdoor landscape is Is a standard that we should be using so that people can choose whether to put in trees or whether to Put in gardens or exactly what it is that they want to do we'll be doing that, but we're going to do it fast We're going to get this the draft put together by October with help from the local agencies and then we will be Fine-tuning it and making it available to the governor to if the governor is interested in putting it out as legislation next year and There are some other changes that that will be going on But that will be the biggest one it will be will be that now on the short term between now and the end the beginning of next year if if Every water agency is going to have to continue to send in their their monthly Production numbers and if someone has been producing here and suddenly they're producing way up here We'll make a phone call and we'll try to figure out what's going on and we can change our minds about kind of the local Control over over what's going on if we see a need to at this point Of course we see we don't see a need and in fact I just looked at the April numbers and we definitely don't see a need based on the April numbers, so I You know we have the ability to turn around and change our minds But for right now, we're trusting that the locals do want to do a do the right thing. Thank you Fran To the other panelists you have any questions of each other before we go to the audience I want to give them a chance. We have a good size audience here None, okay questions from the audience in the limited time we have left. I saw Rust's hand go up first Speak up while they're working on my here Here comes the mic I'm working on a project for the California Energy Commission under a grant called the zero net energy farm and and this water energy nexus is very interesting to me we're in the Westlands water district and so water is a is it the opinions very widely and And the interest groups seem to be the environmental use of water the agricultural use of water and the urban use of water We're trying to focus on Renewables that are on demand that can be generated on site on the farm from the anaerobic digestion And gasification so we don't exacerbate the problems of the duck curve Do you think that it would be? possible to to Quantify the amount of water that's used in the production of non-renewable electricity and and provide that as an incentive for agricultural interests Adopting renewable energy strategies in the Central Valley So maybe you you can inform me about something My impression is that a lot of the water used in in Power production in California is seawater for the coastal plants and hydro Which I don't know how one accounts for it unlike much the rest of the country So do you have a suspicion that there's a lot of water used in electricity production within California? I Have seen numbers on the on the use of water for production of petroleum and That's it's huge. It really is quite large. However, it comes from a different place in the ground and it is It's regional it's in Kern County. It's in a section of the of the State that is not where the urban folks are living and so You know, it would have to you'd have to look at it But but it's being looked at now But not I wouldn't say not seriously and I'll take a little bit of a of a contrary position to David's in that I don't think we have even touched we haven't even started saving water like we could and So one reason people aren't going to some of these more creative Approaches is they don't really have to there is enough water One of the problems that we have in the Central Valley is that people have expanded their footprint for Agriculture and therefore they need more water. It's not that they're used that they don't know how to save water They just expanded more. So I think we're going to have to get a little bit hungrier before we go there Well right here and then the man well gentlemen in the front History of water in California my understanding is we've sort of taken it through the aqueduct system and moved it from where it is to where it Needs to be okay along those lines when I consider extending the aqueduct system all the way up to the Columbia River Another water war They already don't like us very much or again in Washington Well, I think not not being facetious I think that we've reached a point where seawater desalination is very equivalent I mean that the cost of building massive imported water systems is not Negligible and there's not an infinite supply of north in the Columbia River and there's a salmon run and there's dams and everything else We have the ability now if we get desperate I mean Fran talked about it as a bright shiny object I think of it as a last resort that no California City will ever run out of water We would do what the Australians did during the millennial drought and build seawater desalination plants in a hurry so I think it's always there for us and the what I see as kind of the research challenge is to drive down the cost to make it not the last resort but to make it a Viable resort that starts to displace the imported water systems that are Detrimental to the environment. Let me inject during my tenure as an energy commissioner. We studied Desalination along with a lot of the folks and and actually the highest priority was assigned to Dissolting brackish water rather than seawater of which there's a lot of in California And and the whole you already heard the issue is it's incredibly energy intensive So it would that have to be considered in the system I would also comment that quite a bit of water is used in cooling power plants that is not Seawater or coastal water all the simple cycle combined cycle natural gas plants that have been built and over fists the last few years All need cooling water While they're highly efficient. There's a lot of them and you saw a power source growing in California So it's been all recycled water for the most part for the last more than 15 years almost But you know as we talked about earlier, you know We're still even when we make all these investments in conservation and in recycling or maybe even diesel You know much of California is very dependent on imported water I mean that's sort of our life blood and it's almost like the nuclear energy question We had earlier at lunch, you know because it's so divisive trying to fix the Delta Because that's really the heart of California water issues because so much of water is imported from the Delta to serve many Californians and an ag in Central Valley So I think it's very important for us to diversify our water supply options with with these various trades We've looked at brackish are looking at carciniestrates desalting water there among the bay area water agencies And that might be a source of water that we would then transfer through our various infrastructure piping But even with those reductions, we're looking to expand double our use of recycled water But we're still very dependent on imported water And so we need to make sure that system is a reliable force to this gentleman here But I would I would say well go ahead. I'm used up too much. We're running out of time. So I'll ask your question Okay, so hopefully this is quick enough And this is I guess to anyone who wants to answer in terms of Potable reuse looking to the future. Do you see direct potable? Which is a little further off indirect potable? Which one of those do you see being the primary source or maybe they both play a big part? Eventually how much of that do you think could be in the water supply? And then do you have a worry that Wastewater Influence supplies because of conservation efforts, etc. Are going to dwindle and that you're going to build out your your treatment capacity on the back end too much Yes, yes, and yes I think in the in the medium term indirect potable is going to be the Action of choice and that would be for groundwater recharge purple pipe actually still and And also surface water augmentation Longer term there will be some areas that will want to go to To direct potable, but it will be expensive. So that again, it's a regional choice and it'll be What are your other options and and have you you know, have you looked at the ones that are most optimal? Where you should invest your money in the future. I have no idea But tell me what you decide to do Last question gentlemen back with the mic. We're I've run you out of time to get here next So I saw a very alarming presentation on how the groundwater is being depleted in California And I know there's a law that will eventually address that but You know, I think fundamentally the question is You know agriculture is using that We need ag it's a certainly a good good thing to be doing How do you see that delta? You know the difference between the sustainable level of use of the aquifers and What's currently being done? How do we meet that demand does ag land go out of you know, so how does that get connected? Well, I'll just I'll say two things and then David looks like he's ready to say more one is I think Farmers are really smart and so if they have a limited amount of water They will move to higher value crops. So they they move to vines. They move to tree crops They move to cut flowers down in San Diego. So there will be changes in In agriculture, I do not think we will lose agriculture Well, I have a comment. I didn't appreciate you laughing at my friend suggests that we go to the Columbia River Well, he it know it is it is not funny. You know, I mean, I don't know if it's funny. It is a little bit funny, but It's it's it's it is a political challenge But it's mostly a cost challenge and a delay challenge if you have to get permits if you have to Build these things are there cheaper ways to go? And yes, there are many many many other cheaper ways to go So yeah, absolutely positively Absolutely, you know, maybe what they said the movie Chinatown if you don't bring the water to the people you bring the people to the water One reason why I would give us the water because they don't want us to come to Oregon Would you join me in thanking this panel?