So this seems like a stopgap measure so it's not done yet. I'm disappointed to see how people will equally bear the cost of this given we all know what needs to change here: we need to reduce agricultural usage. Although cutting off gold courses will propbably help too.
Farms have a "use it or lose it" system for water allocation, which leads farms to grow water-intensive crops to keep their allocation, most notably alfalfa. We just need to stop growing such crops.
One bone of contention: while climate change is obvviously very real, neither it nor a "historic drought" is the cause of the problem. The problem is, quite simply, overuse based on unrealistic projections of water inflows to the Colorado River basin (see Figure 2 [1]).
Blaming it on climate change is washing hands of responsibility. Poor modeling and mismanagement is the real problem.
You make a very simple statement without any real justification: "We just need to stop growing such crops." I'm guessing that you have all sorts of justification for this and assume that those justifications are well-known and generally agreed. But for those of us less educated, what is the justification? Why shouldn't agriculture be given priority in these regions?
Why is water different than land in this regard? When a developer wants to put up a new subdivision, they buy property from the current owner. Why shouldn't water shares be the same?
If you eliminate 100% of suburban water use you will still have a water problem. If you want a land analogy, it would be like looking at people in San Jose and saying they're the reason for a lack of farmland in California.
Plentiful and subsidized year-around food is a security issue on the federal level - but when compared to other industries it brings in comparatively little for the states involved. You can't reasonably expect a few water starved states to export the majority of its water via crops while sacrificing its own economic prosperity for the sake of the broader country.
In Utah, 80% of water use goes to agriculture. And farmers pay about 1% of what residential customers pay for water.
As a nation, we have this fantasy of turning the desert green. The book Cadillac Desert lists our national obsession with massive water projects that never pay for themselves and that always require massive tax subsidies.
There are various measures of water usage for various crops. Commonly you have "water usage per kilogram of crops" and "acre feet of irrigation water per acre of farming land" but these aren't that useful (IMHO). A far more useful measure if "water usage per kilocalorie" since that's really waht matters and this varies a ton from food source to food source [1].
The "use it or lose it" system of water rights for agriculture in the Colorado River basin creates warped incentives, which is to maximize water usage rather than the economic value of the crop or the calorie content of that crop.
It's clear we can use a ton less water and still feed people in a way that's economically viable for the farmers. But no one wants to give up the water because once it's gone, it's gone.
This situation has real impacts where some in California, for example, were floating the iea of using desalination to provide potable water for people rather than the far cheaper and more obvious solution of just using less water on water-intensive crops.
All of this is just superficial responsibility shifting.
Alfalfa and almonds are thirsty yet we grow them by the square mile in the desert. It doesn't take much googling to realize this is not a smart thing to do in a drought area.
I guess I don't google enough. I live in the middle of a desert. I live near a small stream in the middle of the desert. That small stream is dammed and diverted to irrigate, wait for it, alfalfa.
If we didn't grow alfalfa we would have a lot more water for people to drink. We could sustain more people. Then, instead of having a few thousand people live next to a little stream in the middle of the desert, we could have tens of thousands of people live next to a little stream in the middle of the desert.
No amount of googling explains to me why it is better to have more people near a small stream than it is to have more alfalfa near a small stream.
Imagine a small island that used the scarce land for agriculture. Would it be better to put more people on the island, or would it be better to grow food on the island? What if there were only a few people and they had large fields to grow food. Should they be forced to give up their land so more people could live on the island?
Why is it so important to fill the island with people?
Driving through the Central Valley on a regular basis, it's interesting the entirely different beliefs/expectations about water that seems to drive politics there. There are signs everywhere railing against the state government for "dumping our dam water into the ocean" which is apparently a political memeification based on a Trump quip. It makes it sound like from the perspective of the Central Valley farming interests, California's cities should just shut off water to homes and businesses, plus allow rivers to be completely run dry by farming to the point saltwater flows inland in the delta, to make it possible for farms to always get unlimited cheap water to grow their choice of crops. The signs also say "Is growing food wasting water????" as though the choice is to either allow unlimited irrigation, or end all farming, ignoring the option that they 'spend' water on crops within a realistic budget even when that doesn't allow full maximization of crops every year.
