interviews
Water and the American West
by Richard Frank
October 25, 2021
This interview with Richard Frank, professor of environmental practice at the UC Davis School of Law and Director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
frank | Can you tell me a little bit about the story of water and how it's tied to the West, and to California in particular?
Richard | A friend of mine who's a Court of Appeals Justice here in California wrote an opinion on a water law dispute and started it with the quote, "the history of California is written on its waters." And I think that the point is true of the entire American West.
Water policy and legal issues are inextricably tied to the development of the Western United States; water is the limiting factor in so many ways to settlement, to economic development, to prosperity, and to the environment and environmental preservation.
Can you talk about the difference between groundwater and surface water– and the policies that regulate each?
There are really two types of water when it comes to human consumption. There's surface water: that is the water that is transmitted by lakes, rivers, and streams. Then there is groundwater, and a substantial amount of water that Americans and the American West rely on is groundwater. That is water that is stored in groundwater aquifers, which are naturally occurring groundwater basins. Both groundwater and surface water are critical to the American West and its economy and its culture.
Traditionally a couple of things are important to note, first of all, water is finite. Second, water gets allocated in the Western United States generally at the state level. There's a limited federal role. Primarily, policy decisions about who gets how much water for what purpose are made state by state.
I think allocation is really interesting in that it's more state-level than federal. How was water and the allocation of water in California designed? Is it a public-private combination? What goes on in terms of the infrastructure of water?
Another very good question. The answer is it depends. Most of our water infrastructure is public in nature.
Again, in the American West, the regulation of water rights is generally done at the state level, but the federal government, historically, has a major water footprint in the American West because it has been federal dollars and federal design and management that really controlled much of the major water infrastructure in the American West — you know, Hoover Dam, and the complex system of dams and reservoirs on the Colorado River in California, with the Central Valley Project that was built and managed by the federal government with Shasta Dam on the upper Sacramento River as the centerpiece of that project. But we also have a California State Water Project, the key facility being the Oroville Dam and reservoir on the Southern River that is managed by state water managers. If we were starting over, that kind of parallel system would make no particular engineering or operational sense.
But, we are captive to our history.
And then you have these massive systems of aqueducts and canals that move water from one place to another throughout the American West. They are particularly responsible for moving water from surface water storage facilities to population centers. In the last 50 to 75 years, these population centers have really expanded dramatically, so you need massive infrastructure to deliver water from those storage facilities, the dams, and reservoirs, which generally are located in remote areas to the population centers. So it takes a lot of time and energy to transport the water, from where it is captured and stored to where it is needed for human use.
California has faced continuous drought – what measures is the state taking now to manage water?
Just to frame the issue a little bit — we have, as I mentioned, a growing population in the American Southwest at a time when the amount of available water is shrinking due to drought and due to the impacts of climate change. We have growing human demand for residential and commercial purposes and at the same time, we have a shrinking water supply. That is a huge looming crisis.
And it is beginning to play out in real-time. You see that playing out in real-time. For example, several different states and Mexico rely on Colorado River flows based on an allocation system that was created in the 1920s, which is overly optimistic about the amount of available water. From the 1920s until now, that water supply has decreased, and decreased, and decreased. Now you have interstate agreements, and in the case of Mexico, international agreements that allocate the finite Colorado river water supplies based on faulty, now obsolete, information. It is a real problem.
What measures do you take now, knowing this information?
If you look at the US Drought Monitor, it is obvious the problem is not limited to the Colorado River. We are in a mega-drought, so cutbacks are being imposed by federal and state water agencies to encourage agricultural, urban, and commercial water users to cut their water use and, and stretch finite supplies as much as possible through conservation efforts.
In California, we have the State Water Resources Control Board, the state water regulator in California, and they have issued curtailment orders. Meaning, they have told water rights holders, many of whom have had those water rights for over a hundred years, that, for the first time, the water that they feel they are entitled to, is not available. Local water districts are also issuing water conservation mandates; the San Francisco water department is doing that, in Los Angeles, the metropolitan water district, is urging urban users to curtail their efforts.
And then agriculture. Agricultural users — farmers and ranchers — have had to get water rights in many cases through the federal government, as the federal government is the operator of these water projects. They have contracts with water users, individual farmers, ranchers, or districts, and they are now issuing curtailment orders. They're saying, we know you contracted for X amount of water for this calendar year, but we are telling you because of the drought shortages we don't have that water to supply. Our reservoirs are low at Lake Shasta or at the Oroville Dam.
