NEWS

Plans for desert subdivisions raising questions about water

Ian James
TDS

In the desert on the outskirts of Coachella, a developer plans to build a new community of 7,800 homes nestled against the rocky hills. The frames of new houses are going up in places from La Quinta to Palm Springs, and developers are moving ahead with plans to convert vast expanses of desert and farmland into neighborhoods with tens of thousands of homes.

The Coachella Valley seems poised for another spurt of development that will push the edges of its cities farther into the Sonoran Desert. But those plans are drawing critical questions from some residents, who have been asking where the water will come from, and whether it makes sense to build big developments in the desert while California and the Southwest confront one of the worst droughts in history.

"I'm not against development, but I think that they really should look into the water situation before they approve all of these, to see what can be done to eliminate the problems of water shortage," said Larry Davis, a retired banker who lives in Palm Desert. "I think that they really need to stop development until they get that addressed."

It's a view echoed by some local environmentalists as well as by residents who are irked by the fact that water agencies are adopting mandatory water restrictions while allowing construction projects to proceed as usual.

The area's water agencies say there will be enough water for all of the planned developments, with a growing population and calculations of available water factored into long-term plans.

For decades, though, groundwater levels have been declining in much of the Coachella Valley despite flows of Colorado River water that are used to replenish the aquifer. And that long-term downward trend — together with the drought and the dropping levels of reservoirs on the Colorado River — has led some to ask whether the water agencies' assumptions about the future are sound.

Jeff Morgan, chairman of the local group of the Sierra Club, quipped that he thinks the water agencies' long-term plans "should be in the fiction section" because they are unrealistic.

The Coachella Valley's water agencies haven't turned down a single request to supply water to proposed developments, but Morgan said he thinks new development should be banned until the agencies can determine whether water will be a problem.

"Overall, the picture is not bright," he said. "They're trying to balance too little water with too much demand."

One of the largest proposed developments, La Entrada, would create a new community on 2,200 acres of desert south of Interstate 10 and northeast of the Coachella branch of the All-American Canal, which brings Colorado River water to the valley. The dry washes and hills on the property have commanding views of farms, distant cities and mountains on the other side of the Coachella Valley.

With plans for 7,800 homes plus commercial buildings, schools and parks, the entire project is estimated to cost on the order of $1 billion.

The new community would use a projected 5,365 acre-feet of water per year, the project's draft environmental impact report says. That's about 65 percent of the city of Coachella's current water consumption as of 2010, and based on future projections, about one-fifth of Coachella's expected water use in 2035.

"We're going to be a water conservation leader," said Terry Manley, president and CEO of Las Vegas-based New West Communities, which owns the land and expects the development to be built gradually over three decades.

He said there will be no golf courses or water features, and the company has pledged to cover all of its water-associated costs and make saving water a priority. He pointed out that the desert landscaping and efficient irrigation systems now being used for many new developments contrast sharply with older subdivisions that have large grassy areas and artificial lakes.

"If you're a developer of any level of responsibility, you've been looking at water and water conservation for about a decade now," Manley said. "New communities that embrace and employ water conservation are exactly what we should be looking at doing."

Coachella Mayor Eduardo Garcia agrees. He says La Entrada represents "smart growth" and will be an economic boon for the city and the entire eastern Coachella Valley.

The developer has been talking about water with both the city's Coachella Water Authority, which supplies water in the area, as well as with the Coachella Valley Water District, which imports Colorado River water and uses some of it to replenish the aquifer.

Kirk Cloyd, the city's utilities general manager, said Coachella "has conditioned the La Entrada development to locate and ensure that there is water for their project, placing the burden entirely on the developer." He said the city's pending approval of the project hinges on CVWD's confirmation that the water district has enough water in their imported allotment from the Colorado River to replace the amounts of water pumped from the aquifer.

CVWD General Manager Jim Barrett said the water district reviewed the water supply assessment for the development and advised the city that the agency would have no objection to its approval.

"We're trying to work hand-in-hand with the developer," Cloyd said while visiting the future site of La Entrada, a sloping stretch of desert bisected by steep hills. "We've got the open space out here. CVWD has stated that they have the water that they can import and recharge the groundwater."

State law requires a water supply assessment for any residential development of more than 500 homes. Several other assessments approved by the Coachella Valley Water District in the past five years call for thousands of homes to be built in Thermal, Indio, Cathedral City and near the Salton Sea. Some of the proposals include plans for hotels.

The Thermal Club, which is taking shape on 344 acres as part of a larger 2,160-acre development, now has a private auto racing track as well as plans to build nearly 300 member-owned garages for sports car aficionados. Tom Collopy of the Discovery Land Company, which is developing the project, said the Thermal Club's water use is substantially less than other developments because it's using native plants rather than grass.