It seems like this lack of realism due to people's desire for very simple good-guy/bad-guy partisan narratives will continue affecting internal CA water politics, which are based on the Sierra Nevada-sourced water that flows in the California Water Project to Los Angeles.
If you are curious and want to learn, Central Valley in California and Farmers have a lot of legitimate grievances.
Wanting unlimited water is a pretty biased take.
The start of the whole issue was that many Central Valley Farms and counties raised bonds to put in aqueducts and entered into purchase agreements with the state of California. The California legislature then passed environmental regulation and stopped providing the water. In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract.
The farmer's position is that the state needs to fulfill it's half of the contract or buy its way out of the obligations it made.
A similar legal battle is playing out all throughout California over groundwater. In those cases, the state passed environmental regulation bypassing the eminent domain process.
I know dozens of families that have lost their life's work and savings overnight because the state thinks it found a loophole to stop them from using water without using eminent domain to buy it.
The closest analogy for the groundwater situation is if you owned a farm in a migratory bird path and the state passed a law for minimum roosting land. Then, instead of buying your farmland, they made a law that you aren't allowed to step foot on it.
> In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract.
Do you have citations for this?
>The closest analogy for the groundwater situation is if you owned a farm in a migratory bird path and the state passed a law for minimum roosting land. Then, instead of buying your farm and land, they didn't compensate you but said you aren't allowed to continue using it as you have been.
isn't this how literally all laws prohibiting something work? The government generally doesn't prohibit something if no one is doing it. Why should the government buy their land?
For example, the government built the interstate highway network of which all of those central valley farmers need to ship their products by using the law to seize land and then changing the character of millions of acres of homes from quiet and peaceful to loud and toxic. They did not generally buyout homeowners who were not necessary to build the road despite fundamentally changing how they were using their property.
I will try to find some decent citations. There are several legal cases and settlement for the former.
>isn't this how literally all laws prohibiting something work? The government generally doesn't prohibit something if no one is doing it. Why should the government buy their land?
No, this isn't how things generally work. It is one thing if a highway changes the character of your neighborhood, but another if the state makes you move out and demolishes your house to build the road. This is the second scenario.
In the case of groundwater, the state recognizes farmers as the owners of the water rights (so they are not being taken away), but limits farmers from exercising those rights. Simultaneously, they allow other groups without the water rights to use it.
> It is one thing if a highway changes the character of your neighborhood, but another if the state makes you move out and demolishes your house to build the road. This is the second scenario.
It is very obviously not. I'm just pointing out that your 'bird' analogy doesn't work because the government makes laws and policy that affect how existing property owners can use their land all the time.
>In the case of groundwater, the state recognizes farmers as the owners of the water rights (so they are not being taken away), but limits farmers from exercising those rights. Simultaneously, they allow other groups without the water rights to use it.
If you want to find some specific examples, that would be helpful. The state also recognizes my rights to the car I own but can make policies on how I use my property including outright banning my use of it. Water rights aren't god given like the Central Valley farmers would like you to believe. They fall under the jurisdiction of the State of California and the United States of America.
I personally think the Central Valley farmers should stop looking for handouts, show some personal responsibility and adapt to reality instead of asking Uncle Sam to bail them out again.
>It is very obviously not. I'm just pointing out that your 'bird' analogy doesn't work because the government makes laws and policy that affect how existing property owners can use their land all the time.
Yes it does, but there is obviously a legal line which can be crossed and be considered a government seizure of property.
The California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) of 2014 [1] is the example for groundwater usage, currently being litigated all over the state.
