[env-trinity] California drought pits farmers vs. cities. But neither is the biggest water victim

[Tom Stokely]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-10-03/californias-environment-takes-biggest-hit-during-drought


California drought pits farmers vs. cities. But neither is the biggest
water victim
[image: Crews conduct a survey of dead fall-run Chinook salmon in the
Sacramento River.]
Crews conduct a survey of dead fall-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento
River in January of this year.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
BY HAYLEY SMITH <https://www.latimes.com/people/hayley-smith>STAFF WRITER
OCT. 3, 2022 UPDATED 6:59 AM PT

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As California fast approaches what is likely to be a fourth year of
punishing drought
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-22/a-fourth-dry-year-likely-in-california-officials-say>,
residents are being asked to cut their water use to historic lows. But
while city dwellers are rising to the occasion — including record reductions
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-16/angelenos-are-using-record-low-amounts-of-water-now-what>
 in Los Angeles in August — urban consumption still represents only a small
fraction of total water use in the state.

Where the rest of it goes depends on whom you ask. The California
Department of Water Resources says 50% of the state’s water goes toward
environmental purposes, 40% toward agriculture and 10% toward urban areas.

But experts say that calculation tells only part of the story, especially
because the environment’s share tends to shrink dramatically during dry
years. Instead, a clearer picture begins to emerge when you consider water
designated for domestic and business use. Of that, 80% goes toward
agriculture and 20% toward urban areas.

While agriculture’s share may seem outsized to some urban residents being
asked to let their lawns go brown
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-04-28/southern-california-reacts-to-new-drought-restrictions>,
experts say the sector is also dealing with cuts, shortages and shifts
brought on by drought and climate change, even as it continues to play a
major role in feeding the state and nation. California’s environment,
however, is often overlooked in the noisy debate over urban and
agricultural water use, as its constituents — plants, animals, rivers and
aquifers — have little voice in the matter.

The 50-40-10 breakdown “is misleading,” said Peter Gleick, co-founder and
senior fellow of the Pacific Institute. “Because first of all, it implies
that we, as a society, have made a decision to give half of the water to
the environment. When what’s in fact the reality is that we have taken 50%
of the water from the environment. The environment used to have it all.”
ADVERTISEMENT

[image: Lake Oroville, CA - July 20: Lake Oroville, located about 80 miles
north of Sacramento is the largest reservoir in a state system that
provides water to 27 million Californians on Wednesday, July 20, 2022, in
Lake Oroville, CA. Officials had warned the lake - key to the roughly
700-mile State Water Project, which pumps and ferries water across the
state for agricultural, business, and residential use - was at "critically
low" levels on May 8. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)]
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-22/a-fourth-dry-year-likely-in-california-officials-say>

CALIFORNIA <https://www.latimes.com/california>
California should expect a ‘fourth dry year’ as drought persists
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-22/a-fourth-dry-year-likely-in-california-officials-say>

Sept. 22, 2022

That’s not to say environmental water doesn’t still play an important role
in California. Each year, the state’s water managers are tasked with doling
out enough supplies to maintain the state’s scenic rivers, managed wetlands
and wildlife habitats as well as the salinity of sources used by farms and
cities.

But the accounting system is based on a normal year, and in California,
those are increasingly rare. When the state faces dry conditions, the
environment is among the first to take a hit, and that can have harsh
consequences for wildlife.

Last year, for example, limited environmental releases from Shasta Lake
caused river levels to drop and waters to grow warmer — conditions
that are inhospitable
to the state’s Chinook salmon
<https://www.latimes.com/projects/can-endangered-california-chinook-salmon-be-saved-from-extinction>.
Officials have now taken to trucking the fish
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-19/northern-california-chinook-salmon-trucked-to-cooler-waters>,
which are at risk of extinction, to cooler waters where they have a better
chance at survival.

Jeffrey Mount, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California, said it is all part of an annual equation made more delicate by
worsening drought conditions and the demands of urban and agricultural
water users. Critically, about 3.5 to 4 million acre-feet of water must
flow out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — a linchpin of the state’s
system that provides water to millions of Californians — otherwise “the
Delta gets too salty for people to use it,” Mount said.

In 2021, the bulk of the water that ran off the surface of the Sacramento
and San Joaquin Delta watershed was used for agriculture, Mount said. The
water Southern California got was primarily from reservoirs, “and there was
almost nothing for the environment.”

“It is a mistake to actually blend the environment into the discussion,” he
said. “That’s why the 50-40-10 number is so misleading, and probably is not
the thing we should be talking about. But it is fair to discuss the
relationship between what we call consumptive use of water — that is, water
to support domestic and business uses in California. And that 80% number
for agriculture is correct.”

