Why Should LA Worry about Pakistan?

Posted on September 10, 2022 by cmaddren

*By Carport – Own work, usingFile:Pakistan location map.svg by NordNordWest.STRM-30 data for the relief, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23198633*

If you’ve been watching the news at all, you’ve heard about the unprecedented flooding in Pakistan. Millions have been displaced. Over 1,300 people have died. It’s hard to estimate the impact on the economy at this point, but it’s likely that much of the population will be facing extreme hardships for a long time to come.

Many of the news sources reporting on this catastrophe have quoted scientists who believe that this extreme weather event is linked to climate change. The horrible irony is that Pakistan produces only a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change, and yet it’s suffering some of the worst impacts.

Who are the biggest culprits when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions? China and the US are the top two nations pouring CO2 into the atmosphere, but even though the US is second in overall emissions, its per capita emissions are about twice that of China. Within the US, California has over 14 million registered vehicles, far more than any other state, and the vast majority of them run on fossil fuels. Of that 14 million, over 7 million are registered in LA County.

So we definitely need to take some of the responsibility for the climate crisis. But we shouldn’t waste time feeling guilty. We should get to work on changing the situation. There are a number of things we can do. We can start by driving less. This could mean taking transit to work one day a week, or carpooling with a friend, or if your job allows it, working from home when it’s convenient. We can also try to minimize the amount of plastic we use. This may sound easier than it really is. Many of the products we use in daily life are made of plastic, and so much of what we buy comes wrapped in plastic. But if you start thinking about it, you can probably find at least a few items that you can do without. And if you shop on-line, it’s important to consider the way things are packaged.

But we also need to support legislation that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is the hard part, because there are powerful interests targeting bills intended to curtail the use of fossil fuels. This year the Western States Petroleum Association and the California Independent Petroleum Association used their clout to either stop or weaken a series of bills that were written to address climate change. Capital and Main lays out the gory details in this article.

California Oil Industry Continues to Thwart Climate-Related Bills

We shouldn’t be discouraged. We have clout, too. According to a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, 80% of the state’s residents say that climate change is a serious threat to our economy and quality of life. That means an overwhelming majority of California voters understand the gravity of the situation. We need to let our representatives in Sacramento know that they should be listening to us, not the fossil fuel lobby. If you don’t know who your representatives are, use this link to find out.

Find Your California Representative

We need to think about how climate change is affecting our lives in LA. We need to think about how climate change is affecting the people of Pakistan.

We’re all in this together.

Water Isn’t Just a Local Issue: We Need a National Water Policy Now

Posted on August 28, 2022 by cmaddren

While this blog is mostly focussed on LA, it would be foolish to think that Angelenos live in a magic bubble that isn’t affected by what’s happening in the rest of the world. (Thought we often act that way.) Crucially, we need to understand that the water shortages affecting this area aren’t just local, they’re global. In order to understand LA’s water problems, we have to look at the larger context.

This morning I read an interview with Jay Famiglietti that lays the situation out in the starkest terms. It’s a disturbing message, but one we all need to hear. Famiglietti is Executive Director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, and formerly lead researcher at NASA’s water science program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. He’s spent years studying the water landscape and he knows what he’s talking about.

First, please take a look at the graphic above from the U.S. Drought Monitor. It shows that all of LA County is in severe or extreme drought. Looking at the rest of the state, you’ll see that almost all of California is experiencing conditions ranging from severe drought to exceptional drought. My only problem with this map is that they use the word “drought”, which doesn’t describe the situation any more. “Drought” implies we’re in a dry period, and that things will eventually go back to normal. That’s no longer true. Because of climate change, scientists agree that our fresh water resources will continue to decline for the foreseeable future. This is the new normal.

This isn’t just a problem for LA or California, this is a problem that the whole country needs to deal with. Famiglietti talks about how we need a national water policy and we need it now. We can’t afford to wait while cities and states bicker over what they can and can’t do, while lawsuits are filed and politicians posture. We need to take action as a nation now.

