The Great Water War

Politics of California Drought Having Major Impact on State's Ag Industry

Dan Miller
By  Dan Miller , Progressive Farmer Senior Editor
A field of dead almond trees is seen next to a field of growing almond trees in Coalinga, in the Central Valley, California. (Progressive Farmer photo by REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson)

"We've done all we can do," Dan Errotabere says. "The only other crops to plant are those that don't need any water." His sarcasm is as dry as the 2 square miles of Central Valley soil that, for lack of water, Errotabere has left in dusty fallow. Those empty rows of nothing, more than a half-million acres in all, are the sad emblem of the California drought, four years too long and still baking.

Errotabere Ranches has 5,500 acres, managed by Dan and two brothers. It sits in the highly productive San Joaquin Valley, in Fresno County, midway between Sacramento and Los Angeles. California's 450-mile-long Central Valley, which includes the San Joaquin and the Sacramento valleys, is a $28-billion-a-year agricultural machine. Large-scale dairies, rolling cattle ranches and a spread of 400 varieties of nut and fruit trees, vines, vegetables, forages and row crops fuel it. Fresno is the nation's most productive county, the value of its output greater than 23 individual states. Water that would normally flow to Errotabere's land from his irrigation district has been cut to zero this year. It is a grim repeat of 2014 and likely will be his story in 2016.

Errotabere Ranches is set up to produce processing tomatoes, garlic, pima cotton, alfalfa and wheat, among other crops. The ranch has been drip-irrigated for a decade. Its water usage has been cut by a quarter.

LESS IS LESS

"We are in the protective mode, with acute water shortages," Errotabere says. "Our wells are holding up, but we are overpumping in the area." Errotabere pumps water from his own wells and buys surface water on the open market for 12 times the normal price of $120 per acre-foot. He dribbles it around almond and pistachio trees, and onto the roots of grape vines through drip emitters.

There are $2 billion crops in Fresno County. One is grapes. The more valuable one is almonds. Both drink from declining supplies of groundwater. "The [ongoing] drought is responsible for the greatest absolute reduction in water availability for California agriculture ever seen," reports the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis (UC Davis). Surface water supplies have been reduced by 8.7 million acre-feet, a million acre-feet more than in 2014 (325,900 gallons per acre-foot). Producers have fallowed 565,000 irrigated acres, almost all of them in the Central Valley. Economists at UC Davis hint the number of fallowed acres may rise sharply as they gather the year's planting numbers for major field crops.

DEFINING DRY

California suffers from "exceptional" drought. Exceptional is the worst of five rankings used by the National Drought Mitigation Center to more finely gauge the meaning of the word "dry." Seventy percent of the state is extremely or exceptionally dry. All but 0.14% of California is said to be in some form of drought. That tiny exception offers no hope for relief, as it is found in the heart of the Mojave Desert -- the very definition of dry. The Golden State is not alone. This drought has a firm grip on Nevada and Oregon, along with Arizona, Idaho, western New Mexico, Utah and Washington.

It would take three times the precipitation California typically receives during its water year to return water supplies to normal. The water year ends next month, and precipitation remains depressingly far below that.

"We could have had a bonanza water year and still seen the ramifications from this drought [in 2016]," says Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the Fresno County Farm Bureau, a fourth-generation farmer and a board member to the Fresno Irrigation District.

Two-thirds of California's 9.6 million irrigated acres had their normal water allotments from state and federal irrigation projects cut 80% or more. Forty-four percent of it received no surface water this year.

Market shifts also come with drought. "We play on a world market," Jacobsen says. "Crops can be moved because of the unreliability of California water." California is a dominant player in the production of medium- and short-grain rice. But a portion of those crops appears to be moving to Arkansas and Mississippi, where rice production is increasing.

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Matthew Efird farms with his father, Russel, at Double E Farms, in Caruthers, Calif. He also owns Efird Ag Enterprises. Surface water typically irrigates his crops and recharges the aquifer as it filters down into the soil, creating a water bank for use in drought.

DISMAL OUTLOOK

Efird has not received any surface water for four years on half his ranch and none since 2008 on another quarter of his ranch. The business is dependent on water pumped from wells to support 1,300 acres of almonds, raisins and walnuts.

Pumping is an effort chasing a falling resource -- Efird's water is 40 feet lower than five years ago. Wells typically supply a third of the Central Valley's needs. Today, it is half.

UC Davis economists predict producers will suffer a $1.8-billion hit this year because of lost crop and livestock production, and increased pumping costs. Add 18,600 lost jobs, 8,600 tied directly to agriculture, and the cost to the state tops $2.7 billion.

The drought could have caused more wreckage if not for wells and market forces. Groundwater has offset more than 70% of the surface-water losses. Although not a good long-term water-management strategy, wells have prevented catastrophe. Water markets have made water consumption more efficient, moving it from lower value to higher value uses. The transfers allow San Joaquin farmers to protect much of their perennial crops from destruction. But short-term fixes cannot replace long-term reform. Efird is concerned California may begin to regulate groundwater pumping, something it does not do now.

