Water war

KERN COUNTY, Calif.—Meeting cherry farmer Steve Murray probably isn’t the best way to understand the gravity of California’s drought, which experts say is the worst in modern history.

A tall, jolly fourth-generation farmer with light blue eyes and sparse grey hair, Murray laughs often—even right after revealing that he had suffered a 90 percent crop loss due to water shortage this year. For the past two years, he’s been receiving barely 40 percent of his trees’ water needs from his water district. On a typical harvest, he hires 400 to 800 pickers. This year, he could only hire 25.

“We’ve hit the perfect storm,” said Murray, sitting next to a dry fountain that once burbled near the entrance of the Big Red Barn, his storefront in Bakersfield, Calif. “No water, no fruit, no pickers—we couldn’t get anybody to pick our fruits because it wasn’t profitable enough.” He then let out his signature laugh. But his face turned serious when he mentioned his 80 full-time employees: “We’re not just talking about an individual losing business here. We’re talking about a community of people, the 80 families we support.”

Murray lives next to his orchards in Kern County, an agriculture-rich county in southern Central Valley. Thanks to the state’s extensive water delivery system and its abounding fertile soils, Central Valley produces one-third of the nation’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts.

The once-uninhabitable Kern County, for example, boasts 804,000 acres of fruit and nut trees, each acre bearing about $20,000 worth of high-demand crops such as almonds, grapes, pistachios, citrus, and pomegranates—about 250 crop varieties in all—that feed not just America, but the world. Next to irrigated farmlands waft the odors of manure and feed from cattle ranches and dairy and poultry farms. Together, Kern County’s agriculture and livestock make up more than $4.7 billion in total value. Today, these vast, seemingly emerald-green fields give the false illusion that all is well in Kern County.

It wasn’t until I sat next to Murray in his old truck, rumbling and bumping over the uneven dirt road between sweet-and-rot-smelling orchards, that signs of the long-suffering, four-year drought began to show. As we bumbled through what he calls “fields of death and sickness,” Murray pointed out the defects: “Look there, you see the yellow burns on the leaves, the dead limbs sticking out? That’s stress from last year from giving them less water than they needed. They’ll be dead by fall. … And see those trees over there? Those are our Kitty Cot apricots—they were very popular at the farmers market, but we’re not going to have them this year. We turned their water off April 1.”

A month later, Murray let 50 more acres of his cherry trees wilt prematurely.

This drought isn’t California’s first dry spell, nor will it be the last. What’s significant about it, however, is that it dragged to the surface a long-existing water crisis, an untreated ulcer that tore and bled inside vital organs until one day, the state finally vomited blood—and even then, people are still quibbling about risk factors for surgery.

Since 1960, a period when California’s potential for expansion and prosperity seemed limitless, the state’s population has doubled to almost 40 million. Had state authorities and policymakers prepared for the continuously spiking water demands, they could have mitigated some of the drought effects. Most meaningful efforts, however, have been hampered by a combination of complicated factors—and politics, politics, politics.

“Water is politics,” said David Feldman, a social ecology professor and chairman of the Department of Planning, Policy and Design at UC Irvine. “In a democracy, that political process will be messy. Sure, water’s a basic need, but the way it’s managed is determined by power.”

“Messy” is an understatement. California’s water issues are so convoluted that even water professionals hold fragmented understandings and misperceptions—let alone ordinary people, who tend to oversimplify problems and demand silver-bullet fixes. The result is a courtroom circus: Bay Area liberals and environmentalists condemn Big Ag and big lawns for sucking up precious water; farmers and Republican legislators blame environmentalists for prizing fish over man; federal and state authorities point to man-made climate change; and fringe groups sniff out ways to tie the drought to pet agendas.

Nobody denies the need for long-term, sustainable water policy, but finger-pointing from all groups still blocks effective conversation. Politics complicates already complex challenges to solving the water crisis: highly variable water supply, arcane water laws and rights, aging infrastructure, stymied projects for new dams and canals, unfettered groundwater drilling, and inept water management.

“What we have now is a long tradition of California not being able to manage or solve a lot of our basic problems over water,” Feldman said. “It’s not something you can amend or discard overnight.” But he added optimistically, “This drought is a teachable moment. … California water is a model for much of the world.”

IN 2012, WHEN THE DROUGHT FIRST BEGAN, most Californians noticed the triple-digit heat wave without much alarm. They simply took more showers. Another dry year came, and the next.

In January 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown declared a drought state of emergency and beseeched citizens to conserve water. The government spent millions on raising public awareness. Highway signs blinked in capital letters: “SERIOUS DROUGHT. HELP SAVE WATER.” Apparently, not enough took heed. Water conservation levels remained dismal. In April 2015, after surveying the lowest-on-record mountain snowpack that’s supposed to flow during the dry summer months, Brown ordered California’s first mandatory statewide 25 percent cut in urban water use.

Under threats of $10,000-per-day fines for noncompliance, urban water districts scrambled to devise carrot-and-stick measures to meet their assigned conservation standards. Districts restricted lawn watering and hosing, and many cities joined Los Angeles in offering rebates to residents who install high-efficiency appliances or replace lawn grass with drought-tolerant landscaping.

