Those who want a deeper understanding of water use and water rights history in the western US should read Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner, and Beyond The Hundredth Meridian by Wallace Stegner

Oddly enough, another good source is Pacific Edge, a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson that has lots of water rights stuff mixed up throughout its plot. Not comprehensive like the other books, of course, but a decent read anyway.

It can be fixed, if we end the subsidies.

And another vote for Reisner's book -- excellent.

Unfortunately, this is an almost impossible problem to address.

Only if you try to solve the whole problem at once. San Diego rents water rights from Imperial Valley farmers, and buys drip irrigation systems for them to grow their crops. Sacramento could do the same (in areas near Sacramento)to meet its water needs as it grows, and so could LA (for areas near the aqueducts.) As water becomes more and more expensive, this will become a better and better proposition for the metropolitan areas. Soon enough, the people who grow rice will be better off leasing their water rights to Bay Area municipalities (or whomever) and then producing their crops with drip irrigation.

Then there is the fuel angle. It takes less water to grow fuel feedstocks than to grow maize and rice, and it will soon be more profitable to grow fuel feedstocks than to grow maize and rice. most of the rice is exported, and brings in less money than the cost of the biofuel equivalent. The whole fuel mix of the U.S. will look different in 5 years than what it looks like now, and so will the water situation in California.

both changes will be piecemeal and gradual, though not as gradual as it looked 5 years ago.

Another note about San Diego County. The recent fires destroyed about 1/3 of all California's avocado trees. It's off the main point, but the avocado orchards and citrus orchards in San Diego county are irrigated with drip lines. As the use of drip lines continues to increase (they are widespread in Ventura county as well), even agribusiness support for the kind of flood irrigation that is used for rice and maize will decline.

IMO, if you've ever lived in California (or elsewhere in the West, for that matter), and you haven't read Cadillac Desert, you're an uninformed fool. In fact, all Americans should read it.

First book off my shelf for young people who want to know more about the modern West.

Hey, in the south I guess they are learning what we already knew out here in the west: whisky's for drinkin' and water's for fightin'.

Kevin, people have been noting the role of Ag use of water in CA's water problems for decades.

Thanks for the pointer to Cadillac Desert -- what I know of water rights comes from Chinatown and the Milagro Beanfield War.

Another vote for Cadillac Desert (and note how long ago it was written).

The whole idea of diverting food acreage to fuel acreage makes me want to go ride my bike (and avoid all beef and pork products). The endpoint of this shift in priorities is not a good one.

And in the South, no, they've been conserving water for years. When your own personal drinking water well gets used for irrigation and accidentally sucks a dimple in the aquifer, that's a lesson. Places like Florida, have had sprinkling restrictions for decades, and at least one county put in an entire second water system to deliver "used" water for irrigation. (and crap in my hat, we've finally started to fix the Everglades. Who thought we'd see the day?) It's those pro-growth yahoos in Atlanta that are the slow learners.

This is why I have a problem with the whole "eat local" thing. It works in places like the Mid Atlantic, but has the potential for even more severe externalities in other parts of of the country (or for that matter the world). To prevent these new externalities, one will eventually have to devolve into a Sam Kinison "live where the food is!" argument.

This is why I have a problem with the whole "eat local" thing. It works in places like the Mid Atlantic, but has the potential for even more severe externalities in other parts of of the country (or for that matter the world). To prevent these new externalities, one will eventually have to devolve into a Sam Kinison "live where the food is!" argument. Posted by: Kenny

Sam Kinison was a wise, wise man. However, eating locally is next to impossible in these United States. But eating nationally is achievable. We don't need to import anything from anywhere other than exotic and/or out of season fruits and vegetables. The U.S. is really pretty fortunate in this regard because the nation is continental with multiple climate zone.

Subsidies are part of the problem here: Large farms often qualify for taxpayer-subsidized irrigation water, paying as little as 10 percent of the full cost

and so grow rice in the desert and then scream at Japan for its subsidies (though not as egregious a hypocrisy - to go completely off topic - as watching the finger-wagging U.S. of the Asia meltdown now do all the things it screamed against then as it faces its own turnmoil in the mortgage market).

But isn't this part of the larger pattern of U.S. politics for the past 30 years? Only the little players are supposed to do the giving, belt-tightening, whatever while the corporate welfare queens continue their primping ways.

Where do you think they eat that food?

Basically an overpopulation problem. Naturally the priority of Congress is massive immigration in the pathetic hope that more taxpayers will enable them to continue profligacy and corruption.

