11 ms·
California Announces Restrictions on Water Use by Farmers
- mmanfrin 11y agoGood, the gordian knot needed to be cut. 165 years of near-unrestricted use of the flowing commons needed a stop.
- dragonwriter 11y agoThis isn't cutting any Gordian knot; this is just flow being insufficient to meet the demands of rights holders with certain priorities. (And its not about farmers except incidentally, not all the affected rights-holders are farmers, and its just based on the priority dates of certain senior rights holders in certain watersheds, not whether they are agricultural or other kinds of users.)
- saosebastiao 11y agoNow if only they would follow the 200 year old recommendation of economists and put a price on it. EDIT: To clarify, consensus on the role of prices on economic allocation goes back to Adam Smith, but using prices specifically to regulate allocation of natural resources only really goes back to Henry George, which I guess is a bit younger than California's misuse of water. Regardless, we're still about a century behind economists in knowing exactly what to do about this problem.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- raldi 11y agoBut rather than reducing, even a little, the giant water subsidy that agriculture gets (senior members of the agribusiness establishment pay pennies on the dollar), it sounds like we're just telling some unlucky farmers they now have a cap on their usage. This is not an economically-optimal approach.
- sliverstorm 11y agoA free market fix is not a right-now fix, right? The market is a powerful force but usually takes a little while to adapt. The optimal fix would probably involve short-term regulation and long-term market solutions?
- zo1 11y agoIn this case, the market will very quickly adapt. Because not adapting (increasing prices, reducing usage/costs, etc), will cause businesses to fail. And no one likes losing money or closing businesses, but they don't mind reduced profit. The problem is that all this "short-term regulation" has caused increasing and cumulative lopsidedness in all sorts of relatively harmless areas of the market. That if we were to now "resort to the free market approach", we'd have a huge swath of population up in arms while the market self-corrects. I.e. Farmers lose profits, forced to reduce water costs or close down. Then you'd have have all the consumers complaining about the rising costs of X,Y,Z. Then, you get the farm-workers unions (farms closing, jobs lost, etc) complaining. Then the politicians who want to cry-foul and make a campaign out of yet-more-free-stuff. It's a snow-ball effect, and I exaggerate a little for effect above. Point being, there is no such thing as a "short-term regulation" fix without long-term dependency and momentum.
- wavefunction 11y agoHow quickly do you think "replacement" farms can be set up. I dunno about the wisdom some times of people expressing "markets solve problems best."
- raldi 11y agoThe almond speculators will lose their shirts, but those are the risks of growing water-intensive crops in the desert. Many other crops, though, are planted annually, and skipping a field-year, or switching to a less water-intensive plant, is absolutely an option. Google "crop rotation".
- zo1 11y ago
- mc32 11y agoUnfortunately for farmers, urban dwellers far outnumber them. Of course farmers need to devise more efficient ways to water their crops, but I think it's strange urban dwellers don't understand the inelasticity of water for farming. At home one can cut showers from 15 mins down to 5 or two. On the farm it means not planting x acres that year. Without water, locavores will have to become televores. Calif produces food for the whole nation. So while as a percentage of economic output farming is relatively small, as a percentage of food production it's high and thus critical to maintain viability. The Japanese expend enormous resources on keeping their rice farmers viable in the face of cheaper alternatives, but, in some ways they have a point. Without your farmers you starve. Yes, farmers should try to use water more efficiently and the gov should encourage that adoption via stick and carrot, but vilifying farmers is not the way to go. And, this should have been started years ago. Not just now. Surprise, your water is cut, sorry for not preparing you for this via policy!
- sliverstorm 11y agoWhen you try to optimize your programs for performance, do you focus on the code snippet that is responsible for 4% of runtime, or the snippet responsible for 80% of runtime? Even if water demands in farming are relatively inelastic, cutting statewide water use by 25% is literally impossible without cuts to farming use, and at the end of the day the rainfall doesn't care how much water you think you need to farm.
- mc32 11y agoTrue but the state well knew this was coming _some day_ but did not institute policies allowing farmers to slowly adapt to a new reality. That's bad leadership.
