Flooding Fields in California’s Drought

[snooper2]

VICE

(Again, tell me why farmers are flooding fields to grow rice?)


Published on Sep 2, 2015
Faced with a severe drought, California enacted mandatory water conservation rules in early April for the first time in the state’s history. But the agriculture industry — which consumes 80 percent of the state’s water — was exempt from the new restrictions.

The drought has caused surface water sources such as reservoirs, rivers, and streams to dry up. Consumers have increasingly turned to groundwater supplies, putting an enormous strain on the state’s aquifers. Drilling companies are punching so many holes in the ground that the number of requests for new wells in one recent week surpassed the entire total for some previous years, when water was plentiful.

VICE News went to California to witness the proliferation of water-intensive crops, and to find out why the industry that consumes the overwhelming majority of the state’s water has continued to operate during the historic drought.

[KamaAina]

1. Because one water district has rights to one-third of the entire Sacramento River flow

It serves two counties, Glenn and Colusa. It inherited water rights that were locked up in the 19th century. Guess where all that rice is grown?!

[Xithras]

2. 90 seconds in, I had to shake my head at the bullshit.

They're complaining about rice growing in the Yolo Bypass? It's a fucking SWAMP. The water table is 18 inches under the ground, and it is PRESERVED as a wetland to protect wildlife. I guess we could conserve water by drying out this natural wetland, destroying its environment and killing the millions of birds and all of the other wildlife that calls it home, but if you think that's a good idea...you might be a Republican. You see the levee they're standing on? It's designed to keep the water OUT of the city of West Sacramento, because it looks like THIS almost every winter:


Efforts to dewater the Delta largely fall under the same umbrella. The Delta was NOT a desert. It was a swamp, and historically had been compared to the Louisiana Bayou. If anything, the problem with the Delta today is that TOO LITTLE water is making it into the region, which is driving saltwater intrusion, wreaking havoc on native fish populations, causing land subsidence, and finishing off the environmental destruction that began a century ago.

The Central Valley needs MORE water, not less. The needs of the coastal cities should be secondary to the needs of the Valley.

Now, I DO agree that we need to overhaul the way water is distributed in the Valley. Tulare Lake needs to be restored. The levees need to be set back to allow the native riparian forests room to grow. The natural marshlands need to be recreated. Farming should be scaled back and limited to regions where it doesn't destroy the Valley ecosystem (which is still a LOT of land). But this push to eliminate the Valley's use of water and encourage the desertification of the once vast wetlands that covered much of the Valley floor is not liberal, or progressive, or environmentally sound policy.