In Dry California, Thirsty Oil and Big-Ag Industries Exempt from Water Regulations

[RiverLover]

In Dry California, Thirsty Oil and Big-Ag Industries Exempt from Water Regulations
4/3/15

As California Governor Jerry Brown this week instituted the state's first-ever mandatory restrictions on water usage to combat its historic four-year drought, environmental activists are pointing out two glaring exemptions from the order: the fossil fuel and agriculture industries.

Brown's mandate, announced Wednesday, directs cities and communities to cut down their water consumption by 25 percent, but does not make any requirements of the state's numerous oil companies, including those which practice the water-heavy fracking method of extraction, nor of large-scale farming operations.



Adam Scow, California director of Food & Water Watch, also said Wednesday, "It is disappointing that Governor Brown’s executive order to reduce California water use does not address the state’s most egregious corporate water abuses. In the midst of a severe drought, the Governor continues to allow corporate farms and oil interests to deplete and pollute our precious groundwater resources that are crucial for saving water."

California's oil and gas industry uses more than 2 million gallons of fresh water a day to produce oil through fracking, acidizing, and steam injections, according to environmental estimates. In 2014, California oil producers used up nearly 70 million gallons of water on fracking alone, state officials told Reuters on Thursday.

..."Fracking and toxic injection wells may not be the largest uses of water in California," he added, "but they are undoubtedly some of the stupidest."

The bulk of Brown's mandate focuses on urban water use, which as the LA Times points out, makes up less than a quarter of the total water consumption in the state....

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/03/dry-california-thirsty-oil-and-big-ag-industries-exempt-water-regulations

(Xposted in GD)

[DeSwiss]

1. K&R

- I guess it works in reverse too.....

[RiverLover]

3. "Conservatives" are against "conserving" so yeah. Crazy world. /nt

[JDPriestly]

2. We cannot have fracking in California. We just do not have the water. If the oil companies

insist on fracking, they should be required to buy water from the East and import it into California to inject into their wells.

As for agriculture, we do need to eat.

If California subsidized solar energy in Southern California more effectively and more generously, we could provide ourselves with a much bigger share of electricity than we are now. That should be the priority -- solar panels on every roof and compensation for energy produced and fed back into the system by people like me and my husband who use less electricity than we would probably produce if we could afford to put panels on our roof.

"It never rains in California," has been nearly true for a couple of years now. We should use our everlasting sunshine to help us save our scarce water.

I'm a great admirer of Jerry Brown, but this is very disappointing news.

[RiverLover]

4. Much of BigAg's water use goes to corn for biofuel or corn syrup for processed foods.

And then there's the rice.

We could continue on in life without either grain. We can't continue without water.

[JDPriestly]

7. I don't think we grow much corn in California. Maybe rice. Maybe some cotton, but not

much corn.

We grow a lot of avocados and nuts and citrus fruit. That's where the water goes. We also grow lots of vegetables.

California's top-ten valued commodities for 2013 are:

Milk — $7.6 billion
Almonds — $5.8 billion
Grapes — $5.6 billion
Cattle, Calves — $3.05 billion
Strawberries — $2.2 billion

Walnuts — $1.8 billion
Lettuce — $1.7 billion
Hay — $1.6 billion
Tomatoes — $1.2 billion
Nursery plants— $1.2 billion

http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/

[RiverLover]

8. Caifornia produces 16% of nations sweet corn...

Top Producing Counties – California produces 16 percent
of the nation’s sweet corn, ranking number two in the U.S.

http://www.seecalifornia.com/farms/california-corn.html

Water bubbles up from a pump flooding a corn field on May 22, 2013, in California's Sacramento Valley. California Gov. Jerry Brown's order to curb the state's water use largely bypasses agriculture, California's biggest water user.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/04/03/262023/california-agriculture-largely.html

(Regarding corn, I left out the fact that a large amount of it is also grown in CA to feed cattle.)

[JDPriestly]

11. My list shows that it is not one of our major crops.

Corn is not on the list of the top ten agricultural products produced in California.

http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/

My list is the official California government list.

I think this shows how important California is as an agricultural state. The entire nation will suffer if our farmers do not have enough water.

