California can learn much from Israel on how to conserve water, manage drought better

When Donald Trump referred to the COVID pandemic as a “plague,” he was implying that it was an act of God that couldn’t be blamed on the government.

We are now told that the acute water shortage in California is the result of a “drought” that has, once again, lead to water restrictions. This biblical term obscures the responsibility that our local governments bear for this crisis. Countries facing far harsher climates and much scarcer water supply, like Israel, have adopted straightforward policies to avoid such crises. We should learn from their example.

Having grown up in Israel, I smile wryly whenever I drive across the Sacramento River and think of California’s alleged “water shortage.” Israel’s only river, the Jordan River, is a small stream that flows at a rate of 565 cubic foot per second. The Sacramento River, in contrast, pours 489,000 cubic feet of water into the Bay every second, nearly 1,000 times the amount of water for half as many people. There are dozens of other large rivers in Northern California alone.

There is no shortage of water here, only a shortage of good water management.

In part, our water is too cheap: Israelis pay three times as much for water than Californians and, as a result, consume 30% less water per capita than Californians do. They treat water as a precious resource. Israel recycles 90% of its wastewater. California recycles 13%.

Our dams and reservoirs are small and decrepit. When it does rain in the Bay Area, most of the water is not captured and utilized before it flows into the Bay. It just disappears down the storm drain.

California farming policy bears prime responsibility for our water shortage. California agriculture uses up four times as much water as urban users. Most Israeli farmers use drip irrigation to minimize water loss through evaporation, while most California farmers still employ wasteful flood irrigation and grow water intensive crops such as alfalfa, rice and cotton.

Nuts are the most notorious culprit. California produces 80% of the world’s almonds — 2 billion pounds a year — at a staggering cost of 2,000 gallons of water per pound of almonds. Ten percent of California’s water is guzzled up by almonds. That alone equals the volume of water used by all of California’s cities combined.

It’s preposterous to expect individual households to take the lead in conserving water rather than revise our state’s industrial and farming policies. In the midst of successive droughts, California is exporting its water overseas in the form of produce. The solution to our water crisis cannot be shorter showers. A fistful of California almonds, shipped to Europe or Asia, uses up more water than the average shower.

If we refuse to recycle water, store more water or divert it away from irresponsible agriculture, we have to invest in desalination. Israel has five desalination plants, all constructed after 2005. It is now producing a surplus of water, more than enough for the entire country and the Palestinian Territories, addressing a key sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Israel’s two largest desalination plants provide about 160 million gallons of drinking water a day each and a third plant of similar size is in the works. In parallel, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority have launched a joint $1.5 billion project, “The Red Sea-Dead Sea Project,” to produce 150 million gallons of desalinated water a day for shared use. This ambitious project would bind the three governments in ties of mutual dependence and benefit.

In contrast, California’s largest desalination plant, recently constructed in Carlsbad by an Israeli company, produces a mere 50 million gallons a day. It’s a promising sign that California is drawing on Israeli expertise. In 2015, Israel signed a Memorandum of Understanding with California to establish joint projects and research on water conservation. The first Israel-California Water Conference brought together 300 leaders and experts from both states in 2016. It’s a good start, but it’s not enough.

We still lag behind much of the industrialized world in water recycling, conservation and desalination. Environmental lobbies oppose expanding our reservoirs, drawing more river water and constructing desalination plants. Agricultural and industrial lobbies have opposed diverting water away from farming and business and toward personal use. Taxpayers have refused to fund recycling and conservation infrastructure and have balked at higher water costs. In bowing to these interests, we have prioritized conservation and profit over access to water. That is our free choice, not an act of God.

We can no longer pretend to be surprised by global warming. California experienced droughts in 11 of the last 15 years. The question is not whether another drought is looming. The question is: Why aren’t we better prepared?