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Badly-Needed California Water Transfers Blocked by Economic, Environmental Hurdles
As another summer of drought approaches, hundreds of thousands of acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland are expected to be fallowed, and much of urban California faces 20 percent water cutbacks.
An aerial view of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in California April 15, 2009. Following an aerial tour of the Delta, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Secretary Ken Salazar announced $260 million in economic stimulus projects from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to help California address its long-term water supply challenges and drought conditions. (REUTERS/Robert Durrell/Pool)
But in the Sacramento Valley, rice farmers have been busy for weeks spreading water 6 inches deep over a half-million acres. Many experts expect a larger crop than last year's.
It's not that no one saw it coming. The state of California devised a program to move some of that water to thirsty cities and fields south of the Delta. The plan made sense on paper, perhaps, but so far it has been hobbled by everything from high rice prices to environmental concerns.
"The state of California did not do its homework with the stakeholders to find out what the impacts of moving a lot of water would be," said Jonas Minton, water policy adviser for the Planning and Conservation League.
Moving water around California is never simple. And the troubles with the state's "water bank" show why.
Fish-related pumping restrictions in the Delta narrowed the window for moving water from north to south, limiting the amount some farmers could sell and scaring off potential buyers.
A collection of environmental groups sued the state for what they claim is a failure to properly assess the impacts of the water sale on everything from local aquifers to the habitat of the threatened giant garter snake. One provision of the bank would allow farmers to sell their river-water allocation but pump ground water for irrigation. That sort of arrangement depleted some rural drinking-water wells during the last state water transfer program in 1994, said Barbara Vlamis, executive director of the Chico-based Butte Environmental Council.
Many farmers were leery of entering into a complex water deal with the state, fearing they might be liable for unexpected environmental damages, become ineligible for federal subsidy programs or simply lose money if the sale fell through. The diesel engines some would have to use to pump water are considered air polluters, subject to a complicated permit process.
What's more, rice prices are at their highest levels in nearly 30 years, thanks in part to a prolonged drought in Australia that has knocked out the California rice industry's biggest international competitor.
"The economics make it a lot better to farm rice than to sell the water," said Brad Mattson, general manager of the Richvale Irrigation District and a Butte County rice grower.
Mattson, like many other Sacramento Valley farmers in districts with strong, historic rights to river water, pays less than $10 an acre-foot for his irrigation supply.
The state water bank offered farmers $275 an acre-foot, a price meant to roughly compete with this year's rice returns. Teresa Geimer, who is coordinating the program for the Department of Water Resources, said it is likely to transfer about 82,000 acre-feet. The target was as high as 600,000.
Even though the irrigation season is well under way, some farmers and water districts are still trying to figure out whether they'll sell.
"If everything can be ironed out, we will participate," said Walt Trevethan, who farms about 500 acres of rice near Pleasant Grove in south Sutter County.
Manuel Massa, who farms about 700 acres of rice with his son near the Colusa County town of Princeton, is one farmer who's selling. Massa, 66, is recovering from quadruple-bypass surgery and decided not to irrigate 100 acres. The farm will likely forgo some profits, Massa said, but he could use the time off.
An acre-foot is 325,851 gallons, enough to serve about two average California households for a year. The roughly 520,000 acres of rice planted in the Sacramento Valley this year will consume about 1.8 million acre-feet of water.
Buyers from the water bank will pay for the state's administrative expenses as well as the cost of transporting the water, on top of the $275 base price.
It can get pricey, but it's in line with other supplies available to Southern California cities this year. In recent years, emergency irrigation supplies for orchards in the San Joaquin Valley have traded for well over $500 an acre-foot.
Economists, many water users and some environmental groups have maintained for years that freer trade in water would lead to better allocation of the resource. In theory, it has the potential to drive improvements in water efficiency, reduce the acreage of low-value crops and enhance the state's ability to cope with drought.
That's one argument in favor of major modifications to the Delta, such as a new aqueduct that would bypass sensitive areas.
"Until you get the plumbing fixed, I think you're going to have a market that can't respond," said Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
But environmental groups caution that a market can't cure every ill. Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it's more important for the state to focus on maximizing water conservation and efficiency than on removing barriers to water deals.
