**5.1 Lessons for other megacities**

334 Current Issues of Water Management

up watershed lands in secret, or to secure both surface and groundwater rights exclusively for its own use (and with federal government help). By comparison, the well-documented resistance to Los Angeles' activities in the Owens Valley, evidenced in part by the militancy of opposition, including acts of sabotage against the aqueduct during the 1920s, and tacit complicity in these acts displayed by many valley residents, dramatize the deep resentments generated by Los Angeles' actions. Many Owens Valley residents believed they had become

Their animosity was strengthened by what they believed was national-level collusion in the city's actions. President Theodore Roosevelt personally interceded in the Owens Valley case, persuaded that the future growth of Los Angeles was more important than the interests of Valley settlers. He not only ordered the eastward extension of the Sierra National Forest to discourage additional homesteading, thus ensuring protection of the aqueduct's right-ofway, but he further stated that the interests of Los Angeles exemplified ". . . the greatest benefit of the greatest number and for the best building up of this section of the country"

Given all this, one must remain cautious about putting too fine a point on these differences. Opposition to New York City's efforts in the Croton Watershed, while infrequently reported, nevertheless existed. As early as 1837, some Westchester County residents lamented the implications of a Croton Aqueduct on their welfare. As one writer stated: "If the rivers of Westchester County are to be taken from it, how is it to rise in arts, manufacturing, and farming" (Quoted in Koeppel, 2001: 8)? Clearly, some residents

There are two other reasons to avoid drawing too radical a contrast between New York and Los Angeles with regards to inter-basin conflicts. First, both cities have experienced intense *interstate* water conflicts, in both cases entailing Supreme Court litigation. And eventual water apportionment. Conflict between California and Arizona, spurred mostly by Los Angeles' utilization of the Colorado River as a major source of water after 1940, led to the important case of *Arizona v. California* (1964) by which the court reduced the amount of Colorado River water available to California, and further ruled that lower basin states (e.g., Arizona) were entitled to reasonable uses of tributary flows (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2008). Similarly, conflict between New York, Delaware and Pennsylvania led to two U.S. Supreme Court decisions allocating water among protagonists. Initially, the court upheld New York City's right, as an upstream riparian, to use a portion of the Delaware watershed. In a later case, the Court acknowledged the rights of all three states to an equitable apportionment of the Delaware River (Derthick, 1974). Environmental concerns under the Endangered Species Act have likewise prompted federal courts to reduce water deliveries

A second reason for caution is that both cities have experienced intense political conflict over the respective roles of private, market-driven water development efforts on the one hand and advocates for public control on the other. As noted in section 4, while both cities' preoccupation with water security led them to seek expanded public control of their local water systems to permit construction of massive aqueduct systems, originally, things began quite differently. In their early civic histories, both Los Angeles and New York viewed private water provision as the most desirable way to achieve water security. In fact, private

a virtual colony of Los Angeles (Walton, 1992: chapter 5).

(Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 2010b).

acknowledged the long-term economic implications of diverting water.

from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in recent years (Erie, 2006).

So, what can other megacities learn from the experiences of New York and Los Angeles in regards to collaboration on regional issues and impacts of water development? The basic answer to this question brings us back to where we started this chapter - the challenge of water stress. As we have seen, Los Angeles and New York historically experienced stress, took various actions to address it which impacted their hinterlands, and continue to reckon with it through efforts to conserve water, improve infrastructure, and plan for climate change. While neither city has "solved" the problem of stress, their efforts to manage it harbor lessons for other megacities.

Since the 1970s, Los Angeles' conservation efforts have principally revolved around metering, conservation pricing, low-flow water appliance mandates, and efforts to compensate low-income groups for the costs of installing the latter. Water use has been considerably reduced - average water demands in period 2004 - 2010 are comparable to those of 1980, even though some 1.1 million additional people now live in Los Angeles (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 2010a: 8).

In 1988, New York City began metering to induce conservation and to ensure that larger volume water users pay their fair share. By the 1990s, water use declined some 28 percent as compared to 1979 (Shultz, 2007). Like Los Angeles, New York has also invested nearly \$400 million in a 6.0 liter (1.6-gallon) per-flush toilet rebate program, which reduced water demand and wastewater flow by 342.96 million liters (90.6 million gallons) per day, a sevenpercent reduction. One effect of this rebate program, aside from saving some \$600 million, is delaying by about 20 years the need for water supply and wastewater-treatment expansion (U.S. EPA, 2010).

