The view from the California dustbowl
September 27, 2014 1:56 PM Subscribe
Zero Percent Water. Alan Heathcock visits the Central Valley in California to talk to farmers about the drought, hear their perspective, and see first-hand what the land looks like.
I drove up 99 from Bakersfield to Sacramento not too long ago. All along the way, particularly the south half, were signs saying "End Nancy Pelosi's Drought". As if she were personally responsible for the lack of rain to fill the reservoirs to irrigate the farms.
This article is a lovely written piece about the way a bunch of small farmers in California are fucked and getting more fucked. I feel terrible for them. I also wonder how representative they are of farming in California though. In most of the US farming is done by enormous businesses working hundreds of thousands of acres. Surely the Central Valley is the same? Their businesses are threatened too, but then they have the money to buy publicity and redirect it to more sympathetic cases.
posted by Nelson at 2:20 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
This article is a lovely written piece about the way a bunch of small farmers in California are fucked and getting more fucked. I feel terrible for them. I also wonder how representative they are of farming in California though. In most of the US farming is done by enormous businesses working hundreds of thousands of acres. Surely the Central Valley is the same? Their businesses are threatened too, but then they have the money to buy publicity and redirect it to more sympathetic cases.
posted by Nelson at 2:20 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
Good point, Nelson. But even when dealing with small farmers, there's stuff like this:
"Where once was cotton and alfalfa will soon be fields of panels."
So these people were growing cotton and alfalfa, two of the most water-hungry crops there are (5 acre-feet a crop for cotton, 4 for alfalfa). They were growing them in a desert, with water extracted from other areas. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for them because they now host solar panels instead, something that actually makes sense for a desert? In a state that is in a perilous drought, a state that is projected to only get dryer and dryer as global warming effects hit?
And it's supposed to be all environmentalists fault? It's supposed to be all Nancy Pelosi's fault?
posted by tavella at 2:34 PM on September 27, 2014 [35 favorites]
"Where once was cotton and alfalfa will soon be fields of panels."
So these people were growing cotton and alfalfa, two of the most water-hungry crops there are (5 acre-feet a crop for cotton, 4 for alfalfa). They were growing them in a desert, with water extracted from other areas. And I'm supposed to feel sorry for them because they now host solar panels instead, something that actually makes sense for a desert? In a state that is in a perilous drought, a state that is projected to only get dryer and dryer as global warming effects hit?
And it's supposed to be all environmentalists fault? It's supposed to be all Nancy Pelosi's fault?
posted by tavella at 2:34 PM on September 27, 2014 [35 favorites]
Salmon are also food, and nowhere in the article does the author acknowledge this.
posted by wuwei at 2:34 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by wuwei at 2:34 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
Tavella's position gets a response halfway through the article:
Has political segregation disabled our desire to empathize? Must every problem pass political approval before sympathy is offered? What does this mean for America if suffering is so easily cast off with indifference or hostility?
I'm sure my fondness for eating fresh veggies in winter contributes to conditions in that valley, and that individual farmers are no more responsible than the rest of us for the climate change driving the drought. Us elsewhere need to take some responsibility for how this land became so heavily farmed and why its people are faring poorly now.
Maybe we together need to change the way we grow our food - where we grow it, how, and what we eat. That's no reason to think that these farmers who are getting bankrupted are to blame and deserve our scorn.
Solidarity, people. On climate issues especially we're all in this together.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:37 PM on September 27, 2014 [20 favorites]
Has political segregation disabled our desire to empathize? Must every problem pass political approval before sympathy is offered? What does this mean for America if suffering is so easily cast off with indifference or hostility?
I'm sure my fondness for eating fresh veggies in winter contributes to conditions in that valley, and that individual farmers are no more responsible than the rest of us for the climate change driving the drought. Us elsewhere need to take some responsibility for how this land became so heavily farmed and why its people are faring poorly now.
Maybe we together need to change the way we grow our food - where we grow it, how, and what we eat. That's no reason to think that these farmers who are getting bankrupted are to blame and deserve our scorn.
Solidarity, people. On climate issues especially we're all in this together.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:37 PM on September 27, 2014 [20 favorites]
It's a tough situation for farmers, but I don't think it makes sense for California to continue producing food at current levels. The state may not even really get to make a choice about the problem, if it doesn't rain again this winter and we run out of water.
posted by three_red_balloons at 2:43 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by three_red_balloons at 2:43 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
All the photos being black and white bugged me. It struck me not so much as an artistic choice, but as some sort of tear-jerking manipulation you'd see in a political ad.
And i mean, maybe my monitor calibration is fucked(totally possible), but they seemed slightly red-toned too to make them look even bleaker.
My skeptic hackles always get raised whenever i see that kind of "look at this starving child in africa!" sort of photography juxtaposed with something.
posted by emptythought at 2:46 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
And i mean, maybe my monitor calibration is fucked(totally possible), but they seemed slightly red-toned too to make them look even bleaker.
My skeptic hackles always get raised whenever i see that kind of "look at this starving child in africa!" sort of photography juxtaposed with something.
posted by emptythought at 2:46 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
So they are farming in an unsupportable fashion in a desert
The Central Valley used to be a giant seasonal wetland before it was drained for agriculture and flood control. It drains the entire western Sierras, which is the wet side. For comparison: the Sacramento River carries more water than the Colorado and that's only one of the river systems in the Central Valley.
Into the early part of this century an inland sea a hundred miles long or more would form every year and only very slowly drain out the Golden Gate. In 1862 the Great Flood put the whole place 20 feet under water. Even the Tulare Basin (south end, by the Grapevine and not hydrologically connected to the rest of the basin normally) was only semi arid in its natural state. Tulare Lake used to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi, now its gone. So are Bunea Vista and Kern Lakes.
Battling the Inland Sea is a great book about how people manged to turn a vast wetland full of huge lakes, birds, elk, bear and fish into a place that might be mistaken for a desert in 100 years or less.
I don't the Tulare basin area well and it is the dryest section so this may not apply to the farm in the article: in quite a lot of the Central Valley the fields have French drains under them. They irrigate then drain the irrigation water away. These days a fair bit of that is recaptured and re-used but not all and none of it used to be.
posted by fshgrl at 2:55 PM on September 27, 2014 [40 favorites]
The Central Valley used to be a giant seasonal wetland before it was drained for agriculture and flood control. It drains the entire western Sierras, which is the wet side. For comparison: the Sacramento River carries more water than the Colorado and that's only one of the river systems in the Central Valley.
Into the early part of this century an inland sea a hundred miles long or more would form every year and only very slowly drain out the Golden Gate. In 1862 the Great Flood put the whole place 20 feet under water. Even the Tulare Basin (south end, by the Grapevine and not hydrologically connected to the rest of the basin normally) was only semi arid in its natural state. Tulare Lake used to be the largest lake west of the Mississippi, now its gone. So are Bunea Vista and Kern Lakes.
Battling the Inland Sea is a great book about how people manged to turn a vast wetland full of huge lakes, birds, elk, bear and fish into a place that might be mistaken for a desert in 100 years or less.
I don't the Tulare basin area well and it is the dryest section so this may not apply to the farm in the article: in quite a lot of the Central Valley the fields have French drains under them. They irrigate then drain the irrigation water away. These days a fair bit of that is recaptured and re-used but not all and none of it used to be.
posted by fshgrl at 2:55 PM on September 27, 2014 [40 favorites]
Fair enough point, fshgirl, but the fact is that an area can be both a desert and a seasonal wetland -- for example, the Kalahari desert has similar periods of wet and dry. The San Joaquin Valley is semi-arid and does not have enough water to support the amount and type of agriculture that is being done there.
Also, note that for all the talk about 'feeding America', most of the farmers talked about are growing non-food crops and luxury foods, not winter vegetables.
posted by tavella at 3:03 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also, note that for all the talk about 'feeding America', most of the farmers talked about are growing non-food crops and luxury foods, not winter vegetables.
posted by tavella at 3:03 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
And in terms of "we together need to change the way we grow our food" -- well, in fact, that's exactly what is happening. Water-hungry crops are going away. It's unfortunate for the farmers, at least those who don't have other valuable options for their land like solar farms, and I'm fine with the idea of programs to help transition them, but apparently what a whole lot of them want is to destroy the rest of the state to support 'their way of life'.
posted by tavella at 3:10 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by tavella at 3:10 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
I'm not blaming these farmers, btw, I don't want it to sound like that. They inherited the system. Farming is going to change because it's going to have to but fixing the Central Valley is going to take a big picture approach and a lot of people are going to have to get over their pre-conceived notions of who is responsible for what and try to be objective and sensible. The big dams went in for flood control and hydro power for the urban areas in the first place. Flood control districts have sweeping powers to not give a shit who they effect and urban water districts are extremely influential and wealthy in CA. There is resentment as the farmers benefit from a system put in place when CA was primarily an agricultural state but its just an historical artifact, if that water were available to other users at that price, they'd "waste" it too. I present as evidence: Palm Springs, and the entire coachella valley. Which IS a desert. A desert full of golf courses, water features and outdoor bars with misters.
posted by fshgrl at 3:12 PM on September 27, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by fshgrl at 3:12 PM on September 27, 2014 [7 favorites]
i'm afraid california and a good part of the southwest are simply not able to sustain the population it has and all the activities that population wants to do
it's not a matter of saying that things have to change or people have to move - things will change and people will move and no politician or government is going to be able to stop it from happening
posted by pyramid termite at 3:15 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
it's not a matter of saying that things have to change or people have to move - things will change and people will move and no politician or government is going to be able to stop it from happening
posted by pyramid termite at 3:15 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
This issue is so complicated for people with roots in the valley. My family would be nowhere without Fresno grape fields, and at this point I think nobody in our family is farming and most of us have moved away. I doubt I'll ever go back to Fresno again, to be completely honest, and it DOES kind of break my heart to think of the way of life I knew there as a child dying out entirely. It was a special place, once upon a time.
But at the same time, those of us who have spent a lot of time there know how profligately water was wasted there, for so many years. While the rest of California conserved in the droughts of the late 80s and early 90s, residential water wasn't even metered in some parts of Fresno until a few years ago. That's right - your water bill didn't depend on how much water you used. This was the case at my grandparents' as recently as ten years ago! People acted like water was this infinite resource there. And now, suddenly, now that there's actually a crisis, they've got religion about conservation? Give me a break. The mentality in the valley about water is 100% entitlement. They think that because they're "feeding the nation" they should be given carte blanche to use as much water as they want, just as they please, with no accountability to any other environmental realities, because that's how it was for their parents.
I feel for these small time family farms, I really do. These are my people, after all. But there are a lot of people out there being hurt much worse by climate change, people who haven't spent the last half century wasting water like it was going out of style and lobbying against the environmentalists who warned them about climate change and tried to get people to change their habits before things got worse. So my sympathy is tempered by profound disappointment. Think about what the world might look like if the ag lobby had realized the possible consequences of global warming when scientists began to see the first signs of it, and thrown all their legislative muscle behind stopping it.
In short... god, it's so complicated.
posted by town of cats at 3:20 PM on September 27, 2014 [28 favorites]
But at the same time, those of us who have spent a lot of time there know how profligately water was wasted there, for so many years. While the rest of California conserved in the droughts of the late 80s and early 90s, residential water wasn't even metered in some parts of Fresno until a few years ago. That's right - your water bill didn't depend on how much water you used. This was the case at my grandparents' as recently as ten years ago! People acted like water was this infinite resource there. And now, suddenly, now that there's actually a crisis, they've got religion about conservation? Give me a break. The mentality in the valley about water is 100% entitlement. They think that because they're "feeding the nation" they should be given carte blanche to use as much water as they want, just as they please, with no accountability to any other environmental realities, because that's how it was for their parents.
I feel for these small time family farms, I really do. These are my people, after all. But there are a lot of people out there being hurt much worse by climate change, people who haven't spent the last half century wasting water like it was going out of style and lobbying against the environmentalists who warned them about climate change and tried to get people to change their habits before things got worse. So my sympathy is tempered by profound disappointment. Think about what the world might look like if the ag lobby had realized the possible consequences of global warming when scientists began to see the first signs of it, and thrown all their legislative muscle behind stopping it.
In short... god, it's so complicated.
posted by town of cats at 3:20 PM on September 27, 2014 [28 favorites]
People acted like water was this infinite resource there.
We saw a little piece of this in Oregon a few years ago, when we did a drive-around-look-at-rocks-and-stuff tour, and saw more than one field being irrigated with the irrigation rig set in such a way that it also watered the road. And now here in CA, farmers are drilling ever deeper for wells and there's no control or measurement at all over who's taking what from aquifers. Farmers acknowledge that this is really not ideal but everyone shrugs the "well what are you gonna do" shrug and carries on tapping the resource without any idea at all of what that will do in the short term, let alone the long.
posted by rtha at 3:27 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
We saw a little piece of this in Oregon a few years ago, when we did a drive-around-look-at-rocks-and-stuff tour, and saw more than one field being irrigated with the irrigation rig set in such a way that it also watered the road. And now here in CA, farmers are drilling ever deeper for wells and there's no control or measurement at all over who's taking what from aquifers. Farmers acknowledge that this is really not ideal but everyone shrugs the "well what are you gonna do" shrug and carries on tapping the resource without any idea at all of what that will do in the short term, let alone the long.
posted by rtha at 3:27 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's insanely complicated. There's an enormous system dedicated to not having the Valley and Delta flood. To getting sesoanl flows out asap. Then there are other systems designed to conserve water. There's CA politics which are.. special. There the insane old water rights from the 1800s with a semi modern system layered on top. Infrastructure is old. The Aquaduct isn't even lined or capped. Even without climate change its all lumbering towards disaster.