Other large developments previously secured approval years ago and are either under construction or in planning stages. Data gathered by Market Watch LLC and Land Advisors Organization, which track local real estate, show 16 developments in the works in cities from Desert Hot Springs to Coachella.

When finished, those developments could have more than 32,000 homes on more than 10,000 acres. Some of them include golf courses.

With such projects planned in an area that already has 124 golf courses and many developments with lush landscaping, some residents have chafed at the water agencies' recent adoption of mandatory water restrictions. Some of the water agencies' managers have emphasized that the new rules restricting lawn watering times and residential water use – which were required under state drought measures – are aimed at addressing the California drought, not any water emergency at the local level.

But Victor Morales, a retired printer and real estate broker, said that approach doesn't seem to make sense.

"How can they on the one hand ask the general public to conserve and on the other hand they are trying to bring more businesses into the area?" said Morales, who lives in Desert Hot Springs and has called for a building moratorium. "There is not enough to go around, and everybody should be made to conserve equally, across the board."

The valley's five public water agencies, however, say there are adequate water supplies and that their long-term plans anticipate population growth from about 450,000 in 2010 to nearly 800,000 in 2030, as well as rising water demands.

The calculations take into account increasing deliveries of water from the Colorado River – which the area secured under a 2003 water transfer deal – as well as conservation improvements and efforts to connect more golf courses to supplies of recycled water. In some cases, new developments may also end up using less water than the farmland they replace.

When the Coachella Valley Water District takes up a water supply assessment for a new development, the agency considers whether the development's water use fits with its landscape ordinance, which was adopted in response to a 2006 state law aimed at boosting water conservation.

Barrett said that while the water district hasn't turned down any project, it often tells developers they need to redesign and recalculate their water demands based on criteria set by the agency. The resulting plans then factor into the water district's projections of how much water will be used in the future. New developments are also charged a fee to cover the costs of importing more water – when it is available – to replenish the aquifer.

Barrett said that unlike some areas with more limited water supplies, the Coachella Valley has a large aquifer as well as ample rights to imported water from the Colorado River as well as the State Water Project. Therefore, he said, the area isn't in a situation where restrictions on development would need to be considered.

"There is enough water for future development – if the development is able to comply with the criteria that we believe needs to be in place in order for us to manage that future water demand," Barrett said.

Water 'overpromised'

Recent scientific research suggests that some California water agencies may be basing their assumptions on rosy scenarios of more water than is actually available. A new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters analyzed about 31,000 individual water rights in river basins across the state and found California has allocated about five times more water rights than the total amount of surface water runoff in an average year.

"We've substantially overpromised water through this water rights system," said Ted Grantham, one of the study's authors. Grantham, a freshwater ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, conducted the research while at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

"We're using the water rights data and the water rights information to make decisions about new requests for water associated with development or water projects, and that's really problematic because we know these water rights to be highly uncertain," Grantham said. "These data are fundamentally unreliable. And so we're really taking a big risk in some cases."

The study took into account the use of water from the Colorado River but didn't evaluate how over-allocated that river is because that would involve straying into water rights in other states.

Federal officials have said, though, that demands for water from the Colorado River have begun to surpass available supplies, drawing down its reservoirs. Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the river, has reached record lows this summer, driven down by a 14-year drought that scientists say is one of the most severe in the region in more than 1,200 years.

In another recent study, researchers with Cornell University, the University of Arizona and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the risk of a decade-long drought in the Southwest at roughly 80 percent, with the probability of a longer 35-year mega-drought between 10 percent and 50 percent, depending on how much the climate changes occurs during this century. Scientists say rising average temperatures have begun putting additional strains on water supplies and will likely worsen the severity of droughts in the future.

Southern California has traditionally counted on its "senior rights" to Colorado River water, which give the state first priority in drawing water from the river. If a shortage is eventually declared on the Colorado River, Arizona and Nevada would first be forced to accept cuts in water deliveries before California would lose a single drop. In such a scenario, though, it's possible that California could face political pressures – and possibly legal pressures – to share in the pain of cutbacks.

Reacting to the extreme drought in California, some water agencies confronting shortages have taken steps that effectively block new development. The City Council of Sierra Madre, for example, adopted a moratorium on new water service connections in July. In Santa Barbara County, Montecito Water District suspended all applications for new or expanded water service.

In Arizona, the city of Williams announced in February that no new building permits would be issued because its water supplies are dwindling.

Other areas started imposing tough restrictions years before the drought. In Borrego Springs, where the desert aquifer has been swiftly declining, any new home or development needs to purchase "water credits" to offset the increased water use with decreases elsewhere.

