California needs to build more groundwater and surface storage facilities in combination with conservation, desalination and other measures if it is to meet future water needs, a leading water expert told a capacity audience at the November Randall Lewis Seminar Series.

Arthur L. Littleworth, a senior partner with Best Best & Krieger LLP in Riverside, provided a succinct explanation of how California gets its water and the systems built over generations to move it from one place to another.

“Historically, as we needed more water we simply built more facilities,” Littleworth said. “If you look back, the last major construction was in 1972, so we’re now 30 years out. All the projects that were built earlier were built by far-sighted people who were looking out to the future. They all had surplus capacity in them, and we’ve now used up that surplus capacity,” he said.

There also are natural threats to the state’s water supply, including earthquakes or the encroachment of rising sea water into the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, Littleworth said. In addition to raising sea levels, global warming could reduce the amount of mountain snowfall, “our wonderful natural storage facility,” he said. “What (global warming and loss of snowpack) also means to me is you’ve got to have more storage, or it will all go to the ocean.”

But there has been considerable opposition to building more storage facilities, Littleworth said. “Storage is being blocked wherever possible. There are a lot of people who think we won’t need more water if we just conserve. There’s another thought that if we don’t have water we won’t grow, so let’s keep the water supply tight. And putting it in storage is opposite both these ideas,” he said.

Conserving more, building more desalination plants, allocating more water to cities and less to agriculture and controlling growth by restricting water supplies are other ways suggested to meet future water demand, Littleworth said.

“There’s no question that conservation has saved a good deal of water in the last 10 to 15 years,” he said. Los Angeles is using about the same amount of water it did 20 years ago even though its population has grown 15 to 16 percent, Littleworth said.

Most of the savings is the result of new appliances that use less water, including toilets, washing machines and reduced flow showerheads. “But we’re now past all the easy ways to save water,” Littleworth said. Saving significantly greater amounts will be a lot tougher and require homeowners to drastically change landscape watering use, he said.

Desalination plants and similar techniques also can help produce more water, but often also are opposed because they could spur development, he said.

Free market water transfers -- or taking water away from agricultural use -- is one way to meet growing demand. But Littleworth questioned whether reducing agricultural land is a good idea for California or really necessary.

One alternative is a technique being used by the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles involving agreements with some farmers, who fallow 20 percent of their land on a rotating basis during drought years to free up more water for urban use.

With an additional 15 million residents expected in the next 20 years, California needs to act soon on water issues or likely face more frequent shortages and rationing, Littleworth said. “And if you begin to develop a perception that California doesn’t have reliable water supplies, we’re doomed,” he said. “There is plenty of competition from other states for our businesses and industries.”

But adding more storage, developing additional desalination, doing some market transfers and boosting conservation efforts could prevent ugly battles between urban, agricultural and environmental interests over limited water supplies, he said.