CSET Practice Test Subtest II Science

Snowy winters in the northern Sierra are crucial to 
California's water supply, which depends heavily upon 
spring snowmelt to feed the reservoirs of the State 
Water Project and a portion of the federal Central 
Valley Project. The projects supply about two-thirds 
of California's water for drinking, irrigation, and 
industrial use.

In California, the majority of the population lives in the 
southern part of the state. Unfortunately, the northern 
part of the state receives most of the precipitation 
because of the large number of mountains there. An 
area with more mountains and higher elevation will 
receive more water because of the snow and the 
rainfall that flow down into it. This is beneficial for 
the San Joaquin Valley since mountains border it on 
the east and bring nutrient-rich waters for growing 
agriculture. On the other hand, that is inconvenient 
for southern California with the majority of the state's 
population. Consequently, this part of the state imports 
much of its water from the north. With the availability 
of water, industries and urban areas flourish, eventually 
demanding even more water than is available. As a 
result, more water sources had to be found and used, 
such as Mono Lake and the Colorado River. Even those 
sources aren't enough. The California Aqueduct goes 
from the San Juaquin Valley to Los Angeles. This is a 
major source of water.

Nowhere in the West is there a region as obsessed 
with the possibility of a future water shortage as 
Southern California. Water is so important to the 
southland that, as one writer once quipped, "the 
history of Southern California is the record of its 
eternal quest for water, and more water, and still 
more water."

Not that we aren't preoccupied with the issue of 
future water supplies for a good reason. In the LA 
Basin alone, we have approximately 6% of California's 
habitable land but only .06% of the State's stream 
flow -- yet we hold over 45% of the State's population. 
And if the population projections are to be believed, 
the entire southland is "scheduled" to grow from our 
current 16 million to over 24 million people. When policy 
questions are asked about whether Southern California 
can support this level of growth, the issue of greatest 
concern is not traffic or air quality or even quality of 
life, it is water. And the predominant question asked is 
"where will this water come from?"

Our water fears are not new. Since the pueblo days 
of Los Angeles, the lack of local water resources has 
been seen as the primary problem for the southland's 
economic future. All plans for the development of the 
region have hinged around schemes to secure new 
water supplies -- a fact recognized by Carey McWilliams, 
the pre-eminent historian of the southland, who wrote in 
1946 that "God never intended Southern California to be 
anything but desert...Man has made it what it is."

If southern California's fears about adequate water 
supplies have shaped its own history and landscape, 
it has also shaped the landscape of water development 
throughout the State. Los Angeles invented the rhetoric 
of water development, with its emphasis on scare 
tactics about drought and future water shortages. LA 
also conceived the strategy of reaching with aqueducts 
hundreds of miles beyond local boundaries to bring home 
new water supplies. Soon water from the Owens Valley 
and from other distant places would no longer be 
viewed as belonging to the regions in which it originated; 
instead the water would be looked upon by the water 
developers as their "birth right," - those are the words 
that Diane Feinstein, when Mayor of the San Francisco, 
once used to describe that City's Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. 
At every turn in California's history of water development, 
Los Angeles and Southern California has led the way. 

My purpose today is to talk about how water development 
in Southern California has profoundly shaped the way we 
think about our water needs and how those needs can 
be satisfied -- especially given the dramatic population 
growth projections for our region. My argument is that 
the traditional way of thinking about water supplies and 
needs has created a "box" that we - indeed the entire 
State of California -- are stuck in. And, if we do not make 
an effort to step outside that "box," we are in grave 
danger of making decisions about our water future that 
will have two consequences: (1) we will make our region 
much less able to meet water needs in times of drought 
and (2) we will needlessly sacrifice important 
environmental resources in the Sierra Nevada, San 
Francisco Bay Delta and the Colorado River. In closing, I 
will make a brief prediction for what I think the future 
holds.

Let's start by looking at how Southern California developed 
its water supplies. Originally, Los Angeles had fairly 
good-sized perennial streams and the first settlements 
located themselves on their banks. The earliest 
development of water supplies began in the 1860's with 
diversions from these streams for irrigation. Next came 
construction of artesian wells and the development of 
the region's substantial underground water supplies. But 
these resources were mined within a single generation 
through excessive groundwater pumping. 

