♪ tonight on "kqed newsroom, and a special guest , the chair of california's water resources board discusses the state's severe drought conditions. california has new protections in place for health worker safety and abortion access. will talk the latest in political action with our expert panel. we take a moment to linger on one of san francisco's waterpark on this week's

"something beautiful." this friday, september 24th, 2021. hello, and welcome to "kqed newsroom." a look at the top new stories in california. first, the entire state is in a drought. nearly 90% of california is facing what is known as extreme or exceptional drought. in july, governor newsom said we should all voluntarily reduce our water use by 15%, but so far, we've only managed to reduce our usage by 1.8%. governor newsom signed multiple bills into law this week, one waa $15 billion climate package he signed while visiting sequoia national forest, including funds r forest health and fighting wildfires. >> just since 2020, six of the seven largest wildfires have occurred in california history. just this year. we have experienced another devastating wildfire season. 2.35 million acres have burned so far this year, and i say so

far -- california continues to have the lowest coronavirus case rate in the nation. thursday, oakland unified became the first school district in northern california to mandate vaccines for students 12 and older. the city of san francisco is testing a new pilot program to reduce homelessness . they are replacing tents, which are currently in a designated safe sleeping area, with a tiny homes, each with about 64 square feet of living space. san franciscis following in the footsteps of oakland, san jose, and other cities which have put up small , portable homes in the past several years. a record number of cargo ships have been stuck, waiting to unload in southern california ports in los angeles and long beach. the pandemic has led to a boom in buying goods, but the state's port facilities can't handle all the additional ship bound traffic which is expected

to lead to a slowdown in the supply chain. that is this week's "friday five." a deep dive about the drought with the person in charge of california's water resources. but first, it is time to talk politics. this week, governor newsom signed bills regulating worker protections, addressing climate change and strengthening women's access to abortion services. while speculation grew over the governor's future political ambitis in the wake appendicitis recall victory. meanwhile, the california gop is gearing up for its annual convention coming this weekend. to discuss the state's latest political happenings are katie or print who reports for kqed's politics desk, and a columnist for "the l.a. times," focusing on california politics. hello, mark. welcome to the show. katie, let's start with you. let's turn to the pair of bills newsom signed relating to the privacy of abortion seekers.

this comes in the wake of a new law in texas that bans abortion in six weeks. let's hear what the governor had to say about this. >> we're reaffirming the constitutional, protected and fundamental rights of willman to have this safe and accessible reproductive and sexual health care that they deserve. >> katie, what is in these bills? >> is basically like you said. they are really aimed at protecting the privacy of women who receive abortions, and also the providers and staff and volunteers who work to help those women, help those women and give them care. i think what's really interesting about this is it is such a stark illustration of the split in our country. california is going one direction in terms of giving women more protections and

giving providers more protections as well, versus, like you mentioned, as daylight texas where basically, anybody can sue someone if they believe they are helping a woman get an abortion. it's just another example, again, how divided this country is, and california, of course, has many california abortion protections, and i would not be surprised to see the state put more in the year to come. >> what does that say about governor newsom and how he's positioning himself and the state on the national stage, mark? >> i think it is a doubling down on where the state has been. california has always been a pro-choice state, so no surprise there. sort of doubling down. the question, where does governor gavin newsom go from here? you've got to go for a gubernatorial reelect next year . >> which seems pretty -- >> unless he goes to french laundry and signs legislation to open the whole state to offshore drilling, either he's

a pretty safe bet for reelection. where does he go from here? there's only one job bigger than california governor, and that is the white house. we see this a lot of times. you can see after this crushing victory in the recall, we will be talking governor gavin newsom 24/7. we have a vice president from california by the name of kamala harris who, like her or not, is the overwhelming front runner when, if joe biden does not run to be a successor. to get where you want to go eventually, gavin newsom would have to get around his old friend and san francisco, kamala harris. >> you did not an article, mark, gavin newsom is pretty young and time is on his side. >> that is true. he could run for president in 2044 when who knows what we will be talking about that week. 2044, and he would still be younger than joe biden was when he was sworn into office the january, so time is definitely on his side.

