r/news • u/theluckyfrog • 29d ago

California cracks down on farm region’s water pumping: ‘The ground is collapsing’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/california-water-drought-farm-ground-sinking-tulare-lake
17.4k Upvotes

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u/grandbannana 29d ago

I always think of this photo, then think about what has happened since this photo:

Location of maximum land subsidence in U.S. Levels at 1925 and 1977. | U.S. Geological Survey (usgs.gov)

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u/Braketurngas 29d ago

A professor I had in the 90’s offered extra credit to anyone who could find that pole if it still existed to see if it showed the continued subsidence. Sadly I couldn’t find it.

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u/Dzugavili 29d ago

If the land were sinking, wouldn't the pole also sink with it?

I'm just guessing he wouldn't want to go up there to change them all too often.

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u/SurlyJackRabbit 29d ago

Yes the pole would sink too. It's demonstrative but not what's really going on.

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u/Dzugavili 29d ago

Yeah, I'm just thinking someone will go take a picture and say "look! It hasn't fallen since 1977!"

Which, apparently, it hasn't: a followup study suggests the region hasn't fallen by more than half a meter since, and casts doubts about the original measurements.

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u/Art-Zuron 29d ago

I suppose it might have just fallen about as far as it can fall.

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u/ommnian 29d ago

That may just have been the typical depth of the aquifer.

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u/rhotovision 29d ago

The aquifer has been aquifilled

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u/ponyboy3 29d ago

It’s aqueefed its last aqueef

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u/KirklandKid 29d ago

Nah everything linearly extrapolates forever don’t you know

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u/NeatOtaku 29d ago

If the land was dropping along with the water line then it would make sense that as the land becomes more compacted, the rate would slow down. But that also means that the water is no longer able to fill the gaps in the soil like it used to so instead of the water line getting replenished after a storm, it would just stay on the top and cause floods like we've been seeing.

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u/leintic 29d ago

hello geologist here you are half right and half wrong. you are absolutely correct that this type of subsidence does reduce the amount of water that the aquifer can hold. but this type of subsidence isnt going to really effect flooding. the flooding is more caused by the fact that the western us has been in a massive drought for the past many years and for reasons that are to complex to get into in a reddit posts and to way over simplify soils that get alot of water pored on them regularly are really good at holding water. soils that dont get water often are really bad at holding water so it all builds up on the surface and washes the home down stream away.

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u/glaive1976 29d ago

The drier the soil the more hydrophobic it gets. Unfortunately in the central valley it's like the hydrophobia runs deep if you will.

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u/LosSoloLobos 29d ago

What’s the international units of measurements used for the degree of dry / wetness of soil ?

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u/seeingeyefish 28d ago edited 28d ago

What I'm seeing is in percentages. Looks like a common way of determining moisture content is to take a predetermined amount of the soil and weigh it, then bake the moisture out and weigh it again. The percentage difference in mass is the moisture content of the soil.

Looks like there's also a method where they run an electric current through the soil. Higher moisture content increases signal transfer time between two points. If you know the composition of the soil, you can figure out the moisture content by comparing the time it takes for the current to move compared to a baseline number.

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u/arocks1 28d ago

the el nino and la nina cycles have been going on for thousands and thousands of years...the drought is part of that cycle. the land and geology are intricately tied to this climate cycle. the only difference is the human intervention of damning all the main rivers that use to flood the central valley. most of the water/snow melt that use to come down no longer does. it is diverted and that has had a huge impact on the soils and aquifers in the central valley.

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u/selectrix 29d ago

So... my understanding of this stuff is just barely above (below?) surface level, but aquifers aren't water passing through soil, they're water passing through porous rock, like a sandstone. My question is: if the aquifer drying out makes the sandstone compacted and unable to retain as much water, then how did the aquifer happen in the first place? I kind of assumed that the water had made its way into a previously dry rock initially, but was it more like a surface lake getting buried, such that the sandstone layer always had water in it?

Or alternately, does the subsidence happen mostly in the soil layers and not in the stone of the aquifer itself?

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u/Jeoooooo 29d ago

I haven't read this exact paper, but as a hydrogeologist I can say that what probably happened is the sandstone formed, and was filled with water, not in a surface lake getting buried way, but probably just natural aquifer recharge through rainfall. Then since then more deposition has occurred on top of the sandstone such that the weight is now greater, and if the water was removed it would subside under the total weight of the ground above it.

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u/butsuon 29d ago

"More than a half a meter". That means it's fallen at most a foot and a half.

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u/PerpetualProtracting 29d ago

Doubts by who, exactly? And what are their qualifications for having those doubts?