Famiglietti isn’t the only one saying this. Back in 2009 the Clean Water America Alliance published a paper explaining the need for a national water policy. Here’s a brief excerpt….

Each day, more and more Americans are confronting an unsettling fact of life in the 21st Century – our supplies of clean, dependable, economical water are more fragile than at any time in our recent history. Population growth, economic development, changing weather patterns, new energy supply strategies, and the needs of endangered ecosystems are threatening to overwhelm both the physical infrastructure and management systems that have previously provided for our water needs.

What have we done since then? Not much. And we can’t afford to wait. Things have gotten much worse over the last decade, and many scientists believe that climate change is accelerating.

Here’s the Famiglietti interview. Read it and weep. No, seriously, don’t weep. Take action. Contact your representatives in the House and Senate and ask them what they’re doing about creating a national water policy. If their answer isn’t good enough, keep after them.

As Colorado River Dries, the U.S. Teeters on the Brink of Larger Water Crisis

Find Your Representative

LA’s Water Resources: It’s Getting Scary

Posted on August 17, 2022 by cmaddren

The water situation just keeps getting more dire. A brief recap: Last August the US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) declared a Tier 1 shortage on the Colorado River, the first time it had ever taken this step. This was not good news for Southern California, which relies heavily on water from the Colorado. Then, in March of this year, California water officials announced that they’d be cutting allocations for the State Water Project (SWP) to 5% of requested supplies. Another blow to Southern California, which also gets much of its water from the SWP.

Things got even worse today, when USBR announced the first-ever Tier 2 shortage on the Colorado River. This will not affect California immediately, since the State has senior water rights, but the way things are going it’s likely that we’ll be impacted in the next couple of years. Scientists are predicting that the Western US will continue to get hotter and drier for the foreseeable future.

The City of LA is in especially bad shape. While some cities in Southern California have significant groundwater resources, Los Angeles’ supply is relatively small. In recent years, groundwater has made up about 10% of what we use annually. We do get water from the LA Aqueduct, but that’s not as reliable as it used to be, since snowpacks in the Sierra Nevadas have continued to decline in recent years.

Recycled water? LADWP has been talking about that for years. While there are big plans to reuse more of our water, right now recycling only accounts for about 2% of our supply. It will be years before that number grows much. Then what about desalination? It’s very costly, very energy intensive, and causes significant environmental impacts. There are other experimental processes out there, but nothing we can scale up quickly to replace what we’re losing from the SWP and the Colorado.

There are no easy answers. Scientists do not see a turning point in the near future. We’re going to have to learn to live with less water. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Over the past few decades, the City of LA has already cut its per capita water usage by quite a bit, and there’s still more we can do. But remember, we don’t know how far this trend is going. It’s likely we could learn to live with the level of water deliveries we’re getting now, but scientists predict that our snowpacks will continue to decline and our climate will continue to get warmer. We haven’t seen the worst yet.

I have to say, the older I get, the more I question the wisdom of building a city of 4 million people in a place with such limited water resources. People talk about how Hoover Dam and the State Water Project were great accomplishments, and yeah, in a way they were. But as the water level in Hoover Dam continues to decline, as the State Water Project continues to suck the life out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, I have to wonder where this is all going.

Right now, it doesn’t look good.

Here’s an excellent breakdown of the current situation from CalMatters.

Four Things to Know about Colorado River Water in California

California’s Water Crisis: Promising Way More than We Can Deliver

Posted on April 19, 2022 by cmaddren

Even if you don’t pay attention to the news, you’re probably aware that Los Angeles has been unusually dry for the past few years. If you do follow the news, you may have heard that right now California’s snowpacks are well below their 20^th century average. And if you really pay attention to this stuff, you probably saw the news that the past 22-year period is the driest the American West has experienced in over a millennium.

Scary stuff. And as the impacts of climate change grow more pronounced, there’s a good chance things will get even scarier. Since it doesn’t seem likely that government officials or the public at large are going to make any real progress in cutting back on fossil fuels, the weird weather we’ve been seeing for the past couple decades is likely to get a whole lot weirder.