>> go ahead. >> looking back, there was talk of newsom and kamala harris sort of making an agreement that she would go for senate and he would go but governor's úoffice. you have to wonder if he's kinda looking back on that and saying i made the wrong choice. >> is there a 20 you might find his way? >> they are sort of frenemies. they are both from san francisco, share a lot of the same donors, political strategists, so they have an interesting relationship. i like and then to siblings in the sense that there's a rivalry, envy. they are there when the other needs each other, but i know for having spoken to people close to both of them, they did not mind so much went kamala harris presidential campaign went south onher. they were there for each other, but there is also a little bit of sitting back and taking maybe a little pleasure in úsee scored himself. >> do you see a pathway for the governor to move into the

senate seat at some point? >> he could appoint himself if he wanted to. i don't know that he would necessarily do that because i think it would kind of feet into this image that he has, the image problem he has he's a bit of an elitist, but he's, you know, only in it for himself . again, that's just what úcertain people say. of course, the french laundry dinner did not help that situation, so i feel like he might be pretty hesitant to do that. >> mark, anything elseon the governor's political future here that you want to add before we move on? >> that might open up the senate seat if the governor is looking to move on and do something in washington. >> so, katie, one more set of bills i want to ask you about, and these are links to worker rights. governor newsom signed ab 8701 more protection to warehouse workers, but he vetoed the other one, ab 616, which would have allowed farmworkers to vote by mail in union elections. why on earth would he have

vetoed the right for anyone to vote by mail? >> he did not offer much explanation. he kind of felt the bill was not where it was needed it to be, they should go back and work on it a little bit more. i think, though, this is probably troubling for labor unions. they worked incredibly hard to help him beat back the recall process and raised millions of dollars, they had tens of thousands of volunteers, made millions of phone calls, all of that. so for one of the first action for him to take after he beat this recall to be vetoing a bill that they wanted? they are not happy with that. in fact, the group that was the labor union was behind this bill had planned a march to sacramento to try and commemorate a march that cesar chavez had taken, and was governor newm vetoed this bill, they switched the directions and ended up marching to the french laundry instead, so that kind of tells you how happy they were with

that veto. >> the french laundry is going to be a flagpole for a while, it sounds like what other fallout are you seeing post- recall? union' as unhappy, what about reforming the recall? >> i can venture the source of opinion, and a day after the recall, i wrote a column but it was a complete and utter waste. $276 million for an election that left us where we started, the winning, if you will gavin newsom got 62%. 63% rejected and nearly matches the 62% he got when he ran for governor four years ago it if you don't like gavin newsom, his hair, his policies on abortion, the french laundry or whatever, we have an election. it was a colossal waste of time, and i think it's a system that is ripe for abuse, a system right forward form. i had a column and "santa rosa." you have a wealthy developer. his nursing home company got a $5000 fine, a bunch of old

folks were abandoned in the 2017 fire. he kicks off a reese call and spent almost $2 million trying to recall the da. she survived the recall, but he spent a lot of money on signatures, so like bounties for signatures. you can get a ham and cheese sandwich on a ballot if you pay enough money for signatures but i think our experiences last go úaround shows the recall is really, really ready for a rebound. >> the california gop convention is starting today in san diego, and i can imagine this going to be a lot of handwringing and finger-pointing . katie, what are you expecting to see there? >> it's kind of funny that the theme for their convention is forward together. and they did not come together in the recall election. the california p made a decision not to endorse any candidate in that race because they were afraid of alienating voters who might not agree with that endorsement, and so you

could argue that they gave up a chance to unite behind a more moderate candidate, someone like former san diego mayor kevin faulconer, and because the message was so spread out, we saw larry elder come out of, you know, basically nowhere. he got into the race relatively late and really took all the oxygen out of it, and towards the end, as reporter started to look into him more, he had so many controversial opinions coming forward that he just doesn't -- he's not palatable to most californians. so the gop in california kind of missed an opportunity to try and replant their flag, and now they're going into their convention, and they're really going to have to figure out how they want to go forward because trumpism does not appeal to enough people in california to make them successful. >> mark? >> i would say to of the republican party in california is really verging on irrelevancy, which is a bad thing. i know i write for "the l.a. times." i don't. i think we need a

vibrant, competitive two-party system in california so one holds the other in check. we don't have that in california right now, and i don't think that's good for california. i don't think that's good for democracy. >> mark, let's change the subject for a last little look your. catches up on the latest in the los angeles mayor's race. one you kennedy declared this week. what's the importance of this race for the state, and is this race wide open? >> the development, kendra leon who was a former state senate president, ran against dianne feinstein, and as earlier this week, he was a candidate for l.a. mayor, then my number of congress for a lot of things but he's been mentioned as a possible successor of nancy pelosi. it is a wide open race. the position of l.a. mayor is an interesting one.

