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Welcome to the archives of Water Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on November 1, 2018, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on water resilience. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors and contributors.
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Exploring the impacts of drought on farmers, farmworkers and food.
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In a new book, “Water Is for Fighting Over, and Other Myths About Water in the West,” author John Fleck shares stories about how collaboration instead of conflict is driving water decisions in the Colorado River basin.
Critical habitat for wildlife has been reduced by drought, development and other pressures. Ann Hayden of the Environmental Defense Fund talks about incentives for landowners to help fill the void.
Economic data show that while California farming has seen many changes because of drought, the industry continued its strong growth trend. But total earnings are not the whole picture, especially when it comes to farm laborers.
In her new book, author Judith Schwartz argues that fixing land management problems and restoring native wildlife species are, in reality, water supply projects.
Kirsten James Oversees the California Policy Program, Ceres
As exciting as it was to learn of deep groundwater reserves in California, the state’s efforts now are better spent pursuing more cost-effective solutions already at our fingertips, writes Kirsten James of Ceres.
SACRAMENTO BEE: Another legal dispute has erupted over the regulation of water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a group of water agencies has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The water consumed by California marijuana growers will now be regulated by state officials under a new program that could be up and running within a year. The goal is to protect wildlife and habitats.
Overhead irrigation technology, typically used in center-pivot irrigation, has been common for decades all across North America. It’s slowly being embraced in California as a relatively affordable water-saving tool.
Health officials used a Centers for Disease Control survey protocol to understand drought impacts in Tulare County. Some of the findings are worrisome, suggesting there’s a lot more work still to do.
Kate Poole Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
Should more water be diverted from the Delta? The state already decided this years ago with the Delta Plan, writes Kate Poole, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Six years ago the Delta Stewardship Council kicked off, headed by Phil Isenberg, an attorney and former state assembly member. Isenberg talks to Water Deeply about the council’s Delta Plan, its legal challenges and the near future.
When California searches for relief from the drought, and explores different solutions, from conserving water to desalination, one avenue that often gets overlooked is what’s under our feet – soil.
Mike Wade Executive Director, California Farm Water Coalition
Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, examines why water contractors in the San Joaquin Valley who rely on the Central Valley Project are set to receive only 5 percent of their requested allocation.
Satellite data from NASA show that more than half of the world’s major aquifers are in decline – and that those threatened aquifers support major food-producing regions, including California’s Central Valley.
In the arid Golden State, growers and agricultural researchers have been developing techniques to conserve precious water and use it more efficiently. Here are some things they’ve learned.
FRESNO BEE: Two irrigation districts could get the green light soon to build a new water bank project in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Water would be piped from the Friant-Kern Canal and percolate into a 560-acre recharge basin.
Many farmers contend that the water delivery system that pumps water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is broken – water to farms and cities must be cut to help fish species, but those species’ numbers are still plummeting. So what’s going on?
The small towns of coastal San Mateo county have weathered the drought very differently from most of the rest of Silicon Valley. Without large water projects, reservoirs or utilities to rely on, the fish, farms and people share limited water resources from creeks and aquifers.
Some California farmers will be getting 100 percent of their requested water allocation this year, but others only 5 percent. Here’s a look at why there are such stark differences in allocations, despite a much wetter year, and what this means for farmers and the environment.
Delta smelt are the endangered species most often blamed for water export cutbacks in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But the latest cuts were triggered to protect salmon, a reminder that there’s a lot at stake in California’s complex plumbing system.
Kirsten James Oversees the California Policy Program, Ceres
About 21 percent of the water that’s used to grow our food is wasted because of the magnitude of food Americans toss each year. A new report outlines four ways to begin implementing solutions that will save food, water and energy. And California can start by passing needed legislation.
We’ve engineered away most of the natural floodplain that used to exist in the Central Valley, and that’s bad news for juvenile salmon, which once relied on it for habitat. The Knaggs Nigiri Project is attempting to bring some of this back by flooding the fields of rice farmers.