So what can we do? Well, the first thing we should do is stop lying to ourselves about how much water we have access to. A recent study from UC Davis shows that water rights allocations to California’s water users are about five times the state’s annual runoff. In other words, we’ve promised to deliver about five times more water than we actually have.

How did this happen? Well, back in the 20^th century, when everyone was convinced that California was going to keep growing forever and that we had endless supplies of everything, Federal, State and regional agencies built a ridiculous number of dams and canals to deliver lots of water to everyone who wanted it. Two decades into the 21^st century, it should be clear to all of us that we can’t keep growing forever and that our resources are definitely limited.

CalMatters recently ran an excellent piece by Carolee Krieger, Executive Director of California Water Impact Network, where Krieger clearly states the most important takeaway from the UC Davis report: We have to manage our water resources based on the amount of water that’s actually available. Here’s the link to Krieger’s article.

Here Is the First Step to a Sustainable Water Policy

California faces huge challenges in meeting its future water needs. The first step is to be honest about how much water we actually have. Let’s stop pretending. It’s time to get real.

FOLLOW-UP:

I want to add some additional info as a postscript to this post. I was looking at On the Public Record, a blog I follow that deals with water issues in California. (I recommend it highly.) The author wrote a post on Max Gomberg’s resignation from the State Water Resources Control Board. While the post itself is well worth reading, one of the comments raised questions about the accuracy of the UC Davis report that Carolee Krieger cites in her CalMatters post.

There are lots of comments, but I’d ask you to scroll down to those written by Waterwonk, who questions the methodology used by Theodore Grantham and Joshua Viers, the authors of the UC Davis report. According to Waterwonk, Grantham and Viers make the mistake of adding up the face value of water rights without looking at terms and conditions and overlapping rights. For instance, Waterwonk says that some users have the right to divert water, store water, and then redivert the stored water. Waterwonk asserts that Grantham and Viers added up the face value of the water in cases like this, when in fact these separate rights apply to the same water.

Waterwonk believes that Grantham and Viers got some things right, but says their claim that California has handed out water rights amounting to five times what’s actually available is grossly overstated. I don’t understand these issues well enough to judge who’s right, but I think Waterwonk makes effective arguments. I wanted to include them for those readers who are interested in digging further. Here’s the post from On the Public Record.

On Your Watch

There are lots of comments, including from Carolee Krieger. You’ll have to scroll down a ways to find Waterwonk’s arguments.

But whether or not Grantham and Viers’ work is accurate, there’s no question that State agencies and local governments have been over-promising for decades when it comes to water. The status quo is not sustainable. We have to be more realistic about how much water is actually available.

Newsom’s Budget Targets Housing

Posted on January 15, 2022 by cmaddren

With the State continuing to enjoy a strong surge in revenue, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget includes substantial funds to address housing needs. Newsom wants to spend $2 billion on homelessness, and another $2 billion to address housing in general. Of course, there are those who say this still isn’t enough, and others who say Newsom’s priorities are wrong, but there are a lot of good things in his proposed budget. I’m not a Newsom fan, but I think that in some ways he’s on the right track. As usual, the devil is in the details.

One of the things Newsom wants to promote is urban infill development, in other words building dense residential housing where infrastructure already exits, as opposed to more suburban sprawl. This is nothing new. State and local politicians have been pushing this for years, and in theory it makes perfect sense. One of the main goals of this policy is to make people less reliant on cars, encouraging them to take transit instead, or to ride a bike or maybe even just walk. The overriding goal is to fight climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The problem is that we’ve been doing this for years and it hasn’t been working. In fact, it seems like we’re going in the wrong direction. LA and San Francisco have been building thousands of new residential units near transit hubs, and yet transit ridership has been falling for years. Worse, in Southern California the rate of car ownership has been climbing steadily since 2000.