It needs a total overhaul.
posted by fshgrl at 3:29 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
It needs a total overhaul.
posted by fshgrl at 3:29 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
Stories of bulldozed olive trees, withering walnut trees and dying grape vines - these are things we can't start growing elsewhere overnight. Cut back on the alfalfa, sure, but there are some crops that a) need a semi-arid environment and b)need years to get from sprout to harvest.
I'm reminded of Ancient Greek warfare, where the worst thing you could do to a city short of coming over the walls and going genocidal was to burn the olive trees, causing harm for a generation.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:30 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
I'm reminded of Ancient Greek warfare, where the worst thing you could do to a city short of coming over the walls and going genocidal was to burn the olive trees, causing harm for a generation.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:30 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
The agriculture of the central valley is unsustainable and must be radically changed but very little of the central valley of California is desert or arid and I wish people would not repeat that. There is some of that in the southern San Joaquin near Bakersfield but the Sacramento Valley and the northern San Joaquin is Mediterranean or steppe. It's no more a desert than is most of Italy.
posted by Justinian at 4:33 PM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 4:33 PM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
I found a good map of California's climate zones on page 4 of the linked pdf. I had thought the steppe region ended around Fresno but it actually extends further north than that, up past Merced with a (no-doubt middle) finger pointed right at Stockton, but you can see that very little of the valley is desert and a minority is semi-arid. A decent majority is Csa (Mediterranean with hot summers). So, yeah, much of the central valley is great for agricultural... but we're growing the wrong things and in the wrong areas.
posted by Justinian at 4:40 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Justinian at 4:40 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
This article is a lovely written piece about the way a bunch of small farmers in California are fucked and getting more fucked.
Really? I thought the farmers sounded like awful people. Blaming everything on those damn liberals and Congress and always someone else in some faraway place and not themselves and their parents and grandparents who pumped the ground dry and wasted almost all of the water they extracted, not blaming themselves and their parents for having been through droughts and more droughts before and doing barely anything to use their water more effectively or choose more sensible crops until disaster was breathing right down their necks.
I swear someday I'm going to have some sort of Who Wants To Be A Short-Sighted Dipshit? contest between farmers and fishermen.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:09 PM on September 27, 2014 [15 favorites]
Really? I thought the farmers sounded like awful people. Blaming everything on those damn liberals and Congress and always someone else in some faraway place and not themselves and their parents and grandparents who pumped the ground dry and wasted almost all of the water they extracted, not blaming themselves and their parents for having been through droughts and more droughts before and doing barely anything to use their water more effectively or choose more sensible crops until disaster was breathing right down their necks.
I swear someday I'm going to have some sort of Who Wants To Be A Short-Sighted Dipshit? contest between farmers and fishermen.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:09 PM on September 27, 2014 [15 favorites]
fshgrl: "Into the early part of this century an inland sea a hundred miles long or more would form every year and only very slowly drain out the Golden Gate."
Presumably you mean 1901, not 2001.
posted by pwnguin at 5:10 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
Presumably you mean 1901, not 2001.
posted by pwnguin at 5:10 PM on September 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
Stunning before and after images of California's drought
posted by homunculus at 5:19 PM on September 27, 2014
posted by homunculus at 5:19 PM on September 27, 2014
How Dust Might Make Drought Worse (or a Bit Better) in California: A love-hate relationship between dust and snow may affect the state's water supply.
posted by homunculus at 5:20 PM on September 27, 2014
posted by homunculus at 5:20 PM on September 27, 2014
Water rights in the southwest are one of those push button issues that can get you punched. I live in New Mexico where much of the state agriculture is based around rainfall forecasts that were taken during a record-breaking decade. Today, we get 1/10 of that rainfall, but still have water consumption to match the old numbers.
The Rio Grande is running dry in most of my state, and the local conservancy district has started buying water rights back from farmers. This also doesn't take into account a large fraction of farms that were founded before the water compacts of the 20's, and are simply grandfathered into the conservancy with no restrictions.
Everyone jokes about Phoenix or Albuquerque finally withering up and blowing away, but nowadays the laughter is made through clenched teeth. Some nights I stay up late wondering where I'll move to when that day comes. When, not if.
posted by endotoxin at 5:27 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
The Rio Grande is running dry in most of my state, and the local conservancy district has started buying water rights back from farmers. This also doesn't take into account a large fraction of farms that were founded before the water compacts of the 20's, and are simply grandfathered into the conservancy with no restrictions.
