Water, Water Everywhere

Agriculture creates the rural character of the Okanagan Valley so valued by residents and tourists alike. The valley produces 25% of the total value of British Columbia's agriculture, and is the province's major producer of apples, peaches, pears, and other tree fruits. The valley is also famous for its grapes and many wineries. Vegetables and forage crops that support milk and meat production are also important. Agriculture occupies about 70% of the developed valley lands, and accounts for about the same proportion of water use.

from: Okanagan Basin Waterscape by Natural Resources Canada

Approaching Kelowna BC from above Okanagan Lake, a tourist could be forgiven for thinking that the least of the city's problems is water. The lake itself is huge, extending out of sight in both directions. Water recreation is obviously one of the area's draws, judging from visible boats. And in September the orchards above the lake are deep green.

Okanagan Lake is a huge body of water, but much of that water is "old", meaning that it has accumulated over a long period of time and is slowly recharged. According to hydrologists who have studied it, the lake is unable to sustain significant withdrawals without a lowering of its level, something that would be particularly disastrous for the many marinas around the shore. And the recharge ability of the small streams that feed the lake has recently come into question. Reporting on drought conditions developing in the Okanagan, the Columbia Valley News had this to say on July 24, 2009:

Inflows to Okanagan Lake have been well below normal for the past 12 months, and are ranked as the fifth-lowest since measurement began in 1918.

Adding to stress on the water resources of this semi-arid basin is rapid population growth. Population has doubled in the past two decades, to somewhere around 300,000. Irrigated agriculture may take 70% of the water, but the towns and cities are where the demand growth is. This situation has the ingredients of a classic farm-city water conflict.

In the late 70's an organization was formed to bring together all of the water stakeholders in the region. Named the Okanagan Basin Water Board, it has representatives from urban, agricultural, and first nations groups. Originally the group concentrated on milfoil weed abatement and water quality, but it appears that the focus has shifted to water sharing.

Canada's water law comes from the English tradition, and thus has a riparian tendency, although with some features borrowed from US appropriation laws. My suspicion so far is that the tendency here is to begin cooperating at an earlier stage than in the US, but I'll have to study more to really understand if that's the case.

Water Call in Idaho

Idaho law distributes water rights on a first-come, first-served basis, and Clear Springs Foods has older water rights than the groundwater pumpers.

from the Capital Press Agriculure News, August 23, 2009


In Idaho, about 150 users of irrigation water, covering about 4,000 acres, have been ordered by a court to stop pumping groundwater. This came as a result of a "water call" or claim to more senior rights by a fish farm called Clear Springs Foods. Clear Springs claimed that as a result of groundwater withdrawals by more junior water rights holders the flow from the springs which provide its name had dropped to levels inadequate to maintain operations.

This is an intriguing case because it brings out many aspects of the way water law works in the western states. Idaho is an appropriation state, and these prior water rights normally only apply to surface water. In this case however, the groundwater pumping was connected to the flow of the surface springs to such a degree that Clear Springs could effectively make a case with the state water adjudicator. He ruled in favor of Clear Springs, and in March of this year the irrigators were ordered to cease pumping. A flurry of legal actions attempted to stay the order, leading to a ruling this past Monday, August 24 temporarily delaying the shutoff to allow further negotiations.

I will be following this case closely for the precedents it may set.

Hetch Hetchy

Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.

John Muir, 1908

I seem to be stuck in California, both topically and bodily. Yesterday while driving up to Grass Valley in the "gold country" foothills of the Sierras, I saw a highway sponsorship sign for an organization called "Restore Hetch Hetchy". Once I had internet access I had to research the controversy, with which I had only passing familiarity.

Hetch Hetchy is a valley in Yosemite National Park which was named after the native American name for an edible grass which grew there. Though smaller than Yosemite Valley, it shares many of the same glacier-carved features including massive rock faces and ribbon waterfalls. To some of its enthusiasts it is even more beautiful than Yosemite itself.

The thing that makes Hetch Hetchy so interesting is that as major water controversies go, it was so early. The fight over damming the valley's Toulumne River had to be one of the first major battles between "nature lovers", as environmentalists were then known, and would-be takers of water. And the takers won, even though such iconic figures as John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt were on the opposing side.

The battle raged from 1906 to 1913, when the Riker Act ended it in favor of the dam proponents. O'Shaughnessy Dam was completed in 1923, and the main part of the valley has been underwater ever since. But the Sierra Club and other lovers of nature never fully gave up. In recent years, dam removal has become something of a low-key trend, and momentum for restoring the Hetch Hetchy grew when Don Hodel, Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, began advocating for the removal of the dam. According to studies that were conducted at that time (1988), the water and power benefits of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir could be provided in other ways. This view seems to be rather non-controversial; the argument has shifted to the cost of removing the dam without losing its water withdrawals.

I don't have a strong opinion on the Hetch Hetchy controversy, but I do have two observations. One is that, whatever the outcome of the battle over the Valley, it's safe to say that it would never get built today if it hadn't been back than. The despised "nature lovers" of 1913 have become the dreaded "enviros" of today, and their political and legal strength has only grown.

The corollary observation is that we have undoubtedly seen the "high water mark" of big dam projects that supply much of the irrigation and drinking water in this country. From here on, conservation of what we have already available can only increase in importance.

Los Angeles Water Restrictions

The effect of all these efforts is beginning to trickle down. In June, the most recent figures available, city water use dropped by 12.7% compared with the same month in 2008, the lowest overall level of consumption in 32 years.

from The Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2009

A report in the Wall Street Journal covers the efforts of water authorities in the greater Los Angeles area to decrease water use. This includes using "water cops" to issue citations and, as a last resort, $100 fines to Angelenos who break water conservation rules. Another tactic is to encourage neighbors to either report the offenders or hang a water conservation tag on their doorknob as a gentle reminder.