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Show AllAgriculture uses about 80% and industry about 10% of all water in California. The citizens will be asked to conserve even though we pay the most and use the least. Will they issue us the silly faucet washers again? Or plastic bags to fill with water and place in our toilets? Even if the public managed to cut its water use in half, that would mean that ag and industry would be using 95%. Look at those numbers again. The farmer pays LESS than $10 for 325,851 gallons. My two story, three bedroom, three member family uses about 36,000 gallons a year at a cost of about $170 (and that does not include the larger sewer charge of about $180/year). To put a perspective on that, for $10 I could cover all my water needs for the next ten years... if I got farmer prices. It's also clear that getting a farm to conserve would have a much larger impact. If a farmer managed to save 10% on just one acre foot of water that would save about the total amount of water I use for the whole year.
As a citizen, your $10 a year water was given away to specific landholders, and not to other landholders or to you, in perpetuity, using fairly crazy apportionment standards written in times of non-drought. If you want water for your home, obviously you need to buy a designated we-get-all-the-water farm and then put a city on it.
"Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting" - Mark Twain
This was true when Twain wrote it a century ago and it will be true a century from now.
The speculators who drove up the price of houses, food and energy are now working on using the low interst money Ben Bernanke is providing to drive up the price of water.
Strange that CA, NV and the Bureau have no way to proceed with a confidential disclosure of a truly new NON-TRIBUTARY Source of fresh water that can yield a MILLION ACRE FEET ( 325,900,000,000 gallons) EACH YEAR and development of the Source will not damage the environment or the water rights of anyone, anywhere.
In good water years, the excess water could be stored in the available air space in Lake Mead to keep it reasonably FULL and generating 2000 megawatts of RENEWABLE ENERGY each year rather than going DRY as predicted. Instantaneous releases could be made to RESTORE THE COLORADO RIVER DELTA and a measly 68,000 acre feet could be released for recharge purposes into the old section of the All American Canal to keep the 1.3 million inhabitants of Mexicali from drying up in exchange for Mexico's enforcement of drug and immigration laws. Lake Mead holds 28.5 million acre feet and is 60% empty.
With inter-governmental cooperation the Source could be developed to be delivered WITHOUT POWER and Quagga Mussel free. With the probablity of DROUGHT, envasive species, contamination, EARTHQUAKE, possible terrorism and unexpected Court decision maybe its time to seriously investigate and verify such a vast natural resource that offers water for everybody ... ? WaterSource waterrdw@yahoo.com Retired Water Rights Analyst
Numbers of things can be done to overwater the Western US. The whole question is, who owns the water. Colorado is suing homeowners who collect the water off of their own house roofs in barrels, because all of that water belongs to some rich bum downstream.
If President Obama and Congress would care to call for a new water deal, then we could take action to water the west. For example, we could quite cheaply build small water channels across hillsides so that a larger percentage of the high peak snow pack in Colorado drains over the passes and west to Los Angeles instead of east to New Orleans. The questions are, how much water does the State of California actually need when they get real about water use, and also who would howl? The Colorado homeowners probably wouldn't care because they're getting robbed quite nicely today, thank you. Colorado legislators would of course howl, because right now it's their water to sell, and they don't want to give water away based on common citizens' needs.
This is always a problem whan greedy people try to make the desert bloom. They must steal water from somebody. Then, if successful, they must steal more and more.
LA steals water from the Owens Valley, Israel steals water from Palestine and so it goes on and on like a cancer, growing and growing. When will children ever put aside their own egos and pay attention to Mother Nature?
All of the next wars will be fought over water rather than oil.
"""Economists, many water users and some environmental groups have maintained for years that freer trade in water would lead to better allocation of the resource. In theory, it has the potential to drive improvements in water efficiency, reduce the acreage of low-value crops and enhance the state's ability to cope with drought."""
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Now, we go back to that old milton 'the monster' friedman's 'unfettered free market' ideology for 'processing' water, to privatize and expand the fledgling water bubble that is the next bubble to reek havoc on a decimated economy, just listen to the speculators the investors and everything will become clear about the need to take this ruinous path that will inevitably increase the burden on those least able to support it.
