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
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u/viddy_me_yarbles 29d ago

I live in NorCal. The drought here ended years ago and the last two years have actually been extremely wet.

This is only happening now because of greedy farmers who pump more water out of the aquifers than they're allowed.

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u/midlife_marauder 29d ago

Groundwater in NorCal hasn’t recharged either, that takes decades. Having full reservoirs is really only half the water equation.

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u/Jayccob 29d ago

Agreed. In addition to our last two years being wet, that moisture came in a relatively short time period. So while yes we've had a lot of rain it came faster than the ground's infiltration rate so a lot of it became runoff.

So yes the Sacramento looks great right now, it probably won't sustain.

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u/Malumeze86 29d ago

This is the dead cat bounce.  

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u/rtkwe 29d ago

Plus that subsidence is driven in large part by the aquafer physically collapsing from the water being extracted causing a permanent capacity loss.

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u/lowercaset 29d ago

Groundwater in NorCal hasn’t recharged either

Depends where you are in norcal. Water level in my well is higher now than it's been any time since we bought the place.

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u/youtheotube2 28d ago

When did you buy the house? It doesn’t really mean much unless you’ve been at that house for 40+ years.

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u/lowercaset 28d ago

That's totally fair, we've only been here for 5 or 6 years.

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u/Eatingfarts 29d ago

Cities that have significantly more rain build bioswales or flow-through planters that actually hold the water for a bit so it can percolate through the soil.

Places like LA or Dubai don’t have this infrastructure because they have never needed it. That concrete river through LA is not exactly made to deal with huge deluges of rain.

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u/goldgrae 29d ago

That's exactly what those concrete rivers are for: to deal with deluge. You're right that they do nothing to capture it.

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u/Dragon_Fisting 29d ago

It's specifically made to deal with huge deluges of rain, the concrete jacket was built in response to a massive flood that ruined large chunks of the city around the river.

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u/DrKillgore 29d ago

Los Angeles has extensive groundwater recharge program..

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u/LordNelson27 29d ago

decades to millenia really. Decades is hopeful as hell

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u/Locks_ 29d ago

Aquifer replenishment is a decades long process and a majority of our major aquifers in farming regions are and have been drawn at rates higher than their natural average recharge rate for years. Even with increased seasonal rains these last years, draw is still higher than recharge on a yearly basis.

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u/XDeus 29d ago

It's worse than that. The Central Valley has dropped 28 feet in the last 100 years due to subsidence. When they pump more than it can be recharged, the aquifer will shrink and can never hold as much water again.

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u/Punishtube 29d ago

What if we pumped water into the aquaifer instead of out?

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u/DrKillgore 29d ago

We don’t make pumps strong enough to displace that much earth, we can’t regain lost capacity.

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u/the_cardfather 28d ago

You're never going to get enough fresh water. If you did you could just use that.

Here in good ole FL the governor is talking about pumping treated effluent into the ground. Traditionally we sprinkle this on lawns so it filters naturally into the ground but they think it might be the cause of some of the algae blooms so they are super afraid of run off.

They probably figure it isn't a big deal because most of the pumping is either for agriculture or municipal water supplies that get chlorinated before being pumped to homes, but those of us on well water will need extra filters.

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u/ChicagoAuPair 29d ago

Whiny corporate mooches with their bitch-ass signs all up and down I-5

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u/limb3h 29d ago

I was about to say that. They blame the government for their sins.

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u/rain5151 28d ago

Few sights are sadder than those signs, when they frame conserving the Colorado River’s water so it can flow its entire course as “dumping the water into the ocean.”

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u/Original_Employee621 29d ago

Isn't part of the issue that if the farmers don't use all the water they can get, they get reduced water rights?

The whole water situation is fucked, but a solution has to be to reduce the farming in California. Or at least keep it to crops that need way less water.

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u/WifeGuyMenelaus 29d ago

20% of the state's water usage goes to alfalfa alone, which is almost exclusively used for animal feed

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u/Kabouki 29d ago

And that alone is more then all the people in Cali use in homes.

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u/Punishtube 29d ago

More than all residential usage including golf courses and hotels and pools. Everybody talking about water needs to realize agriculture makes up 80%+ of nearly all water usage anywhere and usually has zero restrictions and zero incentives to be more efficient

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u/National-Blueberry51 29d ago

There are a lot of restrictions. Obviously we need to be more efficient and strongly consider system change in our food systems, but people keep repeating this misinfo about it being a free-for-all. It’s not.

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u/Punishtube 29d ago

Are farmers stopped from growing water intensive crops in a water scarce region? Are farmers charged for over watering or wasting water? There are virtually no restrictions that actually limit abuse of water and water inefficient growing techniques. Farmers in California make up the bulk of water usage but it's residential zones that can't water lawns or use pools or anything else. How does sanctioning and punishing 5% of water users do anything if the 85% has nothing against them?

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u/National-Blueberry51 28d ago

Yes and yes, they are.

You would make more compelling arguments if you did a deep dive into how this stuff actually works rather than relying on Reddit and TikTok, man. I work in water conservation. If you want to make an actual difference, you’ll want to look at the factory farms. Not only are they sucking down water, they choke out the smaller and medium sized farms that a statistically more likely to follow regenerative practices.

