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California is currently suffering from a prolonged drought that is damaging the state’s agricultural industry. The drought, which began three years ago, covers the entire state and 60 percent of the state is experiencing an “exceptional drought,” the worst level in its recorded history. Since California is America’s largest state and is the producer of a large percentage of its fruits and vegetables, its drought could have a significant impact beyond its borders. Due to the fact that scientists expect the drought to continue into 2015, extempers should be prepared to analyze California’s drought at tournaments during the 2014-2015 season. The topic is screaming for placement in a “domestic social” or “state and local issues” round.
This topic brief will give an overview of California’s current drought, analyze the steps that California is taking to deal with the crisis, and then discuss potential political battles that the state may face in the next year as it attempts to deal with this environmental crisis.
Readers are also encouraged to use the links below and in the related R&D to bolster their files about this topic.
The Three-Year Drought
Droughts are not unusual to California, although the severity of the latest drought most certainly is. One would think that California’s position near the Pacific Ocean would bring ample rainfall, much like the Pacific Northwest, but the jet stream can be altered if a high pressure area migrates into the northern Pacific. This means that California will receive miniscule amounts of rain even though its neighbors to the north and farther east will. The Economist on July 28 points out that such a “ridiculously resilient ridge of high pressure” is causing the current California drought, which has only brought 12.4 inches of precipitation to the state. By comparison, California should have received 25.3 inches of precipitation through the end of June.
At the time of this brief, 60% of California is experiencing an “exceptional drought,” which is the worst drought category that an area can be placed in. Slate on July 31 writes that the current drought is the worst that California has experienced in 500 years and that the state’s reservoirs – natural or artificial bodies of water that are used to store water – are 3.8 trillion gallons short. To put that into perspective, that is eight glasses of drinking water per day for the Earth’s entire population for three years. To deal with the drought, Governor Jerry Brown issued a state of drought emergency in January and urged the state’s population to cut back their water usage by 20%. President Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner have visited the region and promised relief, largely to the state’s farmers, who have been most impacted by the drought.
The reason that agricultural interests are the ones that are hardest hit by the drought and not California’s cities is two-fold. First, as The Economist article previously cited explains, California cities have done a good job in recent decades improving conservation of water supplies and bolstering their storage of groundwater. That is not to say that cities could not do more, especially because some of the state’s largest cities like Sacramento still do not have metered water usage, but they have built up reserves to handle these abnormal drought conditions. The second reason agriculture has been most affected by the drought is that the industry uses 80% of California’s available water. The state is a large producer of broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, asparagus, apricots, olives, pistachios, rice, corn, and wheat. All of these crops need large volumes of water to sustain them, but the drought is taking away much needed water from the Central Valley, which is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. Farmers that do not have access to surface water are now drilling deep wells to access groundwater. Yahoo! News on August 5 provides the example of a desperate farmer that has taken to drilling five wells that are 2,500 feet deep to access water for his crops. The size of those wells is double that of the Empire State Building. If conditions do not improve, farmers stand to lose $1.5 billion due to the drought this year and hundreds of millions of federal and state aid will be needed for sustaining these losses, as well as providing a safety net for agricultural workers who will not have crops to harvest. Even the state’s medical marijuana industry is facing a threat as The Huffington Post on August 7 reveals that there is not enough water for marijuana plants, which need five to ten gallons of water per day. In a weird twist of history, California might be on the cusp of experiencing its own “Dust Bowl,” the terrible drought the Midwestern United States experienced in the mid-1930s. That crisis caused farmers to abandon their lands and head to California in search of jobs. Now it appears that California is experiencing its own severe drought that, as The Business Insider writes on August 5, may cause California residents to migrate out of the state. While extreme, this could occur over the long-term as some climatologists argue that the state’s drought could last for a century. They also point out in The Economist article previously cited that California’s geological record shows that the state suffered two prolonged droughts over the last 1,200 years, with each of those lasting 120 to 200 years in length.
Climate change has been identified as a possible culprit of California’s woes. The New York Times on August 7 writes that climate change is intensifying droughts in the Western and Southwestern United States. In fact, drought problems go beyond California as 34% of the country has experienced a moderate drought since August 5. What is frustrating for California farmers, as The New York Times explains, is that some areas of the country, such as those areas east of the Mississippi River, are actually experiencing higher amounts of precipitation than normal. Unfortunately, this precipitation is not migrating westward to the farmers and communities that need it most. Scientists who hoped that El Nino, a weather condition that sees warm Pacific Ocean water alter the jet stream, would bring relief to the state are now downgrading their forecasts. The San Jose Mercury on August 7 notes that while scientists in June said that there was an 82% chance of El Nino bringing much needed rainfall to the state, those estimates have been lowered to 65%. In layman’s terms, California just cannot catch a break.
