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Pierce Says Think Again if You Believe El Niño Means No Water Worries

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The last 12 months have been wetter than normal in California. And the traditionally wet season of mid-October to April arrives with predictions of a normally rainy El Niño climate pattern. Does that mean state water officials can take it easy because we’ll be seeing another robust Sierra Nevada snowpack, rapidly filling reservoirs and no need for drought mitigation measures? Unfortunately, no, said Greg Pierce, the director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab based at UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation. As he told LAist, “We may be right back in the situation we were before this last wet year in a year or two.” If the rains do come over the next few months, that’s an opportunity for conservation. “That should set us up again to avoid desperation for maybe, instead of one to two years, maybe three to five years,” he said.

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A Cautionary Note on the Easing of Water Restrictions

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Gregory Pierce, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to the Los Angeles Times about the easing of water conservation orders by the L.A. Department of Water and Power. The DWP’s 4 million customers may now water their outdoor landscapes on three days a week, up from two days, thanks to a wet winter that replenished reservoirs that had been drained amid drought. Pierce said the DWP’s action is “reasonable as a short-term measure,” but he cautioned that residents should prepare to be flexible as global conditions grow hotter and drier. “I would prefer if the language were more like, two days is what you should expect — it’s going to be more common in the future — but we can allow three in the short-term because of this unusual water year,” said Pierce, who directs the UCLA Human Right to Water Solutions Lab. “I’d prefer the framing of two days as default, three as exceptional.”

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Turner Says Regulations Hinder Heat Mitigation Efforts Like ‘La Sombrita’

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Los Angeles officials are struggling to cope with rising heat in a city where a majority of bus stops lack shelter. A recently unveiled “shade and lighting” pilot effort known as La Sombrita (“little shadow” in Spanish) is a thin, slightly curved sheet of perforated metal attached to a pole. It’s designed to be cost-effective and fit into places where planting trees would be impractical. Alas, UCLA Luskin’s V. Kelly Turner said, “What I see is a shade structure that has been basically whittled down by all the regulations and policies that make it really difficult — and you can call it illegal — to produce shade where needed.” Turner, an associate professor of urban planning and geography who studies how to protect people from extreme heat, told Fast Company that “patchwork, piecemeal interventions” like La Sombrita exemplify that cities have historically not thought about shade as an infrastructure system.
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Pierce Breaks Down the Importance of Wastewater Recycling

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was interviewed on a Wall Street Journal podcast about how wastewater recycling can help Californians with limited access to drinking water. Sometimes referred to as “toilet to tap,” the method has an image problem, but reintroducing treated wastewater back into the system could help ensure that 19 million people in Southern California have access to clean and safe water. “A lot of water everywhere is recycled water, so the fact that it’s coming more directly from wastewater doesn’t bother me, but I get it at the same time that it takes some learning and that people are hesitant,” Pierce said. California does not currently have rules about the addition of treated wastewater directly into drinking water systems, but the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to take up the matter in the fall.

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Pierce on Long-Term Impact of State’s Wet Winter

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As California’s wet winter continues, Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, has helped news outlets make sense of the long-term impact on the state’s water woes. Pierce told the Los Angeles Times that, while water conservation measures should continue indefinitely, some of the most extreme restrictions could be lifted. “We bought ourselves some more time so we don’t need to be in that hyper-emergency, but we’re always in a drought,” he said. Pierce, director of the center’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, also appeared on the podcast Water Talk to share information about green infrastructure, wastewater equity and the intersection of two of the state’s most pressing needs: clean water and adequate housing. “The biggest issue in the water-housing nexus is how can we build more affordable housing supply in California, which we absolutely need, but do it in places that have enough water and also don’t have too much fire,” he said.

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Listen to the Water Talk podcast

 

Pierce on Climate Change, Drought and L.A.’s Epic Storm

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London’s Guardian newspaper carried news of blizzard conditions that sparked wonder and delight among Southern Californians unaccustomed to winter weather — along with vast power outages, closed highways and other hazards. Greg Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, put the extreme weather event in context, noting that more research is required to determine the role of the climate crisis in setting the stage for the storm. California’s wet winter has created a robust snowpack and higher reservoir levels that will relieve some drought pressures, but “we can’t let up,” Pierce said. “This storm is helping us stay ahead of pace — way ahead of pace than in recent years — but I still think we really need to see more,” he said. “We were in a really extreme place and this [storm] just gets us back to buying a little more time as we make other major investments and continue to harden conservation.”

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Pierce on Rising Cost of Water Amid California’s Drought

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was cited in a Los Angeles Times article about Californians struggling to pay skyrocketing water bills. “Water prices are going up for the next several decades, so we need some assistance program in place like we have in so many other sectors,” Pierce said. “Water is pretty much the first service that the government can and should provide.” About 13 million Californians in low-income communities are suffering from high water bills during the current drought, and many must choose between paying for electricity or water. Recently, Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed Senate Bill 222, which would have required water systems in California to offer rate assistance to residential water customers. His reasoning was because the program lacked a source of funding, but Pierce said that signing the bill would have been an important step in the right direction.

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Pierce on Preventing Water Shortages in L.A.

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was cited in a Los Angeles Times article about low water supplies in the L.A. region. As much of the county’s water supplies become unreliable due to less rainfall, wastewater recycling is becoming a more viable option. The Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant treats wastewater and releases it into Santa Monica Bay, but the L.A. Department of Water and Power hopes to turn it into an advanced purification facility to provide water for 2 million people by 2035. Pierce said the project is “a little bit late, obviously, but I think it will be early enough to avoid complete disaster in terms of people actually running out of water, and having to ration much more radically than we are right now.” He also pointed to San Fernando Valley groundwater as a valuable resource now that advanced technology is available to clean up polluted water.

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Pierce on Heat’s Impact on Quantity, Quality of California’s Water

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A Los Angeles Times story about Central Californians who are bearing the brunt of the state’s dwindling water supply cited Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Drought, heat, agriculture and overpumping have parched communities and contaminated water sources. Few anticipated the dire impact of heat on water quality, and some residents are at risk of running out of water entirely, said Pierce, who directs the Center for Innovation’s Human Right to Water Solutions Lab. On KCRW’s “Press Play” and Minnesota Public Radio, Pierce weighed in on how the state is bracing for an expected 10% loss in water supplies over the next two decades. Radical proposals include a giant pipeline ferrying Mississippi River water across the Rockies, but that would be prohibitively expensive and politically untenable, he said. More feasible approaches include calling on consumers to step up conservation, expanding stormwater capture and wastewater recycling, and cleaning up contaminated groundwater.

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Listen to the KCRW report

 

Turner Talks About Extreme Heat in University of California Video

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UCLA Luskin’s V. Kelly Turner is prominently featured in a content package and video story about the impacts of extreme heat recently posted to the homepage of the systemwide University of California website. She describes research being done by herself and others that has helped pinpoint sources of dangerous heat in urban areas. She also talks about research efforts to devise ways to lessen the danger as climate change increases the frequency of extreme heat days in places like California. Turner is an associate professor of urban planning and geography at UCLA, and she is the interim faculty co-director of the Luskin Center for Innovation.

Watch the video story: