Why Conserve?
After three years of below-average rain and snowfall in Northern California, and with environmental problems triggering very significant cuts in water deliveries to some areas, water is in short supply in many regions of the state. There is an immediate need to conserve water. But if California is to successfully manage the needs of its growing population, support agriculture, and nurture the environment, then long-term sustainability plans must be put in place. Governor Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought emergency in late February. “This is a crisis, just as severe as an earthquake or raging wildfire,” he said. He went on to predict that the combination of natural and man-made conditions that have brought on this crisis could be with us a lot longer than any drought we’ve ever known before. He called on everyone to join in a massive effort to conserve precious water now and in the future.
Water shortages are not, of course, a new idea in California. Shortages are a common feature of our cyclical weather patterns in which several years of relatively wet conditions are followed by longer, deeper cycles of dry. But occasionally mere shortages grow into sustained droughts, which are marked by tinder-dry hillsides, raging wildfires, nearly empty reservoirs, and hasty efforts to transfer remaining water supplies where most needed. Many of us remember in particular the devastating dry spell that settled in from 1987 to 1992, and the shorter, historically harsh two-year drought that parched the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys from 1976 to 1977. Farmers, a mainstay of our economy, suffered devastating crop losses in those years and the natural environment sustained significant, even irreversible damage, in some places. Right now we are in the midst of a similar situation, with farmers once again bearing the brunt.
Lessons learned in earlier droughts have been put in place, though some would say much more can be done. For example, new legislation has been enacted to encourage water-conserving building codes on new construction, and water metering has been extended to many communities that had not monitored individual use before. Millions of dollars have been invested in upgrades of some local and regional public/private water projects, including the creation of several local reservoirs and underground water banks. Water recycling and desalination are also on the rise. Even the face of California agriculture has evolved with many farmers shifting from lower value, water intensive crops to higher value, water efficient ones and upgrading their irrigation methods. But several new factors make today’s water shortage situation more serious.
Not only has the population that must be served grown by nine million since the last multi-year drought, but climate change is altering our rain and snowfall patterns. A series of storms in February 2009 helped boost our snowpack and reservoirs, but not enough to make up for the previous two dry years. Water storage in our main reservoirs remains low, and this year’s Sierra snowpack — the natural “reservoir” whose melting waters feed a series of manmade reservoirs downstream — cannot make up for the major deficits experienced in 2008 and 2007.
Delta Blues
Regardless of the rain and snowfall we receive, California will still face shortages. Environmental problems in the heart of the state’s water system are reducing water deliveries for many California cities, farms and businesses. The problems will continue to restrict water supplies even when the current drought ends and more normal rain and snowfall patterns return.
Two of the state’s largest water systems — the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project — move water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to more than 25 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley and Southern California and to more than 2.5 million acres of farmland.
The Delta, however, is in an ecological crisis, with several key species in decline. New rules in place to protect one threatened species — the Delta smelt — have resulted in permanent restrictions on water project operations.
The restrictions, the result of a federal lawsuit, are reducing water deliveries by as much as 30 percent in average years. Other regulatory actions involving salmon and long-fin smelt are expected to restrict supplies even further in 2009.
These restrictions are just one symptom of the problems facing the Delta. Other factors include conflicts arising from the 50-year-old infrastructure used to convey water through the Delta, pollution, non-native species, land subsidence and seismic issues that have led to sharp declines in both ecosystem health and water supply reliability.
Public processes are under way to address these challenges. In the meantime, however, California needs a survival strategy to keep water flowing to the cities, farms and businesses. Conservation is a key part of this strategy.
To that end, state and local agencies have partnered in a new statewide public education effort called “Save Our Water.” The program is aimed at educating Californians on the state’s water supply challenges and encouraging them to reduce the amount of water they use every day. See ideas on how to save within this magazine.
Farmers in the Crossfire
With less water from the Central Valley Project or State Water Project to irrigate crops or water thirsty cattle, and with local groundwater in very short supply, many of California’s 1.1 million farmers have already been forced to take drastic measures this year. Land that for generations has provided the state and the nation with a cornucopia of fruits, nuts, vegetables, grains and cotton thus remains fallow this growing season and perhaps for many more. Dairy herds are being thinned due to reduced pasturage. In parts of Southern California, permanent assets such as avocado trees (below) that have taken years to cultivate, are being stumped in the hope of saving them. Some citrus growers are simply uprooting their trees due to lack of water. Almond growers in the Central Valley are removing older, less productive stock to save their limited water supply for younger ones. And some water-intensive row crops are being phased out altogether.
The smaller harvest will cause market prices to rise just as surely as farming profits and jobs will be lost. “We’re just one step short of disaster here,” says Tim Larson, a grower in Kings County. “I’ve already taken out about 160 acres of alfalfa and we’re trying to figure out how to save our grapes and pistachios.” Larson is looking at what else can go but he adds ruefully, “After a while there’s not much left.”