[image: ALTADENA, CA - JUNE 27: Portrait of Seriina Covarrubias along with
her dogs, Sage and Dusty, at her home in Altadena on Monday, June 27, 2022
in Altadena, CA. Covarrubias replaced her once green lawn with California
natives, a stone pond water catchment area and an array of drought tolerant
plants. (Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)]
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-16/angelenos-are-using-record-low-amounts-of-water-now-what>

CALIFORNIA <https://www.latimes.com/california>
L.A. is conserving water at record levels, but it’s not enough as drought
worsens
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-16/angelenos-are-using-record-low-amounts-of-water-now-what>

Sept. 16, 2022

While it may be tempting to vilify agriculture for its massive share, Mount
and other experts said the sector plays an invaluable role in the nation’s
food supply. Though agriculture accounts for only about 3% of the state’s
gross domestic product, it’s about 13% of all agricultural production in
the country, more than any other state. In some ways, its proportion makes
sense.

“It’s hugely imbalanced, but it also is sort of logical because of history
and because of economics,” Gleick said.

Part of the reason agriculture uses such a massive share of the state’s
water is because it is consumptive, Gleick explained — meaning most water
used by crops does not make it back into the system. By contrast, water
that runs down a bathroom sink can be captured, treated and reused for
other purposes.

The consumptive nature of agriculture is the same reason why outdoor
watering is among the first cuts to be made in urban areas, where an
estimated 44% of water
<https://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PI_California_Untapped_Urban_Water_Potential_2022-1.pdf>goes
toward irrigating lawns and other uses outside the home. In Southern
California, for example, officials this summer limited millions of
residents to one- or two-day-a-week outdoor watering
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-01/southern-california-new-drought-rules-june-2022>
 and saw a significant reduction in demand as a result.

But the total volume of water is only one metric for considering
agriculture’s share, according to Isaya Kisekka, a professor of
agricultural water management at UC Davis. Instead, he said, the best way
of looking at water use is to look at nutritional water productivity, or
how much protein, nutrients and calories are produced by a unit of water.

Farmers also consider economic water productivity — or how much economic
value is produced by that unit of water — which “has been increasing in the
state for a few years now,” he said. “That’s when crops like almonds,
pistachios, grapes come into play, and that’s why you’ve seen a lot of
growers shift to these crops, because they have very high economic water
productivity.”

Indeed, the state has seen a dramatic swing away from field crops such as
wheat, cotton and alfalfa and toward fruits, vegetables and nuts in recent
years. Production of cotton, for example, was down 26% in 2020 compared to
the year prior, while pistachios and almonds were up 41% and 22%,
respectively, according to the California Department and Food and
Agriculture
<https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/2021_Ag_Stats_Review.pdf>.

[image: Covina, CA, Tuesday, May 24, 2022 - A barren median on N. Citrus
Ave. (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)]
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-01/southern-california-new-drought-rules-june-2022>

CALIFORNIA <https://www.latimes.com/california>
Unprecedented water restrictions hit Southern California today: What they
mean to you
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-01/southern-california-new-drought-rules-june-2022>

June 1, 2022

The reason for that shift is primarily economic, Mount said.

“Agriculture is not some public trust resource that belongs to everybody,”
he said. “Agriculture is run by businessmen and women, and they seek to
maximize profits on their throughput.”

But its footprint is shrinking, especially as the state ramps up
enforcement of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
<https://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-groundwater-regulation-bills-20140916-story.html>,
a 2014 act aimed at reducing the pumping of groundwater from beneath the
state’s surface. (During dry years, farmers tend to lean heavily on those
underground supplies, which is leading to a host of problems including drying
wells
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-09-01/central-california-shoulders-drought-inequities>
 and land subsidence in the state.)

The act “changes everything, because they’ve been mining groundwater for a
hundred years and now they have to stop doing that,” Mount said of farmers.
“Right there, that’s 500,000 to 700,000 acres of irrigated land that has to
come out of production to meet the requirements of that law.”

Last year, severe drought and reduced water deliveries resulted in 395,000
acres of California cropland — an area larger than Los Angeles — going dry
and unplanted, costing an estimated 8,745 jobs and $1.2 billion in direct
costs
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-25/california-agriculture-takes-1-2-billion-hit-during-drought>.
This year’s impacts could be even larger, with researchers projecting that
nearly 800,000 acres may be fallowed, including about half of all rice
acreage in the state.