- sliverstorm 11y agoI suspect the reality goes more like, farmers defended their water rights with absolutely rabid ferocity, and it was utter political suicide until now to make any cuts or regulation at all. The agrilobby is incredibly powerful, and lobbies are famously uncompromising even to the point of working against their own best interests. Hell, it might still wind up ruining several political careers.
- jkyle 11y agoAbout time. Agriculture is using 80% of the water, but accounts for a mere 2% of the GDP (4% of employment)[1]. There's no reason we should be squeezing our rural and suburban centers that fuel the overwhelming majority of our economy while giving farmer's a free pass to suck the state dry of usable water which is mainly used for exported profits and not sustaining local industries. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/03/agriculture-is-80-percent-of-water-use-in-california-why-arent-farmers-being-forced-to-cut-back/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/04/03/ag... edit For clarification, mentioning the GDP is meant to show that cutting back on agricultural usage will not affect our economy catastrophically even if the industry sinks a bit. Will food prices go up? Perhaps. Further, if the point is food production and not food profit for the nation then the focus should be on producing the most water efficient foods (per calorie) not the most profitable foods produced under an assumption of free or near free water. So yeah, that might mean less prime rib and more black eyed peas for Americans (figuratively speaking). The cost of the product should reflect the cost of the resources required to produce. This is not the current case.
- mc32 11y agoWell, so long migrant workers. Thanks for your labor, but, having low skills, and no jobs in the fields because water is cut, time to face reality! There are lots of farm hands who'd be negatively affected. They are at the margins of society as it is.
- jkyle 11y agoIdeally, farmer's should be charged for water usage instead of water access. Many of the water rights mentioned in the article are access rights. Meaning they can pump and use as much as they want. Make inefficiency come with a cost and watch an entire new industry spring up around water efficiency. Water is a limited and precious resource. Prices should reflect that. Anything less is a subsidy padding the profits of industrial agriculture.
- mc32 11y agoAgreed. The whole system needs to be updated and optimized differently, at least optimized towards efficient water usage, relative to the crop. My objection is the vilification of farmers. I.e. Farmers use 80%! Yet we urbanites are the ones first asked to conserve! The framing is very questionable.
- ajmurmann 11y agoWhy can't we just have a 2 tier water pricing system? Tier 1 is very cheap, so that everyone can afford water to drink and wash themselves. Anything over that amount in tier 1 get's priced at something more realistic. That incentivizes industry to be economic about their water usage and private people are deterred from being wasteful.
- yincrash 11y agothat would require new infrastructure in _all buildings_ to have two sets of pipes. edit: apparently i misunderstood the parent and it cost me 5 downvotes
- Domenic_S 11y agoUh, why? We already meter usage, so apply the tiered rates the same way we tier electricity.
- k-mcgrady 11y agoHuh? Why don't you just say tier 1 is n litres per day (enough for a large family to drink, cook, and wash. After that the price rises by x%.
- sleazebreeze 11y agoAre you making a joke? The tiered water system would be implemented on the billing and invoicing side of things, not two separate water delivery mechanisms.
- genericuser 11y agoI was under the impression that California had tiers in place for urban use of all utilities. But I only observed the tier in place for electricity while I lived in San Francisco, so I realize this must not be the case for other utilities if you are suggesting it.
- njovin 11y agoMy district already does this, but there's more than 2 tiers: http://www.sandiego.gov/water/rates/rates/ http://www.sandiego.gov/water/rates/rates/
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- alexhu11 11y agoGreat! A book I recommend to explain how thoroughly screwed up water policy in the West is Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. Water policy has been run largely as corporate welfare for large agricultural growers at the expense of taxpayers and the environment.
- jdlyga 11y agoWhat a nightmare. Makes me glad I live on the east coast.
- Yhippa 11y agoBut hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, humidity, and mosquitos.
- adventured 11y agoMost of the east coast doesn't suffer under a meaningful hurricane threat. For example, the average 'hurricane' that has hit Virginia in the last 40 years, had 40 to 70 mph winds. Earthquakes of any consequence are extremely rare on the east coast (basically non-existent). Most of California's population centers are humid in fact. Los Angeles averages around 71% daily humidity; San Diego is 70%; San Francisco is 74% (among the highest in the US). By comparison Washington DC averages 64%; Pittsburgh averages 68%; NYC averages 63%. And for contrast, Denver averages 52% daily humidity, and Vegas is 30%.
- maxxxxx 11y agoYou will perceive LA humidity as much lower as DC humidity.
- maxxxxx 11y agoNot earthquakes
- kolbe 11y agoI recently read East of Eden, and even though it was written about 19th century California, some topics resonated very well today. This quote, in particular: "And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way."
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jczhang 11y agoA bit unrelated, but u should check out Ken Burns' doc on the Dustbowl. Its fantastic.
- dragonwriter 11y agoThis is not, strictly speaking, a set of restrictions "on water use by farmers", its a restriction on some "senior" (pre-1914) water-rights holders, with more expected; many (but not all) of the rights-holders are farmers, but some are, e.g., municipal districts, like the East Contra Costa Water District, whose use has also been curtailed.
- BigChiefSmokem 11y agoCan someone explain to me why we don't just build a pipeline from Seattle or some rich water source up north down to California?
- iwwr 11y agoSchemes to bring water from the Columbia river are floated periodically but it would require political will across California, Oregon and Washington state, as well as approval from Canada, since Canada shares the river waters by treaty with the US. It takes too many stars to line up just right for it to be politically feasible, even though as an infrastructure project it could work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Treaty
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- jkyle 11y agoDesalination is actually quite expensive. They're building a plant down by San Diego. Not to mention the pollution issues impacting fisheries and coastlines.
- hn9780470248775 11y agohttp://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/inslee-declares-statewide-drought-emergency/ http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/environment/inslee-... "A widespread lack of snowfall this season has left Washington state in a deepening drought, and the prospects are grim: threats to crops and fish and increasing worries about wildfires."
- shit_parade2 11y agoBecause water doesn't cost $3 a gallon.
- seanmcdirmid 11y agoSeattle isn't actually that rainy, it's just a constant drizzle, actually. Water restrictions about on the summer also. If you want to see how it is done, China recently built a north south water diversion canal. Though it hasn't paid off yet.
- cbr 11y agoUnfortunately this does nothing to address groundwater depletion; it's just about how much water people are allowed to draw from rivers. With groundwater we have a dollar auction / arms race where the people with the deepest wells get the water, which is a terrible way to allocate water. If you want the system of private wells that sustain rural communities to keep functioning you have to restrict wells.
- shmulkey18 11y agoOf course, we can't implement the obvious and economically rational solution: let the water market operate freely, rather than having the government dictate prices, impose rationing, encourage neighbors to rat out putative "water wasters" and so on. Long live central planning!
- jkyle 11y agoOne of the problems in the California water market is free enterprise shipping it out of state.[1] Water, air, these belong to the commons and should be allocated and used primarily for the sustenance and benefit of the commons. Not private industry. [1] http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2015/03/05/bottling-water-california-drought/24389417/ http://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2015/03/05/bottling-wate...
- s73v3r 11y agoYay! Let the rich be the only ones who can afford water!
- shmulkey18 11y agoYay! Let the rich be the only ones who can afford computers! Shoes! Books! Potting soil! Clothing! Housing! Cars! The list of horrors that the free market visits upon the non-rich is truly shocking. After all, by your logic all non-regulated goods must be affordable only by the rich. The level of economic ignorance in this thread is stupefying.
- s73v3r 11y agoThose things are not in short supply. The level of economic ignorance in your comment is stupefying.
- FrankenPC 11y agoOne solution is technology. Trap evaporated water and recycle it. Invest in high performance hydroponics. There are so many solutions to flood farming that no one bothers to invest in because the water is essentially free to them.
- sigzero 11y agoThis has been slowly building to this crisis since the 70s at least. California hasn't done anything of value to curtail the crisis.
