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Sacramento Chapter, Environmental & Water Resources Institute Back to the Future
California's New System Yield - A Paradigm Shift Increasing System Yield in the Face of Uncertainty - Protecting the Future Beneficial Use of Water
Sheraton Grand Hotel, Sacramento Tuesday, March 27, 2012
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Between two expert panels, discussions will focus on the State's existing system yield, it's current status and limitations. System yield is the foundation for all California water resources management actions. Yet it is being both diminished and shifted temporally through a variety of causal factors, forced climate change being paramount among those stressors. This Symposium will discuss those changes, the potential risks to existing entitlements, current inadequacies in infrastructure and operations in identifying and allocating that yield, how to improve system function in order to create multiple resource benefits (e.g., enhanced reservoir coldwater pool assets, energy generation through pumped storage hydro, ASR programs using surplus flood/stormwater flows, ag/urban recycled water, etc.), and how the current new era of water supply development can best meet this paradigm shift. From a use perspective, poignant questions will be raised such as, "Why are contractors ever shorted when, on average, only about 40 percent of the annual precipitation is retained for managed use?" More specifically, why, for example, should Central Valley farmers continue to take cuts in deliveries when excess river flows, above those required for minimum instream needs, occur every winter, especially from our source area watersheds? Can this paradigm shift provide the new hydrological basis where, "No Farmer Is Left Behind?" Certainly, the State's hydrology has long supported that contention. We will also raise awareness on the issue of water rights by asking such questions as, "Are long-standing water rights at risk due to the increasing demands being placed on system yield from population growth, environmental regulation and the anticipated diminishment from climatic perturbations?" A worthy inquiry since, at present, there exists virtually no information on this topic and many water users are beginning to ask, "Will 'climate change' be the silent killer of existing water rights?"
Context
Leading contemporary themes from around the world will help provide fresh perspectives for these candid discussions and ultimately ask "Is California's hydrology really sustainable without a deliberate paradigm shift in how we view storage and manage excess outflow?" This Symposium is intended to ask the hard questions based on a fundamental reaffirmation of contemporary system hydrology. Our acceptance of non-stationarity in the hydrologic baseline will hopefully, be the first step, in setting a new template for real water policy change. A White Paper of the discussion points and recommendations will be prepared by the EWRI/ASCE and officially submitted to the Governor's Office following the Symposium.
Program:
8:00 Registration and Exhibitor Set-up
8:30 Opening Welcome
Pal Hegedus, P.E., D.WRE, Chair, EWRI Sacramento, Chair, Floodplain Management Association
8:35 Overview of Symposium
Robert Shibatani, Vice Chair, EWRI Sacramento and Symposium Chair
8:50 Keynote Address
Paul Reiter, Executive Director, International Water Association, Den Haag, Netherlands
9:15 Panel 1 - Current Status and Risks to California's Baseline Hydrology
How is the Hydrologic Baseline Changing and What are the Implications to Water Users?
Moderator – Michael Anderson, Ph.D., P.E., Climatologist for the State of California
Expert Panelists
10:30 Break
10:45 Moderated Questions & Answers
11:30 Luncheon
Luncheon Speaker
"Implementing Basin Studies Across the Mid-Pacific Region: Assessing Climate Change Risks to Water Resources Across the Western States"
Don Glaser, Regional Director, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Mid-Pacific Region (invited)
1:00 Panel 2 - Adaptations and Required Improvements
What are the Suite of Actions being Implemented in Meeting those Threats?
Moderator - Robert Shibatani, CEO, The SHIBATANI GROUP, Inc., and Vice Chair, EWRI Sacramento
Expert Panelists
3:00 Break
3:15 Moderated Question & Answers
3:45 Summarizations by Panelists
4:15 Concluding Remarks and White Paper Notation for the Governor's Office
Robert Shibatani, Vice Chair, EWRI Sacramento
4:30 Closes Symposium
Pal Hegedus, Chair, EWRI Sacramento
Adjourn to Networking Reception