From the standpoint of regional collaboration, these experiences hold important lessons for other megacities in one important respect: conservation efforts lessen impacts on outlying

Cities and Water – Dilemmas of Collaboration in Los Angeles and New York City 337

private nor public sectors alone can solve urban water problems - an important reminder in

CAMMP Collaborative Aqueduct Modernization and Management Plan DEC Department of Environmental Conservation (New York State)

IRT Interborough Rapid Transit (New York City's original subway)

Adekalu, K.O., et. al. (2002). "Water sources and demand in SW Nigeria: implications for water development planners and scientists," *Technovation* 22: 799-805. Alcamo, J., et. al., (2003). "Development and testing of the WaterGAP 2 global model of

American Planning Association (2011). *How Cities Use Parks to Improve Public Health.* City

Beller-Simms, Nancy, et. al., (2008). *U.S. Climate Change Science Program Synthesis and* 

Burton, Lloyd (1991). *American Indian Water Rights and the Limits of Law.* Lawrence, KS:

Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition (2009). *Updated 2009 Croton Watershed Management* 

Derthick, Martha (1974). *Between State and Nation - Regional Organizations of the United* 

Downs, T., M., et. al. (2000). "Sustainability of least cost policies for meeting Mexico City's

 http://www.newyorkwater.org/pdf/managementPlan/MPlanNOV309.pdf Davis, Margaret Leslie (1993). *Rivers in the Desert: William Mulholland and the Inventing of Los* 

future water demand," *Water Resources Research* 36.8: 2321-2339. Earth Science Educational Resource Center. (2011). *New York City Water Supply*. http://www.eserc.stonybrook.edu/cen514/info/nyc/watersupply.html

http://www.planning.org/cityparks/briefingpapers/physicalactivity.htm

water use and availability," *Hydrological Sciences–Journal–des Sciences Hydrologiques* 

http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/nycwater/AMNH\_Water.p

*Assessment Product 5.3 -- Decision-Support Experiments and Evaluations using Seasonal to Interannual Forecasts and Observational Data: A Focus on Water Resources.* National

a political climate increasingly ambivalent about "privatizing" water supply.

FAD Filtration Avoidance Determination Agreement

LADWP Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

American Museum of Natural History. (2011). *The New York Water Story.* 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, November.

MWD Metropolitan Water District (of Southern California) US EPA or EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency

MOU Memorandum of Understanding

**6. Nomenclature – Key terms** 

48 (3) June: 317-337.

Parks Forum Briefing Paper #7.

University Press of Kansas.

*Plan.* New York: CWCWC.

*Angeles*. New York: Harper Collins.

*States.*Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

**7. References** 

hp

communities - including the same communities from whence water supply originates. For Los Angeles, the more water that is conserved, the easier it becomes to reduce reliance upon both Owens Valley imports and those from other regions. For New York, similarly, the less water used, the less likely it is that stored water supplies will be depleted - thereby stretching available water andmaking less urgent the completion of various infrastructure improvements to deliver water to the city. Both cities are pursuing additional "active" conservation measures - with Los Angeles emphasizing stormwater capture and wastewater reuse and New York focusing on drought management and distribution system leak detection (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 2010a; New York City Department of Environmental Protection, 1998). While New York will continue to rely on incremental improvements to achieve conservation goals - more metering and the like – it, too, is likely to experience the same economic pressures as Los Angeles. It is likely that other megacities will look to both cities for assessments of these innovations' effectiveness.

As for infrastructure, issues related to stress may be far more problematical. Both cities suffer from aging and deteriorating water distribution systems. New York City is rebuilding its aqueduct system - and is currently engaged in construction of "Tunnel n. 3", an upgrade of the Croton aqueduct system, which loses millions of gallons annually. New components are also being added to its Delaware Aqueduct - all at a cost of some \$2 billion. Los Angeles is rebuilding – piece-by-piece – its oldest distribution network components. However, the city faces a unique megacity challenge - continuing to deliver water in the event a major seismic eventruptures the Colorado and/or State Water Project Aqueducts. This is a major preoccupation for the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) which is the primary importing water agency for the region. While Los Angeles aspires to reduce reliance on MWD, during dry years it cannot do so. Moreover, it has made numerous investments in MWD projects under the assumption that it will continue to be a beneficiary of its supply (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, 2010a).

Finally, as regards climate change, both cities are devoting enormous efforts in embracing climate issues in water resource planning. In New York City's case, sea-level rise threatens water infrastructure, especially for water treatment (Beller-Simms, et. al., 2008: 104-5). For Los Angeles, climate change threatens the robustness of already precarious imports - the aforementioned Metropolitan Water District, for example is already concerned that climate change will complicate its ability to engage in water trading schemes with rural, agricultural water users in the future (Erie, 2006).

In conclusion, it is not far-fetched to suggest that the massive water diversion projects Los Angeles and New York have pursued have had a symbolic as well as practical significance. For Los Angeles, the Owens Valley Aqueduct, Colorado River and State Water Project Aqueducts, and Port of Los Angeles all became symbols of the city's rise to eminence, and its ability to surmount the difficulties of being located in an insular region not readily blessed by a natural port or source of abundant freshwater. Similarly, for New York City, the Croton Aqueduct – the city's oldest imported water project – became part of a tradition of "grand civic projects" that, in the 19th Century, included the Erie Canal, Brooklyn Bridge, and IRT subway - all of which made the city the greatest metropolis in North America (Hood, 1993: 92). A final lesson here is that all these projects were not just civic activities, but publically-funded ones financed through bond markets, reminding us that neither the private nor public sectors alone can solve urban water problems - an important reminder in a political climate increasingly ambivalent about "privatizing" water supply.
