After Gutenberg

The largest estuary in the Western Hemisphere is comprised of two river systems in California, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. This sprawl of canals, levees, and flood plains provides water to 23 million Californians and about 5 million acres of farmland.

Writing for the Christian Science Monitor (September 12, 2007), Daniel B. Wood, reports on a water crisis in California. “A recent federal ruling to reduce the amount of water that flows through the delta is likely to boost food prices and trim jobs in agriculture. California farmers… say they will idle fields and cut back on planting lettuce, cotton, rice, and more.”

While drought can occur in cycles, agriculturists are concerned about the interrelationship between agriculture and climate change. Higher temperatures, less water, and more wildfires are the result of drought. Yet observers see devastating fires raging out of control; millions of dollars lost as California crops shrivel in the searing sun; and the second lowest snow pack on record in the Eastern Sierras, where L.A. gets most of its water, as marked effects of global climate change.

Another reason for concluding that such water shortages are the result of climate change is that these drought patterns are occurring elsewhere in the world. United Nations’ top climate official, Yvo de Boer, announced that “climate change has become the prime cause of an accelerating spread of deserts which threatens the world’s drylands.” And the increased desertification, in turn, would accelerate climate change because the lack of plants means less carbon is captured in soil. Joe Romm cites U.N. estimates: “More than 250 million people are directly affected by desertification and approximately one billion in over 100 countries are at risk.”

Year Eight of a Perfect Drought

When you combine climate change with drought conditions in Southern California, the consequences can be severe. “Southern California,” notes KABC-TV reporter Dallas Raines “is now in its eighth year of an extended drought and 2007 will go down on the books as Southern California’s driest year in recorded history.”

Modified from NOAA Satellite and Information Services
Calculated Soil Moisture Ranking Percentile, Aug 2007

In 2007, parts of Southern Californian got less rain than Death Valley. From Sacramento to San Diego drought-era practices of rationed water – low-use toilets and washers, designated water days for lawns and cars – are back in effect.

Some experts say the pieces are falling into place for a so-called “perfect drought”, i.e., lasting not one or two years, but a decade or more. Scientists studying ancient tree rings have found evidence of epic droughts in Southern California, with some lasting as long as 100 years.

Such conditions could have devastating consequences for agriculture in California. California farmers produce half the nation’s fruits and vegetables, “Farmers across the state know this will be very tough and not pleasant,” says Dave Kranz, spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation. “To the extent that you take farmland out of production for whatever reason, it increases another problem, which is providing enough American-grown food to serve the US population as well as demand from other countries.”

The Delta

After 35 years of hemming and hawing over how to fix the largest estuary in the Western Hemisphere – the sprawl of canals, levees, and flood plains that join the Golden State’s two river systems – the state has been told by a federal judge that business-as-usual is now illegal.

A new ruling to stop pumping up to 37 percent of the water that flows through the delta to protect endangered fish species has sent shock waves of concern into the three main sectors that have long competed for it: cities, farms, environment.

The estuary provides water to 23 million Californians and about 5 million acres of farmland. Overused and under maintained for years, the delta and its water are at the heart of the state’s economic vitality, its wildlife habitat, shipping, transportation, drinking water, and recreation.

The water business in California is facing its biggest challenges in over half a century, says the executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. “There is no way any knowledgeable person could contest that.”

The California Water Business

Says Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents more than 450 of the state’s water agencies that provide water to 95 percent of the state’s farms and cities, “The state has had some success in better managing this problem for the last decade, but we have hid ourselves from the biggest issue … and Mother Nature is telling us there is no more hiding.”

The biggest issue, say Mr. Quinn and others, is the clash between the environment, the California economy, and the population, which is pouring in at more than 600,000 per year.

In recent years, the use of water in the delta has been crippled as a result of drought as well as age, with deteriorating levees that are vulnerable to flood, earthquake, and subsidence. It was environmental groups who most recently challenged water use. The ruling by US District Court Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno Aug. 31 came after a suit against state and federal water officials by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and three other environmental groups.

The agricultural community in the Central Valley appears to be the most worried about the consequences of the judge’s action.

Stephen Patricio, chairman of the board of directors for the Western Growers Association and a 30-year farmer of 2,000 acres of cantaloupe near Firebaugh, Calif., says the impact of a 30 percent or more reduction of water to his region will have a domino effect on other jobs.

He expects his $6 million payroll, employing about 600 people during the harvest, will drop to about $1.5 million this year and force him to cut 400 jobs. Those losses will contribute to another 2,400 layoffs in related industries: truck drivers, tractor operators, seed operations, warehousing, repair, and fuel, he says.

The announcement is already having an effect on the loans farmers receive to operate their farms during 2008.

“Ninety percent of these farms need to be financed, and lenders have made it very clear that without a water plan, there is no money for 2008 crops,” Mr. Patricio says.

Eighty percent of the water in California moves from above the delta to farms and communities in the south of it via pumps. The environmental groups said that current use of water pumping through the delta endangered several species of fish, including two kinds of smelt (long fin and delta), steel head, green sturgeon, winter and spring salmon, and split tail.

“This ruling was essentially an agreement that we need to protect habitat in the delta more than we have been, and what state and federal agencies have been doing is likely to drive the smelt to extinction,” says Barry Nelson of the NRDC. “For all the serious concern about how the state is now going to meet its water needs, no one is saying that the court got it wrong. Everyone has known for a long time that this was coming.”

Similar to efforts underway in Australia, water managers in California have contingency plans for using water wisely, to include conservation, waste water recycling and better use of groundwater.

Water Conservation

Water agencies, farmers, and scientists agree, saying the ruling will force a much-needed opportunity to fine-tune the use of water to avoid waste.

“This alarm as been sounding about the delta for 30 years, and we’ve been pushing the snooze alarm,” says Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Oakland, Calif. “This may lead to some of the first discussions ever on how we manage growth in the state, how people live, how much we waste, and what crops we farm.”

He notes that farming just three common crops – rice, cotton, and alfalfa – as well as irrigated pastures for cows use about half of the agricultural sector’s allotment but earn a fraction of agricultural income. “We can continue to have a healthy economy with less water, but there has been no demand to do that yet,” he says. “This ruling may drive us to do things we ought to be doing anyway.”

Anticipating the reduced water spigot from the delta as of January 2008, water agencies north of it are telling their clients to cut back on water use. They are already spending money in new ad campaigns to remind users to cut back or face the possibility of mandatory laws with fines.

“We are spending millions to get the conservation message out that we need to conserve as if we are in a crunch,” says Jeff Kightlinger, of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves agencies and 18 million residents in six counties. He says the new rationing will affect 2 of every 3 Californians.