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" As California withers through a third year of drought, state lawmakers have been recalled to Sacramento for a special legislative session to try and squelch a decades-in-the-making water crisis. California&amp;#039;s woes are a product of an expanding population, served by antiquated water delivery and storage systems, overtapping a static water supply--a situation that&amp;#039;s only exacerbated by global warming. With the current political interest, the crisis seems likely to force the first major revamping of California water policy in nearly half a century.  At issue is the fate of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a giant inland estuary east of San Francisco Bay that serves as the main water tap for some 23 million Californians, or about two-thirds of the state&amp;#039;s population. There, water from California&amp;#039;s wet northern climes is pumped to mid-state farmers and the parched, heavily populated south. &amp;quot;The delta is the focal point, or fulcrum, for a lot of the water in the state and it&amp;#039;s going to hell,&amp;quot; says Phil Isenberg, former chairman of a two-year task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that studied the waterway through 2008.  In the delta, populations of salmon and a small, endangered fish called smelt have plummeted to historic lows, prompting a painful commercial fishing ban on the former and court-ordered restrictions on water exports to protect the latter. These restrictions, along with natural water scarcity, have devastated farmers in the Central and San Joaquin Valleys, causing unemployment to soar and leaving several hundred thousand acres fallow this year.  Solutions bandied about for years have made their way into a package of five bills that remained held up in bicameral committees and in a conference report as the legislative session came to an end in September. Now the details are being hashed out in backroom negotiations between the Governor and legislative leaders. A roughly 150-page bill was introduced by Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), Senate pro tem, late last Friday, and now public hearings have begun with a possible deal and a floor vote this week. In meeting the dual goals of water supply reliability and ecological sustainability--as recommended by Isenberg&amp;#039;s task force and enshrined in the pending bills--the main sticking point has been money. A proposed $9 billion bond to pay for infrastructure upgrades and possibly two new dams is on the table, though opponents call this a budget-buster in an already debt-wracked state. The governor and others have also expressed interest in a long-proposed peripheral canal that would divert water from the Sacramento River around or through the Delta to thirsty southern farms and residents, but at a potentially boondoggle-ish cost in addition to that of the separately proposed bond bill.  An old tire lies on a dry stretch of the San Joaquin River below Gravelly Ford, near Mendota in Fresno County. (Photograph by Michael Macor/The Chronicle) National Implications: In California, as elsewhere, the opportunities for water efficiency improvement are tremendous, says Juliet Christian-Smith, a senior research associate at the Pacific Institute in Oakland, Calif. Less than a third of urban Californian businesses have low-flow toilets, for example, she says. Residentially, some 60 percent of water use now goes toward irrigating the grass and garden, but homeowners could swap what Christian-Smith calls an &amp;quot;English countryside lawn&amp;quot; aesthetic for native, hardy vegetation. These notions continue to gain currency in the arid West, and similar governmental action may not be far behind in other states and municipalities. &amp;quot;Almost every state [in the West] is looking at conservation initiatives,&amp;quot; says Tom Willardson, executive director of the Western States Water Council, an advisory body to 18 western states.    Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (Photograph by NASA)  National Implications: Groundwater is the primary source for almost three-quarters of public water systems in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency&amp;#039;s most recent community water system survey from 2000. Yet the very nature of groundwater makes it difficult to quantify and qualify. &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t look at it, you can&amp;#039;t see it,&amp;quot; says Peter Evans, the executive director of the Interstate Council on Water Policy, &amp;quot;but you can poke holes in the ground to try and measure it.&amp;quot; Private residents often do not want to deal with the hassle of the government drilling into their property, and many fear that relinquishing data about the water underneath their plots could expose them to having some of it taken away, Evans says. Water shortage crises, however, can force the issue: In southern California, courts mandated groundwater monitoring in recent years to settle competing claims and mete out water with at least some grasp of actual supply-and-demand. Still, much of groundwater monitoring nationally is done indirectly by coupling electric bills with assumptions of well and pump efficiency to arrive at usage rates. As states face looming water shortages (36 of 50 states&amp;#039; water managers anticipate shortages even in nondrought years, according to a 2003 Government Accountability Office report), technology may help fill in some of the groundwater blanks without getting legislatures or courts involved. Helicopter electromagnetic surveys now used in several states can actually map the geometry of underground aquifers and continually improving computer models aid in estimating the volumes of water they contain.   National Implications: Rain that falls on private property is not considered to be &amp;quot;owned&amp;quot; by the landholder in all states, making rainwater collection potentially illegal. Several Western states and Alaska have regions that require homeowners to get permits first, and in Utah catchment is prohibited across the board. But there are signs that the trend towards rainwater collection rights is spreading, says Tim Pope, past president of the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association. On Oct. 12, Washington state exempted homeowners from having to get a water-rights permit for catchment, and Colorado passed legislation recently allowing rainwater capture by citizens with private wells; Tucson, Ariz., meanwhile, mandates the practice for new commercial buildings starting June 2010.    The Columbia irrigation canal draws river water east of Mendota in Fresno County. (Photo by Michael Macor / The San Francisco Chronicle)  National Implications: Graywater reuse remains illegal in most of the country, but many western states in recent years have passed laws or amended their wastewater codes to allow its adoption. California now joins states such as Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas and Washington, along with early-adopters Arizona and New Mexico, which gave graywater the green light in 2001 and 2003 respectively. Laura Allen, co-founder of Greywater Action, says there is a growing national shift away from the notion that all wastewater is the same and should be automatically piped off to a treatment center. Developing in tandem is an educational effort to ensure that graywater application is safe and beneficial to both homeowners and the landscape they&amp;#039;re irrigating: All systems should have a way to switch water flow back to sewers or septic systems, for example, if the homeowner plans to use bleach or certain detergents that could harm flora.   National Implications: Nationally, irrigation for agriculture consumes about 40 percent of human freshwater use, according to the United States Geological Survey. (Other estimates quote as much as 70 percent.) While agriculture is trending towards reduced water waste, the answer is not as simple as swapping flood-for-drip, points out David Zoldoske, director of the Center for Irrigation Technology at California State University, Fresno. &amp;quot;Rather than being prescriptive and saying `thou shalt use drip,&amp;#039; we&amp;#039;d rather say to use the irrigation with the best demonstrable efficiency [given local conditions].&amp;quot; In California and elsewhere, that means factoring in variables such as local water cost, optimal crop mixtures and soil conditions. In northern California, for example, rice farmers employ flood irrigation to drown out weeds and break down rice straw, while simultaneously providing a temporary aquatic habitat for migrating birds. &amp;quot;This is a case where flood irrigation and environmentalism work in sync,&amp;quot; Zoldoske says.   The Friant Dam will release water to the San Joaquin River. (Photograph by Michael Macor / The San Francisco Chronicle)  National Implications: As in California, concerns about climate change&amp;#039;s potential impact on water availability may well spur other state governments into action, depending upon each state&amp;#039;s particular vulnerabilities. California and other coastal states may well have to deal with sea level rises, says Karen Schwinn, associate director of the Environmental Protection Agency&amp;#039;s Water Division Region 9 (Pacific Southwest). Further inland, this rise could lead to saltwater intrusions into freshwater aquifers. Warming temperatures in some regions will further strain agricultural and drinking water needs while altering water evaporation rates, thereby changing precipitation patterns, says the EPA&amp;#039;s 2008 report, National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change. Overall, climate change appears likely to make maintaining water supplies even more challenging.    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<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a12334/4335060/>