6 Replies to “60 Minutes flubs the California water story”

1. Not to mention the fact that farmers use 80% of the water in CA and anyone who has ever driven across the central valley in August at noon through miles of flooded orchards knows that a goodly portion of the water is wasted.

2. I think that the issue was fairly characterized as a conflict between natural resources uses verse human use. I think Arnold was correct in his assertion that rebuilding our water deliver system to minimize impacts to natural resources is vital to solve this conflict. I am not trying to defend wasteful farming practices merely pointing out that a significant portion of the fishery impacts (Impingement/entrainment/location and season) of our water system is due to single goal design and operation. The system was designed with water delivery and control in mind and not environmental benefits. This Brownian mind set left our generation with trying to mitigate impacts through hatchery type stock replacements or marginally effective fish screening and salvage systems. It is easy to tell farmers to not plant their crops but it is a lot harder to tell developers to not plant their crops (houses) and even harder to tell the rest of us to not plant our lawns.

3. Quick question for the author: What do you mean by a relatively short life span? Almond orchards can live to 25-30 years of age (sometimes longer). That’s a longer life than most of the other Prunus sp (Cherry, peach, etc) planted throughout California.

   @Morris: I think you are off point, slightly. Checking in with Cal Department of Water Resources, the environmental releases of water account for nearly 50% of our water usage, followed by 40%ish for Ag uses, 10% for urban uses. Urban usage is remarkably lower than one might expect – this is because many cities pump from aquifers to meet their water needs. The reported numbers are only where “captured” water (by dams) is allocated.

   The comment about farmers wasting water is off based as well. Extension of research based information to farmers is what I do, and one thing I noticed is fewer and fewer flooded orchards throughout the valley. Farmers are becoming much more efficient with their water. More efficient than most homeowners.

   And who is to say flooding a field is all that bad – Some scientists believe that the conversion to micro-irrigation systems is why we are starting to see the drop of aquifers throughout the state. When growers use to flood the field, the water lost to deep percolation would replenish the groundwater that cities could then use through pumping/wells (http://groundwater.ucdavis.edu/research.htm).

   Here is a fun fact: To water an acre of lawn in California requires as much water as it takes to grow an acre of tomatoes. To sit here and say farmers are the cause of water shortage is quite silly as many of us can do more to reduce our urban water use as well.

4. David —
   I believe the typical life span of a commercial almond tree is about 20 to 25 years. That may be longer than some other commercial fruit trees, but 60 Minutes was playing on the common perception that trees live more or less forever. That’s clearly not true of almonds. Anyone who regularly passes through almond production country, as I do, has seen orchards removed and replanted. CBS presented the story as if the removal of a mature almond orchard was an event that wouldn’t happen absent some kind of catastrophe. That’s simply not true. Good journalists would at least have asked how old the trees were, and what the normal replacement cycle was, before blaming environmentalists and the Delta smelt.

5. Thanks Holly. I agree most orchards are pulled around that time – even though I have seen orchards live into their 30’s and still produce 3000 lbs/acre. Then again, its hard to determine how long an orchard will live. As long as it produces at an acceptable level, the grower will keep the trees in the ground.

   On a side note – I found this excerpt a bit misleading:
   “Average water exports from the Delta increased in recent years (before falling a bit in 2008 and 2009), while Delta smelt and Chinook salmon production were crashing.”

   Remember: “Correlation does not equal causation”- yes, populations of smelt and salmon are declining, and yes, water quantity may be to blame. Many other factors, however, could also be causing the fish decline – including pollution from cities and industries, invasive species (like the striped bass found in the delta), and disease.

6. Thanks for the follow-up comment, David. I don’t doubt that factors other than the pumps contribute to the decline of the Delta ecosystem. It’s important that we identify those factors, to the best of our ability, and use whatever legal leverage may be available to reduce the threats they pose. But it doesn’t follow that the pumps should get a pass. It seems clear that pumping is part of the problem, and that control of pumping must be part of the solution. Yet through a series of years where the ecosystem was demonstrably failing, pumping not only did not go down, it actually went up. That makes it hard for me to accept the argument that farmers have been unfairly singled out to bear the burdens of Delta ecosystem restoration. Rather, it seems that the regulatory agencies have gone to substantial lengths to avoid imposing conservation demands on farmers. That pumping has finally been cut in the past two years says more about how bad the ecological situation has gotten than about any lack of concern for the water users.

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