Water in the west has been an issue before even the Spanish saw it, and will be, forever...there will be a loud commotion though, when they do deplete the last of their aquifer stores and cant keep up with diverting rivers alone...
When I picture legislators from Nevada, Utah, and Southern California, I imagine folks who draw a lot of water themselves. Am i way off with that, or is that part of the problem?

Nixon Did It: IMO, if you've ever lived in California (or elsewhere in the West, for that matter), and you haven't read Cadillac Desert, you're an uninformed fool.

Ok.

In fact, all Americans should read it.

I'll read it, but I wonder if it answers this waterlogged Northeasterner's most basic question: why do people want to live in a desert?

I don't live in a desert but I do live in the semi-arid SF Bay area - coastal California. We can do this because SF and the East Bay nailed down water rights to Sierra snowpack in the 19th century (the way NYC nailed down Adirondack rights in the early 19th c)

If peak oil is real and we have to power down massively, and folks can't have air conditioning in cars, houses and public places, you will find that not so many people will want to live in a desert.

I have lived in New York, North Carolina, Illinois and now California without central a/c (or mostly, any a/c at all). In the Bay area I can do this because our summers are pretty temperate (look out global warming - it is getting hotter and less foggy here). I love a Mediterranean climate, and while I begin to miss rain about September every year, I do love our temperate winters and mild summers.

Other people might just like the dry heat of the desert. Not everybody. Without water it's untenable.

The big problem, Kevin, is ultimately that the water from Reclamation dams is sold well below market cost, and the government gave a wink and a nod for decades to enforcing acreage limits before finally doing away with them.

I know you know history well enough to know what happened to John Wesley Powell when he tried to get Congress to actually adopt a sane, empirically-based Western water policy.

Eating nationally doesn't make much difference, unless you're flying food in from overseas.

Shipping food across oceans is far more efficient than trucking it across the country.

Joel: Better on Powell than "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian" (Stegner gets a bit hagiographic, or more than a bit at times) is "A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell" by Donald Worster.

I'm a native San Franciscan, but with all the water issues that the western USA is going to be faciung over the next generation, I'm very happy that I now live in nice, rainy Seattle!

Err...Actually, it's a drop in the bucket figuratively. Using "literally" when using figurative language is just plain wrong.

In addition to "Cadillac Desert" and "Beyond the 100th Meridian," if you can possibly get it, "The California Water Atlas" is marvelous -- maybe the most enlightening government publication since the Journals of Lewis & Clark.

Subsidies certainly are important, but water law may be even more important. In California and most of the west, a "use it or lose it" principle applies to water rights. That creates an incentive to waste water. And it can be fixed if a legislator has the courage and intelligence to deal with the many complexities of water law.

One year's worth of showers. That's how much water 1 pound of beef costs.

When I read that in Diet for a New America years ago, I firmly resolved never to eat meat again. So, as long as we're recommending books, I'd recommend John Robbin's book as the one-stop answer to our water problems.

I'll read it, but I wonder if it answers this waterlogged Northeasterner's most basic question: why do people want to live in a desert?

It's... clean.

I'll read it, but I wonder if it answers this waterlogged Northeasterner's most basic question: why do people want to live in a desert?

Personally, I can't wait for the permanent drought to return to the Southwest. Maybe then all the damn people will move to more reasonably climes, Glen Canyon dam will be knocked out, and the real desert rats can return. You can live in 120-degree weather. It's just not for everyone (thank god).

So it's hopeless, I guess.

Don't confuse solving a problem with reporting on it. Just getting some decent coverage of the issues would be a big step.

Cadillac Desert is excellent, but for a short, enjoyable intro to the issue, it's hard to beat Chinatown with John Houston, Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

It's harder for someone to sneak up on you in the desert.

Another vote for Cadillac Desert. A great read.

Never, never, never, never, never, never let Wyoming, Texas or any other southern or western state pipe water from the Great Lakes, no matter how poorly the cowboys & farmers manage their water.

Once the water in the glacier-created Great Lakes goes it won't be replenished. And if the water level in the St. Lawrence goes down there will be huge economic consequences throughout the northeast and midwest, not to mention ecological damage.

We're already seeing the Great Lakes water deminish. Experts think its a result of several causes, some related to global warming. Like, for instance, the shortened amount of time in the winter the lakes are covered with ice means that the dark lake waters are absorbing more sunlight, getting warmer and evaporating more.

Ironically, although they live close to the land, cowboys & farmers are not very good environmental stewards.

Everyone should read Cadillac Desert. I am a northeastener with no particular interest in water use, but Mark Schmitt called it one of the best books about American politics, and he was right (as always).