And reminding rather than coercion seems to be a theme of the current effort:

"The last major drought was about two decades ago," said David Nahai, the head of the city's Department of Water and Power. "People may have forgotten that we live in a semi-arid area"

The article points to the effectiveness of a tiered billing structure, something most experts on billing structure recommend in drought-affected urban areas:

The biggest threat water wasters face is their bill. Under the city's two-tiered billing structure, rates spike by 45% for customers who use more than a certain amount. Fashion designer Ann Ferriday said her water bill became "something crazy, like $450," which she said might be attributable to her pool, which needs to be refilled from time to time, and her daily lawn waterings.
"My bill was so outrageous," she said. "They said I was on this upper tier and I couldn't figure out why." She has since tried to remedy her water problems. But she said she can't wait till the drought ends "so that everything can go back to normal."

Ms. Ferriday may have a long wait.

Regulated Deficit Irrigation

Goldhamer calls the week-long study the greatest professional experience and research accomplishment of his 30-year water management career.

"Aerial Imagery Future of Water Management" Western Farm Press August 5, 2009

I've been reading about new methods for tightly controlling irrigation to minimize water use and salt buildup in the soil. Here's a brief description of regulated deficit irrigation (RDI) from the website of the California Agricultural Water Stewardship Initiative:

Deficit (or regulated deficit) irrigation can maximize water use efficiency by maintaining or increasing yields per unit of irrigation water applied. In deficit irrigation, the crop is exposed to a certain level of water stress for certain periods or throughout the whole growing season. The expectation is that yield reduction will be insignificant compared to the benefits gained from decreasing water use. However, deficit irrigation may only work for certain crops and the grower must have prior knowledge of crop yield responses to deficit irrigation. One of the greatest obstacles to implementing deficit irrigation is the wide range of crops that one grower may manage in any given season in California. More research on deficit irrigation forspecific crops and soils is needed to ensure guidelines for implementation are successful.

One of the challenges encountered in managing RDI is that plant stress needs to be monitored to avoid long-term crop damage. A piece in the Western Farm Press reports on a recent joint study done by David Goldhamer of UC Davis and scientists from the University of Cordoba in Spain. Dr. Goldhamer has been researching plant stress measurement for some time, and he was intrigued by that ability of the Spanish drone aircraft and their specialized infrared cameras to measure canopy temperatures. This general approach has been attempted in the past using satellites, but the low-flying drones made possible a degree of resolution which has previously eluded researchers.

I think that we can expect to see tremendous progress in the next few years in the efficiency of irrigation. As water becomes more valuable and land damage through overapplication of water becomes more obvious, technological advances like RDI will become increasingly attractive.

Peter Gleick in Stockholm

I'm regularly approached by scientists and policymakers here asking me if it is could really be true that we do not measure and manage all groundwater in California. It is. We don't. And outside of California it is well understood that this means it is simply impossible to have a truly sustainable water system. It's like having a bank account without know who is taking money out or how much they are taking.

Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, writing from the Stockholm Water Conference

The Stockholm Water Conference is underway, and I'm very sorry to be missing it. Maybe next year....But we have a summary report from Dr. Water himself, Peter Gleick. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, one of the things that I appreciate about Dr. Gleick is that he values irrigated agriculture, and wants to see it survive and prosper in the US. But at the same time he realizes that without sustainable water practices irrigation in many arid or semiarid locations has no future, which puts him at odds with those who take a shorter-term view.

I was talking with someone the other day about water as a finite resource that that needs to be carefully managed, and he seemed puzzled. He asked, "Can't we just bring it in from other places?" And the answer is, well, yes, to a certain point and at a certain cost and provided whoever is using it in the other place doesn't object. And if all else fails, for potable water there's always seawater to be desalinated. But for irrigation that's really not a realistic option. Which leaves...careful use of what we have.

More With Less?

Vegetables...produce substantially more revenue per unit land or water: vegetables account for only 16% of the irrigated acreage but use 10% of the applied water and generate 39% of California's crop revenue.

from More With Less: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency in California, a Special Focus on the Delta by H. Cooley, J. Christian-Smith, and P. Gleick

Over the weekend I read a 67-page report from the Pacific Institute which discusses some very practical measures which would allow California agriculture (and by implication the Central Valley) to survive and thrive on less water. What I most apppreciate about this study is the concern it shows for the economic health of agriculture and the livelihoods of farmers and their business partners. The other positive is that its recommendations are not extreme, and in most cases match trends that are underway, driven by ongoing shortage.

The report has a number of legislative recommendations aimed at doing away with some perverse incentives to waste water. It goes into water law (California has one of those hybrid Riparian/Appropriation systems discussed in one of my water law posts) and recommends some minor changes. One of these is a classic change already made in many states faced with water shortages:

Define instream flow as a beneficial use in California


"Beneficial use" is a legal term in an approprative system, and it determines what constitutes a legitimate appropriation which establishes and maintains a water right. What this means is that leaving the water in a river in order to maintain an adequate volume of flow is a legitimate use which can keep a water right alive. (In Australia this use of water has been given the name "conveyance", and is an important feature of that country's new approach to water law.)


The concrete suggestions for water saving are as follows:

• Modest crop shifting


• Smart irrigation scheduling


• Advanced irrigation management


• Efficient irrigation technology

The thing to note about these approaches is that all of them are already happening at some level, so this is not a fantasy approach.