"The objective is to have no net gain on the overdraft of the aquifer," said Jerry Rolwing, general manager of the Borrego Water District. He explained that when a 120-acre lemon grove was left fallow, the water district bought half of it and obtained water credits, which it can sell to free up water for development.

In Lancaster, where groundwater levels have also been declining, the local Los Angeles County Water Works District began informing city officials in 2007 and 2008 that the district wasn't sure it could supply water for new projects, said Brian Ludicke, the city's planning director. That led the city to tell developers they couldn't proceed with projects unless they and the water district could guarantee there would be water available.

That situation, along with the economic downturn, put the brakes on growth in Lancaster for several years. Recently, however, Ludicke said local water districts have come up with ways to obtain additional water supplies while requiring developers to cover the costs.

Gretchen Gutierrez used to manage the building industry association in the Antelope Valley, until that group closed its doors in 2009. She is now CEO of the Desert Valley Builders Association, which has more than 30 members in the Coachella Valley and the Imperial Valley.

"The reason I'm down here is because water was blocked up in the High Desert, and that was one of the reasons why I left," Gutierrez said. She said that while the water agencies in the Coachella Valley haven't turned down any projects, developers still are required to take a number of steps to obtain water service. The approval process usually takes years.

"At this point in time, the water agencies have not stated to us that they're looking to do anything different than their current business model," Gutierrez said. Given the extreme drought, though, she acknowledged that water has become a growing concern.

"It is an issue where we're concerned as an industry," she said, adding that her organization is supporting Proposition 1, the $7.5 water bond on the November ballot, which would provide funds for water infrastructure and projects aimed at boosting water efficiency and water recycling.

Linking land and water

The state Legislature in the past week approved legislation that will bring a statewide system of groundwater management. However, the links between decisions about land use and water remain relatively weak in California, said Barton "Buzz" Thompson, director of Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment.

For one thing, the state law that requires water supply assessments applies only to subdivisions with more than 500 homes – a small percentage of the developments that are built. Also, those assessments consider an assured supply for only two decades, Thompson noted, and "what exactly is an assured supply is sometimes a matter of debate."

"What these laws really do is that they just make sure that if you buy a home, there's actually water available. It doesn't necessarily ask the question of what's the impact on the overall water availability in that particular region," Thompson said. "What we should have is a much closer relationship between the land use planners and the water managers, so that in thinking about whether or not to add new homes to an area, you don't start out with the assumption that what you want to do is to add the new homes, and how can you possibly do it given the water supply? But you are asking: What is the available water supply in the area, and what are the implications of adding additional homes?"

That switch in emphasis, he said, can be achieved at the local level.

Traditionally, decisions about land use have been up to cities and counties rather than water agencies. Barrett explained that while CVWD assesses available water supplies, when it comes to a development proposal itself, "it really is up to the municipality to decide whether or not they want to proceed with the project. It's not really our call."

Craig Ewing, president of the Desert Water Agency board, said in his past experience working as a planner in Palm Springs and other cities, water was not a factor in decisions about land use.

"We never talked about water," Ewing said. Only recently did development plans start to be subject to assessments of water supplies, he said, and that change doesn't seem to have had much of an effect yet in linking decisions about development and water.

"That's going to be one of the biggest changes I think we're going to find here in California, that development and growth issues, and how cities plan the future, are going to be very much tied up in the reliable availability of water, and we haven't been doing much of that up until now – big change coming, I think."

Thompson said it's better for questions about water to be considered ahead of time in local or regional plans rather than when a developer is seeking approval for a specific project. That type of forward-looking planning, he said, requires frequent local discussions between policymakers about questions such as how much water is available and what risks could affect water supplies in the future.

Saying no to new development can be very difficult for communities because there are usually enormous political and economic pressures behind plans for growth that would expand the tax base, Thompson said.

"Historically the policy was always that the land use planners would figure out how to grow and then the water managers would figure out to meet that growth," Thompson said. "There has to be more of a balance than there is right now, and right now the balance is toward letting the land use decisions dictate what the water decisions are."

That weak link between decisions about water and development is a problem in communities across California and the West, said David Feldman, chairman of UC Irvine's Department of Planning, Policy and Design. He said those problems are difficult to address because any community limiting development could lose business to other areas.

"I think there needs to be some statewide guidance, instruction, maybe even limitations on building permits somehow linked to dependable water availability," Feldman said. "But it has to be something that's applied to all communities, so that no single community or set of communities feels that they have to sacrifice themselves."

Rethinking landscapes

Dozens of new homes are going up at Andalusia at Coral Mountain in La Quinta, where plans call for the development to grow from its current 158 homes to about 570 homes.

The houses are sold with a landscape design promoted as "desert premium," with less grass and more desert plants, said Dennis Byerly, association manager at Andalusia. The homes still have swimming pools, and there is a golf course and lakes. But as the community grows, Byerly said, the association is working to replace some turf with desert landscaping to make sure the water footprint of the common areas holds steady.