As I point out in a post below, I think the only realistic answer is to desalinate a lot of water. The nation will be a lot hungrier if California's farmers are allowed to go out of business. And that will put additional pressure on the world's food markets.

Bringing in water is unrealistic. The amount of energy involved in that would be prohibitive. Desalination is the answer. We are already recycling our water, and increasing that will be expensive and take energy too. Plus recycling water will not produce enough water as our economy is constantly growing.

We should just bite the bullet and start investing more in water desalination. As with most technologies, the more we use that technology, the cheaper it is likely to become.

[mountain grammy]

14. alfalfa is also grown to feed those milk cows, and alfalfa sucks water.

There are wise ways to use water in agriculture and California farmers better get used to them. All the climate change models show this to be a very long drought, and that was known years ago. Fracking should be forbidden and farms smarter.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. It's a joke then.

Even if they slash every other bit of use in half, they're only buying themselves another month or two if they don't address the farms and oil.

[RiverLover]

9. Exactly.

Fools & their money.

[RiverLover]

6. Related: "How Growers Gamed California’s Drought"

...Although no secret, agriculture’s 80 percent share of state water use is rarely mentioned in media discussions of California’s drought. Instead, news coverage concentrates on the drought’s implications for people in cities and suburbs, which is where most journalists and their audiences live. Thus recent headlines warned that state regulators have ordered restaurants to serve water only if customers explicitly request it and directed homeowners to water lawns no more than twice a week. The San Jose Mercury News pointed out that these restrictions carry no enforcement mechanisms, but what makes them a sideshow is simple math: During a historic drought, surely the sector that’s responsible for 80 percent of water consumption—agriculture—should be the main focus of public attention and policy.

The other great unmentionable of California’s water crisis is that water is still priced more cheaply than it should be, which encourages over-consumption. “Water in California is still relatively inexpensive,” Heather Cooley, director of the water program at the world-renowned Pacific Institute in Oakland, told The Daily Beast.

One reason is that much of the state’s water is provided by federal and state agencies at prices that taxpayers subsidize. A second factor that encourages waste is the “use it or lose it” feature in California’s arcane system of water rights. Under current rules, if a property owner does not use all the water to which he is legally entitled, he relinquishes his future rights to the unused water, which may then get allocated to the next farmer in line....

...One striking aspect of California’s water emergency is how few voices in positions of authority have been willing to state the obvious. To plant increasing amounts of water-intensive crops in a desert would be questionable in the best of times. To continue doing so in the middle of a historic drought, even as scientists warn that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of future droughts, seems nothing less than reckless....

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how-growers-gamed-california-s-drought.html

[JDPriestly]

10. We need food. We need water. We have to balance the two.

I agree that lawns should be the first to go in the battle to conserve water.

I do not agree that water should be more expensive. Increasing the price of water would mean that the rich continue to waste it and the poor go thirsty. That's not right. Rationing for everyone but prioritizing agriculture is a better idea.

And we need to work harder on cutting the cost of desalinating ocean water. At the same time that we have less rain water and snow in California, our oceans are rising. Seems to me that desalinating water is the obvious solution to our water shortae. We should be working now to find ways to do it as cheaply as possible. Countries in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia and Israel are desalinating water.

I have been told on DU that desalination is not possible because it takes too much energy and is therefore too expensive. California has the capacity to produce huge amounts of solar energy. Desalinating water and developing more solar energy go hand in hand.

So why are we so slow in changing to solar energy?

I worked for an oil company during the first oil crisis 1973-74 and attended the first international oil conference in London for the session on alternative energy. (I have told this story many times on DU, so if you remember it, I'm sorry to be repeating myself.) One of the presentations was by a team from MIT. They were heating and producing electricity for a house in Massachusetts using mostly solar energy supplemented by another energy source on really bad weather days.

After the very impressive presentation, a man stood up behind me and said that he represented the nuclear industry of Canada and that they did not want solar energy because it would not provide them with a product they could sell. That was over 40 years ago. Shameful but I don't think that the oil and nuclear industries have changed much with regard to solar energy over that time.

