Despite record rainfall last season, Southern California remains vulnerable to a long-term water-supply crisis because of overuse of Colorado River water, continued rapid population growth and the potential for long-term drought, according to UCLA Institute of the Environment researchers.

Local governments and water districts throughout the region and the rest of the Southwest should work towards even more increased cooperation on comprehensive water conservation and drought-management strategies, the institute said in its eighth annual Southern California Environmental Report Card issued Oct. 26.

"Because of the looming loss of Colorado River water, we need massive changes in the way we import and use water," said Mary D. Nichols, institute director and former secretary of the California Resources Agency. Nichols also serves as president of the board overseeing the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

The Southern California Environmental Report Card is the institute's signature publication. Each year, it draws on the expertise of UCLA faculty in various disciplines to analyze four issues of environmental concern and grade the performance of government agencies, nonprofit groups and others. Its goal is to examine scientific data in a format useful to the general public, stimulate debate on policies intended to benefit environmental protection and generate support for research funding.

In other chapters, the institute's researchers said:
· Leaks from underground fuel storage tanks and other releases of hazardous wastes in groundwater, surface water and soil are on the decline. But local government inspection rates often don't meet state requirements, and public agencies have no uniform method to track compliance once a violation has occurred.


· Increased funding and public support have helped to improve significantly the quality of treated wastewater and stormwater runoff reaching the ocean. But agencies need to do a better job of educating the public about the safety of water reclamation, researchers need to provide better technology to enhance the effectiveness of beach closure regulations and the public needs to boost efforts to reduce litter.

· Water-quality enhancements have allowed soft-bottom and kelp bed habitats in Santa Monica Bay to partially recover from extensive damage that began in the 1950s. But the lack of systematic assessments of fish populations means their status in the Bay is unknown, and large numbers of visitors are affecting organisms in rocky intertidal areas.

The institute is planning a series of four lectures and public discussions on each of the four report card chapters. The full report card and information on the lectures is available on the institute's Web site at http://www.ioe.ucla.edu/.

Water supply
Southern California and the rest of the Southwest need comprehensive water conservation and drought-management strategies to prevent a water-supply crisis that looms despite last year's record rainfall, said Glen MacDonald, UCLA professor of geography and of ecology and evolutionary biology.

"The state remains on the verge of a potential water crisis and faces severe uncertainties in long-term planning to meet Southern California water demands," said MacDonald, who studies climate variability and its effects on people and ecosystems.

Southern California relies on the Colorado River for about 65 percent of its municipal and agricultural water supplies. California, other states and Mexico draw Colorado River water based on a 1922 agreement that assumes an average annual flow of 17 million acre-feet at Lees Ferry, below Lake Powell and just south of the Utah-Arizona border. California is allocated 4.4 million acre-feet annually. When other states don't use their full allocation, California draws on this "surplus," in recent years pumping about 5.2 million acre-feet annually from the river.

There are several ominous problems with this scenario, MacDonald said.

First, the allocation agreement was based on water flows measured between 1905 and 1922 - a period of seemingly unusual high flows. Since then, water flows have proved far more variable - as little as 5.4 million acre-feet on average per year between 2001-03, with a long term average flow estimated at 13-15 million acre-feet. That is less than the total annual amount of water allocated to the states of the basin and Mexico.

Second, continued population growth in states relying on the river means increasing demand and dictates that Southern California can no longer count on using "surplus" water allotted to other users.


Also, tree-ring and other studies by UCLA and other researchers suggest the river basin experienced severe, sustained drought in the late 16th and 19th centuries, and that Western North America experienced centuries-long periods of drought in the 10th and 14th centuries, MacDonald said. This suggests that the recent drought is not exceptional, he said, and we may indeed expect to experience even more severe and sustained droughts in the future.

"If the current severe drought is sustained along the Colorado system, there simply will not be enough water in the river to satisfy the needs of California alone, much less to be shared with other states and Mexico," MacDonald said. "Should such a severe and sustained drought occur, we could see one of the biggest water and power crises ever to confront the Southwest."

He called for aggressive implementation of a multi-jurisdictional plan to limit use of Colorado River water, continued water conservation and recycling efforts, comprehensive planning among water districts, and an integrated drought-response strategy.

MacDonald assigned a grade of "B-plus" for recent water conservation measures, and a "D" for long-term planning and strategies in the face of explosive population growth and the potential of severe sustained droughts in the future.

Water quality
Increasing the use of highly treated wastewater - known as water reclamation - holds great promise for bolstering water supplies while imported supplies dwindle, said professor of civil and environmental engineering Michael K. Stenstrom.

But public agencies and officials have done a poor job of educating the public about the safety of this practice, thereby limiting its more widespread use, said Stenstrom, an authority on water treatment technology and stormwater management. Current water supplies already include reclaimed water, he said, and water districts should continue the use of reclaimed water for landscaping and industrial uses as well. This helps to reduce the amount of wastewater reaching the ocean.

When wastewater is discharged to the sea, regulatory agencies have done a good job of improving its quality, Stenstrom said. Similarly, relatively new regulations have greatly improved the quality of stormwater runoff reaching the ocean.

But researchers need to provide better technology to enhance the effectiveness of beach closure regulations, he said, and the public needs to boost efforts to reduce litter.