The prolonged drought has consequences beyond not providing farmers or populations with sufficient water. Time on August 5 notes that when California experiences drought, forests and grasslands become dry and provide kindling for forest fires. Ironically, these fires can be produced by the same storms that Californians now wish they would experience, as a lightning strike in a dry area can fuel a fire. Even worse, since the ground becomes so dry in a drought, heavy rainfall can produce mudslides, with devastating impacts for some of the state’s communities. California was hit by some severe thunderstorms last week, although The Los Angeles Times points out on August 7 that these storms were of little relief for the state because they did not concentrate in the Colorado River or Sierra Nevada, which are the state’s key watersheds (areas of land where water drains to a common place). Furthermore, they ignited a series of forest fires, which Slate reports on August 4 are burning across 120,000 acres of the state (about the size of San Francisco). The drought is a primary reason why California is facing 45% more fires than normal through July.
Tackling the Drought
As previously mentioned, Governor Jerry Brown urged Californians to voluntarily assist in curtailing their water usage in January. He called for a 20% reduction in normal water usage by all California residents, but the problem is that many communities have fallen well short of this goal. USA Today reports on August 1 that between January and May, California water consumption only dropped by a measly 5% despite the fact that 50% of California residents think that the drought constitutes a significant threat to the state’s water supply. The San Francisco Chronicle on July 26 blamed Governor Brown for state residents not living up to his expectations and argued that he should have imposed mandatory restrictions on water supplies. The Chronicle also writes that the California government has done a very poor job explaining to residents, businesses, and farmers how they can reduce consumption. One of the amazing things about California is that several communities do not have metered water usage. Although The San Francisco Chronicle article previously cited indicates that state law requires all urban areas to have metered water use by 2025, many areas of the Central Valley have dragged their feet in implementing the requirement. The Economist on July 28 argues that metered water usage could go a long way toward conservation efforts as Fresno, California approved meter water usage last year and consumption dropped by 22% per person. If people are billed for their usage, they have a direct incentive to reduce consumption, so there have been calls across California to accelerate the implementation of metered water usage in local communities.
Since voluntary measures have failed, some local communities have taken it upon themselves to enact heavy fines on those who are wasting water. The USA Today article previously cited notes that residents of several California communities now face $500 fines for directly washing sidewalks or driveways, using drinkable water fountains that do not recirculate water, watering landscapes that produce runoff (thereby not keeping water in the soil), and using hoses to wash motor vehicles if those hoses do not have a shut-off nozzle. The San Jose Mercury reports on July 18 that a few California cities such as Santa Cruz and Sacramento have begun issuing tickets for those not following water conservation measures and cities in the Bay Area community are looking to spend $500,000 on temporary workers to enforce water restrictions. Think Progress on August 1 reveals that some Californians have even taken to social media to shame their neighbors and others that are not doing enough to conserve water. Extempers should continue to monitor how local restrictions on water usage play out because if the state does not receive ample rainfall this year, local governments may be forced to ration water by the end of 2015.
Dealing with cities and farmers use of groundwater supplies has become a hot political topic as well. Groundwater supplies are not replenished as quickly as surface water supplies and there are concerns that farmers drilling for groundwater will do significant environmental damage. According to Slate on July 31, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of California-Irvine found that 75% of Western water loss over the last decade has come from excessive groundwater pumping. The fear is that this pumping is not only depleting valuable underground aquifers, which can take decades, if not centuries, to refill, but is sinking the soil and putting infrastructure at risk. Unlike most states, California does not regulate the pumping of groundwater, but that is something that will likely change as a result of the drought. The Washington Post on August 6 reveals that state lawmakers are looking into legislation that would require cities and towns to ensure the sustainability of groundwater reserves. Local governments would coordinate these sustainability initiatives with state agencies and local communities would be required to refill groundwater reserves. The problem with that plan, though, is that it would take until 2020 to start implementation and it would be phased in over twenty years. By that time, severe degradation could be done to existing groundwater supplies. Still, the California government needs to take action to regulate these precious groundwater reserves to preserve existing infrastructure and prevent environmental degradation.
