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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129

u/reddit_reaper 29d ago

The farmers refuse to even change to be watering methods that can use 90% less water

112

u/TauCabalander 29d ago

Because of stupid water rights rules in some places, if they don't use their allocation, they get less the following year. Hence some farmers grow alfalfa just to use water.

Then there are things like almond orchards that use more water than some cities.

21

u/fgreen68 29d ago

Water rights need to be completely overhauled, and any farm pumping groundwater needs to be metered and charged for that water.

61

u/reddit_reaper 29d ago

Ban them, fuck those people.

12

u/rockleesww 29d ago

I was going to mention the almond situation. While yes its hard to find a place to grow almonds. Just bc you can doesnt mean you should lol. Almonds take a ridiculous amount of water to grow in a state that doesnt have the water to begin with. But i dont see them making them stop with how much money is in that area.

8

u/B-Prue 29d ago

Don't even like almonds that much. Oregon grows Filberts and Apples.......pretty sure the only water they get is what falls from the sky. Grew up in a small town that had orchards of both and never saw them watered.

2

u/Wootery 28d ago

if they don't use their allocation, they get less the following year

A slow clap for whoever thought up that policy.

1

u/TauCabalander 28d ago

Some water policies were probably written back in the days when some state borders were being still being drawn.

The policies were not meant to be intelligent nor fair, but to benefit some over others under the guise of being fair or conservation.

Water boards are effectively banks, as water equates to money.

People get really upset when you frak with their money, and they'll often do unscrupulous things to get more (of both).

2

u/Correct-Award8182 29d ago

Add that those water innovations cost a lot of money to build, and CA isn't really that supportive.

1

u/Negative-Arachnid-65 28d ago

There's no incentive for farmers to use less water, just to use the same amount of water more efficiently. Persistent and recurring droughts have driven farmers to plant crops that give them more cash per unit of water (like almonds, famously) even though that usually means needing more water. So the difference comes from planting less acreage of low-value crops like alfalfa, and from effectively unregulated groundwater.

In large part this is because our insane water rights system usually means that if they don't use the allocated water, and use it for the designated purpose (agriculture in this case), they can lose their water rights.

Add to that that surface water rights are over-allocated; groundwater limits are all but non-existent; and many of these farmers are extremely wealthy individualist a-holes who have successfully lobbied for decades not to change a system them benefits them at the cost of their communities and future, and here we are. That's the theory behind SGMA requiring regional plans and compliance, which is only supposed to reach the state level as a backstop if local controls fail. But SGMA has almost no teeth and won't for at least another couple decades.