"It is remarkable that litter management remains an environmental problem. It is entirely preventable," Stenstrom said.

To generate revenue for those agencies responsible for cleanup, he called for public support of a one-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other items with high litter potential.

Recent regulations requiring the monitoring of beach water have exposed infrastructure problems and improved water quality, Stenstrom said. But the posting of warnings is often
delayed because laboratory technology requires a day to produce results, he said.

Stenstrom emphasized that water research, regulation and treatment systems are critical to our long-term economic health.

He gave wastewater treatment agencies an "A" for building new treatment plants and committing to improvements without lengthy legal fights. He gave regulatory agencies such as the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board an "A" for adopting sustainable, far reaching strategies. The public received an "A" for supporting environmental improvements, but an "F" for not addressing problems such as litter. Researchers received a "C" for not providing technology needed to implement beach water quality regulations.

Marine resources
Sewage treatment improvements and efforts to control stormwater runoff have allowed soft-bottom and kelp bed habitats in Santa Monica Bay to partially recover from extensive damage that began in the 1950s, said Richard F. Ambrose, professor and director of the environmental science and engineering program at the UCLA School of Public Health.

But rocky intertidal areas are threatened because of heavy public use and limited enforcement of laws against collecting, said Ambrose, whose research has focused on the ecology of these areas as well as wetlands and other coastal ecosystems. Also, 100 tons of DDT that were discharged before a decades-old ban still affect fish in the bay and pose a risk to human health, he said.

Some species may never return to their former prominence, in part because of ecosystem effects of overfishing the bay's top predators, said Ambrose, a technical adviser to the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, a multi-agency organization devoted to protecting and restoring Santa Monica Bay. But he sounded a note of optimism about the future.

"Most importantly, the commitment to protecting the marine resources of the bay is strong and widespread, and with the recent availability of funds for water quality improvement and (habitat) restoration, the prospects for improving the status of marine resources in the bay are excellent," Ambrose said.

Ambrose called for studies examining the effect of water quality on organisms in rocky intertidal areas and systematic assessment of fish populations in the bay, as well as a greater emphasis on habitat restoration.

Ambrose graded the state of marine resources in Santa Monica Bay a "B-minus." He gave public agencies a "B" for efforts to protect Santa Monica Bay. Community groups and the general public received an "A-minus" for their support of bay-protection measures.

Hazardous wastes
Leaks from underground fuel storage tanks and other releases of hazardous wastes in groundwater, surface water and soil have been decreasing since approval of a 1993 state law that
required local governments to consolidate and toughen their regulatory programs. But inspection rates, enforcement actions and compliance strategies remain inadequate, according to two University of California professors who studied the issue.

Local governments have no uniform method to monitor whether companies in the hazardous waste generator program are meeting cleanup requirements and taking other required steps once a violation has occurred, said Bowman Cutter, assistant professor of water resources management at the University of California, Riverside, and J.R. DeShazo, associate professor of public policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs.

They recommended that the state Department of Toxic Substance Control support creation of a uniform database to track compliance among businesses that generate hazardous waste, which will assist in prosecuting offenders.

The department is responsible for ensuring compliance with federal laws requiring the tracking and monitoring of hazardous waste from its generation to disposal. The department, in turn, delegates authority to counties; 31cities have petitioned their county and received approval to assume responsibility for compliance.

A leading concern has been contamination of underground water supplies with MTBE, a gasoline additive, leaking from underground storage tanks, predominantly at gas stations. In response, the state required conversion to more leak-proof tanks by the end of 1998 and increased the required inspection frequency to annually, effective in July 2000.

The average rate of leaks has declined since tanks were updated to the 1998 standard, the professors said.

Cities are much more likely than counties to take enforcement action, the researchers said. Similarly, they said cities generally are outpacing counties in regulating businesses that generate hazardous waste.

"Cities are by and large putting enough effort into their inspection programs to fulfill state requirements, although the declining inspection rates for cities in the past several years bear watching," Cutter and DeShazo said. "However, a much smaller proportion of counties are conducting enough inspections to satisfy state requirements."

Cutter and DeShazo called on the state to increase technical assistance and oversight to counties and to establish higher fees to generate additional revenue for inspection and enforcement.

They graded cities a "B-plus" and counties a "B-minus."

About the UCLA Institute of the Environment
Founded in 1997, the UCLA Institute of the Environment uses interdisciplinary research, teaching and public service programs to generate knowledge and propose solutions for
pressing environmental challenges while educating the next generation of professional leadership committed to the health of the planet. It includes more than 70 faculty members from 10 academic divisions and professional schools, including public health, atmospheric sciences, ecology and evolutionary biology, law, and urban planning.

About UCLA
California's largest university, UCLA enrolls approximately 38,000 students per year and offers degrees from the UCLA College and 11 professional schools in dozens of varied disciplines. UCLA consistently ranks among the top five universities and colleges nationwide in total research-and-development spending and receives more than $750 million a year in research contracts and federal and state grants. For every $1 state taxpayers invest in UCLA, the university generates almost $9 in economic activity, resulting in an annual $6 billion economic impact on the Greater Los Angeles region. The university's health care network treats 450,000 patients per year. UCLA employs more than 27,000 faculty and staff, and has been home to five Nobel Prize recipients.