So what do we do? Well, there is evidence suggesting that high-priced new development in urban centers is causing gentrification, which displaces low-income transit riders. I can tell you I’ve seen numerous instances in Hollywood where low-income tenants have been thrown out of their apartments to make way for new projects. We need to preserve existing housing that’s accessible to low-income households, and to build a lot more affordable housing. That’s why I’m glad that Newsom is setting aside $500 million for Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and another $500 million to preserve and increase affordable housing stock. Of course, much more money is needed, since the federal government has slashed funding for affordable housing over the last several years. But the money Newsom is providing is a step in the right direction. In LA, the vast majority of transit riders live in low-income households. We need to help them remain near the transit hubs they rely on.

Another smart move Newsom has made is to earmark $100 million to support the conversion of office buildings to apartments. This makes a lot of sense, not just because more people are working from home these days, but because it helps minimize the significant environmental impacts caused both by the demolition of old buildings and the construction of new ones. As many people have said, the greenest building is the one that’s already standing.

The funding Newsom has proposed will not solve our housing problems, but it will help. That is, assuming the legislature supports his budget. This article from CalMatters offers a more detailed breakdown.

Newsom on Homelessness: ‘We’ve Gotta Clean Up those Encampments’

Angels Knoll

Posted on November 23, 2021 by cmaddren

I love cities. And I love Downtown LA. But the older I get, the more I think about the damage that cities do to the environment. At the beginning of the 20^th century, Downtown was largely undeveloped. In a little over a hundred years, it’s become a dense urban landscape crowded with office buildings and residential towers, crisscrossed by roads and freeways. As a result, LA is hotter and drier, the air is dirtier, and like every other urban center, we’re contributing to climate change in a big way.

I was wandering around Cal Plaza a while ago, and ran across a piece of Downtown I’d forgotten about. As I looked out over the city in the direction of Hill Street, I saw that directly below me there was a small park. It took me a minute to realize it was the same park I’d seen many times at the intersection of Fourth and Hill. It’s been fenced off for years. Much of the greenery is dry, and the trees could certainly use some attention, but it was so cool to run across a patch of green space in the middle of all the steel and concrete.

Actually, it’s not technically a park. It’s a small patch of land called Angels Knoll that had been owned by the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). (I assume it got the name because it’s right night next to Angels Flight.) When the CRA was dissolved in 2012, a petition was circulated asking the City to turn the land over to the Department of Parks & Recreation. But that didn’t happen. As one of the few remaining undeveloped parcels in the Downtown area, the property is worth a fortune. The decision was made to put it up for sale.

A June, 2021 memo from CRA/LA, the successor agency to the CRA, sets the price of the parcel at $50 million. The buyer, Angels Landing Partners, is actually a joint venture by the Peebles Corporation, MacFarland Partners and Claridge Partners. According to the LA Department of City Panning web site, the proposed Angels Landing project involves the construction of two skyscrapers, one rising 63 stories and the other rising 42 stories. In addition to two hotels and 72,000 square feet of commercial space, the project also includes 180 condos and 252 apartments. Apparently some affordable housing is supposed to be provided, but at this point it’s not clear how much.

Of course, the project will generate lots of jobs and economic activity. According to the Environmental Impact Report, it will also generate 10,179 metric tons of CO2 equivalent during the construction phase alone. Beyond that, it will contribute to the steadily increasing temperatures in the LA area, along with a number of other massive projects planned for Downtown, Hollywood, Warner Center and elsewhere.

And we’ll also be losing one of the few remaining patches of green in Downtown. City Hall has made its priorities clear. They want the skyscrapers. Of course, LA was built by developers and politicians who prioritized growth over everything else. That’s how LA got to be what it is today. But the older I get, the more I feel that this addiction to growth is incredibly destructive. Our warming climate and shrinking water resources are a direct result of unchecked development.

We really don’t need another skyscraper. We absolutely need more parks.

Can the City of LA Keep Growing If Its Water Resources Keep Declining?