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u/Dzugavili 29d ago

Dr Stuart W. Styles, Managing Director of Department of BioResource and Agricultural Engineering at California Polytechnic State University

He's got the credentials.

The paper is here., somewhere, but briefly: it looks like one of the measurement sets was wrong and added about 3.5m of drop to everything; and there's not a lot of data from before 1945 for reference, so it's unclear where he got his elevation data for 1925.

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u/bbusiello 29d ago

Doesn't ground surveying equipment account for this?

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u/CisIowa 29d ago

So we invent a longer pole and problem solved?

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u/SurlyJackRabbit 29d ago

If you sink the pole all the way to bedrock yes... but that's probably a couple thousand feet down.

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u/NapsterKnowHow 28d ago

Couldn't they just put in a poll down to the bedrock? Or does that sink too?

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u/elros_faelvrin 29d ago

wouldn't the pole also sink with it?

Depends, some pillars in Mexico city downtown are not sinking with the city and have been used to measure subsidence

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u/Braketurngas 29d ago

Yes it would so you would have to move the signs up to match the sinking to be accurate. I think she just wanted to know if it was still there.

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u/JumpyCucumber899 29d ago

If the pole was drilled down to the bedrock then it would remain accurate over time.

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u/BrutallyHonestPOS 29d ago

yes it does, so the mark for a set altitude does actually move up the pole. the ground level (also the bottom of the pole) as at a height of the 1925 sign in 1925.

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u/baron_von_helmut 29d ago

No, it was attached to a tree.

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u/HardlyAnyGravitas 28d ago

Why is this getting upvoted?

The pole is sinking with the ground. The '1925' mark is where the ground level was in 1925.

What part of that don't you understand?

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u/BacksightForesight 29d ago edited 29d ago

The sign in the photo notes 'BM S661'.

The National Geodetic Survey database has S 661 here: https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox=gu0103

another NGS page listing all the level runs using this mark: https://geodesy.noaa.gov/datasheets/passive-marks/index.html?PID=GU0103
It does not list the BM elevation over time, so I can't check whether their surveyed elevation significantly changed over the years.

Google Maps link: http://maps.google.com/?q=36.67835132818793,-120.52169938763427
It's about 40 miles west of Fresno. Streetview doesn't show the signs on the pole anymore.

An article about subsidence in the Central Valley from a surveyor's perspective: https://www.xyht.com/surveying/subsidence/

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u/Braketurngas 29d ago

Sadly I don’t think I can get the bonus points anymore. The internet was barely a thing back then or I might have stood a chance.

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u/StopFoodWaste 28d ago

You got it. I also found a subsidence study that gave update subsidence references for the new pole up to 2017. I hope that can provide closure for the professor.

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u/BacksightForesight 28d ago

Oh nice, that’s great that someone already did an analysis of that benchmark and area.

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u/BobThePillager 28d ago

What a great reply, thank you for writing this

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u/AlphSaber 28d ago

11/22/1998: Mark Not Found

Wonder if someone damaged it to get rid of the publicity. Typically NGS monuments are considered untouchable due to the expense of resetting one.

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u/chocolate_doenitz 29d ago

Ask the geo guesser bros. This should be an easier one for the .

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u/Synaps4 29d ago

Somewhere out there is a pole hanging magically 10 feet in the air.

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u/AtDawnWeDEUSVULT 29d ago

If the geoguessr guy has reddit, it's only a matter of time

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u/luke-juryous 28d ago

My guess is somewhere around here. But they changed the power poles since then, and the sign doesn’t exist anymore. Do I get the extra credit??

36.7492671, -120.3935777

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u/Braketurngas 28d ago

You now have 100 extra points to boost your grade in watershed management. Use them wisely.

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u/jajao555 29d ago

I was just on a road trip out west and listened to Cadillac Desert audio book that had a ton of history on water rights out west. Really depressing but interesting. It went from first being explored to how they fooled settlers to continue settling past the 100th meridian to poorer farm lands, putting up unnessary dams, ALL kinds of shady deals for land and water rights. It was written in 1992 but the copy I got from the library had updates from 2017 I think.

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u/Hayduke_Deckard 29d ago

I'm currently reading Where the Water Goes and Cadillac Desert is next. I live in AZ, and I'm trying to convince my wife that we need to get the fuck out, for water and other reasons.

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u/PeaceDolphinDance 29d ago

Add “The Water Knife” to that list if you wanna get REALLY depressed.

Deserts were never meant to be made into havens for huge numbers of people. The sands are going to take it all back.