This year, about 564,000 acres of previously lush, wildlife-sustaining farmland has returned back to pristine nature: Dust. Tumbleweed. Silence.

By then, most Californians from middle-class suburban homeowners to inner-city apartment tenants had awakened to the realities of the drought. “Drought-shaming” became a word. Hawk-eyed Californians reported their car-hosing neighbors to water cops, media outlets villainized almond farmers (“one gallon of water per almond!”), and even celebrities apologized for their flowers and hedges.

“California will change as we know it,” said Mike Scott, a Los Angeles–based garden designer who’s seen an uptick in customers requesting drip irrigation in their gardens and drought-tolerant plants in their uprooted lawns. “Green lush lawns that make your neighbors jealous will be a thing of the past.”

Gov. Brown has been prophesying that message for years before this drought, though today he’s more excited about climate-change doomsaying than detailing how to deal with the water crisis. It’s a sharp divergence of philosophy from his father, Pat Brown, who served as governor in the 1960s.

The late Brown was a visionary during California’s boom-boom era. During his aggressive, ambitious governorship, California erected the controversial State Water Project (SWP) to “correct an accident of people and geography,” as Brown Sr. described it. The project brought water from the north and other states to sunny central and Southern California, while also providing flood control, hydroelectricity generation, and recreation through its dams and reservoirs. The SWP, together with the federal Central Valley Project and the Colorado River Aqueduct, became the backbone of California’s elaborate, sprawling water network, transforming its landscape and economy.

Then sometime around the 1970s, the environmental movement emerged, which dissolved the appetite for water projects. Political squabbles, environmentalist groups, and other special interests shot down plans for dams, canals, and reservoirs. Yet the people who canceled those projects didn’t prepare alternative plans to increase water supply for the ever-growing population.

This battle of man vs. nature culminates at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of California’s water distribution system and a rich habitat for more than 500 species of wildlife. Think of the Delta as a major valve that regulates, shuts, and controls the flow of the state’s surface water to two-thirds of all Californians and millions of acres of farmland. A failed Delta is like cutting off California’s bloodline—a catastrophe.

But the Delta is ailing. Its water quality is deteriorating due to salt-water incursion, pesticide drainage, and industrial pollution. Its levees are aging. Bad water quality, disrupted water flow direction, and other complex factors have diminished certain native fish species, which environmentalists argue is an indicator of an unhealthy ecosystem. So they fought to save the fish—at all costs, including science.

In 2007, a federal judge ordered severe restrictions in Delta water exports to farmlands, all to “improve conditions” for the delta smelt—tiny, inedible fish listed as “threatened” (not endangered) under the powerful Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, this ruling coincided with a hydrologic drought. Not only did the regulation cause significant job and crop loss, “desirable fish” numbers didn’t even improve. Such environmental regulations will not abate even with the drought; early this month, the California State Water Board proposed a new emergency regulation that would implement strict water restrictions on residents along the Russian River region. The goal? To save water for Coho salmon and steelhead trout.

Most reasonable people agree the Delta needs immediate and comprehensive treatment that balances human water needs with environmental stewardship. Over the decades, politicians and interest groups have tried to reach some sort of compromise. The most recent: the $25 billion, Brown-endorsed Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which proposes reconstructing critical levees and building two new tunnels to convey water underneath or around the Delta. But legal, political, and regulatory challenges have consistently blocked any real action.

In April 2015, after surveying the lowest-on-record mountain snowpack that’s supposed to flow during the dry summer months, Brown ordered California’s first mandatory statewide 25 percent cut in urban water use.

KERN COUNTY IS A GOOD MICROCOSM for understanding California’s water issues.

Through the county runs its namesake Kern River, over which a legendary legal battle erupted in the 1880s, resulting in a water rights ruling that set precedent for water laws in the West. Today, the lower riverbanks are all dried up, while the upper river runs at 11 percent of normal—a historic low in 120 years of record-keeping. Because of old water rights, any meager trickle goes first to the water district up north with senior rights, leaving nothing for others who also depend on that water. Similar drought-heightened conflicts are happening all across the state.

Meanwhile, farmers without surface water supply are drilling deeper and deeper for groundwater, seeking immediate relief but risking long-term consequences: California’s groundwater, which takes decades to replenish, is depleting at an alarming rate. What’s more, excessive pumping has caused the lands above groundwater aquifers to sink, permanently reducing future storage capacity.

Last year, the governor signed into law an unprecedented three-bill package imposing new restrictions on groundwater pumping. It’ll take years before the law fully kicks in. While some water professionals complain that this regulation is still too “laissez-faire,” farmers worry that without first addressing unreliable surface water supply, come next drought, they’ll be in a worse pickle. They know they can’t keep pumping forever, but what other alternatives do they have to save their livelihood?