Everyone jokes about Phoenix or Albuquerque finally withering up and blowing away, but nowadays the laughter is made through clenched teeth. Some nights I stay up late wondering where I'll move to when that day comes. When, not if.
posted by endotoxin at 5:27 PM on September 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
Presumably you mean 1901, not 2001.
True! Although in the winter of 96-97 we got pretty close! That was the year all the levees on the San Joaquin failed and Natomas was under 3 feet of water.
posted by fshgrl at 5:44 PM on September 27, 2014
True! Although in the winter of 96-97 we got pretty close! That was the year all the levees on the San Joaquin failed and Natomas was under 3 feet of water.
posted by fshgrl at 5:44 PM on September 27, 2014
Perhaps it's the way the article is cast, but the diatribes against environmentalists really stick in my craw - people casting blame for their own self-caused troubles on the very people who predicted these troubles generations ago, and tried to come up with solutions we could all live with.
Underlying everything is the issue of water rights - and this won't ever be solved because the only way that would possibly work would be to nationalize all water sources and have a central authority dole the water out as fairly as possible with completely transparency.
But that's communism, Americans would never in a million years cooperate with their neighbors - so what we're going to get is a century of lawsuits and water waste until the whole area is an arid, parched wasteland.
Sorry to sound so cynical, but I've been aware of these issues for decades now and it's like watching a bus accident in slow motion. If I kept caring about this sort of thing, I'd be a gibbering lunatic now...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:44 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
Underlying everything is the issue of water rights - and this won't ever be solved because the only way that would possibly work would be to nationalize all water sources and have a central authority dole the water out as fairly as possible with completely transparency.
But that's communism, Americans would never in a million years cooperate with their neighbors - so what we're going to get is a century of lawsuits and water waste until the whole area is an arid, parched wasteland.
Sorry to sound so cynical, but I've been aware of these issues for decades now and it's like watching a bus accident in slow motion. If I kept caring about this sort of thing, I'd be a gibbering lunatic now...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:44 PM on September 27, 2014 [6 favorites]
And now here in CA, farmers are drilling ever deeper for wells and there's no control or measurement at all over who's taking what from aquifers.
Yeah. California is pretty much fucked. The balkanization traditions of the United States when it comes to public services pretty much fucked it from the beginning.
Back home we have one Water Corporation which is a government owned corporation who is charged with stewarding water policy for the entire state of two million people. They do an admirable job and have plans in place to safeguard the water security of an area with seriously declining rainfall through to 2060. They've been able to do this because they've been able to plow money into ventures like desalinization, groundwater recharge and plain old water recycling.
You just can't do that in California. You can't come together as a a state and say "we're going to build 1.2 million acre-feet per year of desal capcity to lower our usage on surface water by a third" because there's such a huge clusterfuck of people that have to come together to make it happen and half of them have no interest in making this happen either because "fuck you I've got mine" or they're private and profit orientated and just slap markup on the water they buy anyway. Not like the poor saps that live in their water districts can go elsewhere for their water.
So yeah, California is fucked. Agriculture in California is fucked. You want to farm rice and send it to China? Move to Washington state and do it.
posted by Talez at 8:03 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah. California is pretty much fucked. The balkanization traditions of the United States when it comes to public services pretty much fucked it from the beginning.
Back home we have one Water Corporation which is a government owned corporation who is charged with stewarding water policy for the entire state of two million people. They do an admirable job and have plans in place to safeguard the water security of an area with seriously declining rainfall through to 2060. They've been able to do this because they've been able to plow money into ventures like desalinization, groundwater recharge and plain old water recycling.
You just can't do that in California. You can't come together as a a state and say "we're going to build 1.2 million acre-feet per year of desal capcity to lower our usage on surface water by a third" because there's such a huge clusterfuck of people that have to come together to make it happen and half of them have no interest in making this happen either because "fuck you I've got mine" or they're private and profit orientated and just slap markup on the water they buy anyway. Not like the poor saps that live in their water districts can go elsewhere for their water.
So yeah, California is fucked. Agriculture in California is fucked. You want to farm rice and send it to China? Move to Washington state and do it.
posted by Talez at 8:03 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
I think in California we will see within our lifetimes significant migration due to lack of water. One of the things about climate change that no one seems to discuss is what will happen to real estate prices. I would not be buying a house in California, at all. The situation with water is likely to get a LOT worse. When it does it will impact the state in ways most folks have not guessed at. Better to keep your assets relatively liquid so you can move as needed and try to acquire property where you have a better shot at adequate water supply. I know this sounds a bit fringey, but climate change is going to profoundly impact many states, California, Florida, & Texas in particular I believe. I really hope I am wrong.
posted by jcworth at 8:12 PM on September 27, 2014
posted by jcworth at 8:12 PM on September 27, 2014
One ice cream store selling the same banana milkshake for forty years is an anomaly. Human history is filled, not just with change, but with accelerating change. Accelerating change is built in to technology. There is acceleration in climate change. Maybe you got to do what your grandparents did but expecting your grandchildren to do what you are doing is to adopt a bug in amber as your role model.
