Drought Can Be Managed – Lack of Preparation and Common Sense Cannot

So here we are again, California. We’re coming through another dry year and watching the sky, hopeful that Mother Nature will give us a reprieve.

We’ve all had a bad year, but everyone needs to buckle up because some of the biggest consumer impacts are just now showing up. Farmers, many of whom received none of their promised water allotment this year were forced to grow less of the healthy, safe, diverse food supply our families rely on. Just trying to make it through the year, most farmers had to either fallow land, focus only on the highest value crops or a combination of both. Price increases and decreased availability of some foods are hitting the markets now, just as we’re all making shopping lists for all our favorite holiday foods. What will next year bring? There are already rumblings that farms will start the year with a 0% allocation of promised water.

It doesn’t have to be this bad. California has weathered multi-year droughts as far back as data has been recorded and still been able to deliver water to farms, people, and the environment.

What is preventing California from meeting water needs now?

Of course, we’re in a drought, but there is much we could be doing to help mitigate the worst of the drought impacts on people, farms and the environment.

  • Our government has been slow to adjust to climate change

Climate scientists have been telling us for some time that our changed weather pattern is here to stay. We are seeing more precipitation in the form of rain instead of snow in the Sierras, drier dry years and wetter wet years. In order to adjust to these boom-or-bust water years, we must be able to store it when we get it. 

If Sites Reservoir had been built, we’d have nearly one million acre-feet of water available to help reduce the impacts of this year’s drought.

But there is much more we can and should do apart from multi-year projects like Sites. Restoring flood plains and building recharge ponds is critical. It not only captures surface water, but holds it, allowing us to recharge groundwater aquifers, and also helps prevent flooding and rockslides.

We are simply not ready to adequately capture water from big storms such as in 2019 when eighteen trillion gallons of rain fell in California just in the month of February, or the atmospheric river that soaked the state in October of this year.

Making these adjustments could dramatically enhance our ability to meet California’s water needs. We just need the political will to make it happen.

  • State and Federal agencies want to revert to old, outdated operating rules for 2022

Over the past decade, science has taught us that keeping our ecosystem and fish populations healthy requires us to take a holistic approach to water management. Rather than only considering the amount of water in our rivers and streams, we’ve learned that we must also improve habitat, increase food supply and control predators. And in 2019, we finally abandoned decision making based on arbitrary calendar dates and began using real-time monitoring because fish don’t check the date on their iPhones, they respond to real-time changes in the ecosystem that governs their lifecycle.

And to be clear, we discarded the outdated ways of doing things because they weren’t working. Fish continued to decline throughout the decade that the ineffective rules were in place.

We already know that abandoning the holistic approach to managing our environment won’t help fish. Reverting to an outdated system also removes important operational flexibility and delivers even less water to farmers. Proposals from officials at the Bureau of Reclamation and the State of California put food production third or fourth in line for getting water. And what’s even worse, is that farmers wouldn’t know what water they will have to work with until after planting decisions must be made.

All this new plan would do is guarantee decades more conflict and litigation.

  • Voluntary Agreements are currently stalled

Our biggest hope for common sense water regulation remains the Voluntary Agreements. These agreements would allow local stakeholders, through a collaborative process, to decide how to best use the available water in their area and base all decisions on the latest science.

To make these agreements happen, already struggling farmers are willing to give up even more water because the result would be a holistic approach to protecting native species and enhancing fish and wildlife habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta and its tributaries, which would be good for all Californians.

Unfortunately, after years of negotiation and work throughout both the Brown and Newsom administrations, the state has chosen to walk away from talks with five water agencies operating projects on tributaries to the San Joaquin River. We appreciate how complicated the remaining issues are, including how to navigate water rights that precede the State’s oversight versus state and federal control. However, we hope all sides can find a way to work this out. Without the Voluntary Agreements, we will continue to limp along under a top-down regulatory system that cuts the locals out of key decisions and over the last decade has been making things steadily worse for fish, farms and people. Getting the Voluntary Agreements right is a critical step towards a more secure California water future and worth fighting for.

