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
Money Alone Is Not Enough
by Michelle Miller-Adams
May 10, 2019
This interview with Michelle Miller-Adams, a professor and senior researcher at the Upjohn Institute, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
Part One of this conversation is available here.
When you look at and consider all of your research over the years, what is your ideal version of 'free college' programs? And how do you push what you know and what you're curious about to the forefront of our national conversation around college affordability?
As we enter another presidential primary, what would you like the conversation to look like? What do you think the most critical debate around this issue should be?
That is another great question, and actually, I'm about to start thinking seriously about it, because I'm about to write a book on this topic.
While I hope the ideas in my book will influence the national discourse, I'm not holding my breath for a national program, because I just think that politically, it's a really tough lift. If you look at the history of policy innovation in our country, this is exactly how it happens. Things get pioneered at the local level, and then they spread to other local communities, and then they may jump up to the states, and then maybe eventually, they'll find their way into federal policy. I just think that even though all the Democrats are talking about this, once they get in power, and depending who winds up in the Congress, a nationwide free-college program is not a surefire outcome.
That being said, we had a proposal in 2015 from President Obama that made a great deal of sense. To me, it's still the gold standard model out there for triangulating all of those various needs. It was called America's College Promise – no legislation was ever introduced but the policy proposal was out there. It was a federal-state partnership that would make community colleges tuition free. If states opted to participate–- and there were performance requirements if they did – the federal government would foot most of the bill. And importantly, it was designed to be a first dollar program.
That leads me to your question. I especially value programs that have universal eligibility. Basically, in programs like these, everybody can take a crack at it.
In a perfect world, which we don't live in, a first dollar program is far preferable to a last dollar program, because it has that better equity impact, where low-income students also get new money, and then they can use their Pell Grants to pay part of the way of their living expenses. If you do a universal program, and you focus it on community colleges, as Obama's program did and as Tennessee and Rhode Island do – whether first- or last-dollar – you are doing some de facto targeting. You are targeting low and moderate-income students, because honestly, Tatti, do you know many wealthy students who went to community college?
Very few.
Right. There may be a few, but that might just be the price you pay. If an affluent student is headed toward an elite or even semi-elite four-year institution, they're probably not going to make the decision to go to community college to get their $2,000 a year scholarship. On the other hand, students who weren't necessarily going anywhere, or those at the margin who are stressed in terms of finances, may decide to go to community college, and students on a four-year track may decide to start at the community college and cut their costs dramatically. Students do that all the time. I teach at a large state university, and we have plenty of students who started at a community college because it's cheaper – and then transfer to the four-year school to get their bachelor's.
Two other things are really important. One powerful lesson that we have learned over the years is that simplicity is your ally in these programs. With complex programs there's just too much confusion around the messaging. New York State has a program called the Excelsior Scholarship, and it's really innovative in one sense, which is that it allows students to go to public four-year institutions, as well as two-year community colleges, which is great. However, there is so much fine print that very few students actually qualify for the scholarship.
The simpler the better. If you can say it in a couple sentences, that's a good sign. But the other important element is this question of support. Thinking seriously about what kinds of resources are needed all along that educational continuum to help students, particularly those who haven't been successful in school, access higher ed, be successful in getting there, staying there and completing is really important.
Tennessee Promise has a mentorship program, and while the mentorship component is not as intensive as it was for the predecessor local program, it marks a recognition of the value of mentorship in helping students be successful in higher ed. Tennessee also has an adult free community college program called Tennessee Reconnect, and even that has a support structure built in. It doesn't come out of public money. It comes out of the philanthropic sector. There are a lot of ways to do this, but it's important to recognize that the money by itself is not going to change your outcomes that much.
As a short digression, I've been really busy, so I haven't been very active on Twitter, but I do want to respond to Pete Buttigieg's response…
He was pretty negative about free college. He basically said there's this huge college wage premium, where people with college degrees get paid a lot more than people who don't, and that's absolutely true. And he doesn’t like the idea of people without college degrees subsidizing those who are going to get the college wage premium. I think he misses the boat on this. The point of Promise programs is to bring those people who aren’t headed for college – whether because of confusion about the process or lack of financial resources – into the process so they can go on and get some of that college wage premium. Right?
Another presidential candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has come out with a number of big equity-based policy ideas and one of the latest is her plan for tuition-free college and student loan debt relief. Her ideas are bold and not always fully practical, but this one had an important element, which is that if we're going to make public colleges and universities tuition free, we had better also address the student loan burden. One of the challenges of free college is that if you come up with a national program, you still have all these people walking around with this huge student loan debt. So there's a real equity challenge there, if you aren't going to do something about the people who already got indebted, then it's sort of just a generational unfairness.
We're having that discussion in Michigan. Our new governor, just this week, introduced legislation for three tuition-free college initiatives, one for community colleges, one for four-year publics and one for adults, closely modeled on Tennessee, but there's no component that deals with the student debt situation, and the legislation. Because we have this very Republican Congress it's probably not going to go very far, but we'll see.
It’s a fascinating aspect of the free-college movement. A lot of money is being committed to support free-college initiatives without a lot of evidence about what they do and don’t accomplish. I know that because we sit here at ground zero of trying to generate some of that evidence, and there are many, many, many things we do not know. This is not a heavily researched, proven model where we really understand what we're doing.