The environmentalists were right about the logging industry and the fishing industry. They may be useful collaborators on the future of the farming industry.
Change bankrupts people. It creates winners and losers. It is the god damn liberals who want to get everybody through.
We need agility so that we can rapidly respond to change. Agility is tough to achieve. It may be impossible when some demand that there be no change and others fantasize about sustainability. Change precludes sustainability. Nothing in human history has ever been sustainable and nothing ever will be. Society in the year 2100 will look less like 2000 than 2000 looked like 1900. The future is not just like today but with more rain barrels. A livable future requires rapidly designing adaptations to change.
posted by llc at 8:42 PM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
The environmentalists were right about the logging industry and the fishing industry. They may be useful collaborators on the future of the farming industry.
Change bankrupts people. It creates winners and losers. It is the god damn liberals who want to get everybody through.
We need agility so that we can rapidly respond to change. Agility is tough to achieve. It may be impossible when some demand that there be no change and others fantasize about sustainability. Change precludes sustainability. Nothing in human history has ever been sustainable and nothing ever will be. Society in the year 2100 will look less like 2000 than 2000 looked like 1900. The future is not just like today but with more rain barrels. A livable future requires rapidly designing adaptations to change.
posted by llc at 8:42 PM on September 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
jcworth, you are right that, worldwide, individuals and businesses will be migrating from where there is no, or expensive, water to where there is some, or less expensive, water.
As Talez notes, this could mean migration to Washington. Population growth changes the relative abundance of water in Washington.
posted by llc at 8:47 PM on September 27, 2014
As Talez notes, this could mean migration to Washington. Population growth changes the relative abundance of water in Washington.
posted by llc at 8:47 PM on September 27, 2014
Stuff I learned by reading various articles today: California has 1% of the farmland in the US, but grows 8% of the food. The average farm size in the central valley is nearly 400 acres. About 10% of all the water used in California is for growing almonds (2 billion pounds), because it's easy and the trees last 25 years. The second largest use of land in the central valley is vineyards, both fresh grapes and wine, with much of the latter shipped to China. Hmong is the third largest spoken language.
posted by Brian B. at 8:47 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 8:47 PM on September 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
Washington has water problems, too. Most of our water is very dependent on the snow pack, and that has been getting lighter and lighter each year. (It doesn't actually rain much in July, August and September, and if the snow pack was light, water is scarce then).
"We've done it this way forever" is one of the dumbest things people do, say, believe and trust.
posted by maxwelton at 1:10 AM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
"We've done it this way forever" is one of the dumbest things people do, say, believe and trust.
posted by maxwelton at 1:10 AM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: read Beyond the 100th Meridian.
The first half is a rollicking adventure, down the Colorado River in wooden boats.
The second half is Powell's realization that to settle the West correctly, some things were gonna have to be rethought and done differently. Like lots based on squares rather than drainage. And not assuming rainfall today is normal.
Hint: things were not done differently. It's heartbreaking.
That a self-taught Illinois farmboy Civil War veteran figured this out when the Central Valley was just starting to be farmed but we're just now starting to deal with it says a lot about the willful shortsightedness of greedy people.
posted by notsnot at 7:21 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
The first half is a rollicking adventure, down the Colorado River in wooden boats.
The second half is Powell's realization that to settle the West correctly, some things were gonna have to be rethought and done differently. Like lots based on squares rather than drainage. And not assuming rainfall today is normal.
Hint: things were not done differently. It's heartbreaking.
That a self-taught Illinois farmboy Civil War veteran figured this out when the Central Valley was just starting to be farmed but we're just now starting to deal with it says a lot about the willful shortsightedness of greedy people.
posted by notsnot at 7:21 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
That's right - your water bill didn't depend on how much water you used. This was the case at my grandparents' as recently as ten years ago!
I live in the Sacramento area... there are several water districts here and not all of them are metering or charging by use rates yet. My water meter was installed around 2010 but if I recall, they didn't start actually metering and billing me based on usage until 2012.
And according to this Sacramento Bee article from January, more than half of the residences in the city of Sacramento still aren't metered.
That was the year all the levees on the San Joaquin failed and Natomas was under 3 feet of water.