By 1900, the City of Los Angeles was beginning to fear 
a "future" water famine, based both on real population 
growth and the dreams of speculators to develop the 
San Fernando Valley. It was a financial cabal (including 
Harry Chandler, General Harrison Gray Otis, and Henry 
Huntington) who conceived in 1905 of the idea that the 
city of Los Angeles should build a 238 mile aqueduct to 
tap the waters of the Owens River and bring it to the 
San Fernando Valley -- an area, at that time, that was 
not within Los Angeles city limits. To secure the funds 
to build the aqueduct, a $25,000,000 bond issue was 
put on the ballot. The Los Angeles Department of Water 
and Power, the City's water utility, then created an 
artificial water famine -- some claim that the City even 
dumped its water reserves into its sewer system at night. 
In fact, LA's water supply became so scarce that, on the 
eve of the election, the city passed an ordinance 
forbidding people to water their lawns and gardens. 
Needless to say, the bond passed, but the aqueduct was 
built only to the edge of the San Fernando Valley where 
the terminal point still remains, and the water was initially 
used to irrigate agricultural land outside of the City 
boundaries, not to provide domestic water to the residents 
of Los Angeles. At a later date, Los Angeles annexed the 
San Fernando Valley to ensure that there was no question 
about the City's right to use the water for all purposes. 

The Owens Aqueduct was completed in 1913. Since that 
water wasn't going to LA residents and the City's 
population had continued to grow, LA started to search 
for more water. In 1915, the Los Angeles Department of 
Water and Power began work to extend the Owens Valley 
aqueduct north, and still later, it sponsored the Boulder 
Dam Act to secure water from the Colorado River, which 
would require the construction of another aqueduct of 
400 miles. In 1928, Los Angeles conceived and helped to 
create the Metropolitan Water District of Southern 
California to help finance the Colorado River project. Today 
MWD's service area extends from Ventura County to the 
Mexican border, and MWD remains the largest urban water 
supplier in the nation. In the 1940s, Los Angeles extended 
its Owens Aqueduct into the Mono Basin. In the 1950s, 
Los Angeles supported the construction of the State Water 
Project which would bring water from Northern California 
into the Southland, and it began work on yet another 
expansion of the Owens Aqueduct, ultimately doubling its 
diversions from this region. So, by the 1970s, the southland 
was connected by a vast network of Federal, State and 
local dams and aqueducts to water supplies from Northern 
California and the Colorado River watersheds.

Unfortunately, most of those dams and aqueducts were 
constructed with little and often no thought to the 
environmental or local economic consequences of these 
projects. The classic example is that of LA and the Owens 
Valley where a thriving agricultural area was returned to 
sage brush and Owens Lake was reduced to dust. But 
where Los Angeles led, others in the State followed. We 
built dam after dam after dam, shifting water from one 
place to another and decimating the State's natural 
fisheries and ecological systems. Development of domestic 
water supplies was considered the "highest and best use" 
of water in the state, closely followed by agricultural uses. 
Environmental needs were not part of the equation.

If the State's first fifty years of water development was 
about the construction of dams and aqueducts to meet 
LA's and California's growth needs, the second fifty years 
has been about coping with the environmental problems 
created by those projects. It was evident by the 1970's 
that the State faced serious environmental problems, 
which by the 1980's would become a crisis for both 
anadramous fisheries and important ecosystems including 
the San Francisco Bay Delta and Mono Lake. Litigation 
forced major changes in water law, including the 
recognition that water projects must provide sufficient 
releases for fisheries and ecosystem protection. 
Additional, legislation adopted in the 1970's and 1980's, 
including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air 
Act and the Clean Water Act, would soon require 
modification of water projects to help undo some of 
the environmental damage they had created.

These developments have set the stage for the "clash of 
the titans" style water fights that we have witnessed in 
California over the past two decades. California has 
continued to grow, and -- in the pattern first set by Los 
Angeles -- the State agency responsible for planning 
California's water future, the Department of Water 
Resources, regularly forecasts draconian water shortages 
if more dams and aqueducts are not constructed to meet 
those needs. At the same time, environmental laws are 
requiring existing water projects to give some water 
back to the environment. Examples include the 
Miller-Bradley legislation of 1992, which required 800,000 
acre-feet from the federal Central Valley Project to be 
given back to the Bay-Delta and the recent State 
decision requiring Los Angeles to raise the level of Mono 
Lake by substantially reducing its diversions. 

So now we can begin to see the outlines of the water 
box we are in, based on the approach pioneered by the 
southland to meeting water needs. As we look into the 
future, we see population and economic growth which 
will require water. This is projected as a water shortage 
that must be filled. The water of choice is imported 
water supplies -- and so we reach out to a water rich 
area to supplement locally limited supplies. And 
certainly, if we view ourselves as water short, we will 
also view ourselves as not being able to give up a single 
drop of our existing supplies to the environment. Sound 
familiar?

