Posts Tagged: Water

The Drought Persists

Last week, the San Jose Mercury News published an interesting map of the state of California depicting “urban” (that is, non-agricultural) water use by region for the month of May.  According to the State Water Resources Control Board, Californians used one percent more water in May 2014 that the average May over the last three years.  Even in Placer and Nevada Counties, some residents don't comprehend the severity of the current drought.

In response to the slight uptick in urban water use compared to the last three years, the Board adopted new penalties for wasting water in urban and residential settings.  This comes on top of Board actions that restrict water diversions and storage for “junior” water rights holders.  Furthermore, irrigation water deliveries from the federal Central Valley Project and the state water project are vastly reduced this year.  In Placer and Nevada Counties, our water agencies have asked for voluntary 15 percent reductions in water use to ensure that they can carryover enough water in reservoirs for next year.

On the same day that the Mercury News printed this graphic, the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences released its “Economic Analysis of the 2014 Drought for California Agriculture.”  Lest there be any doubt that California is in the midst of a severe drought that is having profound impacts on farmers and ranchers, here are a few of the study's key findings:

• California is enduring its third driest year on record as agricultural, urban and environmental demands for water are at an all-time high.  In other words, this year has been one of the driest in our history – and California's population has never been higher.
• The 2014 drought is responsible for the greatest absolute reduction to water availability for agriculture ever seen, given the high agricultural demands and low streamflows and reservoir levels.  Surface water availability is expected to be reduced by about one-third.
• The 2014 drought will result in a 6.6 million acre-feet reduction in surface water available to agriculture.  This loss of surface water will be partially replaced by increasing groundwater pumping by 5 million acre-feet.
• The net water shortage of 1.6 million acre-feet will cause losses of $810 million in crop revenue and $203 million in dairy and other livestock value, plus additional ground water pumping costs of $454 million.  These direct costs to agriculture total $1.5 billion.
• The total statewide economic cost of the 2014 drought is $2.2 billion, with a total loss of 17,100 seasonal and part-time jobs.
• California farmers will fallow approximately 428,000 acres of farmland in 2014 (other reports put this estimate as high as 800,000 acres).  Most of the fallowed land is estimated to be feed and other annual crops, including pasture.  At the individual farm level, fallowing land creates significant cash-flow challenges.  Some farms may not survive economically; some may be forced to sell land for development.  These farms and ranches grow food for all of us!  Each fallowed acre reduces the amount of food and fiber available for all Californians!
• In the Central Valley, high-value crops including vegetables, non-tree fruits and permanent crops represent less than 13 percent of total fallowing as growers direct scarce water to the highest value use.  Scarce water supplies are being used to keep almond, pistachio and walnut trees alive, rather than to grow annual field crops.  These orchard crops represent significant capital expenditures; farmers can't simply fallow an orchard one year and resume production the next.
• Alfalfa hay prices have increased 40 percent since January 2014.  This impacts the cost of production for dairy farmers, and to a lesser extent, for other livestock producers.  Many foothill ranchers have already felt the impacts of this price increase; they had to purchase hay to make it through the exceptionally dry winter.  Ranchers who market directly to consumers have had to raise their meat prices.
• The California drought, especially the lack of rain in the winter of 2013-2014 reduced pasture quality and the number of cattle [and other rangeland livestock] per acre substantially during the crucial winter and spring period of calving and raising feeder cattle on pasture.  Once the grass started to grow in March and April, many ranchers did not have enough animals to fully utilize the forage, creating fuel-loading problems on many ranches.  Several wildfires this summer have impacted ranches that were forced to de-stock during the winter.
• The combined socioeconomic (reduced production, job losses, economic losses, etc.) effects of the 2014 drought are up to 50 percent more severe than in 2009.

But what happens if the drought continues?  According to the report, “Statistically, the drought is likely to continue through 2015 – regardless of El Nino conditions.”

• Failure to replenish groundwater in wet years will continue to reduce groundwater availability to sustain agriculture – particularly more profitable permanent crops – during California's frequent droughts.  The recent plantings of almond and walnut orchards on the edges of the Valley are at risk.
• If the drought continues for two additional years, groundwater substitution will remain the primary response to surface water shortage, with decreases in groundwater pumping capabilities and increasing costs due to declining water levels.
• A continued drought also increases the vulnerability of agriculture, as urban users with largely adequate supplies in 2014 would likely buy water from agricultural areas.  This means more land will be fallowed and more farms will go out of business.

Obviously, rural communities are especially vulnerable to the drought.  Communities that depend on farming and ranching as their economic base are already suffering from the loss of jobs and farming income.  Drought-induced reductions in food production (and related increases in production costs) will ultimately lead to higher food prices – at the supermarket as well as at the farmers' market.  As the housing market recovers, many farm and ranch families may decide to sell their land for development. 

So what can we do?  We can't make it rain – believe me, I've tried everything I can think of!  As farmers and ranchers, we must continue to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.  We need to develop drought plans – what will we do if the drought continues?  For my family's sheep operation, this means keeping a careful eye on our carrying capacity and stocking rates.  For foothill fruit growers, this may mean deciding which trees to save and which to let die.