Posted on August 22, 2021 by cmaddren

The City of Los Angeles couldn’t exist without the water it imports from sources far beyond its borders. While the ratios vary widely from year to year, on average we get about 10% of our annual supply from groundwater within the city limits. The remaining 90% has to be imported from places hundreds of miles away.

Which means we really should pay attention to the Water Supply Alert issued by the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) on August 17. The entire State of California, and in fact much of the Western US, is experiencing extremely dry conditions. At this point the MWD is asking for citizens, businesses and public agencies to make voluntary reductions, but there’s a good chance that stricter measures will be needed in the not too distant future. Through careful planning and good stewardship, the MWD has managed to build up significant reserves which might provide a buffer for the next year or two. But we can’t be complacent. This year the California Department of Water Resources has cut allocations from the State Water Project to just 5% of requested supplies. It’s possible that next year the allocation could be reduced to zero. On top of that, for the first time ever, the Bureau of Reclamation has declared a shortage on the Colorado River. Lake Mead supplies much of the water that Southern California relies on, and storage there has been declining faster than even the most pessimistic observers predicted. Right now the water level is lower than it’s been at any time since Hoover Dam was constructed.

Which leaves us with the LA Aqueduct. At the beginning of the 20^th century, Los Angeles business leaders were working hard to promote the city’s growth, but they knew that the area’s water resources were limited. In looking for solutions to this problem, they set their sights on the Owens Valley, over 200 miles away. Using secretive and dishonest means, the City of LA managed to purchase rights to much of the water in the Owens Valley, and then began construction of the LA Aqueduct under the supervision of William Mulholland. In LA the completion of the Aqueduct was hailed as an engineering marvel, and for a time Mulholland was celebrated as a hero. Needless to say, the people of the Owens Valley didn’t see things quite the same way. For them, the diversion of water resources to the Aqueduct resulted in disastrous environmental impacts, and set the stage for decades of litigation.

Mulholland Memorial Fountain from DWP Photo Collection at LA Public Library

In 1940, five years after Mulholland’s death, a fountain was built at the intersection of Los Feliz Boulevard and Riverside Drive to honor the man primarily responsible for the construction of the LA Aqueduct. The choice to create a fountain was considered a fitting way to commemorate the role Mulholland played in securing the water that was necessary for the city’s growth. For decades cool, crystalline plumes arched into the air and cascaded into the rippling pool below.

Today the fountain is dry and it’s surround by a chain link fence. While a search on the net didn’t reveal any explanation, it seems likely that LADWP shut it down in response to the looming water shortage. This is certainly a sensible step to take, but it should also raise questions about LA’s future. Mulholland was celebrated because of his efforts to provide water that would support the city’s growth. If the fountain is now dry, maybe this should be a cue to start asking how much LA can realistically grow in the future?

While government officials and the media routinely describe the situation as a drought, I don’t think that’s accurate. In fact, I think it’s seriously misleading. “Drought” is generally defined as a prolonged period of dry weather. This implies that at some point the drought will end and things will get back to normal. But there’s growing evidence that this is the new normal. Both the State Water Project and the LA Aqueduct are fed by snowmelt from the Sierra Nevadas. The Sierra snowpacks have been declining for years, and climatologists predict that they’ll continue to decline for the foreseeable future. As for the Colorado River, California, Nevada and Arizona draw more water from this resource than it can deliver on an annual basis. The construction of Hoover Dam masked this fact for decades, but the rapid decline of Lake Mead should be a wake-up call for all of us. Right now it seems inevitable that water allocations to all three states will have to be reduced, but this will be a long, contentious, brutal process.

So if all of the city’s water resources are declining, our public officials need to let go of the myth that LA can keep growing forever. LA’s 2020 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) assumes that all it will take is more stormwater capture and a concerted effort to conserve. Unfortunately, stormwater capture doesn’t really work when you’re hardly getting any rain. And while Angelenos have shown a willingness to save water in the past, current forecasts seem to indicate that we’d have to push conservation to a whole new level. The more you cut, the harder it is to cut further. The UWMP’s conservation projections are extremely optimistic. It’s hard to say whether they’re realistic.