If the southland has helped to shape the box that the 
State finds itself in, it has also pioneered the way to 
step outside of the box. Only a lot of people don't know 
it yet.

Prior to 1990, conservation and local water recycling 
programs were talked about in general terms as "good 
public policy," but rarely was any significant money 
invested by southland water agencies in the 
development of these programs. The reason was that 
imported water supplies was the primary strategy by 
which Southern California would meet its future needs 
(back to the box thinking), and the focus was on 
construction of a new 800,000 acre-foot Eastside 
Reservoir, completion of the State Water Project and 
keeping all southland aqueducts full.

But the drought that had started in 1987 suddenly 
intensified in 1989-1990, forcing water agencies in 
Southern California to require cutbacks in water use 
-- and for the first time, water "rationing" (that 
negative term to describe the use of less water) 
wasn't just talked about, it was imposed. MWD and 
other water agencies were genuinely concerned 
about meeting record levels of demand in the 
Southland, and so moved to aggressively fund and 
implement water conservation programs along with 
the development of local southland water supplies 
(including improved groundwater management and 
water recycling). 

It worked. The response was dramatic: in 1990, 
MWD water sales peaked at all time high of 2.6 
million acre-feet; by 1993, these sales had 
plummeted to 1.5 million acre-feet - a savings 
of over 1 million acre-feet. To put that number 
in perspective, the fight over the 
San Francisco Bay Delta is about returning around 
1-2 million acre-feet to this ecosystem. And MWD 
sales have remained low, climbing last year to just 
1.8 million acre-feet -- 800,000 acre-feet below 
the 1990 level. 

The unthinkable has happened: today the MWD 
service area is using about the same amount of 
water as it used fifteen years ago despite an almost 
30% growth in its population. We have fundamentally 
changed the water demand curve for the Southland; 
we are supporting more people with less (not more) 
water.

The City of Los Angeles' experience mirrors that of 
MWD. Today, as the result of conservation, the city 
is using over 100,000 acre-feet less than it did in 
1990. The level of water use is the same as it was 
two decades ago, despite a 30% growth in population 
and the protection of Mono Lake. Clearly we have 
options for meeting Southern California's water needs 
that are not dependent upon securing "more" imported 
water supplies.

This decrease in demand is important, but what is 
equally if not more impressive is the reliability of the 
new locally based water supplies that are coming on 
line as a result of the post-1990 investments. The 
problem with an imported water system is that it is 
highly dependent upon storage capacity to carry over 
snowmelt in order to withstand a lengthy drought -- 
such as the 7-year drought we just experienced. When 
there is little or no snow, there is little runoff. The 
longer the drought, the more vulnerable the regions 
that are dependent upon imported water supplies -- 
and the greater the potential impact on their 
economies.

In Southern California, many cities responded to the 
drought by exploring projects that would make them 
less dependent upon imported water supplies, and 
improve their capacity to meet their water needs 
through local water sources they directly controlled. 
As a result, Department of Water Resources' current 
water projections (Bulletin 160-98) show that Southern 
California -- out of all the regions of the State -- is in 
one of the best positions to meet its future water 
demand (even with all of the projected growth) because 
of the water recycling, groundwater recharge and other 
local management projects that we have been bringing 
on line over the past five years.

This kind of thinking has tremendous implications for 
addressing the big environmental issues that the State 
faces. Take the Mono Lake example. The usual way of 
thinking about Mono Lake is that the lake was saved by 
taking water away from Los Angeles -- thus, increasing 
the water problem for the Southland and, by extension, 
for the San Francisco Bay Delta because more water 
"would have to be imported from there" or from 
somewhere else to make up the short fall. This is a 
classic example of the "old" approach to water in 
California.

Yet the reality is the solution for Mono Lake included 
the development of new water projects in Los Angeles 
that not only replaced the water that Los Angeles 
would no longer divert from the lake, but actually 
created more new, more reliable and economically 
valuable water for the city. Keep in mind that the water 
available to LA from the Mono Lake watershed varies 
with the snow pack, so that it did little to help the 
City during drought periods. Further, the development 
of conservation programs helped LA to address its 
sewer system problems and protect Santa Monica Bay 
by reducing pressure on these antiquated pipes. The 
programs were implemented by a diverse array of Los 
Angeles community groups who earned money for their 
efforts and used these funds to re-invest in our 
community. And, on top of everything, instead of just 
advising the city on what it "should" do, the Mono Lake 
Committee helped the city to secure over 80 million 
dollars in state and federal funds to make sure that 
these supplies would be developed.