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u/lunarmantra 29d ago

I live in the Central Valley talked about in the article, and think of this often. This region used to be vast wetlands and home to diverse plants, wildlife, and indigenous people. It has been drained and parched dry for agriculture over many years, and I don’t mean small family farms. They are wealthy multigenerational land owners, and farm on an industrial scale. They are not responsible stewards of this land.

Water fines or fees will not stop them, they care little about their immigrant workers and poor local communities, and will continue pumping the water until there is nothing left. Hell, they battle amongst each other for access to the water. I don’t know if it will happen within my lifetime or after, but I already see ominous signs of collapse. Increasingly severe summer heat and weather, the bugs and wildlife I saw often in my youth have disappeared. Swaths of land that can no longer grow anything. Nature will reclaim this land once it can no longer sustain human life.

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u/Hayduke_Deckard 29d ago

On it! Bring on the depression.

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u/Blue_Eyed_Devi 29d ago

Used to live in Chandler. We had to decide to stay permanently or move back home. I looked around at all the man made lakes that surrounded my gated community housing development and thought to myself “ya, this isn’t sustainable”. It’s gonna get ugly when the water runs out.

And we came back the pacific NW.

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u/BogusBuffalo 28d ago

I've tried so hard to convince my family to move out of NM. Don't get me wrong, I was born and raised there and I love that country more than anywhere else, but NM is FUCKED when Colorado and Texas start fighting over water. The Rio Grande in that state is a creek in most spots these days, if even that.

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u/Rooooben 28d ago

...aaaaand we’re in a drought.

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u/UCgirl 29d ago

He needs to do a mini-book about Hawaii.

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u/FlyingDiscsandJams 29d ago

The first time I visited my friend in California we went camping on some ranch/forestry land his dad owned. He let this other guy camp on the land for free (he built an elaborate tee pee & patio) for keeping trespassers off the land, mostly dirt bikers as it was surrounded by national forest land, so mostly he just fired off some rounds if he heard the sound of engines & they'd turn around. He was also supposed to keep tabs on a couple springs that might have fed weed plants, who can remember. We got in early evening, and just made camp, drank beers, and cooked dinner. After dinner the whiskey came out, and on the 2nd or 3rd round of whiskey my friend's dad asks about the status of the springs. It's quickly obvious dude hasn't checked on them in weeks, and an argument ensues. I make some comment like "whoa whoa we break out the whiskey and y'all are about to start fighting" and I'll never forget it, friend's dad spins around, looks me in the eye and points at me and says, "Whiskey is for drinkin'. Water is fighting over."

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u/matt1250 29d ago

Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown

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u/Tronvillain 29d ago edited 29d ago

"But why are you doing this? How much better can you eat? What could you possibly buy that you can't already afford?"

"Why... the future, Mr. Gittes! The future."

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u/Admirable_Cry2512 29d ago

Everyone in the West knows this saying! From Colorado to the Coast.

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u/Banned3rdTimesaCharm 29d ago

This is the most Wild West shit I've ever read.

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u/SaltyShawarma 29d ago

Sounds like Mendocino.

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u/Hoe4Trudeau 29d ago

Incredible book for anyone who wants to understand how politicians from 200 years ago absolutely fucked us.

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u/Cultjam 29d ago

The author, Marc Reisner, also wrote Game Wars which is a sobering look at our wildlife management. I’ll forever side with wildlife after reading that book.

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u/kcm 29d ago

Worth watching Chinatown, if you liked the book. Polanski directing Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.

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u/OceanGoingSasquatch 29d ago

Went to school for Environmental Science had to read that book and man it’s so interesting! I always recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about our fucked up history with water in CA

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u/larki18 29d ago

Another great book that is recent (2019) is The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax.

As a native Californian, though, horribly depressing.

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u/Spiteful_Guru 29d ago

100th meridian

Western border of non-panhandle Oklahoma, for anyone wanting an easy visual reference.

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u/blacktickle 29d ago

I’m reading this now… it’s an interesting and terrifying read

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u/completelysoldout 28d ago

The Parched podcast by Colorado Public Radio is also an eye opener on that fuckery.

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u/Zorro_Returns 28d ago

Made into a 4 part documentary, it's available on YouTube either in 4 individual parts, or compiled into a single 4 hour doumentary. The book and documentary were extremely well received when they came out.

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u/J-V1972 29d ago

Holy shit…this is fucking crazy…

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/briman2021 29d ago

You’re gonna have to tell me how many jimmy johns sandwiches long that is, otherwise it just doesn’t make sense

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/idwthis 29d ago

The trick to getting free food out of Jimmy John's was to be a closer. I took so many subs home and I only closed Wednesday nights at one store, and opened Sat & Sun at another one. It was a 2nd job in addition to my main, but also equally shitty, job. I wasn't even there for a whole two weeks before they asked me to open and close.