- kansface 11y agoScott (from slatestarcodex) suggests[1] CA buy out all of its alfalfa farmers Catch-22 style [2]. The total pay out would cost on the order of a couple of dollars per CA resident which is far far cheaper than the alternatives. Alfalfa is an extremely water intensive crop that is used to feed cows. This measure would save water commensurate to the amount we lost in the drought. This is the easily the best proposal I have heard but it stands no chance of passing. Paying farmers in the desert to not grow crops is ... unamerican. [1] """I realize that paying people subsidies to misuse water to grow unprofitable crops, and then offering them countersubsidies to not take your first set of subsidies, is to say the least a very creative way to spend government money – but the point is it is better than what we’re doing now.""" http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do... [2] """His [Major Major’s father] specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce"""
- bradleyjg 11y agoI'd think your best bet would be to buy the land currently used to grow alfalfa and permanently fallow it rather than trying to run a program where you pay alfalfa farmers not to farm. The latter program has the obvious problem of identifying would be alfalfa farmers once no one has grown alfalfa in a while.
- kansface 11y agoI agree, but this would be more expensive.
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Paying farmers in the desert to not grow crops is ... unamerican. Why should the desert be special in this regard? Paying farmers not to grow crops has a long history in America.
- Meiscooldude 11y agoThe company I work actually works on a project to help with the whole water right issue in the west. Watersage.com
- Meiscooldude 11y agoAlso would like to say I'm not on that team, and I don't support stupid silverlight.
- waterwaterwater 11y ago3/4 of the planet is Water. If the cost of water reaches the cost of desalination, then it will become cost effective to desalinate.
- azinman2 11y agoSo I'm hearing a lot of misinformation here in these comments. I recently attended a talk [1] by the Chair of the CA water board (Felicia Marcus) and it was very illuminating. !!! WATCH THIS VIDEO LINKED AT THE END !!!. It was for MIT club of NorCal and is like 2 hours, so its far more technical/deep and BALANCED than anything you'll find on CNN/nytimes/etc. I'll try to summarize some of her points here that I think would be useful and relevant, but really you should watch her speak in that link. 1) We talk about 80% going to agriculture, as if there some single reservoir that we all drink out of. Everyone gets their water from different sources, and they're all suitable for different uses. SF, for example, has an exclusive license to Hetch Hetchy water source. Agriculture is never going to see that and doesn't affect us. 2) There are rural parts of CA that have no water coming out of the tap. She said that was her #1 priority right now. 3) We need lots of water to feed the nation. CA is one of 5 Mediterranean climates in the world, and that makes it suitable to grow all kinds of stuff that doesn't grow anywhere else. 2% GDP is irrelevant because you die without food. 4) As a culture we don't have a connection to agriculture, and it is causing drifts on both sides. The farmers are pointing fingers at urban areas, and vice versa. 5) We have less a rain problem and more a storage problem. 1900-2000 was unusually wet for CA and so we didn't build enough storage for the dry years. Groundwater is actually the most environmentally friendly storage and we get something like 40% normally of our water from it, and 60% now (I think?) 6) We don't have a market planned economy. You can't tell farmers what to grow. There is no 5 year plan -- this isn't china. 7) The state is doing a lot of things to combat these issues all simultaneously. The issue is extremely complex and multi-pronged. You'd likely be impressed with all the projects under way. 8) Ground water rights can be changed at a local county level very quickly. They have a huge amount of power and need to be first to do so. It's a bit of a mexican stand off between them, but this is where culture and local advocacy can make a difference. Santa Cruz has done really well with this, and I think San Diego as well. 9) CA does have the power to come down on people/counties/companies that they view as using excessive resources... it's built into the CA constitution. All they need to do is threaten and people change. They've done that several times. 10) We say oh, my shower is like 1% of the problem. Getting water at a restaurant is 0.5% of the problem. It's still water, waste is waste, and we need everything we can get. 11) We don't reuse/capture water efficiently or at all. Especially floods. To combat this we need lot of small efficient that add up. Capturing storm water is one example. Recycling waste water is another, and there's an additional 10% that can be gained through forrest management in the sierras better directing the melting snow run off (!). 12) CA is seeing the mistakes of San Paulo and Australia and trying not to repeat them. They're collaborating world-wide on these issues... lots of Israeli tech is making its way to desalination. Smart people are being resourceful and not isolationist about this. WATCH THIS: [1] http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/mitcnc/videos/31839-california-water-2015-felicia-marcus-chair-california-water-resources-control-board http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/mitcnc/videos/31839-califo...