SACRAMENTO BEE: A 17,000-acre Yolo County farm is experimenting with using drip irrigation on a portion of their field to reduce water use. While the project will save water, some are worried that it will eliminate critical habitat for wild birds that rely on flooded rice fields.
The effort to pass federal legislation aimed at easing California’s drought is about to ramp up again in the second year of the current congressional session. In hopes of simplifying that process, we break down four critical issues to watch as the legislation evolves.
As chair of California’s Water Resources Control Board, Felicia Marcus has her hand in water rights, drinking water programs and conservation regulations, among other things. She recently talked to Water Deeply about her experiences helping to manage water resources during California’s drought.
In California water users can buy and sell water, but the system for doing that is so bad that most farmers don’t bother. This situation during the drought has renewed calls for the state to revamp its water market. Some experts share their idea of how that should be done.
California is the first state to have a law declaring the human right to water, and now it also has a resolution from the Water Board prioritizing it. But the legislation lacks enforcement and financing, even as nearly a million people in the state are without access to safe drinking water.
If you look at the numbers, the severity of the drought doesn’t match the economic impacts. Despite some areas that were hitter harder than others, as a whole, California weathered the drought well in economic terms. Here’s a look at some of the biggest reasons for the difference.
Farmers have been resilient in the face of drought conditions for the last four years. But each year of drought becomes more difficult. We talk to Richard Howitt, professor emeritus of agricultural and resource economics at U.C. Davis about what farmers are doing to weather the drought.
For a century, farming has been synonymous with flood prevention. The thinking was that you couldn’t grow crops on land that flooded in winter. California’s drought has changed attitudes about this, and J. Stacey Sullivan explains how.
FRESNO BEE: Opposition is mounting against a ballot initiative to move funding from high-speed rail toward water projects. Those opposing the initiative believe it would harm efforts to build new dams through money to be allocated from Proposition 1, passed in 2014
Water Education Foundation’s executive director Jennifer Bowles talked to Water Deeply about why water literacy in California is so important, in both wet and dry years – and how to bring different voices to the table to work on the state’s complicated water issues.
Jeffrey Mount Senior Fellow, PPIC Water Policy Center
The federal government is deeply involved in western water, but it’s been struggling with how to help states there deal with one of the worst droughts in modern history. Here are some pragmatic reforms that would help build drought resilience in this most drought-prone of regions.
Tom Philp Executive Strategist, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
We are bound to have the same problems this time nearly every year in the Delta until we modernize this water system and start capturing water north of smelt territory, as proposed by state and federal agencies via the plan known as California WaterFix.
SACRAMENTO BEE: A Modesto almond orchard is serving as a testing ground for aquifer recharge as scientists and farmers team up to try and solve some of the area’s long-term groundwater depletion issues.
MODESTO BEE: Despite milestones achieved by Stanislaus County’s Water Advisory Committee, three irrigation districts don’t want to participate in new studies to assess the condition of area groundwater. The county hopes to win over those still dragging their feet.
Researchers around the world are exploring how GMO technology might boost food production under hot, dry conditions. They aim to reduce global water demand – and also hope this new arena of research will ease consumer anxiety about genetic engineering.
FRESNO BEE: In California’s arid San Joaquin Valley, “We are doing everything we can think of to keep going,” says one farmer. That includes looking for ways to recharge groundwater aquifers after decades of overexploitation. Young farmers say struggles imposed by the drought are teaching them valuable lessons.
SACRAMENTO BEE: California’s new groundwater legislation is likely to limit water extraction significantly, possibly forcing some areas of farmland in the state out of production; meanwhile, conversion to ‘solar farms’ could be the wave of the future.
The Sacramento Valley holds some of the strongest water rights in California, so you might think it’s home to fewer drought worries. Not so. Thad Bettner of Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District talks about proliferating regulations, inadequate funding and imperiled salmon runs.
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