it's not a strong mayor. a lot of the power, much of the power rests with the city council. your mayor of the second biggest city in the united states. it's been a dead end of sorts. is never been an l.a. mayor who's been elected gornor. it's kind of a political debt and until recently, eric garcetti, he did not get the cabinet post he wanted, but he was appointed ambassador to india. a big lot form, mega form being mayor of the second biggest city in the country. >> we have time to squeeze one more in, and katie, i want to talk about this conflict within the democratic party. san diego democrat representatives scott peters come he's opposed to a new prescription drug plan being advanced by the democratic leadership. can you tell us about this conflict? >> right. this bill would give the government more leverage and negotiate prices, and it would also allow the government to penalize drug companies that raise the prices of drugs too fast. ott peters was one of

just a handful of democrats to vote against this legislation, which is being backed by, as you mentioned, democratic leadership. of course, scott peters represts a portion of san diego that has a lot of biotech companies, life science companies that rely a lot on pharmaceutical development. he has been criticized for taking money from pharmaceutical companies. he has said that this bill would hurt investment in those companies. >> okay. >> so he is not supported it. >> all right, katie orr with kqed, mark z. barabak with "the l.a. times," think that for your insight. hundreds of wells are running dry, and reservoir levels are well below historic averages with no relief in sight it water suppliers have warned that major cuts are likely for tens of millions of californians. one high-level state water official put it bluntly this week, stating the challenge is there is no water. joining us now to discuss the drought is the chair of

california's water resources board, e. joaquin esquivel. esther esquivel, thanks for joining us this evening. >> and you can call me joaquin, please. >> could you give us some context? we know this drought is severe, the california has gone through dry spells before, so how does this compare to past droughts? >> we certainly have gone through droughts before, but this drought is on the heels of our most recent historic rought in 2015 and in many ways, our communities have not simply recovered from that past drought, and in fact, what wee seeing is just an intense drying of our watershed and our lands, which is meaning that these droughts are more intense, and we looked at the past 20 years , and the occurrence of above average or dry years is more than not, so we're seeing a continual trend of drying, if you will, and our watersheds, which is really having impact on our reservoirs. uually, we have what is called a run of efficiency, meaning as

snow melts, as rain precipitates onto the land, about 60% of that makes its way to our rivers and reservoirs. this year, what we saw was a run of efficiency of about 20%, meaning only about 20% of that rain, snow melt made it into our reservoirs, which created a huge deficit and a challenge for managing our resources this year. >> so how worried are you about this drought? how worried should we be? >> we should be concerned. we need to be concerned because we need to be planning now for continued dry conditions going here into the winter, but i will say, you know, especially someone, a millennial here, someone for my generation where climate anxiety is real. this between wildfires, drought, and the challenges of the climate crisis are creating for our communities. it can seem a little overwhelming, a úlittle anxious inducing, so i want to say yes, i am concerned

. it does certainly keep me up a bit, but we also have here in california a history of adapting to a very varied hydrology, where the spoon and bust cycle of droughts and floods have always been a feature of california's hydrology, but we know they're going to get a lot worse with climate change. we know they are here to stay. these droughts will grow deeper and longer, and the floods that we will be facing, the flashier sort of system that we have now means that we need to start making investments in our water systems in ways, again, the california has, but we'll really need to accelerate those in order to be able to adapt to the changing climate we have. >> when you talk about investment, governor newsom just signed a package of climate bills which will bring $15 billion worth of investment to the state, 5 billion of that

is going towards drought resilience, so tell me specifically what kind of investment is the state going to make to help us have a brighter future when it comes to our water usage? >> thank you it under the leadership of the governor, we developed what we call a water resiliency portfolio here in the state of california, and it lays out the investments and actions we need to be taking to build resiliency during flood and drought in the state that includes recycling water, extenuating to expand our water recycling portfolio, capturing rainwater and using that, and to make sure we are our groundwater supplies so they are there for future droughts , and ensuring we're able to manage all these exemes in our climate. >> do you have some way of measuring how much that package overall isgoing to help what that portfolio is going to do? >> i know that over the past ,