In Colorado we operate under a "first in time; first in right" concept. While a ot of water is used by agriculture it is not 90%. In addition we have diverted water away from agriculture in the last few years, circumventing the senior rights of water users for such things as "recreational uses". These are also important becaus tourism is a huge industry in Colorado and keep enough water in the streams for trout fishing and rafting has importance. recently GOlden, CO won a suit to divert virtually the entire Clea Creek stram whenever they think they need it for a kayaking run with no regard for legal senior water rights. Kayaking takes precedence over agriculture.

In addition, cities are constantly trying to take water from one watershed to another so they can grow, with no concern for the consequences to those whom they take the water from. The rural areas depend on agriculture, and when a city takes away from us so that they can bring in more revenue and increase their population, it can destroy entire communities. I get very tired of hearing urban dwellers whining about not being able to water their huge lawns and wash their cars, when farmers have been reduced to 10% of their allocated water right due to drought. Try raising a crop on 10% of the normal water required. Farms have shut down, families have lost their livlihood and entire communities have lost their economic base; cattle ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds; but Golden gets its kayak run, and Aurora gets to grow.

America eats food. We must have water to grow food, and to say that city dewellers should be able to confiscate a property right held by American citizens, not to survive but to water their lawns, while farmers watch their crops wither and die is wrong. Farmers do not borrow that water, they own the right to use it and they pay their ditch companies to manage it and they replace any amount above historic uses they take from wells.

Cities are given priority in a drought. No muicipality is cut off, but they are constrained from wasting water if it is scarce as are farmers. It is not unreasonable for the people who own the senior water right to be able to survive, too.

Couldn't one federal law, passed by Congress and signed by the Prez, preempt all that other crap?

I live in the middle of Michigan. One of our weather casters made the comment that six weeks of hard winter is a small price to pay for no drama the rest of the year. Of those six weeks, I'd say that 5-7 days are actually hazardous; the rest are merely unpleasant.
And the winters aren't that hard any more, at least since the 60's. I don't think it's climate change, just a long term cycle running.
Anyway, there's something to be said for snow-- drives away the twinkies--how else do you explain sunbelt politics?

You may well be right about the relative importance of residential v. agricultural use of water, but still, I don't have a whole lot of crocodile tears to shed for those of you who live in residential California. A few years back when Southern California was in one of its worst droughts ever and New Jersey was in a mild drought, I flew out to LA, rented a car and drove to San Diego to visit my daughter. Here in the East, we'd been on water restrictions all summer - no outside lawn watering, no car washing, etc. We were even being urged to pee in the showers and use used dishwater to flush the toilets. In California, virtually every lawn I passed had sprinklers going full blast. There were even sprinklers spraying the median strips on the highways. So, until you guys get your act together, I'm not going to cry about the farmers getting the water. At least I get to eat their produce, which tastes a whole lot better than your lawn grass!

Wait till the political combatants get to the " it depends what you mean by water" position.

I practice water law in California. Let's get a few basic concepts clear.

First, there's no such thing as a water "market". No one's making the stuff, and at every point in the distribution chain there's only one shipper. (what, you want two water mains in front of your house?) In order to move the water the thousands of miles in order to create the very nice city of Irvine that Kevin lives in, massive amounts of capital were needed, and so that means that the government built the system.

Second, there are three huge water projects in Californa -- the State Water Project, the Central Valley Project and the Colorado River Aqueduct/All American Canal. Each captures water from a different source and each has its own complex set of governing laws.

The major north/south system that keeps Kevin's water running is the State Water Project. That was paid for by bond debt. 29 government agencies, the State Water Project Contractors, duke it out with the state's Department of Water Resources on how to allocate the water fairly. Basically, ag. gets water more cheaply, but gets cut first when there's a shortfall. This system receives no taxpayer support -- users pay what's needed to cover operating costs and bond debt. The water comes from the Feather River in Northern California, but is pumped out of the Bay Delta (a big swamp due east of San Francisco Bay) near a town called Tracy and put in the California Aqueduct. Down the Central Valley, over the Tehachapis, into Metropolitan Water District's system, sold to the Municipal Water District of Orange County, resold to Irvine Ranch Water District, and into Kevin's shower. Tada!

Another big system is the Central Valley Project. This is a federal system that has delivered water waaaay below cost, due to the clout of the farmers in DC. There's a huge scandal brewing regarding the sale of certain federal infrastructure to Westlands Water District in order to settle a multibillion dollar lawsuit that the feds lost regarding building an ag drain. There's no one source of CVP water; the federal Bureau of Reclamation has dammed a bunch of rivers to deliver water across the Central Valley.