When you drive from San Francisco to LA on the five, you see a lot of signage from the agricultural farming community about water. There's apparently some frustration about this. What are the other options for them?
About 80% of all human consumed water goes to agriculture. That is by far the biggest component of water use, as opposed to 20% used for urban and commercial, and industrial purposes.
Over the years, ranchers and farmers, and agricultural water districts assumed that the water would always be there — as we all do.
And the farmers and ranchers have, in hindsight, exacerbated the problem by bringing more and more land into production. You see on those drives between San Francisco and Los Angeles, particularly in the San Joaquin Valley, all these orchards are being planted. Orchards are more lucrative crops than row crops — cotton, alfalfa, and rice. But, if you are growing a row crop, you can leave the land fallow in times of drought.
We don't have to plant. If the water stopped there, or if it's too expensive to get, it may make economic sense, but if you have an orchard or a vineyard it's a high value, those are high value crops, you don't have that operational flexibility and they need to be irrigated in wet years and in dry years. Now, you see these orchards, which were only planted a few years ago, are now being uprooted because the farmers realized that they don't have the water necessary to keep those vineyards and orchards alive. For ranchers, the same thing is true with their herds. They don’t have enough water for their livestock.
The water shortage has never been drier than it is right now. Farmers and ranchers are being deprived of water that they traditionally believed was theirs and they're very understandably, very unhappy about it. They see it as a threat to their livelihood and to the livelihood of the folks who work for them. Their anger and frustration are to be expected, but it's nobody's fault.
To say, as some farmers do, that it is mismanagement by state and federal government officials, I think is overly simplistic and misplaced in the face of a mega-drought. Everybody's going to have to sacrifice. Everybody's going to have to be more efficient in how they use water. All sectors are going to need to be more efficient with the water that does exist.
Looking at this percentage breakdown of water use – is it actually important for individual users to change their water habits?
Well, every little bit helps. When you're talking about homeowners, about 70% of urban water use is for outdoor irrigation. So we're talking parks and cemeteries and golf courses and folks' yards. You know, that used to be considered part of that American dream and the California dream — you would have a big lawn in front of your house and behind your house. Truth be told, that has never made much sense in an arid environment. That's where the water savings in urban areas is critical in the way it really involves aesthetics rather than critical human needs, like water for drinking and bathing and sanitation purposes. There is a growing movement away from big lawns, and away from the type of landscaping that you see in the Eastern US — there is no drought in the Eastern United States. As Hurricane Ida and other recent storms have shown, the problem is too much water, or rather than too little in most of the Eastern United States. So it really is a tale of two countries.
We just need to recognize that the American West is an arid region. It has always been an arid region, we can't make the desert bloom with water that doesn't exist. We need to be more efficient in how we allocate those water supplies. And it seems to me in an urban area, the best way to conserve and most effective way is to reduce urban landscaping, which is the major component of urban water use.
You also write about water markets and making them better – for those who don’t know, what is the water market?
Water markets, that is, the voluntary transfer of water between water users, is more robust in some other Western states. Again Arizona and New Mexico come to mind. California somewhat surprisingly is behind the curve. We are in the dark ages compared to other states. Water markets are kind of anecdotal. There is not much of a statewide system. It is done at the local level, through individual transactions without much oversight and without much transparency. And I have concerns about all of those things.
I believe conceptually watermarks are a way to stretch scarce, finite water resources to make water use more efficient. I can, for example, allow farmers or ranchers to sell water to urban uses or commercial usage or factories in times of drought.
Farmers sometimes can make more money by farming water, than they can by farming crops.
There are efficiencies to be gained here.
The problem in my view is really one of transparency. The water markets are not publicly regulated, and some of the people who are engaging in water transactions like it that way, frankly, they want to operate under the radar.
In my opinion, water markets need to be overseen by a public entity rather than private or nonprofit entities. We need oversight and transparency, so that folks like you and myself can follow the markets to see who's selling water to whom, for what purpose, and make sure that those water transfers serve the public interests and not just the private interests.
There have been a number of stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Salt Lake City Tribune about efforts in some parts to privatize water transfer. Hedge fund managers are buying and selling water, as a means of profiting. And it strikes me that when you're talking about an essential public resource — and in California, it is embedded in the law that public water is an inherently public resource, that water is owned by the public and it can be used for private purposes, but it is an inherently public resource — the idea of commoditizing water through the private, opaque markets is very troublesome to me. I think it represents a very dangerous trend and one that needs to be corrected and avoided.
Why is California so behind?
