Historian and Central Valley Farmer Victor Davis Hanson writes that thanks to the massive engineering projects of past generations, California’s water wars are not about so much about scarcity than a new requirement that “the state’s inland waters flow as pristinely as they supposedly did before the age of dams, reservoirs, and canals.” He argues that the consequences of the new calculushas been dire, farmland idled, workers unemployed and lower state revenues.
From City Journal – Article by Victor Davis Hansen
California’s water wars aren’t about scarcity. Even with 37 million people and the nation’s most irrigation-intensive agriculture, the state usually has enough water for both people and crops, thanks to the brilliant hydrological engineering of past generations of Californians. But now there is a new element in the century-old water calculus: a demand that the state’s inland waters flow as pristinely as they supposedly did before the age of dams, reservoirs, and canals. Only that way can California’s rivers, descending from their mountain origins, reach the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta year-round. Only that way, environmentalists say, can a three-inch delta fish be saved and salmon runs from the Pacific to the interior restored.
Such green dreams are not new to California politics. But their consequences, in this case, have been particularly dire: rich farmland idled, workers laid off, and massive tax revenues forfeited. Worse still, they coincide with a $25 billion annual state deficit, an overtaxed and fleeing elite populace, unsustainable pension obligations for public employees, a growing population of illegal aliens—and a world food shortage. This insolvent state is in far too much trouble to predicate its agricultural future on fish.
Related Posts
Blowback to Victor Davis Hanson’s Article California’s Water Wars in the LA Times
California’s water wars: It isn’t fish vs. farmers
August 10, 2011
Doug Obegi, staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco, responds to The Times’ Aug. 7 Op-Ed article “California’s water wars.”
Victor Davis Hanson doesn’t seem to understand what most of us already know: California needs to be smarter about managing our limited water supplies so we can sustain our economy and our natural resources.
California faces dry and wet cycles, and during the 2007-09 drought, water was scarce for farmers, cities and the environment. The drought — not environmental protections — was the cause of more than 75% of the reduction in water deliveries to agribusinesses during this period. Yet even with new environmental protections, more water was exported per year from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta during the recent drought than the last major drought (1987-92).
California’s water wars present difficult lifestyle choices
September 1, 2011
John Sabo takes on both Victor Davis Hanson’s Aug. 7 Op-Ed, “California’s water wars,” and Doug Obegi’s Aug.10 response, “It isn’t fish vs. farmers.” Sabo is an associate professor in the School of Life Sciences and senior sustainability scientist at the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. He was a visiting scholar at UC Santa Barbara for the past year.
I agree with Doug Obegi’s thesis that the California water war is not as simple as fish versus farmers, but the story is not as simple as the dollar value of salmon versus tomatoes either. In either case, water shortage means jobs lost and the end of a way of life for families who have known that way of life for generations. The California water war is one symptom of a larger sustainability problem we face across the Southwestern United States: how to balance freshwater needs for farms, cities and ecosystems. Balancing these needs in a region that is already chronically water stressed will present some difficult lifestyle choices.
Rivers are the only renewable supply of freshwater in the Southwest, including California and six other states dependant on Colorado River water. These seven basin states appropriate the equivalent of 76% of the flow of all rivers in the Southwest, and many of them run dry. Add to this climate change. The freshwater in rivers is projected to decline by as much as 30% over the next 50 to 90 years. Demand will also increase. California’s population is expected to reach 60 million by 2050, a 1.5-fold increase in 50 years.
