#irrigation

Tapping Out

/ PK Read / 1 Comment

The town of Porterville, California has been in the news over the past couple of months because it is one of the places where taps are running dry as the state’s drought grinds on into its fourth winter. Several municipal wells have run dry, some residents are coming to rely on charitable deliveries of bottled water. Images are shown of home kitchens with dishes piled high because there’s no water to wash them. Water rationing has come to an extreme here; it’s no longer voluntary, but based on the amount left in the plastic bottle.

There are a few points that strike me about the coverage I’ve read thus far, aspects that reflect the history and attitude of the western United States towards water as much as many unspoken assumptions in developed countries with traditionally plentiful water supplies.

The story, as it is framed now, tells of wells running dry amid climate-change driven drought. But that’s really only a small part of this story.

Satellite imagery used to create images of California groundwater loss, 2002-1014. Source: NASA/Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

Satellite imagery used to create images of California groundwater loss, 2002-1014.
Source: NASA/Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

As I was reading an article in the New York Times about the travails of families without running water, I noticed that many of the families mentioned were agricultural workers who were coming home from a long day in the produce packing companies to find they couldn’t take a shower. Well, okay, that’s a bad situation. But presumably if there is still produce to pack, then the agricultural and packing facilities still have water, right?

No mention was made of who supplies water to Porterville, which lies in Tulare County, deep in the rich agricultural belt of California’s productive Central Valley. Why is the Central Valley so productive, if it’s in what’s a very arid climate?

Because of the Central Valley Project (CVP), a water redistribution program planned during the early 20th century, but  created mainly between 1930-1980 to move water from the rivers and lakes of Northern California to the Central Valley, land of rich soils and unreliable rainfall. The agricultural methods used in the Central Valley were never adjusted for the climate because there was no necessity – there was always water, thanks to the CVP.

But what about the municipal water supply? If there was water for growers, why are taps running dry? Because the city of Porterville, like many other Central Valley cities, is ‘self-reliant’ when it comes to water. It uses wells and surface water for the urban water supply.

If the 2007 Porterville Public Utilities Report is any indication, as of 2007 there was enough confidence in the groundwater supply that there was no Water Shortage Plan at all. This in spite of numerous multi-year droughts within the past 100 years.

The CVP isn’t responsible for the water of the towns and cities it helped create along with the agricultural plenty; at the same time, the CVP neither monitors nor enforces any specific, climate-appropriate irrigation techniques. Which means that up until recently, many growers were irrigating their fields using flood methods – 3-4 feet of water across entire orchards – using borrowed, unmetered water.

A broader view - groundwater changes 2003-2014 across the United States. Source: NASA/Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

A broader view – groundwater changes 2003-2014 across the United States.
Source: NASA/Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)

Speaking of borrowed water, using bottled water for residents without running water means water depletion of another kind, since bottled water requires three times the amount of water in the bottle to manufacture and transport each bottle. That’s not including all the fossil fuel used in manufacture, transport and delivery. An LA Times article includes a picture of a delivery Crystal Geyser water to a home; Crystal Geyser uses water bottled in seven locations around the country, only two of them in California. The others are all at least 1000 miles away.

None of the articles include the aftermath of all those bottles: the non-biodegradable plastic waste. And when it comes to extra waste, don’t even get me started on the stories of Californians using paper plates and canned food to avoid cooking and washing dishes.

And all those lawn-watering restrictions, short showers and delayed toilet flushes? The proverbial drop in the bucket: Urban use of water accounts for 20% of all water use in California. The rest is all agricultural and industrial. Except that, of course, the agriculture and industry sectors draw from a different tap than everyone else – so maybe all those dying lawns and stinky toilets serve a purpose, after all.

The Porterville story, and by that I mean both the actual events in drought-stricken Porterville and the ‘story’ in news reports of taps running dry, is a parable for our attitudes towards water.

When we’ve got a lot of it, we are profligate. Extravagant. Realms are built on shifting shores in the belief that the years of plenty will last beyond our own short horizons.

The past century has been one of the wettest in the western United States in 7000 years, but water use strategies were based on those historically high amounts continuing indefinitely.

Telling the stories of the drought in ways that narrow the lens to individual or local tales of woe may win sympathy or readers’ eyes on the page, but if those stories stop at the human interest level, it serves little purpose in putting the stories in context.

And a lack of context means that the same practices of poor water management across all levels of planning, including different rights for different segments of society, remain below the surface when what is needed is a complete re-examination of our attitudes towards water and its use.

Below is a recent infographic on safe tap water around the world, or rather, lack thereof.

Source: NeoMam Studios

Source: NeoMam Studios

Pulse Taking

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‘Long memory’ is a term used in probability analysis. It originated in hydrology to predict flood patterns on the Nile River.

But do rivers remember where they once flowed?