The Mulholland Memorial was intended as a monument to the man who oversaw the construction of a massive infrastructure project that allowed the city to grow rapidly. In the state it’s in now, it seems more like a monument to the folly of those who believed you could build a city of 4,000,000 people in an area with minimal water resources.

We Need to Start Talking about LA’s Water Crisis Now

Posted on May 8, 2021 by cmaddren

*Map from US Drought Monitor, May 6, 2021*

Most people who live in LA are probably already aware that this year has been an especially dry one. We’ve gotten less than half of our average rainfall. But it’s really important to say that it’s not just LA and it’s not just this year. Actually, much of the Western US is dangerously dry, and there’s an increasing amount of research which seems to indicate that this could be a long-term trend. In other words, it’s likely that things will continue to get drier and hotter in LA, California and the West.

I’d been wanting to write about this for a while, but LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik saved me the trouble. He recently wrote an excellent piece laying out the serious challenges California is facing, both in the near term and the long term. To put it briefly, all of California’s water resources are declining. The snowpacks that feed our rivers and lakes are shrinking. We’ve depleted much of the groundwater that was so plentiful at the beginning of the 20^th century. And because western states have been taking more water from the Colorado River than is actually available, we’ll probably continue to see reduced deliveries from Hoover Dam for the foreseeable future.

This is all very bad news.

Whether or not this dry spell is partly the result of cyclical changes in the weather, research increasingly shows that climate change is going to take a serious toll on LA and the West. It seems inevitable that some farmland will have to be taken out of production, though that will be a difficult and hugely controversial process. Many species of California’s trout, steelhead and salmon will probably be extinct by the end of this century. And while we’ve all seen the horrific damage that wildfire has caused in California’s vast natural forests, we should also be worried about the less visible but still serious impacts to our urban forests.

Here in LA we may be spared from having to take immediate action to deal with this crisis. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Metropolitan Water District have been managing our resources carefully, building up reserves that could see us through the next few years. But I’m afraid this is creating a false sense of security. The way it looks now, it’s not just a matter of riding out a few dry years until things go back to normal. This is the new normal. Even if annual precipitation stays roughly the same in the future, shrinking snowpacks and the decline of the Colorado River mean water deliveries to the LA will continue to fall, and we have limited groundwater resources. Unfortunately, our local leaders don’t seem to want to deal with this situation. LA’s Mayor and City Council have been silent on this issue, and I don’t hear anything from the Board of Supervisors, either. Maybe they think that if they just ignore the problem it will go away.

This problem isn’t going away. We need to start dealing with it. Hiltzik explains how serious and how widespread the challenges are. The time to act is now.

Water Created California and the West. Will Drought Finish Them Off?

Is a Hard Rain Gonna Fall?

Posted on February 20, 2020 by cmaddren

Let me start off by asking, Do any of the Angelenos reading this post remember the drought we were dealing with a few years back? If not, don’t worry about it. Most of the people living in this city have forgotten all about it. We had a couple back-to-back seasons of heavy rainfall in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, so everybody assumes we’re back to normal and there’s nothing to worry about. This is understandable because folks at the state and local level told us a while ago that the drought was over, and why would you waste time worrying about a problem that’s been taken care of?

Unless, of course, it wasn’t really taken care of.

There was an interesting article in the LA Times recently about how the 2019/2020 rainy season hasn’t been so rainy. In fact, it’s been pretty dry. If we were just talking about one year, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But in the Times story climatologist Bill Patzert asks if the drought we were experiencing earlier in this decade ever really ended.

Is California Headed Back into Drought, or Did We Never Really Leave One?

Patzert points out that, while we had a couple of really wet years recently, over the last 20 years LA’s average annual rainfall has been below the historic average. He makes the case that we’re actually experiencing a long-term drought, and that the recent years of heavy rain didn’t begin to make up for earlier losses. If this trend continues, it would have disastrous effects on our water resources.

