California Drought Update
By Patrick Ruckert December 29, 2014 A correction to last week's report: Under “More discussion meant to provoke response,” I misidentified Mathew Ogden by calling him Alan Ogden. The end of December has state officials and the press commenting on the year without precipitation, until we got to the final month of the year. Many areas of especially the northern part of the state received record rain and snow in December, putting some areas at above 100 percent of normal for the rain year, which runs from July 1 to June 30. But the snow, unfortunately, due to warmer temperatures, generally remained above 7,000 feet. The result is that the snowpack is at less than 4 inches, which is 48 percent of normal. Typically the total snowpack is 30 inches by April 1. This past week the U.S. Drought Monitor measure of drought in California remained unchanged from last week, with 94 percent of the state remaining of severe drought or worse. The reservoirs continued to fill this past week, with Shasta now at 39 percent of capacity and Oroville at 37%. Both still are at only 50 percent of normal for this time of the year. At the first of December, Shasta was at 23 percent of capacity. Court decision upholds opinion that fish are just as important as people What next, a legal ruling that reparations must be paid to fish? On December 22, a panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling, asserting that while people need water, fish do too. The case is a lawsuit by San Joaquin Valley water districts and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, who sued to reverse the National Marine Fisheries Service 2009 restrictions on sending water from the Delta south to the water districts and Southern California when low water levels threaten salmon and other fish. This decision echoes a decision earlier this year by the same appeals court affirming delta smelt protections carried out by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The new decision stands out by the judge's statement that: “If the governments did not extract water from the Central Valley's rivers, the Valley could not support the farms that feed, the dams that power, and the canals that hydrate millions of Americans. But by extracting the water, people dramatically alter the rivers' natural state and threaten the viability of the species that depend on them. People need water, but so do fish. This case is about the competing demands for these limited water resources.” Giving the drought a real human face While the general picture of the affect of the drought have been reported for months-- the amount of land fallowed, the financial loss to the state and the percentage of decline of various crops-- the impact on both the people and the ability to produce food, has been neglected by most reporters. An exception to this is found in an article by Lisa M. Krieger in the San Jose Mercury News on December 26. Titled, “California drought brings smaller harvests, more hunger among farmworkers,” Kreiger details the lost work hours and days, the desperation of workers without jobs, the very high unemployment rate in Central Valley towns and cities, the spill-over damage to businesses, and the damage to farms losing the workers with years of experience in tasks as varied as machinery repairs, knowledge of the soils, and just how to get things done. For example, workers who regularly worked 10 hour days in the fruit packing plants now work five or six; “Pilots of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, who plant rice fields, said their business was cut by half;” grocery store owners are selling less than one-half of what they used to sell; and farmers who had employed the same workers for decades, and who were like a family, are forced to lay them off. The towns in the Tulare Lake Basin are especially hard hit. Unemployment rates are well over 20 percent. Undocumented workers, who are not eligible for food stamps depend upon volunteer charities for just enough food to survive. But, native Californians, who are skilled workers, like crew managers, pipe layers, mechanics, and others have also been cut in hours or laid-off. The drop from 85 million boxes of naval oranges packed last year to 78 million this year meant lost work days for those workers. Similarly, with less acreage planted, fewer workers were hired as the following shocking numbers should make clear: The acreage planted for lettuce was down 50 percent; barley, 74 percent wheat, 38 percent; garlic, 34 percent; onions, 30 percent; cotton, 22 percent; and processed tomatoes, 16 percent. A potential farm worker drought Water may not be the only problem California farmers have. Obama's immigration policy which protects the parents of legal U.S. residents from deportation may drastically affect California's farm labor population. California has 330,000 farm workers, many of them illegals, usually working under false documents. For them life is precarious, not knowing if they will be deported today or not. That uncertainty acts to restrict their employment opportunities, thus relegating them to seasonal farm work. Without the uncertainty, under the new immigration rules, they would be free to seek more permanent employment in the cities of the state. One estimate is that as many as 50,000 of these farm workers could leave agricultural employment for more steady work. California already is short 15 to 20 percent of the farm workers it requires, thus this additional threat has many farmers nervous. Farm workers in many areas of the state already receive above minimum wage due to both the difficulty of the work and its seasonal nature. While much of agricultural work has been mechanized, there remains much of such work that cannot be done my machines. A few items worth reporting from a conference The California Water Association (CWA) conference held November 12-14, and reported on their website, had a few points worth mentioning. One panel reported that if drought continues through 2015, then a tipping point will be reached where water districts and companies “will move from voluntary conservation to mandatory restrictions and outright rationing.” It was also reported that reservoirs will not be filled this winter and groundwater supplies are severely impacted as 65 percent of the state's water now is pumped from the ground. Desalination An extensive article on desalination was put on-line by the MIT Technology Review on December 16. A link to it is here: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/533446/desalination-out-of-desperation/ The article begins by reporting on the drought in California and the desalination plant now under construction in Carlsbad. What follows is a fairly detailed description of the reverse osmosis process, the extent of desalination use in the world and the costs. Then the report discusses the potential for technological improvement in desalination technology. “A combination of sensor-driven optimization and automation, plus new types of membranes, could eventually allow for desalination plants that are half the size and use commensurately less energy. Among other benefits small, mobile desalination units could be used in agricultural regions hundreds of miles away from the ocean, where demand for water is great and growing.” The article then goes on to describe a state-of-the-art facility near Firebaugh, which produces 30,000 drinkable gallons per day from brackish water. It is the precursor for other highly automated and mobile units that can be moved around from area to area. New membrane technologies that can cut the energy used in reverse osmosis by 15-46 percent are being developed by teams at MIT, but the desired ones are still a few years away.