The bottom line is our state and federal governments have not done their jobs. Our infrastructure is old and decaying and outdated notions on how to protect endangered fish have clearly failed. Rather than embrace the future with new science, adaptive management, local decision-making, creating new water supplies and adapting to our new weather patterns they remain locked into old and destructive ways of doing things. Their only solution is to demand more and more from water users, and we simply have no more to give.

If the state and federal governments don’t change their way of doing things now, California farmers simply will not be able to provide the diverse food supply to which we are accustomed.

Maintaining a healthy, safe, local food supply must be a priority for California and the nation

Since 1980 California farmers have reduced water usage by double digits. But installing all the expensive drip irrigation in the world doesn’t help if there’s no water flowing through it.

Cutting farm water supplies too low or increasing the cost to unreasonable levels could cause more problems than it solves. 

If the state continues on its path to abandon California farmers, we will all suffer.

A sad reality of drought, many multigenerational family businesses have closed because they were unable to make ends meet under persisting conditions. A Utah dairy farmer somberly reported, “I’ve sold my dairy animals after five generations of dairying. I’m unable to grow my own feed, super-high feed costs and lowering milk prices forced me out of the business.” Similarly, a California walnut producer wrote, “We sold the family farm due primarily to severe reduction in walnut prices and stress from water issues. My husband was a fourth-generation farmer.”

Source: 2021 American Farm Bureau Federation Survey

Less water means:

  • Higher costs
  • More land fallowing
  • Farms sold off to institutional interests
  • Driving out family-owned operations

All of which is the opposite of what Californians say they want.

Whatever farms remain will have no choice but to plant crops that provide the highest return and those are usually permanent crops. Tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, melons, sweet corn and much of the rest of California’s diverse seasonal produce will decline, leaving consumers holding the bag with higher prices and more imports from countries that don’t have the same food and worker safety laws that we have in California.

“Average yields for the 2021 harvest season are expected to be 42% lower than in 2020”

The farmers who grow our food are our neighbors. As Californians, they care about their communities and the environment.  And the products they grow meet the strictest food and worker safety standards anywhere in the world. Much of the food grown on California farms can’t be replaced by trying to increase production in other areas of the country. Our unique soil and climate make California the most productive farmland in the U.S., and that makes our food production a national security issue. Squeezing out California food production will result in less availability and higher prices at the grocery store and imported food often from countries that have less stringent safety standards than we do here at home.

You cannot just move California food production to other states.

Most other states face more significant weather extremes, higher altitudes, oppressive humidity, and in some cases, too much water, which limits their ability to grow the same kinds of crops in the quantities that come from California.

For example, California grows 30 times more processing tomatoes than the No. 2 state, Indiana, because we’re more efficient food producers. The same is true for many other foods, including those from the No. 2 states in the chart to the left. And chemical inputs are less in California because diseases, mildew, and other pests are less prevalent compared to other states.

Decorative Image. Image is of dead and living orchards adjacent.

Here’s the link to the full AFBF: https://www.fb.org/market-intel/reduced-crop-yields-orchard-removals-and-herd-sell-offs-new-afbf-survey-res

Countdown: 3 Days to Drought

Countdown: 3 Days to Drought

hourglass with dripping water close-up

On Wednesday, the State Water Board will vote to redirect enough water in the system to irrigate over 200,000 acres of farmland or meet the annual domestic needs of 2 million people every year. If approved, this action will lead to one of the most preventable droughts California has ever faced.

Is This Just Fish vs Farms?

Absolutely not. The negative impacts of this policy are broad and deep. Education officials are concerned about water supplies for schools, water experts worry this will stall groundwater replenishment, health officials are troubled by potential impacts on sanitation, cities large and small don’t know how they will replace the lost supply, Bay Area experts are alarmed by potential cuts to water supply, lost jobs and lost economic activity, and the list goes on and on, including some unexpected consequences. In a recent article from Breitbart News, Joel Pollak writes, “Leslie McGowan, the CEO of Livingston Community Health, said local hospitals saw the impact of water shortages — in the rising number of indigent patients, and in the rise of opioid use and other forms of substance abuse.”