While most residential water users are used to having their water metered, much of the irrigation water in the foothills is delivered through a network of canals by the miner's inch (a vestige of our Gold Rush heritage, a miner's inch is equal to 11.22 gallons per minute).  As an irrigator, I have two options for conserving water: I can purchase less water from my irrigation district, or I can invest in technology and management systems that allow me to irrigate more acreage with my full allotment of water.  On several of our leased pastures, we've opted to make our water go further.  If the Nevada Irrigation District (NID) is forced to reduce deliveries next year by a fourth consecutive dry year, we'll have to get by with less – and reduce our flock accordingly.  We simply don't have the ability to replace our NID water with groundwater.

What can we do at home?  We've always turned off the tap while brushing our teeth and shaving.  This year, we're putting a bucket in the shower while waiting for the water to get hot – and we're using this water for plants and for drinking water for our pets.  We've also limited the amount of landscaping irrigation that we're doing – our lawn is drier than normal, and we're using some of our yard space to grow food instead of ornamental plants.  If the drought continues, we'll consider tearing out more lawn.

Drought has always been a fact of life for California.  I've seen evidence that the last half of the 20^th Century were wetter than normal for our state – perhaps drought is more ordinary than we realize.  And while many farms and ranches have learned to get by on less water, the map at the beginning of this article suggests that many of our urban neighbors are not aware that we're in a drought.  If our current dry spell persists, however, we'll all be forced to make some difficult decisions.

Here's the bottom line: no matter how we define “locally grown,” if the drought persists, we'll all have difficulty finding locally grown food!

What Drought!? Perceptions and Reality about Water in the Sierra Foothills

Last Tuesday morning, my job with UC Cooperative Extension took me to the Roseville Farmers' Market at the Fountains Shopping Center.  As I was leaving the market, I drove past the water fountains for which the center is named – and found them running!  While I'm not sure whether these water features use recycled water (I sure hope they do), they symbolize our collective lack of awareness – and lack of concern – regarding California's drought.

When our “water year” ends on June 30, we will have received somewhere around half of our normal precipitation – other parts of California have fared far worse.  Those of us who have rangeland livestock operations have been feeling the effects of this lack of precipitation since last fall.  If you'll remember, we had a good rain on Labor Day last year, followed by dry weather for the rest of September and much of October.  The grass that germinated with the Labor Day rain didn't survive.  We had our next germinating rain in November, followed by a cold spell.  After we measured a half-inch of snow in early December, we were dry for a record-setting 50+ days.  While we had more than 8” of rain over the course of 4 days in early February, the grass on our rangelands really didn't grow until March.  I'm sure the abnormally dry winter also impacted many orchards and vineyards as well – impacts that some growers are just starting to see now.

The lack of snowpack this year was even more severe.  In our region of the Sierra, the May 1 snowpack was just 22 percent of normal.  As of June 9, our snowpack had disappeared – the Department of Water Resources (DWR) reports that our snowpack is 0 percent of normal for that date (as a comparison, during a pack trip south of Sonora Pass in August of 1996, I rode through 3-4 foot snowdrifts).  Our summer irrigation water – whether we're customers of the Nevada Irrigation District (NID) or Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) – depends on our ability to store water in the form of snow.  The reservoirs that NID and PCWA operate don't have enough capacity to store all of our water needs without some of this water coming into the system as late-season snowmelt.  Based on the DWR numbers, our snowmelt has ended for this water year.

While most of us think of drought as a weather phenomenon, droughts can be created through law and regulation as well.  Back in January, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency.  In his declaration, the Governor indicated that curtailment of water diversions might be necessary to preserve water supplies.  In late May, the State Water Resources Control Board (which regulates surface water rights) sent letters to all of the “junior” water rights holders in the Sacramento River watershed ordering them to stop diverting water immediately.   Locally, this meant that NID has to allow any water flowing into its reservoirs from these junior (or post-1914) water rights to pass through – in other words, if a stream subject to a junior water right is flowing at 10 cubic feet per second into one of NID's reservoirs, the district has to release 10 cfs at the damn.  This water can't be stored for future use!  To complicate matters further, this curtailment order remains in place for 270 days unless it's lifted (and no one is certain of the process for lifting it).  This means that NID might not be able to store any water from these junior water rights until the end of February 2015 – well into next year's rainy season.  This uncertainty makes me nervous – what happens if we have a warm winter and more of our mountain precipitation falls as rain?  With this order in place, we couldn't store it for next summer's irrigation season.

Back to Tuesday - that evening, I attended a drought meeting organized by the Placer County Farm Bureau.  NID and PCWA provided an update on water conservation efforts and prospects for the rest of this irrigation season.  Both agencies reported that they thought they'd be able to provide full water deliveries to most customers for the full irrigation season (through October 15).  Both agencies also expressed hope for a return to normal precipitation next fall and winter, while conceding that another dry year (or continued curtailment of water rights) could pose challenges for the 2015 irrigation season.