There's no good reason for it. It's largely inexplicable that since the state was created on September 9th, 1860, we've been fighting over water. In the 19th century, it was miners versus farmers ranchers. In the 20th century, with the growth of urban communities, the evolution of California into one of the most populous states with 40 million Californians, it has been a struggle between urban and agricultural uses of water.
In the second half of the 20th century, there was a recognition that some component of water had to be left in streams to protect ecosystems, landscape, and wildlife, including the threatened and endangered wildlife. That suggestion has made agricultural users in California angry. You will see those signs that allude to the idea that food and farming are more important than environmental values. I don't happen to believe that's true. I believe both are critically important to our society. But the advocates for the environment have a proverbial seat at the water table. So that's another demand for water allocation that exists.
Do you maintain optimism?
Yes. I think it's human nature to look on the bright side. I try to do that through research scholarships and teaching. There are models for how we can do this better in the United States. Israel and Saudi Arabia and Singapore are far more efficient with their water policies and efforts. Australia went through a severe megadrought. They came out of it a few years ago, but they used that opportunity to dramatically reform their water allocation systems. That's an additional model. I think most people would agree in hindsight that their previous system was antiquated, and not able to meet the challenges of climate change and the growing water shortage in some parts of the world.
Here in the United States, we can learn from those efforts. There are also some ways to expand the water supply. Desalination for one. Again, Singapore and Saudi Arabia have led the world in terms of removing the salt content from ocean water and increasing water supply that way. In Carlsbad, California, north of San Diego, we have the biggest desalination plant in the United States right now, and that is currently satisfying a significant component of the San Diego metropolitan areas’ water needs. It's more expensive than other water supplies, but the technology is getting more refined, so the cost of desalinated water is coming down at a time when other water supplies, due to shortages and the workings of the free market are going up.
At some point, they're going to meet or get closer. Unlike some of my environmental colleagues, I think desalination is an important part of the equation.
In a proposal that came up in the recall election, one of the candidates was talking about how we just need to build a canal from the Mississippi River to California to take care of all our problems. That ignores political problems associated with that effort, as well as the massive infrastructure costs that would be required to build and maintain a major aqueduct for 2000 miles from the Mississippi to California. That's just not going to happen. Some of those pie in the sky thoughts of how we expand the water supply, I think, are unrealistic.
interviews
What Does the Future of Global Plastic Pollution Look Like?
by Katherine Shayne
January 29, 2019
Katherine is an environmental engineer, UGA College of Engineering faculty, and Co-founder & CEO of Can I Recycle This, Inc. Focusing on solutions to the ocean plastic pollution problem, Katherine serves as a SOA Youth Ocean Leader where she chairs a committee to inform international governments about youth-led solutions to marine debris.
I'm an environmental engineer, I do environmental research consulting, working with companies around the issue of global plastic pollution, and ways in which we can find solutions to the problem. One of the companies that I'm currently working with is Parley for the Oceans. They take what is deemed ocean plastic, and turn it into products that consumers can buy and reuse. It's what some people call an upcycling mechanism, so you're taking something that is virtually trash, and you're making it into products that are sellable in the global market. Which is a big part of recycling in that when products are recycled, if they don't have a market value, they tend to become trash. Non-valuable materials are taken to the landfill, which ultimately actually costs the recycling system in many ways, through transportation and fees at the landfill.
One of the biggest things we see is that there isn’t enough market value for the post-consumer plastics we're creating. We've developed a company called Can I Recycle This, which uses artificial intelligence, specifically image and voice recognition, to inform consumers about the end of life of their products. Therefore reducing contamination in recycling centers if people are putting the right things in their recycling bin.
For example, you could say, "Hey Alexa, ask Green Girl ..." Green Girl is like our Alexa, she's our personality. "Hey Alexa, ask Greengirl if I can recycle this coke bottle." First she's going to figure out where you are, because you have location services enabled, and then she'll come back and say, "Is it plastic or is it glass?" If you say, "Plastic." Then most of the time, your city is going to take plastic PET Coca Cola bottles, and then if you say glass, you actually might not be able to recycle that, depending on your location.
What we found is that every city, every county, or what we call an MRF shed, takes different products and materials. Recycling is not the same across all boundaries in the United States, it's actually very different. Right now in Athens, where I live, glass is something that's taken by the recycling center, whereas in my hometown of Columbus, Georgia, it's not taken. But most consumers don't know that, so we've developed this technology to help consumers, and we're still in the process of developing the business; it’s in the bootstrap stage. We are self funded currently.