"This drought was made worse by policies that have limited [water] storage," says Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition. "Groundwater is an emergency supply in times of drought. It is not a source of choice."

NO CONSENSUS

Two water-storage projects have sat in limbo for years, leaving the state more vulnerable to drought. The Sites Reservoir project is designed to catch spring floodwater from the Sacramento River. The Temperance Flat dam would more efficiently collect snowmelt from the Sierras by way of the San Joaquin River, but funding has been an issue (voters approved a $7.545 billion package to pay for water projects). Opposition from environmentalists has also stalled the projects.

Water is a complicated affair in California. In most years, it receives 200 million acre-feet of precipitation. Two-thirds of the surface water is lost to evaporation and transpiration. The remainder is runoff. About a third of that flows out to the Pacific Ocean. Of the rest, there is disagreement about what happens to it.

Agriculture relies on the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) for answers. It says environmental uses consume half of the remaining water to sustain streams, wetlands and aquatic dwellers. Farms use 40%, and urban areas use the remaining 10%.

DEEP SNOW

California farmers depend on three main sources of water—mountain snowpack, reservoirs and aquifers. It matters greatly not only that precipitation falls but also in what form it arrives. "Rain falls in the winter and does not even come close to meeting our water needs," Jacobsen explains. "Our water comes from [the snowpack]."

California's mountain snowpack is produced by a small number of storms that, historically but not always reliably, dump many feet of snow onto the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range. Three-fourths of the state's precipitation falls during the winter months, half of it from December through February. The statewide average is 23 inches of water-equivalent precipitation. But it is highly variable, from little precipitation in the south to 50 inches and much more in the north. Seven major water systems capture the snowmelt. The two largest, the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project, deliver about 10 million acre-feet of water to the Central Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area and southern California.

How water is distributed in California is a gigantic legal headache. The environmental community and allied groups (such as commercial fishermen) are active in the courts to remedy what they see as mismanagement of the water by state and federal agencies.

UP IN ARMS

The Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta is home to the ever more-endangered, 3-inch-long, translucent Delta smelt. The San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers join at the Delta before flowing out to the Pacific Ocean through the San Francisco Bay. An enormous legal battle has been waged over this non-native fish -- the stakes being control of hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water. Many, even supporters of the Delta smelt, concede it is not likely to survive in the wild. Only six Delta smelt were caught this spring in a survey that's conducted annually. But it is simplistic to believe that an absence of Delta smelt would mean more Delta water would flow to other uses. State and federal agencies have their eyes on 56 water-dependent species living there.

"Drought is one thing," Errotabere says. "But the regulations impact heavily on my operation. They make the drought much more extreme. So much water goes out to the ocean for no benefit."

Efird agrees. "I'm an avid fisherman and waterfowl hunter. I understand. Waterfowl need water. Fish need water. But there has to be a balance." The environmental community overuses the Endangered Species Act and the courts to control water, he contends. "It is supremely frustrating," he adds, "to watch 680,000 acre-feet of water flow down the San Joaquin River and by a thirsty farming community ... we are absolutely wasting a valuable resource."

UC Davis fish biologist Peter Moyle disagrees. "Most of the fresh water that 'flows to the sea' comes into the Delta during the summer to protect Delta farming," Moyle told a Fox News interviewer earlier this year. The water keeps saltwater at bay, he explained. "About half the river water is diverted before it even reaches the Delta. While Delta smelt water could have provided more water for [agriculture], those amounts were small and certainly not enough to alleviate drought conditions."

LOOKING FOR OPTIONS

Water management has improved. The "economic efficiency" of agricultural water use in California has doubled since the late 1960s, a draft paper from the California DWR reveals. In 1967, California growers earned $651 (in 2010 dollars) for each acre-foot of water applied to their crops. By 2007, the measure of economic efficiency was $1,428 per acre-foot applied. From 2003 through 2013, California farmers spent $3 billion upgrading irrigation systems to drip- and microsprinklers on 2.4 million acres.

Efird's farm is part of the story. "We've been proactive in investing in irrigation technology," he says. "We've been all microsprinklers for 10 years." Sprinklers cut water use up to 50% and cost $1,500 to $2,500 an acre.

There are other savings. Efird injects fertilizer through the sprinklers to improve its targeting and reduce its use. Efird also has reduced his herbicide costs 50% by treating only watered areas. To finely tune his water consumption, Efird uses soil moisture probes and infrared imaging to gauge plant stress. He also contracts with a third-party service for weekly soil neutron readings to measure moisture levels in the root zone.

"Proper irrigation management has become a real science," Efird says. "We have our water usage down so accurately that if we are forced to make mandatory cuts in group water pumping, I don't have even 5% to give. I just hope the investments we've made in water-efficient technologies will be recognized in the event of pumping restrictions."

(PS/AG/CZ)

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Dan Miller