It doesn't change groundwater rights, but sets up agencies with the power to allocate usage in penalties which ignore the groundwater rights or seniority of rights. A farmers who have been somewhere for a 100 years can and are being prevented from using water, while recently developed communities or other stakeholders get a pass.
>Water rights aren't god given like the Central Valley farmers would like you to believe. They fall under the jurisdiction of the State of California and the United States of America.
What does that mean in this context? All of your property and even your life fall under legal jurisdiction. That doesn't mean the state can ignore the laws it has established and take them away without due process.
Where established groundwater rights exist, this is clearly the case of the house being demolished to make way for the freeway, not making rules for the color of your paint. It is taking something that is recognized property of one person who is using it, and then using it for another purpose.
I personally think that citizens of California should show some responsibility and buy water from those with rights, instead of acting like petty thieves. If the state is free to systemically ignore its own laws, then individuals should be free do the same. However, that lawless society is not one I would want to live in.
>It doesn't change groundwater rights, but sets up agencies with the power to allocate usage in penalties which ignore the groundwater rights or seniority of rights. A farmers who have been somewhere for a 100 years can and are being prevented from using water, while recently developed communities or other stakeholders get a pass.
Wait till you hear who that farmer took 'his' water rights from! They were there a hell of a lot longer than 100 years.
>What does that mean in this context? All of your property and even your life fall under legal jurisdiction. That doesn't mean the state can ignore the laws it has established and take them away without due process.
You haven't given an example of the State of California taking away someone's rights without due process though.
>I personally think that citizens of California should show some responsibility and buy water from those with rights, instead of acting like petty thieves. If the state is free to systemically ignore its own laws, then individuals should be free do the same. However, that lawless society is not one I would want to live in.
Your claim that California is 'acting like petty thieves' is unsubstantiated. You haven't provided any examples of that. There is a difference between what you'd like the law to be and what it is.
I'm open to reading about examples that support your argument if you have them. The realistic situation on the ground is that ranchers/farmers were allowed to act like drunks at an open bar and now the state is managing water more responsibly with respect to ALL the stakeholders in the community.
I don't know what you want for an example. I gave you several links to smga policy and detailed discussion of the legal complications. Did you read them and do you have questions? If you want a Twitter post of a farmer dying, I don't have that.
If you're a fundamental position is that legally established property rights don't matter and are revocable without compensation, I don't know that we will be able to find common ground and share information.
I personally know a lot of people going through this and find some of your characterizations dehumanizing and offensive, on par with wishing someone's family dies a slow death of cancer. For some of these people, it would have been kinder if the state simply showed up and shot them.
>I don't know what you want for an example. I gave you several links to smga policy and detailed discussion of the legal complications
You've asserted that California is taking away rights without due process. I'm looking for examples of that.
You also said
"The start of the whole issue was that many Central Valley Farms and counties raised bonds to put in aqueducts and entered into purchase agreements with the state of California. The California legislature then passed environmental regulation and stopped providing the water. In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract."
which I'd love to learn more about if it actually happened, but Google has nothing.
>Did you read them and do you have questions? I
It's not my job to make your case for you. If you feel like those links have relevant information, pull it out and make a case.
>If you're a fundamental position is that legally established property rights don't matter and are revocable without compensation, I don't know that we will be able to find common ground and share information.
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. I can't help but feel that you don't have any supports for your assertion and are therefore grasping at straws to put words in my mouth.
>For some of these people, it would have been kinder if the state simply showed up and shot them.
The state doesn't exist to prop up whatever business they want to run. It's very obvious that your viewpoint on this situation is informed solely by the complaints of people who want to continue to be subsidized by the state at the expense of everyone else.
If you don't have an actual case to make, I don't see any point in moving forward. I've already heard the Ag industry's made up grievances.
I'm not saying there is no cause for grievance - only that it doesn't look like the discussion is being had in good faith.