I was astonished by the low turnout at the meeting – only 15-20 commercial farmers and ranchers attended. A number of folks, like me, had livestock operations.  Others grew mandarins or other permanent crops, and one or two grew vegetables.

All of us – myself included – take water for granted, I think.  Once NID and PCWA announced this spring that they'd be able to make full water deliveries, many of us put our worries about the drought on a back burner.  Water continued to flow; we moved on to other worries.  For many of my vegetable-grower friends, the mild and dry spring was actually a benefit – they were able to work ground and plant much earlier than normal, which allowed them to bring crops to market sooner than normal.

As for me, I can't shake the idea that we're not out of the woods yet.  I think back to what our rangelands looked like in January and February, and I'm frightened by the prospects of another dry fall and winter.  I found a great quote on the California Water Blog (written by UC Davis professors Jeffrey Mount and Jay Lund) – “Hope is not a strategy.”  While I certainly hope that we have a wet winter ahead of us, I continue to work on my drought strategy.  In other words, I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.

What does this look like for your operation?  I find myself looking ahead to the quality and quantity of forage that I can take our sheep to in September and October – and looking even further ahead to December and January.  If it doesn't rain this fall, I'm stockpiling dry grass pastures to graze during the winter months.  We've also identified small irrigated pastures that will allow us to prepare our ewes for our fall breeding season – rather than finishing lambs on these pastures this summer, we're saving them for the ewes with the hope that we can increasing next year's lambing percentage.  We're also looking at opportunities for improving our irrigation technology – more efficient sprinklers and soil moisture monitoring.  I'm going to start looking into options for planting forages that are more drought tolerant than our typical irrigated pasture grasses.  Finally, I'm starting to think about ways that I can take advantage of good rainfall years – both economically and ecologically.  Perhaps I'll buy feeder lambs in years when we have strong forage growth – perhaps there are other options as well.

Several weeks ago, I was talking to a neighbor at one of the ranches we lease.  I told her about some of the things we'd had to do to cope with the dry winter and spring.  Commiserating, she told me that her kids were terribly disappointed that the sprinkler park in Rocklin had been closed because of the drought.  While I realize that she told the story out of sympathy, I was struck how insulated most non-farmers are from this drought – the Fountains in Roseville are another example.  Tuesday night's meeting reminded me that farmers and ranchers aren't immune from complacency.

Here are some links to resources and information about the drought:

• Farmer-Rancher Drought Forum (Facebook)
• Farmer and Rancher Voices from the Drought (Facebook)
• Foothill Farming Drought Resources Page
• U.S. Drought Monitor
• Nevada Irrigation District Drought Information
• Placer County Water Agency Drought Information
• UC Davis Drought Page
• California Irrigation Management Information System

Water Rights and Drought

Mark Twain may not have said, “Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over,” but this quote certainly captures the essence of water policy in the West.  Late last week, the State Water Resources Control Board sent a letter to appropriative water rights holders in northern and central California “notifying all holders of post-1914 appropriative water rights within the Sacramento and San Joaquin River watersheds of the need to immediately stop diverting under their post-1914 water rights,….”  In other words, if your water right was filed after 1914, you're out of water for now.  An appropriative water right allows for storing water or for the use of water on land that is not directly abutting a waterway.

What does this mean for those of us who farm and ranch in Placer and Nevada Counties?  Clearly, if we have a post-1914 appropriative water right, we're out of luck for this year.  Fortunately, most of us irrigate with water from the Nevada Irrigation District or Placer County Water Agency.  In these cases, the agencies are the water rights holders (and in both cases, these agencies hold at least some “senior,” or pre-1914 rights).  However, at least several ranchers in our community did receive the letter.

If you did receive a letter, pay special attention to this provision:

“Compliance Certification Required:

Curtailed post-1914 diverters are required to document receipt of this notice by completing an online Curtailment Certification Form (Form) within seven days. The Form confirms cessation of diversion under the specific post-1914 water right, and, if applicable, identifies the alternate water supply to be used in lieu of the curtailed water right. Completion of the Form and identification of alternate rights can avoid unnecessary enforcement proceedings.”

The State of California has only issued such an order one other time – during the 1976-77 drought.  And while our current drought may not be quite as severe as 1976-77 (in terms of rainfall and snowpack), we have millions more people – and much greater demand on our water system – than we did 38 years ago.  It's shaping up to be a long summer.  Let's hope for an early – and wet! – autumn!

Click here to see a media advisory from the State Board: http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/press_room/press_releases/2014/pr053014_sjcurtailment.pdf.

For more information, you can call the Curtailment Hotline at (916) 341-5342, contact the State Board by email at: SWRCB-Curtailment-Certification@waterboards.ca.gov, or review their drought year webpage at:

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/drought/index.shtml

Keep up with the latest drought information at https://www.facebook.com/groups/farmerrancherdroughtforum/.  This group is open to commercial farmers and ranchers, and folks who work with us.

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