Water Wednesday | #6 The Front Lines

Until recently, Steve Kandra owned and farmed much of the land behind him. Near Klamath Falls, OR.

In between the environmental and political forces are farmers, who must eek out a living in a volatile regulatory environment.  Farming is difficult enough (many professionals have likened it to gambling your life saving every year) without additional uncertainty.  Many people in urban areas criticize farming interests as subsidized and wealthy.   I have no problem with rational subsidies, because I believe a domestic food supply is a national resource, as is the culture and economy that come with it.  Which would you rather see, almond trees or gated communities?

In addition:  Over the past 5 years I've been following these issues, ALL of the most significant innovations in environmental restoration and water conservation that I've seen were implemented by farmers or ranchers (albeit often in partnership with government agencies or universities). They truly are on the front lines of this issue.

Water Wednesday | #5 New gold rush

Ben Overbeck, member of The New 49'ers mining club, on a claim along the Klamath River near Happy Camp.  April 2013.

While working along the Klamath River in April of 2013, I returned to camp one afternoon and wandered down to the beach, and found a scene straight out of 1849.  Two men, bare-chested, beat pick-axes into the rock cliff bordering the river. 

Turns out there is something of a new gold rush on, and these men where part of an organization called the New 49'ers.  The mining club has claims along rivers up and down the State, and members can camp and mine at will, keeping what gold they manage to beat out of the rock.

It is brutal work, made even more difficult by modern environmental demands.  Ben used a small pump to pull water out of the river to mix with ore and dirt, allowing the heavier gold to be caught up.  He had to dig a pit in the sand down the hill, so that zero water returned directly to the river.  Instead the water would slowly seep through the sand and earth, filtering it before it joined the water table below.

Carrying buckets of rock around in the blazing sun is not my idea of a good time.  As long the miners act responsibly and abide by the law, let them go to it.  By the great horned spoon!

"Cities, agriculture and ecosystems..."

This week the Obama administration released the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, analyzing and predicting the effect of climate changes on the different regions and economic sectors of America.  The first sentence of the Southwest regional section reads:

"Snowpack and streamflow amounts are projected to decline in parts of the Southwest, decreasing surface water supply reliability for cities, agriculture, and ecosystems."

-Source:  http://www.globalchange.gov/explore/southwest

Cities, agriculture and ecosystems.... 

Who can we shortchange?  The answer should be obvious: no one.  All three are of vital importance, economically and culturally.  The only option is increased efficiency through technology and innovation.  Do dams create more water?  No.  They actually loose some, through evaporation.  Do tunnels under the delta create water? No.  We  need to address the primary problem, which is how to do more with less.

Water Wednesday | #4 Water Politics

 

Add During the 2009 drought, a well-known billboard marquee in San Francisco's Tenderloin displays a quote, supposedly from former governor Gray Davis to then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. June 7, 2009.

John Wayne supposedly once quipped "Whiskey is for drinking.  Water is for fighting over".  The underlying truth of the statement is difficult to dissprove - namely, that water is a contentious issue in the West that can make and break the careers of not just farmers and ranchers, but politicians as well.

Politics being largely a game of opportunism, it is not surprising that drought leads to increased spending on water infrastructure, despite the expensive and over-wrought storage and delivery systems that are currently in place.  In wet years, political forces respond to demands from agricultural and environmental pressure for guaranteed increases in water deliveries. 

All of this short-sightedness ignores the need for long-term planning, and obfuscates the implementation of technology and policy to increase efficiency and smart conservation.  The current proposal to drill tunnels underneath the San Francisco Bay Delta is a perfect example of this.  Although the plan would potentially solve some issues involving water delivery south of the Delta, it is impossible to know the full environmental impact.  Worst of all, the tunnel plan does nothing to address the fundamental problem: increasing demands on a decreasing resource.  Let's here some politicians address a 20 year plan that solves the real problem.