The urban water districts, especially Southern California, paid for the 444-mile California Aqueduct to get water from the mountains to the cities. During the last half of the twentieth century this had more supply than needed, so they were happy to sell it for cheap to Central Valley farmers under the condition that they don't grow permanent crops like trees, because eventually the urban water needs were going to increase and they'd need to keep more of the water that they'd paid to transport.
What did they actually do? For one thing, planted orchards. (I'm assuming the miles and miles of felled orchards I saw last week alongside the 5 are related to this particular thing.)
Now, the farmers of the Central Valley may have contractual grievances if the State has done as you say -- and I don't claim to invalidate those, but (A) the fishermen who want salmon to still exist have just as much of a right to a living as they do, and the self-serving bias of the farmers is obvious here. And (B) they have no inherent right to that water, as it comes from up in the mountains. I'd say the districts who paid the cost to build the water project should have first dibs. The farmers who are loudest right now seem to see water costs the same way restaurant owners view minimum wage: "It must be low enough to make my personal business model viable, and if it's not, I'm being oppressed." Nobody owes them favorable costs, any more than Apple is owed cheap semiconductors or Tesla is owed cheap batteries. As reliable Republican voters, it's disappointing that they oppose a market economy so much.
As far as I can see, I think that as long as there is a marginal dollar that could be made by the farmers if only water were cheaper, their politicians will be disingenuously arguing that the cities are robbing them of their water and trying to get more. No matter how fair the arrangements are, or how many concessions are made to them.
Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I think we agree on logic, but differ on some of the facts. That is to say, I would agree with your logic and conclusions if I held the same inputs.
The first difference is that you characterize the urban water districts as the primary payers. My understanding is that many agricultural cities and counties also put money and bonds for various water projects with the intent to use it for agricultural uses.
I have also never heard of any conditions on trees or crops, so I am genuinely curious where that is coming from.
In general, I am for letting the water price vary with market demand, or as dictated by contractual agreements. This is admittedly very complicated because the supply and allowed participants is dictated by policy. That is to say, fishermen and environmentalists aren't buying up the water in the market, they set limits on how much can be sold and to whom.
I actually hear very little from farmers auguring that the cities are robbing them of their water. They seem to see the conflict more in terms of ag vs environmental groups, and take city use for granted. Urban dwellers seem to see the conflict more in terms of city vs Ag, with environmental use taken for granted.
I don't think your restaurant example is a charitable or accurate description of farmers (or restaurants for that matter). Nobody is owed anything, but people can be reasonably upset if they think their government is actively working against their interests. A farmer might be mad that the state prioritizes smelt over his livelihood or cancer treatment. In some sense it's a central function of government to pick winners and losers, and it sucks being on the losing side. A restaurant owner might be mad about minimum wage hikes while the city prevents more housing that would alleviate such need, seeing themselves as a victim of bad policy. It doesn't feel good if your life is selected as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. People obviously have huge biases about what the greater good is when it opposes their livelihood, but let's not pretend policy is free of flaws either.
I apologize for not bringing receipts for the orchard stuff. I promise I didn’t read it somewhere silly, but will try to find the source anyway since me saying so doesn’t prove anything.
As for who paid, you’re probably right that while the CSWP itself definitely was paid for by the urban water districts, perhaps many expensive… uh… “tributaries”? Branches? were invested in by the ag counties to move the water they were getting from it, and if they were promised that water was forever and it wasn’t, I assume that they would be mad. And tbh I don’t think anything I know is related to the Colorado River stuff, so if your info is about that water, perhaps that’s part of these discrepancies.
Things are also complicated by mixing up of the CSWP (1960s), with the Central valley project [1], CVP which is older (1930s). If you browse through the timeline, you will see a lot of detail about funding secured for irrigation, and trading farmers water rights for rights for canal water. This Wikipedia page has some fascinating detail on the history.[1] This image shows the CVP which was built to serve farmers, and the later addition by the SDWP to connect with urban users in southern California.[2] Today I learned that the project was initially intended to limit users to small farmers 160 acres or less (1 Mi^2). Imagine how different California would look if that were the case.