Never mind real problems with an 'unfettered' burgeonning human population that should have been or at least started to be reigned in a couple or few decades ago but will now have repressive consequences no matter if the people or nature takes those reigns, so maybe the water issue would not be so harsh to deal with where just as many people will be forced to cope under crippling restrictions because they just happen to live in places that has to transport or siphon water from distant sources, hell, just this article makes the 'mining' of ocean waters an attractive money maker for those 'speculators' and investors.
One should know that to start barginning water for 'transport' to inhospitable places is a loser's game and probably not even a good 'short term' solution to now put life's single most important requirement under the 'auspices' of private money mongers, as it is not a good sign at all and quite readily and intentionally moves leverage of water to these devious people, the money mongers, and the environment keeps getting stepped on by an increasingly larger human ecological footprint.
"Economists, many water users and some environmental groups have maintained for years that freer trade in water would lead to better allocation of the resource. In theory, it has the potential to drive improvements in water efficiency, reduce the acreage of low-value crops and enhance the state's ability to cope with drought."
The three groups listed by the Sacramento Bee claiming that trade in water leads to better allocation are spouting the usual "laissez-faire" capitalist gibberish that keeps the catastrophes raging against the people. None of these groups have more than a vague idea of the society's better interests, and the proof is in the kind of economy that California finds itself with today: Economic co-dependency with the petroleum and military godzillas. California agriculture is just another of the extremely dysfunctional poster children of US style laissez-faire capitalism. The various siblings form a mafia family dedicated to their portfolio of mega-rackets.
California set out to dominate the national and global food markets, like Microsoft dominates the PC software market. This isn't a novel business plan. It's very common and taught in the "ivy-league" business schools from Stanford to Harvard. Never mind that it completely violates our anti-trust laws. In order to win this "great game", California had to secure the big commitment of big petroleum and in turn that needed the big commitment of big military. What do you think a bottomless supply of "cheap" petroleum enabled California to do? You are correct. Cheap petroleum along with an arid climate and massive diversion of water enabled California to achieve its goal to trounce all other regions in the USA and the entire planet, in various crops.
The Sacramento Bee won't tell you this. It's too busy feeding you empire propaganda, to get to you to work as a cog in the empire machine. Certain crops are traditionally grown in wetter but more erratic climates, without petroleum, resulting in lower average and more erratic yields. California sought to exploit this vulnerability to seize monopoly control over as many food markets as possible, worldwide. California had no intent whatsoever to develop drought-tolerant varieties that might benefit the people.
With the advantages of reliable sunshine/water, "cheap" petroleum, and an iron fist, California would feed the world, whether it wanted it or not. Of course, a different but related racket is carried out in the midwest USA supplying the world with corn, soybeans, beef and pork, jammed through with an iron fist. California is one row to the left of the midwest politically, growing more nutritious petro-fried produce. How splendid! In contrast to that, we on the far left advocate that all local communities supply most if not all of their own food using as indigenous and drought-resistant varieties as possible, in permaculture systems, avoiding all the destructivity of doing business with far-flung elites in California or anywhere else.
The Dead Kennedys said it best: "California Über Alles"
This is yet another water grab by developers and corporate farming interests in the desert lands south of Sacramento. The real truth is that more Northern Sacramento farmland is getting converted to water-saving orchard crops every year from field crops. It doesn't matter because rampant development in the San Joaquin valley and salinification of land will demand more imported fresh water every year.
The pumps in the Delta destroy salmon fry and sturgeon as well as delta smelt and the fish kills and salinity those pumps cause are killing what was once one of the worlds most productive fisheries. The big money promoting the peripheral canal that was already rejected twice in statewide referendums don't care. They want to make the fast cash NOW.
Finally, the rice that is grown north of Sacramento provides a significant portion of the world's rice crop. Removing ANY rice lands from production will increase global prices and that means poor people in Asia starving. All so developers can build housing in the desert where there are no jobs and grow crops in land that salts up when irrigated.
No deal.
b.t.w.- The Sacramento Bee barely exists as a newspaper anymore and is whoring out to developers, bankers and whatever other scam artists want to run advertising thinly disguised as news.