Video Transcript:

GLORIA PENNER (Host): We might all be re-evaluating our landscape choices in the months and years to come. Across the county mandatory water conservation regulations are in effect. Environment reporter Ed Joyce has been covering a water summit this week in San Diego and he joins me to talk about whether water rationing may become a way of life, so Ed, how bad is the water issue really here in the county according to the experts that you've been speaking with?

ED JOYCE (Reporter): Well, all the different people that I've spoken with say that this year, we're probably going to be fine with the current mandatory water restrictions, that should do the job depending upon how much conservation, how much the conservation effort is successful in the county and the region. However, longer term, that seems more of a potential problem.

PENNER: So, what is it that's changed. I mean is it the weather picture become that dramatically different?

JOYCE: Well, a lot of different factors have combined to create a perfect storm, if you will. We've got 3 years of drought, then, a state climatologist told me this week, it looks like that might continue, but we won't know until the fall and the winter. We've also got eight out of 10 years in the Colorado River basin there's been a drought. Also, the restrictions on water pumping from the state water project, the delta and Sacramento-San Joaquin River System those have all combined to, along with a growing population in the last 3 decades in the southwest, to really impinge our water supply.

PENNER: Well, there was a new report that was just released yesterday, I believe, that could affect the water flow even more. What'd that report say?

JOYCE: It was a biological opinion from the National Marine Fishery Service. 800 pages, I read the cliff notes version of, of the report.

PENNER: You didn't read all 800?

JOYCE: Didn't read all 800 pages, I will confess to that. But the upshot is, they've suggested that state and federal water projects, dams, and rivers in northern California, how those are operated needs to be changed to protect several fish species, including salmon. Chinook salmon runs. And they suggest that those changes that are needed, 5 to 7 percent, that would result in a five to seven percent cut in the delta water supply above the current allocation restrictions that are in effect now. So we're looking at potentially more restrictions on delta water supply on top of current restrictions going forward.

PENNER: So is this all about saving fish?

JOYCE: It is about saving fish, but it's also the health of the delta. The habitat that the fish live in in the delta is subject to some seawater overflow, the levees are at risk of, risk of falling apart. There's flooding issues. There's a whole myriad set of problems at the delta ecosystem that need to be fixed. Part of the answer is saving the fish, but also in turn is, buttressing the entire ecosystem.

PENNER: But if it's a choice between preserving our quality of life and preserving the delta, is there really a choice?

JOYCE: Well, the governor says that we really need to take a hard look at, you know, saving fish versus what that means for the water supply for the state's economy. There're some people that say there's a middle ground there somewhere that can accommodate saving the fish, helping the habitat, and fixing the delta at the same time. The decision from the National Marine Fishery Service was welcomed by conservationists, environmentalists, water agencies, the governor, and certainly, growers in the Central Valley think we're putting too much of an emphasis on fish versus a needed supply for an economy and millions of people in California that rely on that water.

PENNER: Bring it close to home now, bring it right down to home. What does this mean to the, the people who live in the County of San Diego.

JOYCE: Well, we're at the end of the pipe. Maureen Stapleton, the general manager at the San Diego County Water Authority, mentioned that in 1946, San Diego met its entire water supply locally. Now we import 80 percent of the water. What this means, probably further cut-backs and pumping restrictions on top of current restrictions. We'll cut that water supply from the delta that we receive in San Diego, which is about 40 percent of our water supply. Going forward, it could be really difficult to account for that, for that loss.

PENNER: OK, well thank you very much, Ed Joyce.

JOYCE: You're welcome.