Read about additional consequences in the words of those impacted:

“Let us be clear. The detrimental impacts of the Board’s plan will be felt strongly by the children that we serve. . . it is unclear why you have not taken the time to study the financial implications to school districts that would be forced to provide bottled water and portable toilets, or relocate schools entirely, as wells go dry. . . Access to drinking water and water for sanitation is a basic requirement for us to fulfill our mandate to provide quality education to the children of our districts.”

Steven Gomes, Merced County Superintendent of Schools
Tom Changnon, Stanislaus County Superintendent of Schools

 “Many communities in the Merced area are already experiencing well production problems and drinking water quality issues . . . Over 800,000 people live in the two counties [Stanislaus and Merced]. Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for the majority of the local population. The plan sorely understates the devastation this recommendation will cause. As an Interim Director of Environmental Health, I am required to ensure that safe, adequate, and dependable water supplies are available for domestic use.”

Vicki Jones, Interim Director of Environmental Health
Merced County Department of Public Health

“The consequences of these cutbacks potentially could cripple our Bay Area economy. Our initial economic analysis of the first iteration of this plan forecast up to 51 percent rationing, resulting in 140,000 to 188,000 jobs lost in the Bay Area.”

Harlan L. Kelly Jr., General Manager, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Nicole Sandkulla, CEO and General Manager, Bay Area Water Supply & Conservation Agency. 

 

There’s still time to adopt compromise plans supported by water districts, scientists, education officials, health departments, farmers, farm workers, cities, economic development officials and others ready to implement solutions that science tells us will help.

A deep dive into the shallow end

California Magazine, the publication of the UC Berkeley Alumni Association, recently published an article by Glen Martin on California water issues. Titled, A Deep Dive Into California’s Recurring Drought Problem, the article contains a number of recommendations that, if implemented, would devastate large parts of California’s economy, without a significant improvement in California’s available water supply. A generously quoted individual, Dr. Richard Walker, suggests a few things that may make sense in macro economics but fail to address the consequences of large-scale farmland retirement.

Walker may be an expert in geology, according to the article, but he seems to know little about agriculture and even less about the impacts of retiring vast swaths of productive farmland. He is quoted as saying that 9 million acres of impaired farmland are cultivated on the Westside. There aren’t 9 million acres currently irrigated in all of California. Furthermore, his glib assertion that retiring this supposedly “crappy” farmland would solve California’s water problems is not only ridiculous it fails to look at the costs of such a move. This so-called “crappy” land is the home of people who have farmed it for generations, growing the products that we all depend on. The Westside produces billions in food and fiber crops annually and much more in farm-related economic activity supporting local communities. Drought fallowing temporarily increased unemployment. Retiring farmland would have the same effect and it would be permanent. Rural counties depend on farm tax revenue for social services, law enforcement, and fire protection. Who pays for that when the farms are gone? And California’s Westside is an important source for winter vegetables that don’t grow in other parts of the country.  The ripple effect of Walker’s irresponsible claims would also affect consumers who buy those fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. When we don’t grow something in California it might be grown overseas, often under working conditions or with chemicals that are illegal here.

Reducing people to just numbers on a spreadsheet is dangerous business. Before we jump on Walker’s bandwagon let’s make sure we have our facts straight and are willing to accept the consequences of these simplistic solutions to California’s water supply challenges.

Many Delta Stressors Impacting Delta Smelt and Delta Health

Delta bass predation

There are far bigger issues affecting the Delta than water exports and Delta bass predationreturning to a time prior to Western development is unrealistic.

To describe the Delta as altered is to say that New York City is populous or California water politics contentious. Since the 19th century when locals began to reclaim the marshlands, dike the rivers, and develop settlements on the rivers- the history of the Delta has long been one of change. California’s largest river delta, the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta has been forever altered by human habitation. Little remains of the complex estuary network of tidal wetlands, freshwater rivers and recurring saline incursions.

