For
those of us in California driving up Interstate 5 or Highway 99, signs from
angry farmers constantly remind us that water rationing is a very touchy
political subject. Trump’s regulatory laissez-faire – climate change denial
laced with open and virtually unregulated access to public waterways for
everything from irrigation to waste disposal – is quite popular among the
farming community here. Water = jobs = profits. The signs make that very clear,
blaming Congress and the State for the water shortage. This isn’t a
Trump-aligned state, and water rationing has become a way of life in
California.
Some
crops just cannot be justified anymore. For example, nut trees are
exceptionally water intensive. They have been a mainstay of large swaths of
California agriculture. Driving down the highway, there are acres and acres of
dead and dying fruit, olive and nut trees, long since deprived of their
traditional water allocations. Fault? Tree-hugging politicians in a liberal
state? Big city voters pushing their environmental message, as Trump and
friends allege, and running roughshod over a scattered and relatively
population-sparse farm vote? Is this simply a liberal land grab aimed at using
“biodiversity” as an excuse to save threatened species that really do not matter?
Unfortunately
for most of the Western United States, there have been some rather massive
climate changes. Despite one recent heavy rainfall, California has faced a
permanent drought status, higher-than-normal and sustained higher summer
temperatures, drops in rainfall and humidity and a wildfire season that used to
have an April to November fire bracket… and now runs across the entire year.
If
you haven’t noticed in whatever news source you routinely use, California is
having one of the worst fire seasons in recorded history. As of this writing,
according to Cal Fire and the U.S. Forest Service, California has lost an
astonishing 1.344 million acres to 5844 separate wildfires, with death and
destruction ranging from forests to standing communities. The imagery of these
raging fires is just terrifying.
Like
it or not, rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall have resulted in a
significantly reduced level of sustainable snowpack among virtually all of
California’s mountain ranges. That measurable reality simply means that there
is even less water to be allocated for irrigation. The latest blow has been a
determination by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP), which
controls water resources in many parts of the state, to cut off even more irrigation
rights.
The September 24th
Los Angeles Times examines this history and the current predicament: “The lush
plains east of Yosemite National Park offer a window into a bygone California —
a place where sage grouse welcome the arrival of spring with theatrical mating
rituals and cattle graze on verdant pastures… For nearly a century, these lands
have been made green thanks to annual flooding by the Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power, helping maintain cattle forage and keeping alive a culture of
ranching in southern Mono County… But those days may have come to an end in
August.
“Citing climate change,
the DWP this year shifted its irrigation policy, saying ranchers who lease
grazing areas on its 6,400 acres near Crowley Lake should no longer bank on the
promise of ample water when they renew… Officials say the change is necessary
as decreased snowmelt leaves them little water to spare. But the move could
turn grasslands brown, rattling ecosystems, the local economy and a way of
life, ranchers warn.
“‘Without irrigation,
we’d be looking at mostly cheatgrass and tumbleweeds, which are good for
nothing,’ said Kay Ogden, executive director of the nonprofit Eastern Sierra
Land Trust, as irrigation water flowed ankle deep across pasturelands edging
U.S. 395… ‘Does L.A. have the right to destroy habitat and the livelihoods of
families, friends and neighbors who have lived here for generations?’ she said.
“The DWP has for seven
decades provided several lessees in the area about 5 acre-feet of water per
acre per year, which made their pastures nutritious through the summer and
added luster to the area’s hiking, biking and angling hotspots. (An acre-foot
of water equals about 326,000 gallons, more than enough to supply two
households for a year.)
“But as the agency
prepares for a future with less snow, more rain and prolonged periods of
drought, the prospect of flooding pastures with enough water to serve 50,000
families annually has lost its appeal.
“The DWP said it would
have to spend about $18 million to replace the amount of water requested by
ranchers and the lost hydropower it could generate — an unacceptable burden for
its Southern California ratepayers of about $30 per family per year… Beyond
that, water officials say, irrigation was never a guarantee tied to the leases
held by ranchers, who pay an average $10 to $15 per acre per year to graze on
irrigated pastures… As it drafts new 20-year leases for 10 longtime ranchers in
area, the department says lessees should anticipate that little to no water
will be available for them…
“Bob Gardner, chairman of
the Mono County Board of Supervisors, summed up the tensions in a recent letter
to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti… ‘We refuse to accept that climate change
and ratepayer obligations justify the impacts to our natural environment and
regional economy,’ he said. ‘Quite simply, LADWP’s arbitrary plan is nothing more
than a veiled water grab.’
“On Aug. 15, the county
filed a lawsuit against the city and the agency asserting that they violated
the California Environmental Quality Act by altering management policies
without first analyzing their potential effects, including the increased risk
of fire on dewatered pastures… Three weeks later, the water district initiated
its environmental review…
“‘The DWP never ceases to
amaze me,’ grumbled [Mark] Lacey, one of several lessees in the area who have
reacted to the coming water reduction by reducing their herds, sending cattle
up to Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska and Oregon… ‘My operation is down by about 40%,”
Lacey said. “That means I have three full-time employees — including myself —
instead of five, and I’m spending a lot less on lunch, gasoline and auto parts
at local businesses.’”
We’re witnessing water
crises all over the world, from Cape Town, South Africa’s limping along on a
little less than 14 gallons a day as an average urban water per consumer
allocation to the massive droughts in Syria and Iraq where well over a million
Sunni farmers, abandoned by their Shiite-controlled governments, turned to al
Qaeda and ISIS to help them. Access to water is rapidly becoming one of the
biggest continuing stories everywhere.
Chaos, war, bitterness,
food shortages and shortfalls in urban sanitation requirements are clearly just
the tip of the iceberg, you’ll pardon the pun. And while catastrophic floods
and rain-heavy tropical storms decimate other parts of the world, hot, dry and
deadly are the other side of the coin for a lot more people. Welcome to the
future, and the less we do about climate change, the worse it is going to get.
It’s already pretty ugly.
I’m
Peter Dekom, and a future of too much water where we cannot use it versus not
enough water where we need it most just might be the major issue for the 21st
century.
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