Your contribution to the California drought

[Ginger]

From the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015 ... ought.html
Well done interactive graphics. At one point in the article the production of meat and dairy is mentioned as the greatest use of water. Surely all this will have an impact over time....just how long will it take and will something beneficial happen in time? Will it get extreme enough to eventually eliminate the meat and dairy industries? Time will tell I guess.

[jay kaye]

The greatest use of water in California is ag. At the top of the ag water users list are alfalfa and almonds. Ag water for these two crop is almost free to the farmers. Human consumption only account for less than 20% of water usage. We do not have a water shortage problem. We have a water allocation and pricing problem.

Read "How Growers Gamed The Drought"

Consuming 80 percent of California’s developed water but accounting for only 2 percent of the state’s GDP, agriculture thrives while everyone else is parched.
“I’ve been smiling all the way to the bank,” said pistachio farmer John Dean at a conference hosted this month by Paramount Farms, the mega-operation owned by Stewart Resnick, a Beverly Hills billionaire known for his sprawling agricultural holdings, controversial water dealings, and millions of dollars in campaign contributions to high-powered California politicians including Governor Jerry Brown, former governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis, and U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein.

The record drought now entering its fourth year in California has alarmed the public, left a number of rural communities without drinking water, and triggered calls for mandatory rationing. There’s no relief in sight: The winter rainy season, which was a bust again this year, officially ends on April 15. Nevertheless, some large-scale farmers are enjoying extraordinary profits despite the drought, thanks in part to infusions of what experts call dangerously under-priced water.

Resnick, whose legendary marketing flair included hiring Stephen Colbert to star in a 2014 Super Bowl commercial, told the conference that pistachios generated an average net return of $3,519 per acre in 2014, based on a record wholesale price of $3.53 a pound. Almonds, an even “thirstier” crop, averaged $1,431 per acre. Andy Anzaldo, a vice president for Resnick’s company, Wonderful Pistachios, celebrated by showing the assembled growers a clip from the movie Jerry Maguire in which Tom Cruise shouts, “Show me the money,” reported the Western Farm Press, a trade publication. At the end of the day, conference attendees filed out to the sounds of Louis Armstrong singing, “It’s a Wonderful World.”

Agriculture is the heart of California’s worsening water crisis, and the stakes extend far beyond the state’s borders. Not only is California the world’s eighth largest economy, it is an agricultural superpower. It produces roughly half of all the fruits, nuts, and vegetables consumed in the United States—and more than 90 percent of the almonds, tomatoes, strawberries, broccoli and other specialty crops—while exporting vast amounts to China and other overseas customers.

But agriculture consumes a staggering 80 percent of California’s developed water, even as it accounts for only 2 percent of the state’s gross domestic product. Most crops and livestock are produced in the Central Valley, which is, geologically speaking, a desert. The soil is very fertile but crops there can thrive only if massive amounts of irrigation water are applied.

Current pricing structures enrich a handful of interests, but they are ushering the state as a whole toward a parched and perilous future.
Although no secret, agriculture’s 80 percent share of state water use is rarely mentioned in media discussions of California’s drought. Instead, news coverage concentrates on the drought’s implications for people in cities and suburbs, which is where most journalists and their audiences live. Thus recent headlines warned that state regulators have ordered restaurants to serve water only if customers explicitly request it and directed homeowners to water lawns no more than twice a week. The San Jose Mercury News pointed out that these restrictions carry no enforcement mechanisms, but what makes them a sideshow is simple math: During a historic drought, surely the sector that’s responsible for 80 percent of water consumption—agriculture—should be the main focus of public attention and policy.

The other great unmentionable of California’s water crisis is that water is still priced more cheaply than it should be, which encourages over-consumption. “Water in California is still relatively inexpensive,” Heather Cooley, director of the water program at the world-renowned Pacific Institute in Oakland, told The Daily Beast.

One reason is that much of the state’s water is provided by federal and state agencies at prices that taxpayers subsidize. A second factor that encourages waste is the “use it or lose it” feature in California’s arcane system of water rights. Under current rules, if a property owner does not use all the water to which he is legally entitled, he relinquishes his future rights to the unused water, which may then get allocated to the next farmer in line.

Lawmakers have begun, gingerly, to reform the water system, but experts say that much remains to be done. For years, California was the only state in the arid West that set no limits on how much groundwater a property owner could extract from a private well. Thus nearly everyone and their neighbors in the Central Valley have been drilling deeper and deeper wells in recent years, seeking to offset reductions in state and federal water deliveries. This agricultural version of an arms race not only favors big corporate enterprises over smaller farmers, it threatens to collapse the aquifers whose groundwater is keeping California alive during this drought and will be needed to endure future droughts. (Groundwater supplies about 40 percent of the state’s water in years of normal precipitation but closer to 60 percent in dry years.)

j

[dteresa]

someone just told me that the environmentalists in california somehow persuaded the powers that be, in order to save some kind of fish, to not build more dams. Whatever they are doing to preserve this particular fish causes a loss of thirty percent of the drinkable water due to the run off and loss from not having dams. Anyone else hear of this?

didi

[colonyofcells]

I've not figured out a way to use less water at home so maybe we should build more desalination plants.

[dailycarbs]

someone just told me that the environmentalists in california somehow persuaded the powers that be, in order to save some kind of fish, to not build more dams. Whatever they are doing to preserve this particular fish causes a loss of thirty percent of the drinkable water due to the run off and loss from not having dams. Anyone else hear of this?

didi

All those snow caps disappeared because they didn't build dams? This smells like a talking point.

[arugula]

dsal is exceptionally energy intensive compared to treated surface or groundwater.

and what do you do with the waste product?

you'd have huge dead zones where you dumped it.

[colonyofcells]

I heard Los Angeles has been recycling water for many years similar to what astronauts do in space. I used to be in Singapore which has been recycling water for many years. If we recycle poop water, maybe we can get some free vitamin b12 from our water. If I don't wash my vegetables, I can become an insectivore rather than a starchivore and get free vitamin b12 too.

[awest27]

someone just told me that the environmentalists in california somehow persuaded the powers that be, in order to save some kind of fish, to not build more dams. Whatever they are doing to preserve this particular fish causes a loss of thirty percent of the drinkable water due to the run off and loss from not having dams. Anyone else hear of this?

didi

That mainly has been a smokescreen talking point of the right-wing talk show hosts to give them a chance to bash the Democrats in CA and avoid the real reason of big agriculture draining out too much of the water. It wasn't about building more dams, but letter more water through the dams in rainy years to preserve the downstream river ecosystems which is home to many animals, not just the river smelt (which I've heard have gone extinct anyways).

[colonyofcells]

It is probably possible for America to just import all its vegetables from Mexico. If they don't raise cattle in California, they will probably just wipe out the amazon jungle instead.

[jay kaye]

It is probably possible for America to just import all its vegetables from Mexico. If they don't raise cattle in California, they will probably just wipe out the amazon jungle instead.

California problem is more dairy than meat. Yes, you are correct about the Amazon. I was there 2 years ago and there are endless miles of soybeans planted for cattle feed.

j