Long gone are the nuanced networks of sloughs and wetlands that once dominated the historic delta. Today’s Delta is a scene dominated by numerous dried islands often sitting 20-30 feet below the water level just beyond the 1100 miles of earthen dikes. Plans exist to restore more than 30,000 acres of riparian and wetland habitat, but to date these plans continue to undergo environmental review.

Beyond the edges of these islands ongoing dredging of channels for deepwater shipping to the inland port cities of Stockton and Sacramento applies greater pressure to the species looking for shallow water habitat.

The Delta today is one of artificially fresh water- held far to the west of pre-project development, flows originating in the state’s network of reservoirs now support in-delta diversions for use by in-delta agriculture, cities as near as Stockton and as far away as San Diego. It is used to grow avocados on small farms near San Diego and organic cantaloupee near Firebaugh, among more than 300 other types of food and fiber that rely on water flowing through the Delta. as well as providing water to more than 25 million Californians.

There are numerous stressors impacting the health of the Delta and the threatened and endangered species living there, including the Delta Smelt. The region’s biosphere has changed dramatically and is now dominated by invasive species that have decimated native fish populations.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has stated that predation by non-native bass on winter-run salmon is a “major stressor,” while widespread invasive Asian clams and other species continue to alter the delta’s complex food network. Industrial chemicals being found in species at the mouth of the bay are also tied to what has been called Pelagic organism decline by researchers studying the health of the Delta.

Regarding the decline of the Delta Smelt, the federal agency responsible for studying and restoring threatened species, the Fish and Wildlife Service, acknowledges that “we are unable to determine with certainty which threats or combinations of threats are directly responsible.” Since 1994, Fishery and wildlife regulators have limited their focus to delta exports, though the agency acknowledges that its “existing regulatory mechanisms have not proven adequate” to stop the fish’s decline since its listing nearly 20 years ago.

Yet sensational news stories continue, declaring water exports culpable- “With Just Six Delta Smelt Left, Controversial California Fish Species Faces Impending Extinction” and “Threatened Smelt Touches Off Battles in California’s Endless Water Wars” but scientists who study the complex Delta ecosystem suggest that this claim is likely overly simplistic. Researchers discussing the issue with the Wall Street Journal noted that “Other studies have noted that the biggest driver of species abundance in the delta is precipitation, which may explain why the smelt population has plummeted over the past four years of drought after rebounding in 2011—a wet year.”

ExportsInflowandSmelt

Suggested changes to the Delta export facilities, intended to reduce possible impacts to threatened and endangered species while restoring reliability to water supplies remain under review, and could allow the Delta to return to a more natural condition, while restoring water supply reliability to more than 25 million Californians and millions of acres of the most productive farmland on the planet.

California drought affects farms and consumers

Farmers and consumers share a unique relationship. The California drought is helping people understand how important it is for farms to have the water they need to grow the food we all find at the grocery store. Serious water supply cuts affect our food supply as well as the people in rural communities who depend on agriculture for their jobs.

 

Another zero water allocation for Valley farms – Unemployment, food lines in California’s food basket

 

USBR to deliver zero water

Today’s announcement that farmers in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys will receive zero percent of their contracted supplies from the federal Central Valley Project is a tragic repeat of last year. In 2014 the state’s farm economy lost more than $2 billion and more than 17,000 jobs as a direct result of water shortages, according to a report by the University of California.  Another zero allocation means impacts to California are expected to be as bad or worse this year.

ccidfarmermeetingsm
Farmers in Los Banos gather to hear news about their 2015 water allocation

The zero allocation is even more troubling because the amount of water available in past years has been similar to this year, yet farmers still received water on their federal contracts. In 1991 and 1992 Lake Shasta storage was slightly less than it is today and the Bureau of Reclamation delivered 25 percent of the contract allotment to farmers. Today, with a similar amount of water in Lake Shasta farmers will get a zero allocation. There is something terribly wrong with that.

$2.2 billion cost in 2014

Last year UC Davis economists reported on direct and indirect costs, with farmers, ranchers and dairy operators losing $1 billion in revenue. Additional emergency pumping and other economic costs pushed the total to $2.2 billion.  Farmers fallowed 428,000 acres of productive farmland, an area almost one and a half times the size of Los Angeles, because they had no water to raise crops.. The economists also estimated 17,100 farm workers would lose their seasonal or full-time work on valley farms.

