California no longer going with the flow on water

In the fourth year of the most severe drought in state history, Californians are finally starting to turn away from arcane rules and practices that have allowed them nearly unlimited use of water since the era of the Gold Rush. This week, a group of farmers who enjoyed a so-called riparian right to as much water as they needed from the San Joaquin River sought to strike a bargain with state officials: They would voluntarily cut the amount they use by 25 percent in exchange for keeping the remaining 75 percent for irrigation, even as the drought continues. The director of the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to decide Friday whether to accept the proposal. Meanwhile, the city of Sacramento, which for decades resisted a basic step to conserve water — putting meters on homes to measure use — is scrambling to finish a $390 million project to install them at every home and business. The city also draws water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The delta is so dry that young chinook salmon die trying to migrate 90 miles from the San Joaquin River in the Sacramento area to the San Francisco Bay. State officials are in the middle of an effort to truck 30 million of them to the bay from several hatcheries in a dozen 35,000-gallon water tankers. The hatcheries would normally release the young fish in the San Joaquin basin, but the water in some places has dried up; in others, it is too warm and shallow. Sacramento's dated infrastructure — and thinking, some critics say — is emblematic of the challenges California faces in its push to carry out the order by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown to cut statewide water use by 25 percent. The Golden State has been lax about its water use since it was founded in the mid-1800s, experts said. State lawmakers passed legislation requiring all cities to gradually install water meters just a decade ago, and only last year took steps to start measuring the amount of groundwater taken by homeowners, ranchers and farmers.