A Perspective on the California Drought

[Uncle Sam]

It is not just in California, but the whole western U.S. has had a lack of rainfall and snow for a few years. Most of California would be classified as a desert with less than 10-inches of average rainfall in normal years except for the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the north-western corner of California near the Oregon border. (In the Central Valley I have seen years of 3-20 inches of rainfall with the 20 inch year being very unusual.) The early settlers in California found that the crops that could be grown with this small amount of rainfall would be grains planted in the fall (and hope it rains) and the grass that grew after rainfall to support a cattle and sheep industry. When the grass supply in the valley and on the foothills was gone, the early cattlemen would drive their herds into the mountains to graze on the grass in the meadows. After the first rains in the fall the cattlemen would drive the cattle back down to the valley and start the cycle again. I have heard it said by some of the older generations that the last cattleman driving his herd out of the mountains would set the duff on fire and just let it slowly burn up into the mountains until it ran out of fuel or was put out by the weather. The fires would get rid of small trees and brush which helped the next year’s grass grow high to feed the cattle, sheep, and the wild deer and elk.

The geographical feature that allowed early American pioneers in California to begin developing the farmland to grow permanent crops and support small towns was the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The rainfall and snow pack in these mountains during the winter months provided the river water (surface water) for many months during the spring and hot summers. There were efforts by some early American pioneers during spring and summer runoffs to divert water into canals or ditches to irrigate permanent crops like grapes, figs, citrus, and even grass for the cattle to graze during the hot summers. Sometimes, with heavy rainfall and fast snow melt, the valley was flooded during the spring runoffs and, conversely, the rivers practically dried up in the fall (like they are now) when the snow pack was gone. It was feast or famine!!

Cont'd

 

[Uncle Sam]

The pioneers wanted and needed a steady source of water, so they first began to drill wells to tap the underground sources fed by the rivers and the mountain snows each year. This allowed pioneers to develop the land to its best use and also supply their cities and towns with a steady water supply. Unfortunately the demand on the underground aquifers soon caused the water level to drop and people realized that there was a limit to the amount of water they could pump. In the early 1900s this caused the City of San Francisco (plus other bay area cities) and the City of Los Angeles to secure water rights to water coming out of the Sierras so they could build dams and aqueducts to take water from the mountains to supply their cities. The City of Los Angeles also got water rights to water from the Colorado River. Without this water none of these cities could support their growing populations or grow as big they have.

A plan to build dams on the many rivers flowing west out of the Sierras to eliminate the feast and famine supply of water was developed over a number of years. This would not only store water for farm and domestic use, but essentially eliminate periodic flooding. Thus the large Central Valley Project was created to dam the rivers, create water storage reservoirs, and build canals to not only to irrigate the Central Valley, but to move the water from the northern part of California (where most of the rainfall and snow is concentrated) to the southern half of the state which was a true desert that needed water to prosper. Work was started on the Project and water districts were formed to distribute the water from the canals to individual land owners. This “surface” water relieved the pressure on wells and underground aquifers, so the depth to water in these wells recovered from 200-300 feet deep to 30 feet or less over a few years. The Project was working just as it was designed even though some parts of the project were never built.

Complacency and politics began to take priority over the goal of providing water for the State, so there has not been another dam built in almost 50 years. The original Project’s designers and creators all died, so the next few generations lost the dream even though the population of California and land development continued to grow. There were periodic years where the rainfall and the snow pack were very limited, but the stored surface water and the refilled underground aquifers allowed us to muddle our way through without the real world situation being addressed. The environmentalists stopped any progress with delays to study this fish, that bird, some animal that was put on the endangered species list, or whatever reason could be found as an excuse for doing nothing. Which water right was the oldest or who had the control of this water became a big political and bureaucratic squabble amongst people with some “super egos”. This finger pointing (which became an intellectual exercise) and the environmental mind-set did not add one drop of water to the supply. The “Native Americans” also got involved in the delays because of burial grounds, artifacts (bones), or land claims found at any place where a dam might be built or water storage might be developed to cover these “ancestral” grounds. A form of “black mail” was created to extract money from those who needed the water!!

 

[Uncle Sam]

The “drought” situation has been coming for years and has finally caused a paradigm shift in the actions of state and city governments to issue “edicts” on how people should use water more efficiently. Farmers have been converting their irrigation systems to highly efficient low volume sprinklers and drippers for over 50 years that I know about. We are now in a situation of limited water supplies for both the farm lands and cities that leads to nothing but squabbles pitting neighbor against neighbor and government types all pointing their fingers at someone else as the cause of the problem. Here in the Central Valley there are an estimated 400,000 acres of annual crops that have not been planted and established orchards are already dead or dying from lack of water. Farm owners have had to make hard decisions about where to use their limited surface or well water; hundreds have had their wells produce reduced amounts of water or run dry so they have to spend money on deepening their existing wells or drill new wells that are deeper. Not cheaply either!! But farmers are eternal optimists so, in spite of this situation, the established orchards are being cleared and the land redeveloped physically so it will grow larger crops. Recently developed new crop varieties are being planted in their place using modern irrigation techniques that distribute water more efficiently. On the farm side this has been invested in for years, so this fact made it possible for the total farm income in California in 2014 to become the highest in history in spite of the continuing drought situation.

The simple answer to solving the water problem in California is to complete the original Project build out as it was designed, so when Mother Nature does give us abundant rainfall and a large snow pack, we can store larger volumes of water for immediate and future use. Then we can provide surface water to farms and cities in sufficient quantities to take care of their needs and provide water for environmental purposes such as fish, ducks, geese, and wild life. We can keep the rivers flowing downstream to replenish our underground aquifers and keep the large inland bay near San Francisco flushed out with fresh, clean water. We can create a win-win situation for everyone!!!

Uncle Sam