Floraskin – Huth & Domenig Via: Data Is Nature

Floraskin – Huth & Domenig
Via: Data Is Nature

A large pulse of water was released along the Colorado River this year, an historic ecological undertaking meant to restore the once-lush downriver sections and delta. The goal of the 130 billion-liter (34 bn gallon) pulse was to imitate the spring floodwaters that once coursed the length of the river, but which have been diverted for other uses further upstream.

These images show the river before and after the water pulse was released. The river bed and tributary channels have been little more than dry markers for the memory of a river that once carried 18.5 trillion liters (4.9 trillion gallons) of water every year.

Before: An April 2013 view shows the dry river shell in northern Mexico. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the U.S. Geological Survey

Before: An April 2013 view shows the dry river shell in northern Mexico.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the U.S. Geological Survey

After: Water flows through the same area, April 2014. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the U.S. Geological Survey

After: Water flows through the same area, April 2014.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Landsat 8 data from the U.S. Geological Survey

The final destination of the water is the Colorado Delta, which once formed a rich connection between the river and the Gulf of Mexico. The Delta has rarely seen river water since 1960.

As it turns out, the water pulse may not reach the Delta at all. Sand bars and shrubs are slowing the flow, even as conservationists work to re-establish trees and wetlands in its wake.

If there is such a thing, the long memory of the Colorado River may have to wait a while longer before it once again meets the Gulf of Mexico at the end of a long journey home.

 

http://www.livescience.com/45281-colorado-river-pulse-satellite.html

Transboundary Pulse

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It’s a strange notion, the cutting off of water across an invisible territorial boundary. There are few actions we can take as humans – both for communities and for the environment – that are more baldly assertive than diverting rivers and water flow.

The Colorado River delta sits at the very end of the 2330 km-long (1450 m.) Colorado River, which winds southward from Colorado to the Sea of Cortez in Mexico. An object of human geo-engineering for hundreds of years, it’s only in the last century that the Colorado River became one of the most controlled, divided and litigated rivers in the world.

Over the past fifty years, so much water has been used in the United States that the river hasn’t reached the delta or the Sea of Cortez at all, turning what was once a lush system of lakes and marshes into a parched desert.

Collage of historical descriptions of the delta and an image of the dry delta of recent years. "The river enters the sea by a mouth four leagues wide...The Rio Colorado bathes (the land) like the Nile bathes Egypt, giving it great fertility." Source: Jordan Wirfs-Brock/

Collage of historical descriptions of the delta and an image of the dry delta of recent years. “The river enters the sea by a mouth four leagues wide…The Rio Colorado bathes (the land) like the Nile bathes Egypt, giving it great fertility.”
Source: Jordan Wirfs-Brock/Univ. of Colorado Boulder

But this week, for the first time in five decades and timed to coincide with World Water Day, water from the Colorado River flowed at more than a trickle on the southern side of the border in Mexico.

In 2012, the 1944 U.S.-Mexico treaty on river use was amended with an addition known as Minute 319, which aims to support reclamation of the delta through controlled ‘pulse flows’, large surges of water that then trickle off in an imitation of the pre-dam, pre-diversion river that flowed heavily with the snow melt in spring and tapered off through later months.

The surges created by this pilot project should help spread tree and plant seeds across the delta, while the tapering off should provide irrigation for plants to thrive. It’s hoped the influx of water and the re-establishment of plant life will also support the delta’s dwindling wildlife, including many species of migratory birds.

It’s an unusual cross-border project in that the water release isn’t specifically for commercial purposes, but to support environmental restoration.

Cross-border water cooperation and sharing to support ecosystem recovery: I suppose these days, that’s a strange notion, as well.

Colorado River Dry Delta, terminus of the Colorado River in the Sonoran Desert of Baja California and Sonora, Mexico, ending about 5 miles north of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). Photo: Peter McBride USGS / Wikipedia

Colorado River Dry Delta, terminus of the Colorado River in the Sonoran Desert of Baja California and Sonora, Mexico, ending about 5 miles north of the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California).
Photo: Peter McBride USGS / Wikipedia

Think of it as a surge of water. It’s what happens when there’s a big rainfall or the snow melts into a river. The flow increases for a few days or weeks, and then it goes back to normal. Rather than weather, this environmental experiment will be a release of water from a reservoir. It is designed to mimic the kind of natural pulse flows that help keep rivers healthy by spreading native plant seeds and creating conditions for those seedlings to grow and thrive. – See more at: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/areas/coloradoriver/colorado-river-pulse-flow-qa-with-eloise-kendy.xml#sthash.2WwHpQtj.dpuf
Think of it as a surge of water. It’s what happens when there’s a big rainfall or the snow melts into a river. The flow increases for a few days or weeks, and then it goes back to normal. Rather than weather, this environmental experiment will be a release of water from a reservoir. It is designed to mimic the kind of natural pulse flows that help keep rivers healthy by spreading native plant seeds and creating conditions for those seedlings to grow and thrive. – See more at: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/areas/coloradoriver/colorado-river-pulse-flow-qa-with-eloise-kendy.xml#sthash.2WwHpQtj.dpuf
Think of it as a surge of water. It’s what happens when there’s a big rainfall or the snow melts into a river. The flow increases for a few days or weeks, and then it goes back to normal. Rather than weather, this environmental experiment will be a release of water from a reservoir. It is designed to mimic the kind of natural pulse flows that help keep rivers healthy by spreading native plant seeds and creating conditions for those seedlings to grow and thrive. – See more at: http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/areas/coloradoriver/colorado-river-pulse-flow-qa-with-eloise-kendy.xml#sthash.2WwHpQtj.dpuf