The federal government's participation in a system governed by state law makes the issue of who owns the water rights to the waters under Reclamation's control ... complex.

The Colorado River also provides water to Kevin. The poor Colorado is grossly overallocated, and in a multi year drought. California is finally living within its means, but Nevada is in big trouble as it has the most junior rights and Las Vegas is really running out of water.

there's lots more, but i'll stop here and wait for questions.

You don't have to confine your rage to California. I live in Georgia, which is also in the middle of a searing drought, and had wildfires all spring. Golf courses are considered "agricultural" land here, and get a water exemption. Our governor has blaming environmentalists and Alabama and Florida for our problems, but the blame is closer to home, where completely uncontrolled and unplanned development have far outstripped the state's water resources. The legislature is completely clueless. On a day when the temperature was 105 and there hadn't been any rain for 3 weeks, they called a special news conference to announce that their task force had found fears of global warming to be exaggerated. EVERYONE in this country is going to have to get real about conservation and a more modest lifestyle, from residents to agribusiness, to developers.
Diana Witt

Co-op utility companies give credits for installing energy efficient equipment that reduce demand, the need to buy power and the need to build new plants. The subsidy is cheaper than the alternatives. So why not have residents that want to use the water, pay for more efficient irrigation equipment in agricultural areas?

In the Midwest, taxpayers long ago paid for drainage districts. The public paid for ditches and tiles to make all land more suitable of Agriculture. It was a way to boost the economy of an entire area. Why not pay to upgrade irrigation? There are ways to incentivize it.

Francis, do you ever hear the name "Canada" in your practice? Just wondering. I remember NAWAPA (North America Water and Power Alliance) from 1970, but it faded away. I wonder if anyone is looking a generation in the future down there at up here?

I'm a native San Franciscan, but with all the water issues that the western USA is going to be faciung over the next generation, I'm very happy that I now live in nice, rainy Seattle! Posted by: mfw13

Spoken like a true auslander. If you think we have no problem here, then you ain't been paying attention.

It doesn't rain that much in Seattle, only about 35" a year, with most of it falling in the late fall through spring. Snow pack has declined steadily over the last three decades (most glaciers below 10,000' are gone or will be in a few years). This, not rain, is what fills our reservoirs, fills out streams and rivers, provides most of our electricity and waters all of the Columbia Basin agricultural land (our Central Valley).

Olympic National Park is rainy. Seattle is damp and grey, but not particularly rainy.

Another report from a recent visit to Georgia: The prospect of Atlanta running out of water as a result of the current drought is being blamed on releases from upstream Lake Lanier to preserve mussels downstream. It's only by reading 20 inches down that you discover that there's a coal-fired power plant in Florida, operated by a Southern Company affiliate, that's actually getting the water.

We point our fingers at each other and save our grey-water for household use. Meanwhile, special interests and giant corporations sabotage water-conservation planning and go on their merry way.

Speaking of pet peeves, I completely agree with Zak -- there is no bucket and there is no drop, so it is not literally a drop in the bucket.

Francis said it first, but it's worth reiterating:

In California at least, farmers pay a lower rate, but they first on the block to get cut. Municipal water agencies almost always get 100 percent of their promised deliveries. Farms get -- well, what's available that year.

"in the long run, it tends to waste water and deplete topsoil."

It's not just depleting topsoil... flood irrigation eventually destroys the land completely due to deposition of mineral salts.

Every ag scientist knows this and most of the farmers do too. Unfortunately human nature pretty much guarantees that short-term greed will triumph over long-term interests.

Just another variant on the tragedy of the commons.

Keep in mind:

1. Anthropogenic global warming will cause more frequent, more intense, and more prolonged droughts. Indeed it will cause much of North America to become more arid, permanently. This is already happening.

2. Fossil groundwater supplies (from melting glaciers at the end of the last ice age), such as the Ogallala Aquifer, are being consumed much faster than they are being replenished, and thus are being rapidly depleted.

There is going to be a lot less fresh water to go around -- not only in North America, but all over the world. This, along with other impacts of global warming, and destructive & unsustainable agricultural practices that destroy topsoil, will lead to a collapse of agriculture, food shortages and famine.

This is the future.

Excellent points, JeffII - Without deep snow packs in the Cascades, both Seattle and Portland have suffered through low water problems. Many an early snow fall has been wiped out by "Pineapple Express" warm rains

Recall the green spray paining of golf courses over in Bellevue, during moratoriums of watering during the summers?