Beyond that, partnering with big box stores and online marketplaces would be our next step. Something is shipped to you, say you get a box from online, within your packaging, on your receipt, it'll tell you, "Based on where we shipped this package, x is recyclable, and x unfortunately has to be thrown away." We want to put that language in there, unfortunately, because we really don't want things, like precious materials to end up in the landfill. Beyond that, if we want to go into the zero waste mindset, instead of having it on a printed receipt that's in the box, have it in the email that comes when it says, "Your package has arrived." And just have it in the email somewhere.
This concept comes out of my research and the research from the Jambeck Research Group. I was a part of the Jambeck Research Group for five years at the University of Georgia. Jenna Jambeck is one of the co-founders with me for Can I Recycle This, so I still am very much involved with the research group, but in a different capacity now. We know that mismanaged waste is tied to what goes into the ocean.
It's key from land, because that means that there's something that's being mismanaged in waste systems, for those materials to end up in the ocean, especially plastic. This concept of how do we manage our materials better, how do we inform consumers? Really hits home, because it does tie into what gets out into the ocean. And now the recycling markets have been turned upside down with China’s implementation of their National Sword policy.
Amy Brooks published a paper about how much plastic would be displaced by 2030 because of the National Sword policy. We used to ship all of our plastic scrap to China.
This has already had implications. Plastic has been stockpiling on coasts in mostly developed countries around the world. Because it wasn't just us, it was other countries that shipped their waste to China. This type of policy makes the US, and other developed nations rethink their recycling schemes.
We have to figure out how we can have less contamination in the recycling stream. Because if you have a lot, say you have a bale of PET bottles, and 10% of those are actually replaced by foam plastic, like your styrofoam containers, because those were accidentally put into the stream, immediately that bale becomes way less valuable than it was if it was just PET bottles. We found that companies like Coca Cola, Unilever, Proctor Gamble, these big companies that produce a lot of these products that use plastic have goals for the future about using recycled content in their products.
By 2030, Coca Cola has said that they're going to use 50% recycled material, post consumer plastic in their products. To be sustainable, there has to be a stream of recycled content that comes from recycling facilities around the nation. That's where contamination is a big problem, because it can't use those bales that are contaminated.
I guess this is one of the reasons I really like waste, and products and waste management, is because it has this inherent human factor that we consciously have to think about what we purchase, what we throw away on a daily basis, and we're in contact with these things. It’s one of the only civil infrastructure systems that you really have to have a personal connection.
Do you think infrastructure is enough? Considering the mass amount of plastic we’re producing?
No, I definitely do not view waste management and solid waste infrastructure as the end all be all to our massive waste problem. I promote reduction of waste practices. And research has shown that small, individual acts of reduction and reuse actually make a tangible difference in decreasing waste into the ocean. Reusing bottles and things that you have, or purchasing reusable bottles, things that you can refill, because ultimately the water that you're drinking out of a plastic bottle is just tap water, so why not drink something we already have for a very reduced cost? In the US that's very possible, however I do a lot of international traveling for research, and in many countries this is not necessarily the case.
There are a lot of countries that rely on using bottled water, rely on using packaged materials for hygiene, because they don't have clean drinking water. So in these places, this isn't something they can necessarily do. Changing that type of infrastructure is important as well. Having refill stations, or places that do filter water stations. Solid waste infrastructure is different in every country. Informal waste sectors are very much prevalent in other countries. They are still here in the US, we still have informal waste, and people that are going and searching out valuable materials, but it's much more prevalent in other places around the world.
Waste management is not necessarily the end all be all, but it's a key solution. Definitely the reduction of waste in the first place, the reduction of plastic production and use has to be part of that solution as well.
To put this into context, this would be the equivalent of 25,000 Empire State Buildings by weight. We’ve produced 6300 Million Metric tons of plastic waste and only roughly 9% of what we generate of plastic waste is recycled. We're throwing away tons of plastic that could actually be valuable. Not only that, but we're producing a lot of plastic to replace material like glass, wood, metal, and other materials that we could definitely continue using. We would just have to figure out how to use them in a sharing economy.
If you have a glass bottle, make it accessible to refill stations or places that sell in bulk. Instead of having everything packaged in plastic, have grocery stores and wholesale stores sell in bulk quantities, where you can refill bottles, or containers with what you need. We've seen some of this change, but it's still a very niche market change. We are always open to larger marketplaces, making this something that is more mainstream. Right now we're seeing it in very mom and pop shops, or places like Earth Fare, where it might not be economical for someone in a lower socioeconomic level to shop. Making these market changes to where these services are available for everyone is another place I’d like to see change.