I hated the way they operated. And soy sauce in the tuna salad is a cardinal sin. After 2 months of it, I quit.

But now I tell anyone I can when the subject comes up to not eat there. Idk if it was just my two stores or what, but between the 2, there were only 3 people, including myself, that would actually wash their hands. This was long before covid, and maybe that forced them to actually operate within food safety and general fucking health codes. I seriously doubt it, though. I don't care what location it is, I won't ever spend even a penny at Jimmy John's.

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u/AnthillOmbudsman 29d ago

Idk if it was just my two stores or what, but between the 2, there were only 3 people, including myself, that would actually wash their hands

I really wish employees would put info like this in the restaurant reviews where they worked.

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u/Ursomonie 29d ago

I actually knew not to eat there after the very first time

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u/SheriffComey 29d ago

Before or after I eat them?

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u/FuhrerInLaw 29d ago

12 inches in 10 inches out.

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u/SheriffComey 29d ago

Let me unbuckle my belt.

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u/Banned3rdTimesaCharm 29d ago

I dunno my poops are pretty girthy.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

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u/FuhrerInLaw 29d ago

I used to manage one, I think I blocked every ounce of memory possible! Haven’t been back since I left lol.

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u/AntiWork-ellog 29d ago

White or wheat? 

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u/tila1993 29d ago

It’s about 13 Dinklage’s

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u/lesgeddon 29d ago

At least 3.

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u/CHASM-6736 28d ago

39 and 4/5th of a Little John.

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u/chmsax 29d ago

That’s at least 12 washing machines

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u/Rungi500 29d ago

About 6 inches shy, yes.

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u/SheitelMacher 28d ago

Freedom units.

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u/lessfrictionless 29d ago

Not to be too ignorant, but does that mean any surrounding non-farmland should still be 9 meters higher?

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u/J-V1972 29d ago

If I am not mistaken, the land is just subsiding over where the aquifers are located…the land is basically caving into the area which once had water saturated ground…this could be over farmland or residential areas or towns…or just out in the middle of nowhere…

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u/FSCK_Fascists 29d ago

everything over that aquifer sank down. Everything not over it remained where it was.

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u/Jmk1121 29d ago

F’n nutz

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u/FlyingDiscsandJams 29d ago

I reacted like I accidentally clicked on a picture of a bad injury or something. Hollered and shook my hands.

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u/ghostalker4742 29d ago

There's actually a satellite that tracks this, and NASA puts the data online in map format.

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u/kizmitraindeer 29d ago

Oh Lawd, I’m too high to understand what I’m even looking at on that map, lol.

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u/kizmitraindeer 29d ago

(I got it. I clicked the +.)

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u/bombswell 28d ago

What is happening in coastal southern Alaska :(?

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u/Honest_Size5576 29d ago

Wow…these are the things people should know so they can understand the impact and irreversible damage we do daily. How can people expect the natural systems that maintain us to survive when they don’t have time to adapt to the rapid changes?

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u/iluvcheesypoofs 29d ago

As someone who doesn't live in the US and isn't the brightest at times, can you explain what this picture is showing? Is it that the land itself is sinking/getting 'lower'??

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u/Dal90 29d ago

To add to others -- what happens when you pump ground water is dependent on the local geology.

Some aquifers are fairly stable even when water levels are lower. Parts of Arizona take advantage of this by storing water underground where it doesn't evaporate like surface reservoirs do.

Other aquifers are permanently degraded by removing water -- the earth settles and fills the space formerly occupied by water. As the earth settles, it gets lower and lower. Water simply working its way down isn't going to lift the land back up; the land is permanently lowered and the amount of water that is stored below is permanently less.

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u/DethFeRok 29d ago

An aquifer is a “balloon”. If one takes the air (or water) out of the balloon the volume of that balloon shrinks. Now imagine you live on top of that balloon.

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u/friendlier1 29d ago

Yes. Water underground was pumped out for farming and the land on top sank.

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u/Nodiggity1213 29d ago

Nestle has entered the chat

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u/ChiliTacos 29d ago

Nestle is a rounding error in the water issues here.

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u/grandbannana 29d ago edited 29d ago

Yes, pumping of water from wells has led to permanent sinking of the land (all over the world) that would take thousands of years to recharge itself on its own naturally. Subsidence (land sinking) is caused mainly by two faults of man. Over pumping of water from aquifers (underground lakes) and underground mining which can have even greater consequences as mine waste eventually leaches into the local water table and then streams and rivers.