What was done at Mono Lake can be done elsewhere 
in the State of California. Funds to implement 
conservation, demand management, water recycling, 
conjunctive use and improved groundwater management 
can be used to develop "new" supplies to ensure that 
more water can be shared with the San Francisco Bay 
Delta and other environments to protect these resources 
at the same time that urban and agricultural water needs 
are met. We can do this.

What is astounding is that most people in the water 
world don't "know" about the success of Southern 
California in "stepping outside the box" to develop new 
solutions in its eternal quest for water. And, more 
astounding, those who do know aren't talking about 
it. Sadly, we are seeing a slow down in overall southland 
funding of conservation programs. Even investments by 
MWD in local projects are starting to be deferred. The 
reason? Because "they may not be needed." 

And yet, we are now hearing from the California 
Department of Water Resources in the just-released 
Bulletin 160-98 that we are, once again, in a water 
crisis with a water doomsday looming twenty years from 
now. What is the primary solution offered by the State 
to close that gap? You guessed it: more imported water 
storage and conveyance facilities. What about new 
conservation and other local programs? For the 
southland, DWR recommends "deferring" many of these 
projects because Southern California has already 
reached the State's goals for these programs!!! 
Hello? Unbelievably, DWR also recommends that most 
urban and agricultural conservation programs be "deferred" 
through-out the State.

What are the consequences of this "old" way of 
thinking? First, it can only serve to intensify the 
current conflict among urban, agricultural and 
environmental interest groups because it implicitly 
selects "winners" and "losers" in planning for the 
State's water future. Second, it will make the 
State's economy more vulnerable -- not less -- to 
the impact of lengthy droughts because it 
encourages every sector of the State to be more 
dependent on imported water supplies and less 
dependent on locally controlled water supplies. And 
finally, it creates the danger of the State building 
environmentally damaging water projects that 
become the new stranded asset in California -- 
because these water supplies will be more expensive 
and less desirable in the long run than locally-developed 
water conservation and recycling projects. Already, 
the financial underpinnings of existing projects like 
Los Banos Grande off-stream storage are being 
questioned because the water is viewed by some as 
"being too expensive." Future dams and other 
concrete projects are unlikely to be constructed 
unless the public is willing to provide substantial 
financial subsidies to underwrite the costs. Here's one 
prediction that is easy to make: be prepared to see 
more water bond measures -- with hefty dollar 
investments for concrete -- proposed for California's 
ballot.

The main stage where California's water future is now 
being played out is in Sacramento, where California 
and Federal agencies (known as CalFed) are laying 
out a strategy for "fixing" the San Francisco Bay Delta 
and meeting the State's future water needs. The first 
draft of the CalFed plan and environmental impact 
report is scheduled to be released this month, so 
we'll see what they have to say. My hope is that 
CalFed will present a bold, new water strategy for 
California that is built upon a foundation of aggressive 
conservation and water recycling programs and that 
will be given the time to reshape water demand before 
new concrete is considered. My fear is that we'll see 
a "business as usual" program, pushing for more 
concrete, more dams, and larger conveyance facilities 
long before water conservation and recycling projects 
are fully implemented.

Make no mistake about it -- we stand at a crossroads 
in California's water history. We can follow the old path 
mapped out by the water mavens of Southern 
California's past -- or we can create a new one, following 
the steps Southern California briefly illuminated during the 
deepest days of the drought.

Source: Excerpt from Stepping Outside the Box: Water in 
Southern California. Speech by Martha Davis. UCLA 
Environment Symposium. March 3, 1998

Weathering

Weathering is the chemical and physical breakdown of 
rock exposed to air, moisture, and organic matter.

There are 2 types of weathering: Mechanical/Physical 
Weathering, and Chemical Weathering.

Mechanical/Physical Weathering = the breakdown of 
solid rock into fragments by physical processes, with 
no change in chemical composition. Examples: Heat 
spalling (the cracking and flaking of particles out of 
a surface as a result of heat), Joint fracture 
(fractures in rock along which no movement has 
occurred) and frost wedging (the freezing of ice in 
a confined opening within a rock, causing the rock 
to be forced apart), root wedging (causing rock to 
break away as the tree expands).

Chemical Weathering = the decomposition of rocks 
and minerals as a result of chemical and biochemical 
reactions. Example: hydrolysis (a chemical reaction 
where water is involved such as acid rain), oxidation 
of iron in soil, moss/algae growing and dissolving 
minerals through acid production.