Almond Dilemma

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Almond plant. Source: Franz Eugen Köhler / Wikipedia

Almond plant.
Source: Franz Eugen Köhler / Wikipedia

I was in our local French supermarket the other day when I spied some packages of California almonds. Now, the usual almonds we get around here are from Turkey or Israel, and they taste just fine, but I grew up around California almonds in California, so in a moment of expat nostalgia, I bought a package of almonds from the other side of the world.

Of course I know California is the throes of its worst drought in 500 years. Of course I think about the sustainability footprint of sending snack foods aroundthe planet on planes. But our supermarket’s buyer has notoriously fickle tastes – this is the first time I’ve seen California almonds there, it may be the last.

California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds. exporting 70% of its crop to 90 countries (according to the Almond Board of California). Almonds are the state’s top crop export, with the trend increasing due to growing demand in India and China. Just last year, one year into the historical drought, articles were touting the almond boom, with vineyards being sold and ripped out to plant more almond trees. The revenue from almonds in 2012 reached $5 billion.

Meanwhile, almonds are relatively thirsty trees. In the 1960s, I remember driving by almond orchards that used flood irrigation, a profligate method that is exactly what it sounds like. According to almond growers, irrigation these days is more efficient and appropriate for what is essentially a very dry climate, even without the drought.

When I buy a bag of California almonds, or for that matter a pack of Peruvian asparagus, or Spanish strawberries, I’m not just buying the delicious and healthy crop that was produced elsewhere. I’m buying the water  that was used to grow those products in very dry regions. Water that has, effectively, been packaged and shipped to me in the form of an almond or strawberry.

Pulling out almond trees, 2013. Tree crops, like almonds, are a long-term investment and must be watered every year, regardless of drought, to maintain the productivity of the tree - which can produce for up to 25 years. Photo: AP/Scott Smith

Pulling out almond trees, 2013. Tree crops, like almonds, are a long-term investment and must be watered every year, regardless of drought, to maintain the productivity of the tree – which can produce for up to 25 years.
Photo: AP/Scott Smith

Less than a year after the articles on the expansion of the almond industry, images of drought-impacted farmers ripping out their almond trees abound. Entire economies have been successfully built around these crops, and removing them would be devastating locally. Between the complexities of water politics, the weight of old water habits and the urgency for solutions brought on by the drought, the boom of California almonds may turn out to be short-lived.

Do I give up ever buying California almonds again, as I have with several other foods that I no longer buy due to their sustainability footprint? I find myself in a quandary precipitated by an impulse buy, and I’m not sure how to resolve it.

Almond blossom Photo: Golona

Almond blossom
Photo: Golona

Freshwater Wave

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Pacific Ocean
Photo: David Orias

Growing up in California, which has always been a place of regular droughts, one of the first things you learn is that water can be a precious commodity. One of the things you don’t always learn is how to use it wisely. There always seems to be either too much, too little, it’s just not in the right place at the right time, but ingrained habits of overuse are hard to put aside.

Water conflicts have been a part of life in California from the earliest days. The water from the northern lakes and reservoirs has been used to irrigate the agriculture industry, grow the cities and industry, provide power and drinking water. A state of over 30 million inhabitants, the 5th largest supplier of food in the world. Reclaimed water, i.e. treated wastewater, has already been in use for irrigation in some areas since the 1930s.

Source: California Sustainability Alliance

Over the past few decades, the water challenges have only increased as agricultural use pollutes groundwater, lakes run low, and the competition for the resource only becomes more fierce.

The state’s governor has just signed in a number of bills meant to address these problems, and has proposed consolidating all water issues under a single entity, a state Water Resources Board. One of the  keys to ensuring long-term water access, according to Brown, will be the efficient and affordable recycling of wastewater into drinkable water.

Technically, of course, all freshwater on Earth is recycled water. The terms recycled and reclaimed water refer to wastewater that has been treated in a facility to meet a certain standard and directed towards specific uses rather than simply discharged into surface waters like rivers or oceans to let the hydrosphere take care of things.

Even though direct recycling of sewage into potable water without the intermediate step of depositing that water in a lake or reservoir is already being test-run elsewhere, I imagine it will require overcoming both technical and psychological hurdles in the United States.

At the same time, given the long history of water challenges in California and throughout North America, it’s a little surprising it’s taken so long to start having this discussion in earnest.