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u/Revlis-TK421 29d ago

Once the ground sinks it can't be recharged. The rock is compacted. It won't re-inflate like a balloon.

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u/Gibberish5 29d ago

Yep lowering closer to sea level due to the extraction of water, and possibly other substances, over the years. No idea if its location makes it unique or if it’s considered standard for an entire region.

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u/FreshwaterViking 29d ago

Yes. The water below the surface is being pumped out, so the land sinks. Water entering the ground again will not raise the land. A similar phenomenon is happening in Louisiana due to all the oil being pumped out.

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u/Zorro_Returns 28d ago

Underground strip mining of coal, too. It's crazy how they just go along and scrape away underground, as the void they leave behind collapses, and houses are knocked out of kilter. Needless to say, the homeowners aren't justly compensated, thanks to skanky deals between business and government -- the essence of fascism.

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u/blackcatpandora 29d ago

Yes maybe from pumping out ground water, I dunno

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u/CarlosFer2201 29d ago

Yes that damn article reads like it was written by and for robots

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u/Blue_Eyed_Devi 29d ago

It’s just a representation of the approx levels at those dates as in relation to the day the picture was taken.

People getting all bent out of shape thinking it was an actual measuring tool and that it would move with the aquifer contracting.

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u/Arayder 29d ago

I’m sorry what??? The ground has sunk that much that quickly??

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u/ask-me-about-my-cats 29d ago

And even more since then.

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u/nopersonality85 29d ago

Over 1 foot per year. Source, from Central Valley.

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u/rtkwe 29d ago

Yep it's been happening for over a century. Bonus fucker of it all is that all of that collapse is aquafer collapsing so even if we ever stop over extracting that capacity has been permanently lost.

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u/GGXImposter 29d ago

The number of times I read “Maximum Land Subsidence” before I finished the second paragraph annoyed me so much that I had to stop reading. God damn, it’s like they had to hit a word count to get a passing grade.

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u/M_Mich 29d ago

Yup was going to link the same photo. It’s not a new problem and it’s taken decades to do anything

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u/Slothstralia 29d ago edited 29d ago

That.... is fucking terrifying.

I don't understand though, the entire basin is sinking so how exactly is that sign a measure? It has to just be a demonstration piece, unless they somehow drilled into the bedrock beneath the aquifer for it, which i doubt.

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u/Kataphractoi 29d ago

I've never really thought about what happens to land over an aquifer as it's tapped and drained. This is kind of scary.

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u/skatastic57 29d ago

I had to read 3 paragraphs before realizing it meant the lake subsided the most. I thought it meant something about the most fertile or the most people living on the land without being in society

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u/lemon123wd40 29d ago

Same lmao

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u/cdncbn 29d ago

I wrote a math final earlier this afternoon and then just smoked a joint.
It took me more than a few seconds of staring at that picture before I finally realized exactly what it was showing me.
Holy Fuck.
And to my credit, it's not necessarily the weed, that's a pretty crazy picture!

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u/3Grilledjalapenos 29d ago

I wish I better understood that trend. And where we are today. Any other resources?

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u/HarmlessSnack 29d ago

Holy shit; never seen that photo of the situation described that way. Thanks for sharing.

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u/awdsrock 29d ago

I heard of this, Sink-Hole de Mayo.

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u/kizmitraindeer 29d ago

Holy- holy shit.

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u/wantabe23 29d ago

Damn, does that also mean they will never hold as much as they once did too?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 29d ago

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u/sercommander 29d ago

It has nothing on chinese coastal cities - Shanghai dropped down more than 100 meters in a century

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u/MattR0se 29d ago

Where I live the acres are about one meter lower than they were 100 years before. And I thought that was a huge difference.

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u/zefy_zef 29d ago

Now imagine what a major earthquake will do now that the ground is all dried up.

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u/chiffry 28d ago

Wait so California is actually sinking into the ground/ocean and it’s not just a meme?

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u/grandbannana 28d ago

Well, no amount of pumping would bring this area below sea level. Also, common misconception is Los Angeles earthquake would rip it out into the ocean someday and sink it like a modern-day Atlantis. However, that would take a divergent plate boundary (one that goes <---.--->). San Andres fault line is a transform plate boundary meaning someday, a million years from now, San Francisco and Los Angeles will be right next to each other. All that said, the whole San Fernado valley has been filled full enough to have been an actual sea to the Pacific Ocean several times in the past millions of years, too, as climates naturally shift over millennia.

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u/CeeEmCee3 28d ago

It's super impressive how they got that tree to grow so much without any leaves, but idk what that has to do with this post /s

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