Looming Political Battles
As the drought persists, the interests of California’s political class and special interest groups will become magnified. One of the first theaters of action will be attempts by the state government to accelerate the metering of water supplies, which cities in the Central Valley have resisted, and the regulation of groundwater supplies. Small government forces in these areas will see these attempts as a power play by the California government. For example, by metering water usage, individuals will not have the ability to consume inordinate amounts of water without paying its market value. Those who are already on metered water accounts fear that the drought will lead to price increases by their local utility companies, price increases that will not go away after the crisis is over. These critics note that price increases that accompanied California’s last battle with drought in 2009 did not fade. Critics of the state government also allege that adding another layer of government bureaucracy for the sake of dealing with the drought is counterproductive for the state’s finances. Nevertheless, there is a lot of political momentum toward the metering of water throughout the state and dealing with groundwater reserves, so the question seems to be when not if those policies are eventually implemented.
A more significant battle centers on how California has diverted water supplies away from the Central Valley for the sake of handling endangered species. The Yahoo! News article previously cited explains how the delta smelt, a small fish, is considered an endangered species in California. As a result, the state has limited the flow of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmers in the Central Valley, despite the fact that farmers need this water in order to keep their crops afloat. Farmers heavily criticized the California government’s decision to let some of the excess water in that River Delta to flow into the Pacific Ocean in the past, which they claim is placing a small species over the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. If California’s drought persists, the battle between the state’s agricultural interests and the state’s environmental lobby are bound to increase. The question posed will be what is more important for the state: protecting the delta smelt or the state’s $44 billion agricultural industry?
The drought is also bringing attention to California’s antiquated water rights laws. Dating back to the California Gold Rush of 1849, some of California’s corporations, water districts, and landowners enjoy what are called “senior water rights.” These enable them to get most of the water that they request each year from local and state authorities. Bloomberg on August 7 points out that whereas those with senior water rights are now getting 65% to 75% of the water they request from the California Department of Water Resources, those without a connection to public water agencies are receiving nothing. The result is that the farmers without senior water rights can pay exorbitant fees to those with senior water rights to get access to valuable water – the going rate is over $2,000 an acre-foot, which is enough water to cover an acre of land up to one foot – or they can drill for groundwater. Those who have the senior water rights are reluctant to depart with them and they justify their holdings as a historically justified property right. Some argue that they need their water allocation and do not sell it others. Still others argue that the profits they make from selling the water to other farmers helps them recover their own losses in light of the recent drought. As California’s drought drags on, it would not be surprising to see California lawmakers look into old water rights rules, especially as the arguments of non-senior water rights holders grow louder. These arguments could become more vocal as the state seeks to clamp down on groundwater pumping by those who do not enjoy special water rights.
Finally, it is worth discussing the prospects of desalination projects for the state. Desalination is the process where seawater is converted into clean drinking water. Desalination can also take the salty water that comes from irrigation runoff and convert it to drinking water. Since California is positioned on the Pacific Ocean, critics have immediately leaped to the conclusion that its drought can be solved by simply taking water out of the ocean and providing it to the state’s residents. After all, Israel, Australia, and several other Middle Eastern countries have moved to construct desalination plants. However, things are not that simple. First, desalination plants are very expensive. The San Francisco Chronicle on March 18 writes that a conventional desalination plant that is being built in San Diego County carries a price tag of more than $1 billion. Second, there is the question of whether the water produced by the desalination plants will be too costly. The International Business Times on July 27 notes that this was a criticism of the San Diego plant as the reverse osmosis technology it uses for desalinating the water, which filters salty water through several screens, is energy intensive. All of this means that the cost of an acre-foot of desalinated water can be as high as $2,000. There are some innovations that might reduce the cost, though. The Chronicle article previously cited mentions that solar thermal desalination designs, one of which is being constructed in the Central Valley, have the potential to substantially reduce the cost of desalinated water to as little as $450 an acre. A third criticism of desalinated has been levied by environmental groups, which argue that the plants harm wildlife. Water Online writes on July 24 that conventional desalination plants suck in fish eggs, use harsh chemicals to clean filtering systems, and release toxic salty brime back into the oceans. Environmentalists filed lawsuits to block the construction of desalination plants in California, but The Environmental Expert on July 8 writes that the California Supreme Court ruled against them. Desalination holds out the prospect of helping California cope with the drought and providing much needed water to farmers in the Central Valley, but it is a long-term fix for what could amount to a short-term problem. The economies of scale will also need to be worked out so that the water produced by these plants is economical. Otherwise, these projects could fail miserably.
When giving speeches on the California drought, extempers should make sure that they are not too apocalyptic in their thinking. The Economist article previously cited explains that simulations of a long-term drought do not show significant damage to the state since agriculture is just 2% of the state’s $2 trillion economy. Still, real people will be hurt by the drought, either through job losses, devastated farms, or higher food prices, so extempers should try to communicate the story of those hurt by the drought as much as possible. Politicians love to posture, but quotations from those feeling the immediate impact of the drought can be powerful if used correctly.