just say five years, we've invested about $1 million into water recycling projects. that an additional 62,000 acre feet of water. i know an acre foot can seem kind of an austere or odd number to try to understand, but it supports nearly 200,000 homes' water use a year, so it's a significant amount in recycling waterside that can really help communities stretch their supplies and make them more drought resilience. >> and how are we using our water in the state right now? your job is actually to oversee who gets how much of california's water, if it's going to agricultural use or hydroelectric power or to urban communities. how is it typically divvied up? >> it really depends on the water year, how much goes to different sectors or how much is used between groundwater or surface water, but generaly, about 50% of the rain and snow that falls onto the state is left in the environment, mainly in our wet northern rivers that

are free-flowing. they are not . the rest of it, what we have control over, about a quarter of them, 40% of them go to ag and about 10% for the urban sector. >> is that still the same, even in drought years, because i know there's a lot of concern about how much water goes towardagriculture. >> it can shift, and i don't have exact numbers of how ch it does shift, but the importance of sharing between the agriculture sector and the urban sector is really important, and we see that places in southern california have shed their agricultural water with urban agencies like san diego. >> so, one of the pieces of news that came out this week is that we have not done very well overall in reducing our water use voluntarily. the average drop turned out to have been just 2% during the period we're looking at, which

is the month of july, but when you peel back the layers, there's a lot ofvariation by region. here in san francisco for example, there is an 8% drop of use, in sonoma and healdsburg, they put mandatory restrictions in place, and they drped their use by 30% to 50% kid how are these counties able to save so much water? >> you look at the past drought, and californians know how to conserve. it was actually a really critical tool of getting us through the past drought conditions, and in fact, californians statewide are still conserving about 17% since the past drought . that savings is creating real drought resilience now, and importantly, we see the communities responding to their local drought conditions in places like the russian river, reducing more of a conservation response because we were working in those watersheds back in april, so you see that

important to note it takes time for conservation to boot up. we saw the in the past drought, and here, it is why we're needing to focus on every californians doing their part to contribute so some challenging circumstances we're finding ourselves in this drought. >> what we're seeing when we look at those numbers are in southern california overall, there was not any drop in usage, and 40% of the water supply is in the area actually used more water than in previous year. should those of us in northern california be a little frustrated with those in the southern half of the state? >> yeah, it's friendly and hopeful and helpful to have competition here amongst californians in regions when it comes to conservation, but i also think it's important to remember that if you look at per capita numbers, southern california is still doing a bit better than some of our northern californian communities. it's obvious, though, just in this past year, southern california has not really started to boot up the conservation we need to be seeing, so we're looking to make sure we stay focused on the numbers and the outcomes here, and yes. you know, from the competition between communities is helpful. >> what is in your blueprint

for the state? >> i think we really need to recognize that we built our water systems out in the 20th hydrology, and we're in the 21st century with a 20% the climate crisis, so we need to adapt those systems at the watershed scale, so how we collect water and distribute it, but also in the urban sector and our homes, being more wise with -- and efficient with our use and continue to make investments in things like water recycling or water capture and groundwater recharge i will expand our portfolio. i think the blueprint really is about getting more data specific and using the tools and technologies here in the 21st century to really modernize the way we view our water resources, the way we manage them across sectors, and importantly, continue to use data as the linchpin for how we view our water systems here into the future. >> very quickly before we go.

do you think we will be seeing mandatory water restrictions, and if so, when? >> i think that as we continue to plan for another dry year, and we see how californians are responding to the call to conserve, there will be a point here in the winter as we move into the next water year to really evaluate, to see if we are at the right place when it comes to being prepared for continued dry conditions, and if not, needing to see state action. at this point, we see some indications that, as you've seen, some variability and responses across the state, but californians know how to conserve. this is not the first drought we have been through, and probably, i think californians will rise to this one as well. >> all right, e. joaquin esquivel, chair of the water

resources control board, thank you for joining us this evening . >> thank you so much. at the end of the hyde street cable car line in san francisco is aquatic park. it's a national historic landmark, and where we'll be headinfor this week's look at "something beautiful." you will find people swimming in the protected lagoon and the views of ghirardelli square, alcatraz and the golden gate bridge . ♪ ♪

and that is the end of our show tonight but if you want to get a look at behind the scenes, connect with us online. "kqed newsroom" is on twitter and facebook. you can reach me on twitter. we will see you right back here next friday night. have a great weekend. ♪ ♪

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