There's the reduction side and reuse side, but we have to start looking at new materials as well. That's also a solution. We've moved to plastic for packaging overtime because of the weight and the cost of shipping that, but what can we use besides plastic? Instead of this more or less toxic material, why aren't we looking at more bio benign materials, biodegradable materials? I think on the packaging side we're going to see more, and on the food packaging side especially, we're going to see more materials that are being made with properties not harmful to the environment, harmful to people, and are easily managed.
We do some of this research at UGA, at the New Materials Institute, and we're looking at the biodegradability of certain types of bio-based polymers, and how this fits into a consumer composting scheme. If we produce these materials, how do we let consumers know that these are compostable materials? Because they look and feel like plastics. Are there composting infrastructures for collection? Because you can produce these materials and make them biodegradable, but if people don't have access to a composting facility, they're going to end up in the landfill or in the recycling. This would actually cause contamination because they're not the same type of plastic as other packaging.
Alternate materials are something I see happening for large store, food packaging and online marketplaces. With online shopping and shipping, I foresee an increase in post consumer packaging waste that isn’t recyclable. Packaging can become more circular through implementation of a thoughtful design process. Companies can employ green design principles, where end of life is thought of at the beginning of the design process, and products and packaging are made to be easily disassembled. New materials could fit into this design process. Image if you could just compost all the packaging your products, food, etc. was shipped in?
When you really start to research plastic, a lot of the information comes from people like you, from places like the Jambeck Group. What is it like watching reporters, civilians, politicians, interpret then promote or disregard your work?
When I first started, the space for waste management and plastic discussions was kind of crappy. You could put something on Twitter about a turtle ingesting plastic, and no one really cared, which was sad. Now the climate is totally different. I think that plastic use, plastic generation, the work that's being done around it ending up in the ocean, the attention that it's getting is just astronomically different now, compared to what it was five or six years ago. I'm even a newcomer in this space compared to some of the people I admire, who have been doing this work for 20+ years.
That's really exciting for me to say, because people are starting to realize that we can't continuously use and waste everything. It's not going to work. We have to use our resources wisely, we have to think consciously about what we put in our bodies every day, what we put on our bodies, what we use. I think that trend is not something that's going to go away anytime soon.
Some of it can be doom and gloom, like we can never clean up the ocean, we can never stop this from happening, we can't reduce our waste generation, and sometimes you just have to realize who might be putting out that content, and kind of fight against it. Because this is a very visible issue, it's something that's tangible, it's something that people can see and connect with. Even if they're not by an ocean, they've probably been to a body of water once in their life, and can somehow connect with polluting our waterways and polluting our ocean. It is so intrinsically tied to humans and tied to our daily routines and our daily habits that it's something that people can connect with, and I really love seeing that part of it.
Do you think with other countries following in China’s footsteps a solution for US production of plastic and waste will be forced?
Yes. For sure. Yes. Countries have already started to do that. I know Malaysia's one, Thailand's another one that said, "No more. We're not taking your waste either." It’s already forcing the US to reevaluate our system and our recycling and say, "What are we doing wrong? How can we reduce contamination, and how do we inform citizens?" Plastic scrap is accumulating and I think we're going to have to find markets to use it. We should be asking ourselves, “How do we makes these materials valuable? What companies, start-ups, etc. could develop products to use these materials?” I think that is a solution which will happen quickly in the US.
What does your future research look like?
Understanding composting in the US, because I do believe that a lot of our packaging is going to be shifting towards biodegradability, and then how we manage that, so I think that composting is going to be something that is on the rise in the US.
Secondly, we're doing some work with specific community assessments. Essentially looking at a community and figuring out what are the inputs into a community, how do they use their materials, how do they use the resources, and then what are the outputs? Then, where's the leakage to the environment? This research is being done in the group by one of my colleagues, Amy Brooks, right now, and it's something that can be applied globally.
Then thirdly, I'm currently heading a group through the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, which is a collection of global ocean youth leaders, looking specifically at the plastic pollution problem, and identifying solutions in specific countries. The Sustainable Oceans Alliance Group is made up of representation from 50 countries by youth leaders. I developed this group to develop white papers to for government and figure out what solutions are working in their specific countries. We’re going to make them aware that there is a youth presence in their countries who have actionable solutions to implement.
We are always looking to research sustainable waste infrastructure, and how to integrate then into developing economies. Like I mentioned before, there are cultural and social contexts to developing these systems that are inherently part of design process. They can’t be excluded, and I firmly believe that. So it’s exciting to see what we can learn from the informal waste sector, and community led initiative around solid waste management for reuse and reduction to curb input of waste into the ocean.