That could have disastrous and unintended consequences for migratory birds,
Mount said, because they rely on flooded rice fields during their annual
fall migration.

[image: DELANO, CA - AUGUST 13: Farmworker Alma Guedea packs up freshly
harvested grapes Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020 in Delano, CA. Brian van der Brug
/ Los Angeles Times)]
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-25/california-agriculture-takes-1-2-billion-hit-during-drought>

CALIFORNIA <https://www.latimes.com/california>
California agriculture takes $1.2-billion hit during drought, losing 8,700
farm jobs, researchers find
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-25/california-agriculture-takes-1-2-billion-hit-during-drought>

Feb. 25, 2022

Driven by both nature and economics, farmers are improving their irrigation
practices, Kisekka said. That includes shifting away from flood irrigation
— a practice that literally includes flooding fields — and toward
techniques such as drip irrigation, which dole out one drop at a time.

However, conditions today are more dire than almost any time on record
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-02-14/western-megadrought-driest-in-1200-years>:
The state appears poised to enter yet another year of drought; pressure is
mounting on Southern California to slash its use of Colorado River water
and warming temperatures driven by human-caused climate change are
continuing to evaporate more of the state’s surface water
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-06-30/aridification-kills-civilizations-is-california-next>.
Another round of severe reductions in water allocations from state and
federal suppliers is also looking increasingly likely in 2023
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-04/california-water-agencies-brace-for-colorado-river-cuts>
.

As with other sectors, “agricultural water users have experienced
unprecedented cuts to both their surface water diversions and allocations
from the state and federal water projects since the governor’s first
drought proclamation
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2021-04-21/california-drought-newsom-mendocino-sonoma>
 in April 2021,” Steve Lyle, director of public affairs for the California
Department of Food and Agriculture, said in an email. He said allocations
from the projects have at times been “as little as five percent of
contracts.”

Yet while California has a framework to control allocations, it cannot go
so far as to tell farmers what crops they should grow. Alfalfa, for
example, saw a 22% increase in production in 2020 despite being so water
intensive.

Kisekka said farmers have continued to grow alfalfa — and export it to
other states and nations — because demand remains “sky high” and prices
have been soaring. Many dairies, feed lots and other operations use alfalfa
in their feed rotations.

The state is also somewhat stymied when it comes to water rights, which in
California have long operated under an antiquated system
<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-27/can-california-water-rights-enter-the-digital-age>
 sometimes referred to as “first in time, first in right,” which basically
means water rights are doled out based on whoever was first in line, Mount
said.

“There is authority to take water away from people, but you have to make a
very compelling case that it’s waste and unreasonable use,” he said, adding
that the current laws are very clear that “growing a crop is not viewed as
waste and unreasonable use.”

The rules have long been a battleground in the state, with some farmers quick
to fight against curtailments
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-08-23/ranchers-told-to-stop-diverting-water-in-drought-hit-area>
 and other efforts to reduce their use. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s water supply
strategy, released in August, also drew criticism from experts for its
apparent unwillingness to take on “Big Ag
<https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-08-11/newsom-outlines-sweeping-strategy-to-bolster-water-supplies>
.”

“It’s long past time to revamp the water rights rules in California, but to
say that that’s a heavy lift politically would be an understatement,” said
Gleick, of the Pacific Institute.

[image: An illustration of the map of California as cracked, dry land]
<https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-drought-status-maps-water-usage>

CLIMATE & ENVIRONMENT <https://www.latimes.com/environment>
Tracking the California drought
<https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-drought-status-maps-water-usage>

July 8, 2022

That doesn’t mean urban users are off the hook either. While farmers have
received scrutiny for using the state’s water to grow crops that are
exported overseas, Californians also import immense amounts of water —
often in the form of manufactured goods such as cars, lumber and even craft
beers, Mount said.

Kisekka added that a lot of water is represented in the meals on
Californians’ dinner plates, and that “we should make sure we are not
throwing away food.”

And while agriculture’s 80% share strikes a nerve among some, it’s not all
that different from usage elsewhere in the world. Both nationally and
globally, about 70% to 80% of water goes toward agriculture.

As for whether an almond orchard should take precedence over an urban lawn
— that probably depends on whom you ask, Gleick said.

“It’s understandable that a homeowner asked to let their beautiful lawn go
dry sees farmers using 80% of the water and they think, ‘Well that doesn’t
seem fair,’” Gleick said. “I completely understand that. It’s just not the
way it really works. Farmers really do have, also, many challenges that
they have to face during droughts.”

Put simply, he said, “agriculture uses a lot of water because it takes a
lot of water to grow food.”
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