I just found the wiki page today and it is one of the best and most technical pages I have seen in a long time, probably ever. It has lists of relevant annual reports going back to the 1920s, a comprehensive list of litigation, and tons of relevant links.
I also found a reference to farmers being advised to avoid orchards, but this pertained to the CSWP waters from the 1970s onward [3]
>In the early 1970s, the SWP system still had a lot of "surplus" – water supply developed through the construction of Oroville Dam, which was running unused to the Pacific Ocean because the water delivery infrastructure for Southern California had not yet been completed (and when it was, southern California was slow to use the water). The surplus water was given for irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley instead. Because the water would only be a temporary supply, farmers were advised to use it for seasonal crops (such as alfalfa or hay) rather than permanent crops such as orchards. Nevertheless, many farmers used the water to develop new permanent crops, creating a dependency on SWP water that is technically part of Southern California's entitlement
On a different perhaps more mixed note, I found these articles [4][5] going down this rabbit hole of "permanent water contracts"
>According to the Bureau of Reclamation, as of October 2019 more than 75 agencies that had “temporary” water service contracts to receive Central Valley Project water, including the State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife, have exercised the option provided by the WIIN Act to convert their contracts to “permanent” repayment contracts. The contract terms proposed in the repayment contracts for Westlands and other Central Valley Project contractors under the WIIN Act are nearly identical to those in the Friant Division repayment contracts.
>The Interior Department on Friday awarded the nation’s largest farm water district a permanent entitlement to annual irrigation deliveries that amount to roughly twice as much water as the nearly 4 million residents of Los Angeles use in a year....The district is one of more than 75 Central Valley Project customers — most of them farm irrigation districts — that are taking advantage of a 2016 law to convert water service contracts that require periodic renewal to agreements that permanently lock in delivery entitlements and other terms.
I believe these are the water contracts that farmers have been paying since the 1930s, which had terms to convert to
permanent contracts. I will have to tell my republican farming family how Obama accelerated the terms of the water contracts to make them permanent.
You are doing exactly what the comment you replied to is talking about. Extreme hyperbole helps nobody, and compromise is required when it comes to businesses that exploit any natural resource.
It's understandable until you consider that you live in the same food web as those fish, and ecosystems are a little more complex than "Divert all the top-level resources to humans".
Forget the food web, other people also exist, which is incredibly hard for central valley farmers to understand. I'm not sure the workers of the decimated pacific fishing industry would quite agree that the fish are 'random'.
It really comes down to living in a society with competing interests. Society has decided that protecting the last salmon is somewhat important. I say somewhat because central valley farmers are HEAVILY subsidized by the state and federal government and still to get to take the lions share of the water to grow water intensive crops on the desert heat.
What's that old saying? "When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression".
Central Valley farmers are in this predicament because they spent the last 20 years railing against climate change instead of implementing water-saving techniques for the megadrought that everyone knew was coming.
While residents have cut back on their water use by 50% or more in SoCal, Central Valley farmers increased their water use over the past 2 decades. Agriculture now represents 80%+ of the water use in CA, but only about 3% of its economy.
If they were growing food with all that water, people might give a damn. But they're not; they're growing alfalfa for export to feed pigs and livestock in other countries that are smart enough not to waste their water on feed crops.
Farms have a "use it or lose it" system for water allocation, which leads farms to grow water-intensive crops to keep their allocation, most notably alfalfa. We just need to stop growing such crops.
One bone of contention: while climate change is obvviously very real, neither it nor a "historic drought" is the cause of the problem. The problem is, quite simply, overuse based on unrealistic projections of water inflows to the Colorado River basin (see Figure 2 [1]).
Blaming it on climate change is washing hands of responsibility. Poor modeling and mismanagement is the real problem.
[1]: https://www.usbr.gov/watersmart/bsp/docs/finalreport/Colorad...