How Growers Gamed California’s Drought

[Igel]

2. Worth considering facts.

Not just those from one source.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-californias-water-going

The problem is laws. The problem is also that urban growth came late and nobody rewrote the laws. The problem is also that in some areas humans use hundreds of gallons of water per person per day.

The problem is also in using well-defined but obscure terms. "Delivered" or "developed" water means water that's piped in. Some areas in California use a lot of water that's pumped from aquifers; that's not counted in the 100% that agriculture uses 80% of. The Central Valley Project, long a foe of many environmentalists because it's the result of flood control projects that hurt fisheries but tamed rivers for urban growth, doesn't provide water to the Southland--and the north hasn't much needed it. The problem is also that a lot of that base of "developed" water has shrunk, affecting some urban areas more than the Central Valley--it's being returned to rivers on a seasonal basis (which now get a decent chunk, at times, of the formerly "developed" water available for towns and agriculture).

The problem is also that some plants, like pistache or almond trees, take a decade before they begin to bear heavily. You let them die one year, it'll be 10-15 years before the farms are functioning again. Then again, they require not so much water compared to other crops. On the other hand, they do require a lot of time and investment before there's any return. So the big returns per acre have to be averaged over all the non-bearing acreages that doesn't yet count. It means that decisions made in 2008 are producing new acreage harvested for the first time in 2014--making it look like suddenly acreage is being converted to a water-intensive crop. They're a bad showcase crop for water-intensive, greedy practices. They are a good showcase crop for wet-crop farmers whose lands have been fallowed (something like 25% of farmland's been fallowed as water conservation measures have been implemented). It makes it look like a rich versus poor thing, when it's not that--at least not yet. Except for some large corporations who have vast holdings of land (and therefore water). However, what's true for the large corporate farmers is also true for the smaller farmers. Making it a fundamentally an urban/rural divide.

Really--better pistachios and almonds than all the broccoli, lettuce, and other leafy things that are masters at transpiration than xeriphytes and near-xeriphytes like pistachios and almonds. Hit them with more water restrictions to save the buttercrunch and they'll mostly survive. But be clear about what's being saved.

The problem is also that the Central Valley aquifer's been hit, and hit hard, and that's an environmental problem that's unrelated (but exacerbated) by the drought. However, pumping or not pumping that water won't help urban areas in the least. So it's primarily *billed* as an urban/rural divide.

Now, granted, it might be possible to build canals and use pipelines in the next year or so to pump water from the CVP to the dessicated droughtlands in the south. That's not really up for discussion. And it would almost be humorous to watch California try to deal with all the environmental regs to build such a pipeline or canal. Instead it's billed as "we have to suffer but they don't have to", even though the context is different (and when the urban areas were under voluntary restrictions, which is to say, no restrictions, not really, the agricultural lands were already under restrictions as bad as the ones now asked of urban areas. It's hard to know exactly what the sense of rhetoric is: Is it "make them suffer, too" or "since they're not suffering, we shouldn't"? Or maybe it's "make the corporations suffer" or just "make the rich suffer."

Personally, I'd have them dispose of the buttercrunch and florette producers, quick-build a pipeline from the central valley to the south, and let the rivers that are now getting more water than 15 years ago wait.

The Beast is, yet again, simpler than possible yet appears to be a trove of profound insight. Dunning-Kruger, eat your heart out.