Our economic system is about selling products. Selling gas, selling petroleum products, selling energy produced by nuclear plants mean regular customers buying from a supplier. Solar energy makes people more independent (or apparently that is what is believed in the energy sector). You can maybe say that we who are the customers of those industries are sort of addicted to their products. We can't do what we want to do without constantly buying them.

Once you have solar panels on your roof, you do not have to keep buying products from an energy supplier. You pay for the panels, but you don't go back and buy and buy and buy.

If we had solar production of the energy to desalinate water in California, we could begin to satisfy our water needs. Importing water from the East is not going to work well. The transportation costs will be high. It's just not realistic. It would suit the energy companies because it would means lots of sales of their products and higher energy costs all around. That's my guess anyway.

If California's water shortage persists (and it looks like it very well might), the willingness of the rest of the US to invest in desalination and solar energy will be a test of the nation's unity. If the Mississippi flooded or there was a huge hurricane in Miami, the national will to respond by building dams and helping people rebuild would be there. Floods and hurricanes are dramatic events. You get video of people hanging on for dear life and rushing to shelters.

Droughts are not photogenic. But if America does not invest in finding a sustainable, long-term method to provide sufficient water in California, it will not be good for the country. It will demonstrate how divided we are and would lead to serious problems. I'm not threatening. I'm just warning. California's water problems will be a challenge to the entire country. It's time to invest more in solar energy in Southern California.

[mountain grammy]

17. I think we will get to a point where desalination is the only answer.

Smarter water use is essential, but California will still run out of water. This drought is here for the long haul, and, I'm afraid Colorado is also showing signs of drying up. We just had the warmest March ever, and April is feeling like June.

California's economy and contribution to the American economy is beyond calculation. This drought, as you said, is detrimental to the economy of the entire country.

[NYC_SKP]

22. The Colorado already never makes it to the ocean. But desalination is not the way to go.

We need to but limits on growth and development and we need to meter all water use and incentivize conservation.

Desalination requires massive amounts of energy which we don't have. We can "just use solar" but that would mean continuing use of fossil fuels for electricity.

No. If we get rid of our lawns, recycle domestic water, charge water wasters and use the proceeds to upgrade homes and businesses to use grey water, and limit growth we will do fine.

I worry that building desalination plants will encourage more growth and we'll be right back where we started.

[Nihil]

23. + lots ...

> But desalination is not the way to go.
>
> We need to (put) limits on growth and development and we need to meter all water use and incentivize conservation.
>
> Desalination requires massive amounts of energy which we don't have.
> We can "just use solar" but that would mean continuing use of fossil fuels for electricity.
>
> I worry that building desalination plants will encourage more growth and we'll be right back where we started.

Without significant reduction in consumption, everything else is a pathetic band-aid on a sucking wound.

[dreamnightwind]

20. But much of the state's ag use of water is to grow crops for export

It's not that we here in this state need that much ag water to grow our food, there is plenty of water for that. It's that, with our current population level and the recent (possible the new normal) shift in the weather patterns, we no longer have enough water to export so much food to the rest of the nation and the world.

Where did the water go? It didn't leave the planet, it is falling from the sky elsewhere. If the patterns don't change, ag needs to move with the water, and the ag demands on California's water supply must be greatly reduced. Either that or the rest of the nation and world needs to get us some water so we can continue this level of ag production.

Instead, officials are going to communities that in many cases have already conscientiously reduced their water use to the minimum needed for everyday living, and mandating a further 25% reduction. Priorities for business not for people, same old story.

[JDPriestly]

21. Thanks.

[Buzz Clik]

15. 80%? Wow. California has high use for ag, but I think 80% is too high.

California grows high value crops that consume tremendous amounts of water, and these high-value crops are generally low on the list of necessary foods.

[RiverLover]

19. I agree. /nt

[mountain grammy]

16. Exactly!

[abelenkpe]

12. Are you kidding me?!!

How does that make any sense? They use the bulk of the waster don't they?

[Buzz Clik]

13. Irrigated ag -- yes; oil companies -- no.

Irrigated agriculture will consume about 25% to 50% of the fresh water used in any given area. Fracking about 0.05%.

[blackspade]

18. So the Big Ag and fossil fuel continue to be protected....