"Our goal is to maintain our usage at the level it's at while still building," Byerly said.

"As time goes on and as water becomes more of an issue, the question is how much green do you want to have?" he said. "The key is, we've got to sustain our usage as what it is to be able to grow."

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians is also touting an emphasis on water conservation as it moves ahead with plans for The Rilington Group to build 126 homes on tribal land in Palm Springs, and for a separate 577-acre development to be built on a patch of desert next to the Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa in Rancho Mirage.

The Rilington Group said its water-efficient landscaping at the Palm Springs development will use "native plant species that require little or no irrigation."

Agua Caliente Chairman Jeff Grubbe said in an emailed statement that the tribe requires both of the developments "to create a community with a focus on water conservation through design that supports groundwater recharge, minimizes stormwater runoff and incorporates drought-tolerant and low-water desert environment landscaping."

The developments will be subject to the tribe's building code, which mirrors the California building code's standards for water efficiency.

Some areas, however, hold developments to stricter water-saving standards. In Las Vegas, for instance, development codes limit the amount of grass in residential developments and prohibit any grass in commercial developments.

On a per-capita basis, water use in Las Vegas has long been much lower than in the Coachella Valley.

"More questions need to be asked. I think that we need to put a 30,000 foot lens on where do we want to be in the next 30 years, and what do we want to be like in the next 30 years, and it isn't just about water," said Jacqueline Danos Purcell, a board member of U.S. Green Building Council's Inland Empire chapter.

In planning for new development, she said, the area should look to fill in spaces in existing communities rather than continuing to build outward into new areas. That would make communities more walkable and also more water efficient, she said, with fewer medians and less large areas to water.

"It's about the Coachella Valley being resilient," she said. "Let's think about this: How much water do we need to live and how are we using it? If we continue as we've been going, with golf courses and watering medians and not paying enough for water in the first place, are we abusing a natural resource that we can't afford to abuse?"

Real Estate Reporter Dominique Fong contributed to this story.

Environment Reporter Ian James can be reached at ian.james@desertsun.com and on Twitter at @TDSIanJames.

ABOUT THE SERIES: BEYOND DROUGHT

As California confronts some of its driest times on record, the state also faces bigger, more systemic problems of growing water scarcity that go beyond the drought. Even in years with more rainfall, there often isn't enough water to slake the thirst of agriculture and growing cities and towns.

Heavy pumping of groundwater is drawing down aquifers, while reservoirs are running low in places from the Central Valley to the Colorado River. This growing gap, with demands for water regularly outstripping supplies, is prompting difficult questions about what sorts of uses should take precedence and how to stretch water supplies further.

In this series of occasional articles, The Desert Sun is examining how the region is hitting its water limits and how those constraints are affecting life and prompting discussion about rethinking California's water priorities.

Recent water supply assessments for some large Coachella Valley developments

The Coachella Valley Water District has approved water supply assessments for several proposed developments in the past five years. The state requires such assessments for developments of more than 500 homes. Some other large developments previously obtained approval and are under construction.

Thermal 551 (approved in 2009)

Location: Thermal

Plans call for developing a new residential community on 612 acres including up to 2,354 residential units, a lake, clubhouse and recreational amenities.

Travertine Point Specific Plan (revised plan approved in 2010)

Location: Imperial/Riverside County line

The proposed project would include a 5,000-acre mixed-use community on the northwestern shore of the Salton Sea, including more than 13,000 homes, a resort, commercial centers, business parks, and schools.

Las Montañas Marketplace (approved in 2011)

Location: Indio (along Interstate 10)

The 91-acre project is to have about 1,800 residential and hotel units, office space, commercial retail and 18 acres of outdoor landscaping.

Kohl Ranch Specific Plan (approved in 2011)

Location: Thermal

The project is to develop a 2,160-acre mixed-use community, including 7,160 residential units as well as business, commercial and industrial development, and recreational uses. The Thermal Club, which is being built on 344 acres within the area, now has a private auto racing track as well as plans to build nearly 300 member garages.

Oasis Date Gardens (approved in 2013)

Location: Thermal

This 170-acre project is to include 1,084 residential units in a mixed-use development, also including commercial retail development.

La Entrada (approval pending by the city of Coachella)

Location: Coachella

The 2,200-acre project is to include about 7,800 homes, commercial and public facilities, schools, parks and recreational facilities.

North City Extended Specific Plan (approved in 2014)

Location: Cathedral City (along Interstate 10)

The project involves mixed-use development on about 590 acres of vacant land, including retail/commercial buildings, restaurants, light industrial businesses, office buildings, 400 hotel rooms and 3,200 residential units.