Farmers Can’t Keep Hogging the Water in Parched Southwest

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-18/farmers-can-t-keep-hogging-the-water-in-parched-southwest

by mirthlessend • 3 years ago

33 29 3 years ago

cratermoon• 3 years ago

The mention of farmers with access to groundwater reminds me that water rights issues in New Mexico vs. Texas have, in part, been caused by a disagreement over how much pumping out groundwater affects the downstream flows of nearby rivers in the aquifer. https://sourcenm.com/2023/02/10/state-requests-125m-over-fiv...

Oh yeah, and the Colorado River Compact was based on estimates of river flows that were optimistic even for wetter years in 100 years ago. The compact allocated over 16 million acre-feet for a river that most years manages less than 14 million.

silisili• 3 years ago

It gets even more fun across country borders. Most of the water for southern NM and a lot for El Paso come from a giant Mesilla aquifer. Turns out, that extends beyond the border, and Mexico has started hitting it heavily to supply Juarez. Fun times ahead.

bunabhucan• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/hdrn9

kneebonian• 3 years ago

I'd rather have farmers hogging it than Nestle using it to sell us bottled water they are getting a discount on.

dahdum• 3 years ago

Why? All that water is being used for direct human consumption. Isn't that better use than a gallon per almond? I think so.

tux19682• 3 years ago

There are tradeoffs for sure, but fundamentally farming is a life-sustaining activity, and we should be very careful about unintended consequences of our policies. For instance, maybe almonds should not in fact be grown in this region, but I suspect that is a very small and unrepresentative portion of the actual crops harvested.

slimsag• 3 years ago

In Arizona, Nestle is building a new $700mm plant to produce 'high quality creamers', and were going to use the local utility EPCOR for water-but apparently EPCOR may not be able to provide enough for their needs.

To resolve the issue, they are lobbying[0] to have the groundwater laws adjusted to allow companies to treat and return their own water back to groundwater aquifers without any oversight.

e.g. they may be allocated to pump 3,000 acre-feet of water/year, but if they pump 1,000 acre-feet of 'treated' wastewater back into the ground /somewhere/ then they are allowed to pump an additional 1,000 /plus/ 1,000 more the next year. And of course those are all virtual credits, they can acquire clean water wherever they like and dispose of 'treated' water into the ground wherever for credits, with little to no oversight.

[0] https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/water-wars/nestle-...

photonbucket• 3 years ago

To an extent, some uses of water are just better than others.

Non-shaded non-lined/piped open earth irrigation is a big waste.

Someone using land in the 1920s doesn't mean that they should get to keep having wildly inefficient irrigation practices in the 2020s.

photochemsyn• 3 years ago

"Today, roughly 500,000 acres in and around Imperial County are cultivated with irrigation, with the bulk of the land devoted to growing alfalfa and other forage that feeds California's dairy industry, the nation's largest."

Looks like switching to desert-optimized crops that have historically been grown in the region is the only real long-term solution, plus a lot more drip-style irrigation:

https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=2205

"Heat-loving plants are best suited for summer production in desert climates. The plant families that fit into the heat-loving category are nightshade or Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) and squash or Cucurbitaceae (cucumbers, melons, summer and winter squash). Corn and beans also perform best in hot climates."

One crop per year might also have to be the new norm if the Colorado River dams keep heading for dead pool.

rektide2• 3 years ago

These people were given water rights in perpetuity. How many will ever correct, will drawn down their usage voluntarily? Does society have to pay them for this unearned gift we never had to give, that they were granted?

midoridensha• 3 years ago

Somehow I doubt the people given water rights in perpetuity are still alive today. At some point, governments should not be held liable for bad promises made centuries ago which simply can't be kept today.

Kerrick• 3 years ago

Nonetheless, a deal, whenever it happens, will be good for everyone. Development will have water to fuel its growth[...]

Maybe we shouldn't be expanding cities and developing new suburbs in such arid regions that don't have enough water?

More recently, private investors have been buying up agricultural water rights around the state in the hope of reselling them to homebuilders.

So even under the current system, urban/suburban expansion _can_ proceed, but it's disincentivized due to the additional cost of securing water rights? That seems like a good deterrent to building in a marginal location, not a problem.

ajmurmann2• 3 years ago

It seems to be that much of this could be solved by pricing water at its actual price rather than through some politically set price. I could see an exemption for private household first 100 gallons per month or so to make sure everyone can stay hydrated.

mimikatz• 3 years ago

That's exactly how you would fix it, the interests who control things don't want to pay market price. People in general hate paying what something costs when they have been paying the subsidized rate.

spondylosaurus2• 3 years ago

Water usage in the Southwest has wildly different impacts by area. Las Vegas, for instance, is hardcore about treating wastewater and returning it back to Lake Mead (delicious, right?)—which means that a lot of outdoor water use is still lost to evaporation but almost all household water use has a nearly net zero impact.

Arizona, to my knowledge, doesn't have any systems like that in place. Not for nothing that all those stories you hear about new developments trying to skirt water usage regulations and then being shocked when residents suddenly run out of water for their swimming pools seem to come out of Arizona.

david2ndaccount• 3 years ago

Los Angeles needs to stop stealing all the water from the Owens valley and allow that area to restore to its natural state.

tdsanchez• 3 years ago

I live in Phoenix.

Agriculture is big business's boogeyman.

Golf course, swimming pools, lawns and poorly managed landscaping use water like its a cheap date.

Farmers in suburbs have been GIVING UP their water rights for the greater good.

Land investors have been buying farmland to usurp the water rights.

Bloomberg is a mouthpiece for governance in Arizona that wants to keep building water guzzling semiconductor fabs.

Farmers Can’t Keep Hogging the Water in Parched Southwest

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