Natomas is in a damn floodplain and nothing should have been built out there in the first place. They were lucky it was only 3 feet.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:23 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
I live in the Sacramento area... there are several water districts here and not all of them are metering or charging by use rates yet. My water meter was installed around 2010 but if I recall, they didn't start actually metering and billing me based on usage until 2012.
And according to this Sacramento Bee article from January, more than half of the residences in the city of Sacramento still aren't metered.
That was the year all the levees on the San Joaquin failed and Natomas was under 3 feet of water.
Natomas is in a damn floodplain and nothing should have been built out there in the first place. They were lucky it was only 3 feet.
posted by elsietheeel at 9:23 AM on September 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
The environmentalists aren't the problem. The water used to save salmon runs and wildlife is a comparative trickle.
The problem, frankly, are all the cows. Beef has an overall water footprint of roughly four million gallons per ton produced. By contrast, the water footprint for vegetables is 85,000 gallons per ton.
In most states, growing just the feed for cattle accounts for about a third of all water. In California, however, it's over 40%... and a lot of that feed isn't being used in California, but is being exported to China. Since 2009, alfalfa exports to China grew nearly eightfold to a record 575,000 tons — shipped overseas in the same containers that deliver the latest iPhones and flat-screen TVs from Chinese factories. The situation is such that it's cheaper to export alfalfa to China than it is to sell it to local cattle farmers, who have been forced to close down.
It's the easiest thing in the world to put the great majority of these fruit and vegetable farmers back to work. Simply adjust water usage laws so that they stop prioritizing the significantly smaller number of cattle and alfalfa farmers. Fruit and veg farming is more labor intensive... but if you want to reduce the horrible unemployment in the Central Valley, increasing fruit and veg farming is a good thing.
It would reduce unemployment *and* help protect the local wildlife, as the state wouldn't have to deal with all the cattle farming runoff, ocean dead zones, etc. You might have to pay a bit more for your burger, though.
posted by markkraft at 11:18 AM on September 28, 2014 [7 favorites]
The problem, frankly, are all the cows. Beef has an overall water footprint of roughly four million gallons per ton produced. By contrast, the water footprint for vegetables is 85,000 gallons per ton.
In most states, growing just the feed for cattle accounts for about a third of all water. In California, however, it's over 40%... and a lot of that feed isn't being used in California, but is being exported to China. Since 2009, alfalfa exports to China grew nearly eightfold to a record 575,000 tons — shipped overseas in the same containers that deliver the latest iPhones and flat-screen TVs from Chinese factories. The situation is such that it's cheaper to export alfalfa to China than it is to sell it to local cattle farmers, who have been forced to close down.
It's the easiest thing in the world to put the great majority of these fruit and vegetable farmers back to work. Simply adjust water usage laws so that they stop prioritizing the significantly smaller number of cattle and alfalfa farmers. Fruit and veg farming is more labor intensive... but if you want to reduce the horrible unemployment in the Central Valley, increasing fruit and veg farming is a good thing.
It would reduce unemployment *and* help protect the local wildlife, as the state wouldn't have to deal with all the cattle farming runoff, ocean dead zones, etc. You might have to pay a bit more for your burger, though.
posted by markkraft at 11:18 AM on September 28, 2014 [7 favorites]
The really crazy part is that this situation could be improved dramatically by introducing market pricing for water, which would simultaneously encourage both conservation and investment in things like desalination — and as soon as you proposed it, you'd be viciously attacked as a communist out to destroy free enterprise.
posted by adamsc at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by adamsc at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
The fact of the matter, in California same as here in Queensland, is that nobody - farmers and civvies alike - gives a fuck about water until there is none left (or there's too much of it suddenly). People still hose down their driveways and leave the taps running while they brush their teeth, whether flood or drought.
I just crunched the numbers (since they aren't readily available) and they suggest that cotton farming alone in Queensland is costing 2,700,000 ML of water every year.
That's just about a quarter of Queensland's dams drunk dry (our capacity is a hair over 10 million ML). Of course not much dam water is actually used for growing cotton, not much at all (it's mostly milkshaked up from the GAB, which is something silly like 65,000 million ML), but the point is that is just a fucking insane amount of water for something that's scoring us only $400 million, on the driest continent on earth.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:32 PM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I just crunched the numbers (since they aren't readily available) and they suggest that cotton farming alone in Queensland is costing 2,700,000 ML of water every year.