But, one quibble about eating locally being near impossible - New Seasons Markets in Portland have defined "local" to include the area from Marin County in No Cal to the Canadian border. Lots of wonderful organic and sustainable farming being done - But, many orchards are taking a hit from producers in Chile. Perhaps "local" could stretch to the BC production of hot house veggies.

Kevin, I'd like to add my voice to those attacking your misuse of the word "literally". What are you going to say when someone really gives you a bucket with one drop of water in it? "literally literally"? "really literally"?

1. Anthropogenic global warming will cause more frequent, more intense, and more prolonged droughts. Indeed it will cause much of North America to become more arid, permanently. This is already happening. Posted by: SecularAnimist

As I understand it, tropical areas that are currently wet will be getting wetter. The droughts will only be more pronounced in areas already prone to dry spells and drought.

I don't think climate scientists know for sure at this point whether there won't actually be an expansion of the wetter tropical zones south and north of where they exist today, as the oceanic evaporation zones will become that much larger. The warmer the air, the more water it holds, but not indefinitely.

I was listening to an NPR piece yesterday explain that our atmosphere is actually holding more water at higher elevations (the stratosphere) than in the recent past, which is contributing to global warming as it holds more heat at that altitude and, along with carbon dioxide, prevents reflect solar energy from leaving our atmosphere.

JeffII:

Very true. H2O is actually a more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2, IIRC.

Reducing agricultural water use by 20% would basically solve all our problems, but it can't be done because water rights are controlled by an almost impenetrable maze of local water districts, Spanish land grants, English common law, multi-state compacts, acts of Congress, court rulings at every level imaginable, overlapping jurisdictions, and local, state and federal environmental regulations.

Most of which can, in practice, be swept away with an appropriately crafted act of Congress; most of that is just difficulty in different laws that overlap and have grandfathered older legal documents in, but ultimately regulating in this area dispositively is pretty clearly within the Commerce Clause powers of Congress, if it so chooses. Most of those aren't a problem.

And that's not even counting the vast corporate lobbying forces that would be at work even if the legal Gordian knot weren't.

Those "vast corporate lobbying forces" are the only real problem; all the rest is just a smokescreen.

About farm v. residential water use: People used to leave the polleny East for sinus and allergy relief. I've heard that after years of bringing non-native plants with them, and watering them like they're back east, there are now pollen problems in places like suburban Santa Fe!

PS I read "Cadillac Desert" 20 years ago and never forgot it.

"Soon enough, the people who grow rice will be better off leasing their water rights to Bay Area municipalities (or whomever) and then producing their crops with drip irrigation."...well, first of all you CAN'T drip irrigate rice meaningfully. It's a cereal crop like wheat or corn...you have to count on rain (for wheat as in the Midwest) or flood (as for corn or rice, like we do here IN CA)...that being said the point IS well taken: development will free up water from Ag for residential ulimately in CA. In CA approx. 80% of water usage is Ag, 10% Industrial, and 10% residential. Develop one acre of Ag and you free up enough water for 4 acres of residential. Inelegant I know if you're anti-growth but hey, it's where the water is ultimately going to come from.

Also...CA Ag interests TRIED a ballot measure years ago to gain tax credits to implement irrigation conservation methods like drip irrigation...got shot WAY down by????...all those residential people who saw it as a give-away to Ag interests! It was, of course,... but hey, if you don't want more dams, canals, threatened basins, why not just DRIVE Ag out of business being the good, anti-growth liberals that many of you are. To heck with food...we're all obese anyway...we should all starve in teepees and grind acorns like the Indians...wait, they all own casinos now in CA.

Choose your priority: food, water, development,...black jack, anyone???

That's about right Michael Gardner.

You reduce Ag water use by 20% and that "excess" water supports another 30 million people living in the deserts of SoCal, Phoenix and Vegas. And after gaining all those lower basin votes, you simply tell the less-populated upper basin states to fuck off and take the rest of their water.

Well, I guess that does "solve your water problems" if you live in SoCal. How progressive.

Don't forget the other big user of water - power generation. Coal and Nuclear plants use huge quantities of water in steam generation. Decrease that use and you get a lot more water to fill your swimming pool.

Many of the crops grown with subsidized irrigated water in the west can be, and should be, grown in the east with rainwater. Such as cotton or pecans.

Another item from Cadillac Desert. Should be required reading for all Americans.

I've read through all these comments, and no one even mentioned how all the water development and diversions for both agricultural and domestic uses has "literally" decimated once incredible ecosystems, huge runs of salmon and steelhead, and irreversibly altered some of our state's most valuable resources. This is the legacy we bequeath to our grandchildren. If you think water wars are bad, welcome to the world of the Endangered Species Act.