Patzert is a very smart guy, and I think we all need to take his warning seriously. I have only one problem with the way he states his case. When people use the word “drought” they’re talking about a period of low precipitation that’s a change from normal levels. But what if this is the new normal? Global temperatures continue to rise. In California, San Francisco and Sacramento have been growing hotter for decades. While the last decade in LA wasn’t our hottest, it was significantly hotter than the previous one. Scientists disagree on how climate change will affect precipitation in California, but based on the patterns of the past 20 years, I think it’s possible that LA just isn’t going to get as much rain as it used to.

Is this really a problem? How much does LA actually rely on rainfall for its water supply? Let’s review a few basic facts….

LA only gets between 10% and 15% of its water from local aquifers. The rest of it is delivered via massive and complex infrastructure from places hundreds of miles away. While the percentages change from year to year depending on a number of factors, we usually get about 30% of our water from the LA Aqueduct, 30% from the State Water Project, and 30% from the Colorado River. So that must mean that even if we don’t get much rain, we still have plenty of water to draw on. Right?

Wrong.

Actually, all of these water resources are declining. We’re dealing with a whole new reality, and we need to wake up to that fact. Most of the water we get in LA comes from snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As of February 18, the California Cooperative Snow Surveys report that the snowpack in the Sierras is at 53% of what’s considered normal. Most scientists who have studied this issue agree that climate change will cause continued decline in the Sierra snowpack through the end of this century, with one group saying we could see a reduction of as much as 79% by 2100. Since both the State Water Project and the LA Aqueduct rely on snowmelt from the Sierras, a decline of that magnitude would be catastrophic for LA.

As for the Colorado River, it’s uncertain how much longer we’ll continue to get the allotment agreed on in the Colorado River Compact. Many decades ago researchers began to realize that the allocations granted to California, Arizona and Nevada under the Compact actually add up to more water than the river can deliver. And since we’ve pretty much done nothing to correct the situation, the water level in Lake Mead has been declining for years.

In this photo of Lake Mead it’s easy to see how far the water level has dropped in recent years.

So while it’s true that a drop in precipitation for the LA area wouldn’t, by itself, mean disaster, when you combine that with the fact that all our water resources are declining, we’re looking at a pretty desperate situation. That’s why it’s important that we take Bill Patzert seriously when he says we might still be in the middle of an extended drought. And that’s why, instead of just assuming that things are back to normal in LA, we need to start asking what the new normal really is.

Building Empire

Posted on August 27, 2019 by cmaddren

Emp 10 Fwy Banners

For years now construction crews have been tearing up Downtown Burbank. Caltrans is the lead agency on a huge infrastructure project which is remaking the I-5/Golden State Freeway corridor, as well as bringing changes to a number of Burbank’s surface streets. The actual name for all this activity is the Empire Interchange/Interstate 5 Improvement Project. Here’s a brief overview from the City of Burbank’s web site.

“This project, lead [sic] by Caltrans and funded primarily by State transportation funds and Los Angeles County transportation sales tax funds, will relieve congestion along Interstate 5 while providing an important new access to the Golden State area of Burbank, including the Empire Center and Bob Hope Airport.”

The I-5/Golden State Freeway as it passes through Burbank

Traffic on Burbank Blvd. where it crosses over the freeway

Here’s a short list of specific changes that are part of the project.

> Full freeway interchange at Empire Avenue
> New freeway and railroad crossing allowing access to Empire Center
> Freeway widening including 2 carpool lanes and weaving lanes
> Burbank Blvd. Interchange Demolition & Reconstruction
> Railroad grade separation at Buena Vista Street
> Realignment / Closure of San Fernando Blvd near Lincoln Street.

You’ll notice one of the main goals is to improve access to the Empire Center. If you’ve never been there, it’s basically a massive mall that has all the same chain retail stores and restaurants you can find almost anywhere else in Southern California. But more on that later.