That's just about a quarter of Queensland's dams drunk dry (our capacity is a hair over 10 million ML). Of course not much dam water is actually used for growing cotton, not much at all (it's mostly milkshaked up from the GAB, which is something silly like 65,000 million ML), but the point is that is just a fucking insane amount of water for something that's scoring us only $400 million, on the driest continent on earth.
posted by turbid dahlia at 4:32 PM on September 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
It looks like the California drought is mostly about almonds and grapes, because growers can't let the fields go dry like they can with other crops. Both industries have dramatically expanded recently. The table grapes are having a good year though, last year set a record.
posted by Brian B. at 4:53 PM on September 28, 2014
posted by Brian B. at 4:53 PM on September 28, 2014
Nelson: This article is a lovely written piece about the way a bunch of small farmers in California are fucked and getting more fucked. I feel terrible for them.I feel as bad for them as I do for the elephant-gun makers who are being driven out of business by all these damned "no poaching" rules that the lefties are forcing on us.
And the radium-flavored cottage-industry candy makers... who's going to fight for them and their families?
Goddamned liberals.
posted by IAmBroom at 12:49 PM on September 29, 2014
The fact of the matter, in California same as here in Queensland, is that nobody - farmers and civvies alike - gives a fuck about water until there is none left (or there's too much of it suddenly). People still hose down their driveways and leave the taps running while they brush their teeth, whether flood or drought.
In January Jerry Brown signed the first state-wide water-use laws, with penalties of up to $500/violation. SoCal has had temporary water-use restrictions for decades and decades and decades on an as-needed basis. In L.A., exceeding the current guidelines will result in higher rates.
Here in Santa Monica the city has its own restrictions. Additionally, in a symbolic move the city had shut off the water at the dinosaur fountains on the Promenade (the water is all reclaimed) but they had to turn them back on because they were getting damaged. Ironically, the city still washes the sidewalks in downtown every night because the California Coastal Commission requires it to mitigate pollution run-off into the ocean.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:14 AM on September 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
In January Jerry Brown signed the first state-wide water-use laws, with penalties of up to $500/violation. SoCal has had temporary water-use restrictions for decades and decades and decades on an as-needed basis. In L.A., exceeding the current guidelines will result in higher rates.
Here in Santa Monica the city has its own restrictions. Additionally, in a symbolic move the city had shut off the water at the dinosaur fountains on the Promenade (the water is all reclaimed) but they had to turn them back on because they were getting damaged. Ironically, the city still washes the sidewalks in downtown every night because the California Coastal Commission requires it to mitigate pollution run-off into the ocean.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:14 AM on September 30, 2014 [2 favorites]
"PORTERVILLE, Calif. — After a nine-hour day working at a citrus packing plant, her body covered in a sheen of fruit wax and dust, there is nothing Angelica Gallegos wants more than a hot shower, with steam to help clear her throat and lungs.
“I can just picture it, that feeling of finally being clean — really refreshed and clean,” Ms. Gallegos, 37, said one recent evening.
But she has not had running water for more than five months — nor is there any tap water in her near future — because of a punishing and relentless drought in California. In the Gallegos household and more than 500 others in Tulare County, residents cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass, wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without reaching for a bottle or bucket."
posted by rtha at 6:35 AM on October 3, 2014
“I can just picture it, that feeling of finally being clean — really refreshed and clean,” Ms. Gallegos, 37, said one recent evening.
But she has not had running water for more than five months — nor is there any tap water in her near future — because of a punishing and relentless drought in California. In the Gallegos household and more than 500 others in Tulare County, residents cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass, wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without reaching for a bottle or bucket."
posted by rtha at 6:35 AM on October 3, 2014
I assumed this must be yet another injustice suffered by migrant farm workers living in company dorms because surely if you own a home in California you have spigot from which water flows. But no.
posted by Room 641-A at 8:44 AM on October 3, 2014
posted by Room 641-A at 8:44 AM on October 3, 2014
Yeah, the big thing is that up until this year there have been absolutely zero statewide water use laws, and there still (unless I missed it in the signing orgy at the end of September) aren't any laws regulating groundwater usage in most places. The DEQ regulations are the closest that anyone gets, and that's all sorts of fucked (a lawsuit just got some wildlife protections thrown out because the regulations didn't get enough study according to people who want no regulations).
I feel bad for the folks in the Central Valley getting dried out, but on the other hand, blaming the liberals is horseshit and only makes costal folks less interested in helping them.
posted by klangklangston at 2:06 PM on October 3, 2014
I feel bad for the folks in the Central Valley getting dried out, but on the other hand, blaming the liberals is horseshit and only makes costal folks less interested in helping them.
posted by klangklangston at 2:06 PM on October 3, 2014
klang, a groundwater law was signed last month, but it's rather weak.
posted by tavella at 2:13 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by tavella at 2:13 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]
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