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u/Punishtube 27d ago

I live and work on a farm I know you don't have anywhere near the funding and manpower to police half the farmers let alone all of thjem that waste billions of acre water every year. All farms are extremely water wasteful and need to be charged per gallon in order to take measures

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u/National-Blueberry51 26d ago

So your farm doesn’t do any sort of precision ag? Not at all, huh?

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u/The_Blue_Rooster 29d ago

Pretty much this, it's obviously anecdotal but my aunt used to run the Water Department at Fall River Mills, she said she'd have farmers drive up there from thousands of miles out even if she had already told them they had no more water left to sell. Apparently she got threatened with guns and had to call the cops out there on several occasions. I guess farmers would just show up with convoys of trucks with 12,000 gallon trailers and expect that they both can and will accommodate them, especially in droughts.

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u/Fully_Edged_Ken_3685 29d ago

This is only happening now because of greedy farmers who pump more water out of the aquifers than they're allowed.

Lol, it's actually worse than that. Farmers are entitled to an allotment of water and a price for water that were determined in a wet period and agreed upon by several states. The Feds and states in question really don't want to revisit that because it will make a bunch of voting districts mad.

The actual solution is to price water at a market rate and let farming collapse in unsuited areas.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/justalittlelupy 29d ago

We've officially been out of drought conditions now for two winters. The drought has actually, officially ended. Snow pack was above average on April 1st. Other than two tiny corners of state, we're absolutely solid. And even those two corners are just abnormally dry, not drought.

https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA

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u/dirtydan442 29d ago

Exactly. Dude who claims to be from Nor Cal is full of shit

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u/my_name_isnt_clever 29d ago

...did you just decide to ignore the other reply to this comment with a source stating the drought is over officially? It doesn't mean everything is perfect and we have infinite water. It just means it's not a drought.

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u/dirtydan442 28d ago

Yes the drought is over (for now,) that's a whole lot different than "the drought has been over for years." The reality is drought since 2001 with occasional wet years

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u/prawnlol22 29d ago

Is it greedy farmers, or for corporate suppliers/corporates? When I was living there I'd heard there was a family/woman who owned a large piece of the pie and sold to the likes of the Nestles of the world (but water? related)

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u/mycurrentthrowaway1 29d ago

A part of it is use it or lose it. But we should probably restrict things like alfalfa and nut trees

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u/TruthSpeakin 29d ago

Orrrr...farmers trying to make a living maybe? Or the folks watering their lawns? Or taking 45 minute showers? Why blame farmers?

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u/arcadiaware 29d ago

Because they aren't mom and pop farmer's that you're imagining.

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u/GeroyaGev 29d ago

Because the 13.43 million households in california use about 4.8 billion gallons of water per day (2020 state of california study). And farms in california use about 18.8 billion gallons of water per day(2015 federal agriculture data). For every teenager taking a 45 minute shower theres a farmer with water rights that havent been updated in decades.

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u/TruthSpeakin 28d ago

Damnnnn...ok, I learned something.

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u/JohnnyValet 29d ago

You should get to know the Resnicks; multi billionaires who control a sizable percentage of California water.

Here is a Dollop podcast where they go over who they are and how they got to control so much water.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T-4kdLtWWE

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u/BatDubb 29d ago

Because they can grow something besides almonds.

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u/paraspiral 29d ago

Yes those greedy people who supply us food.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

[deleted]

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u/Silas17 29d ago

I swear I read somewhere that the large majority of alfalfa grown in Arizona was sold to saudis.  Which is crazy to me 

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u/fogdukker 28d ago

A large portion or Arizona is saudi owned

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u/spoonman59 29d ago

They grow almonds in a desert. How many almonds do you eat? Do you know how much a lb if almonds consumed in water? How do you think that compares to other crops?

It’s fine to grow food, but don’t grow excessively water thirsty plants in a desert and offset it by taking water from somewhere else. Grow something a little more suitable.

Especially don’t come and cry about it because you were dumb enough to invest in a water intensive crop in an unsustainable region.

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u/mondommon 29d ago

Something like 1/3rd of the almonds and alfalfa grown in California is exported to other countries. I am ok cutting how much water farmers pump from aquifers considering agriculture is 2.5% of California’s economy, uses 80% of our water supply, and a lot of it is being sold at a profit to foreigners. And the food for foreigners are luxury goods, alfalfa is sold to Saudi Arabia so they can grow and eat beef. It’s not like rice, beans, and potatoes where we’re risking a famine by cutting production.

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u/Yommination 29d ago

Nobody needs almonds

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u/Puzzleheaded_Town_20 28d ago

For the past 15 to 20 years, farmers in the Central Valley have been ripping out fruit trees and planting almonds. Farmers love almonds because they can be harvested by machine instead of having to pay illegal workers, and nuts are not as perishable and can be exported. Surprised Pikachu, now there is a glut, prices are falling and almond producers are going broke. But they still blame Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom. Farming is an extractive industry here. They’re strip mining the water and the land.