Those numbers will likely climb this year.1992v2015 Allocationweb

As rural Californians face an uncertain future, their communities will continue to struggle with mounting unemployment and economic hardship brought on by water supply shortages. Many counties, cities and civic groups will strain to meet the growing needs of the unemployed because significant parts of California depend on water that isn’t coming.

Unemployment continues to climb

Many communities are facing unemployment rates between 22 and 31%, while food banks in California’s farm regions have seen a rise in food box deliveries of nearly 925% between May of 2014 and January 2015.

The effects of an upcoming fourth year of drought will be heightened because state and federal regulations prevent existing water flowing through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to be stored south of the Delta for use later this year. The regulations are in place to protect endangered fish but after 20 years of water supply cuts to farms and cities, there is no evidence that they have helped. These regulations need to be rewritten with a common sense approach that benefits people and the environment.

Thousands of farmers and more than 2 million acres of farmland may be impacted by the cutback in water deliveries. That could force farmers to again take land out of production or seek alternate sources of water that too often come with a price tag greater than $2,000 per acre-foot, more than ten times the normal cost for untreated, agricultural water.

Opposition to California Drought Legislation is Misleading

Opposition to H.R. 5781 is Misleading

H.R. 5781, Congressman David Valadao’s drought relief bill requires water exports to stay within the existing salmon and Delta smelt biological opinions.

Concerns raised by NRDC’s Doug Obegi are a red herring to thwart progress on providing water to a parched Central Valley. Exports may increase, as Obegi says, but they would be at a time when salmon and Delta smelt aren’t at risk.

Agricultural losses this year exceed the value of California’s entire 1.8 billion salmon industry

It’s also funny that Obegi is so concerned about fishing jobs and economics at a time when harm to the economy and job losses in agriculture are much worse. A university study this year reported that there were 17,100 farm-related job losses in California in 2014 and a $2.2 billion hit to the farm economy, eclipsing the state’s entire salmon industry, valued at $1.8 billion, according to fish and wildlife economics and statistics consultant Southwick and Associates.

17,100 farm-related job losses in California in 2014 and a $2.2 billion hit to the farm economy

The burdensome regulations that have withered Central Valley food production are the work of Obegi and NRDC in the courtroom. Of course he doesn’t want anything to change.

Any potential land fallowing in the Sacramento Valley would be done on a voluntary basis, as it is today.

Any potential land fallowing in the Sacramento Valley would be done on a voluntary basis, as it is today and water use decisions there are properly managed to protect the mosaic of abundant Sacramento Valley agricultural and wildlife resources. Delfino’s concern is nonsensical that the Sacramento Valley would be making decisions that benefit others while at the same time hurting themselves.

There is a positive relationship between Northern California and other parts of the state. It’s doubtful that they will do anything to diminish that. Maybe that’s really what worries Delfino.

STATEMENT: Water allocation is good news; but does not end drought or restrictive regulations

Water Allocation is Good News, But Doesn’t End Drought

The following is a statement by Executive Director Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition in response to the DWR announcement of 10 percent water allocation from the State Water Project.)

“Today’s announcement that the State Water Project will deliver an initial allocation of 10 percent of contracted amounts to its contractors is good news, but it does not signal an end to the drought or environmental regulations that have resulted in low deliveries to farms, homes and businesses. As indicated by DWR Director Mark Cowin, that number could fluctuate depending on the months ahead and how much rain and snow fall in our state.

“The State Water Project delivers water to nearly 1 million acres of farmland. Another 2 million acres is serviced by the federal Central Valley Project, which delivered zero percent of contracted amounts in 2014. Farmers receiving water from the CVP must wait until early next year to learn if the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will deliver any water.

“Farms, homes and businesses have experienced water cutbacks for 20 years because environmental regulations have prevented water from being delivered. Yet, no studies have provided proof that water directed for these environmental purposes has provided any benefits. It is time to rework these onerous regulations that are harming our citizens.”