3 ms·
In a watershed in eastern Idaho farmers, conservationists, and outdoor enthusiasts got together and instituted an aquifer recharge program. Here’s how they did
by arthurofbabylon 5y ago
In a watershed in eastern Idaho farmers, conservationists, and outdoor enthusiasts got together and instituted an aquifer recharge program. Here’s how they did it, as I understand it ->
Ecologists studied water temperature and its impact on cutthroat, the great prize in fly fishing. It turns out the cold water (passing from aquifers to streams, versus more immediate runoff) fosters healthier populations. The outdoors people wanted aquifer recharge.
The same ecologists study and publish general watershed health. Seeing the state of the watershed, conservations wanted aquifer recharge.
The upstream farmers have a problem of being required to turn off their water when downstream farmers need to irrigate (water rights). With strong aquifers, that “turn off your water” event happens later in the year, allowing upstream farmers to irrigate longer int he crucial summer season. The farmers wanted aquifer recharge.
So they all collaborated and did it. I believe conservationists initially paid or maybe continue to pay the farmers to flood their fields in the spring. For farmers, I have the impression it is about as easy as regular irrigation.
Aligning interests solves problems. Communication across stakeholders solves problems. I love this story and hope that I did the details justice. If anyone is curious about getting the full story from insiders, write to me and I’ll connect you.
- hef19898 5y agoStories like this make me belive that we might actually have a chance to not screw up a lot worse then we did already! Thanks for sharing! A side note: This approach works in a lot of cases, e.g. across company functions. It's incredibly hard to achieve, impossible for me I'd say.
- capableweb 5y agoNot to be a party pooper, as I also like to read about events like this an envision them working on a larger scale, but doing this on a larger scale tends to be the problem. Two people collaborating is easy to manage, two million people collaborating is hard as hell, two billion people collaborating seems impossible.
- robertlagrant 5y agoIf you want to see it working, observe global trade.
- TradingPlaces 5y agoOur experience in California is that funding lots of small local projects is the most effective solution to this problem. That’s how you get buy-in.
- rendaw 5y agoHow did it get emptied in the first place then?
- arthurofbabylon 5y agoI just asked an insider and will do my best to respond with more info. In the meantime, I believe the aquifer gets depleted from over-irrigation later in the season. I also imagine that flood mitigation prevents natural early-season recharge (our society just cannot help but build in floodplains).
- mgarfias 5y agoTulare lake was the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi. It’s now 100% dry, and farmed. Started in the 1870s when water was diverted from the rivers feeding it to irrigate. The last straw seemed to be the damming of the Kaweah river. It used to occasionally flood and become a lake again. Now it’s all farmland.
- edot 5y agoNot sure I follow. Sounds like the aquifer was depleted, so they decided to add more water to the aquifer. From where did they get the water to recharge the aquifer?
- manmal 5y agoI understood that just irrigating fields in the spring (with water that would otherwise go downstream immediately) makes the water go through the aquifer, thus recharging it for the summer. At some point the aquifer will become dry again, but it happens later in the year.