Excavation next to the Empire Center

Mounds of dirt rising above Victory Place

The project is way behind schedule. Various factors have pushed completion back substantially, including a dispute with a contractor and this year’s heavy rains. Demolition and replacement of the Burbank Blvd. bridge had been scheduled to start this year, but now Caltrans says they’ll start in 2020. It isn’t unusual for a project this big and this complex to take longer than expected, but Caltrans’ original 2018 deadline was ridiculously ambitious. Work has already been going on for over five years, and will continue for at least a couple more years.

A barrier under construction at San Fernando and Winona

Construction site at San Fernando and Winona

Work on Winona where it passes under the freeway

In the project overview above, you may have noticed that it said funding comes in part from an LA County transportation sales tax. This would be Measure R, which was approved by voters about a decade ago. Measure R money funds a lot of different things, but the major categories are: 35% to new rail and bus rapid transit projects; 20% to carpool lanes, highways and other highway related improvements; 20% to bus operations; and 15% for local city sponsored improvements.

Construction on San Fernando next to the freeway

LA voters have consistently approved new taxes for transit and road upgrades, but there’s an ongoing debate about the way these measures are structured, with many transit advocates saying it’s counterproductive to levy new taxes to fund both transit and highway improvements. Their argument is that if we continue to invest in infrastructure that makes it easier to drive cars, then people will just continue to drive cars, even though billions are being invested in new rail infrastructure. On the other hand, the people who write these measures say that voters won’t approve them if there’s no money for roadwork.

There does seem to be a conflict here, which may, in part, explain the dismal performance of LA’s investments in transit. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (or Metro) has spent billions on new rail infrastructure over the past two decades, and yet transit ridership is lower than it was in the 80s. Some commentators believe that LA voters like the idea of transit, but ultimately end up sticking with their cars.

You can take the bus to the Empire Center, but as you can see by the photos below, most folks drive.

Parking lot at the Empire Center

Another shot of the parking lot at the Empire Center

Burbank is a really car-centric town. Aside from the Empire Center, the Downtown area also has the Burbank Town Center and an adjacent outdoor mall. On weekends the parking areas/structures for all three of these malls are packed with cars. Burbank residents love to participate in the great American pastime of driving somewhere and buying stuff.

A family heading back to the car

Shoppers in the parking lot at Empire Center

And let’s not forget the other great American pastime of sitting in a line of cars waiting for food.

Line of cars waiting for their turn at the window

The line of cars looping back through the parking lot

The line of cars extends back around the building

Let’s face it. This is what powers our economy. Which I’m sure is why two of the primary goals of this project involve making it easier for people to drive to the Empire Center. Cars don’t just make it easier for Americans to buy stuff. Cars themselves are products that Americans love to buy. For decades one of the main drivers of the US economy has been the auto industry. After WWII, car manufacturing helped make the US the world’s major economic power. The jobs generated by the industry helped to create the American middle class, and the fact that they were union jobs meant fat paychecks that pumped dollars into the consumer economy. When the big auto makers were on the ropes a decade ago, Washington stepped in to rescue them, and the rebound in car sales was one of the things that lifted the US out of the recession.

Freeway onramp to be permanently closed

But it does seem like we have a problem. One the one hand, we have government officials telling us we need to get away from cars and rely more on transit if we want to fight climate change. On the other hand, we have government officials, sometimes the same ones, promoting efforts like the Empire Interchange/Interstate 5 Improvement Project. We’re spending tons of money on transit, and at the same time we’re spending tons of money to make it easier for people to drive to the mall.

Does this make sense to you?

Completed section of new roadway near Empire Center

Here are some links to basic info about the project.

Burbank Empire Project Page

The Empire Project: A Virtual Tour

My5LA Home Page

And here’s a story from the Burbank Leader that covers some of the reasons for delay.

5 Freeway Project, Hampered by Winter Weather, Has New Finish Date

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The Horizon and the Skyline

A blog about Los Angeles

Category Archives: climate change