Some environmentalists counter that intensive agriculture should never have been allowed in arid Central Valley. Let nature return to what it’s meant to be, they say. They’re getting their wish: This year, about 564,000 acres of previously lush, wildlife-sustaining farmland has returned back to pristine nature: Dust. Tumbleweed. Silence.

“These people don’t understand how important agriculture is, how far we’ve come,” groused John Moore, a fourth-generation potato, pistachio, and almond farmer in Arvin, Calif. “Most people just go down to the store and that’s where food originates for them. We were once proud of what we’ve done—we’re feeding the world, we made food less expensive. Now, my daughter has to apologize for being a farmer.”

Anxiety and frustration levels are also high among state water contractors. I met with Kern County Water Agency general manager Jim Beck, a slight, solemn-faced man with encyclopedic knowledge about California water after managing water for 31 years. His agency distributes SWP water to 14 water districts (primarily for agriculture) and operates the nation’s leading groundwater banking programs, which store water underground during wet years as a safety net for dry years. Banked water has buffered Kern County from the full brunt of the drought for the last three years, but not for long: Its groundwater levels have hit an all-time low.

That keeps Beck up at night, as do other impending “nightmares”: What if an earthquake destabilizes the Delta levees? How will that impact California’s economy, food prices, the national and global economy? Who will help save local jobs and communities?

In Kern County, where only 15 percent of residents have a college degree and 23 percent live below poverty levels, many are dependent on agriculture, not just for income but social mobility. Success stories abound here of someone starting out as a picker, then gradually working up to his own farm. That American Dream is drying up. For 2015 alone, researchers expect a statewide economic loss of $2.7 billion and the loss of 18,600 jobs in agriculture due to the water shortage.

“These are real issues at stake,” Beck said. “Something is going to happen that will impact all of us—and it’s unavoidable.” But he also made a remark repeated by others in the water world: “The good side about this crisis is that throughout my whole career, I’ve never heard so many people talk about the need for a long-term solution to the water crisis.”

That conversation is indeed buzzing, sprouting ideas both wacky and worthy. Some have suggested hauling an iceberg from the Arctic, while many economists advise establishing a water market that prices water properly. That way, water goes to those who value it most as opposed to those in power. The trade-off, however, is that it’ll hurt the poor. And without even an adequate water infrastructure, no market exists.

Last November, Californians finally approved Prop 1, a $7.545 billion water bond measure that had been gridlocked in the legislature since its 2009 conception—until intensifying public interest in water issues pushed it to the ballot. The bill adopts a portfolio approach to addressing California’s multifaceted water issues: water quality, supply, and sustainability; environmental protection and restoration; and innovative technologies such as wastewater treatment and desalination plants.

Still, Prop 1 is no immediate fix, and water experts worry that should the drought end tomorrow, Californians will forget that water is a precious, scarce resource. “We take water for granted when we have enough of it, until a drought comes and everybody’s paying attention,” said Doug Parker, director of UC’s California Institute for Water Resources. “Then when we have wet days, everybody sort of returns back to what they used to do.”

A longtime advocate for a systematic plan that combines policy, technology, and conservation, Parker hopes this drought will strike a lasting reality check: “We’ve been seeing people not being flexible to compromise, just sticking to their one path. But fighting over it to the point where we don’t do anything will bring no good, either. … We need to stop thinking that we’re going to solve this problem in a way where everybody will be happy.”

Dry Brazil

Brazil contains the world’s largest rainforest, Andean glaciers, and more renewable water sources than any other country. It is also suffering what environmentalists say is the country’s worst drought in 80 years. The three largest states of Brazil’s 28 face severe water shortages.

São Paulo is the name of both South America’s largest city and Brazil’s richest and most populous state. Last year the state government began draining reservoirs, and the main reservoir is now only 16 percent full. Officials recently warned the supply could run out before the next rainy season in November.

Part of the problem is man-made. Brazil spent funds to host the 2014 World Cup and next year’s Olympics that the country could have used to move water to cities. A June report by São Paulo’s Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry blamed the state’s water and waste management company (Sabesp) for the regional water shortage. More than a third of São Paulo’s water dripped out of leaky pipes last year between the treatment plant and customers’ houses, according to a study by water sanitation advocacy group Instituto Trata Brasil.

Another part of the problem, though, comes from trade-offs. Brazil’s food needs are great, and rising food prices create incentives to clear more land for agriculture and cattle pasture, but deforestation contributes to drought. Another trade-off: Some São Paulo residents are digging private wells and collecting rainwater, but water stored in open containers caused a tripling of dengue fever cases carried by mosquitoes that like stagnant water.

Investments to improve the water supply are belatedly coming: A $300 million government project will transfer water from the Paraíba River to São Paulo’s main reservoir system by 2016. The government also plans to connect existing dams in August, finishing in 2017. Individual behavior is changing. The São Paulo State Sanitation and Energy Regulatory Agency recently fined customers who increased their water consumption. Last year Sabesp gave water bill discounts to customers who reduced their usage. São Paulo resident Ligia Sonetti now reuses laundry water and takes short showers: “We never wash the cars anymore like we used to.” —Katlyn Babyak