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
Being Not-Rich with Lauren Schandevel
by Lauren Schandevel
May 15, 2019
This interview with Lauren Schandevel, creator of Being Not-Rich at UM, was conducted and condensed by frank news.
Tatti: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Lauren: I am a 4th year public policy student at the University of Michigan. Most of my work has centered around college affordability in particular. About a year ago, I crowdsourced the Being Not-Rich at UM document, which was a great resource for low income students. It was also a place to come together and realize other people were experiencing the same things, and help each other out. That's the thing that launched my career doing housing and food insecurity work on campus. I've met a lot of students on other campuses that are doing similar work. It's been really exciting.
Why did you start the doc?
The document itself is just a Google document with the sharing settings tweaked so that anyone can make suggestions or leave comments. It was crowd sourced in response to an affordability guide that our Central Student Government put out about a year ago that has some pretty tone deaf advice about budgeting – low income students were put off or offended by it. This was a response to that with substantial advice that low income students could use without the stigma or added judgment of having that advice come from an institutional figure.
Initially it was just an outline. I put the introduction in first, setting the tone for what the document would be. And then I had headings – housing, employment, on campus resources, food – people just filled in the information as they came in. Now it's grown to about a hundred pages. Before it was just a couple pages, like a skeleton outline.
What was so tone deaf on an institutional level that prompted you to start this yourself?
I think it's important to start by talking about how students perceive Central Student Government at the University of Michigan. They release reports on their demographic information each year and they're usually wealthier and less racially diverse than the rest of the student body. People already have that perception of them. When they put out the guide, the first 10 pages or so were devoted to budgeting, a lot of the advice was like, “fire your maid”, or, "stop laundry service".
That was the main issue we took with it. It wasn't like we were spending our money frivolously and that's why we were struggling. It's that we don't have a lot of money to begin with, and it's hard to live on the University of Michigan's campus.
Did you send the doc to student government or to anybody on an institutional level?
The university administration knows that it exists and certain departments like the Office of New Student Programs have collaborated with me to turn it into a more institutional thing. I chaired the Central Student Government affordability task force this year and they're going to have an affordability commission permanently from now on. So that's great.
One thing I've noticed is a lot of the time it's students taking the initiative, particularly on our campus. Students are doing most of the housing and food security work. That should not be the case. The university should take responsibility, especially in the instance of housing. They're admitting more students than they have housing for, and it's on them to build housing and make sure students have a place to live when they get to campus.
Food insecurity is the same. We just got a permanent food pantry. But a lot of that was because of student activism over the years. We shouldn't be the ones pushing the university on basic needs, particularly because low income students have a million other things to worry about.
Do you think the work is moving towards that goal?
I think it's moving in that direction, not just here but nationally. The Hope Center in Philadelphia has been at the forefront of these discussions about housing and food insecurity on college campuses. They've published a lot of reports, they hold an annual conference. People are becoming more attuned to these issues and the fact that they exist on college campuses.
How does the wealth gap you're recognizing affect students socially?
I feel like that is part of the conversation that's often ignored. Obviously there are financial barriers to being a low-income student on a college campus. But there's also, like you said, a social aspect. Students arrive on campus and feel alienated from their peers, and don't understand why. A lot of it is because of that socioeconomic disparity – but they don't realize it.
It happens frequently and it's a huge reason why those students end up dropping out – because of a lack of the sense of belonging. I myself have felt that way, and I know a lot of my peers have too. The important thing is letting those students know that it's completely out of their control. It's a structural problem, and any sort of alienation they feel from their peers as a result of those socioeconomic barriers are not because they're not good enough for a university.
How can you can mitigate the social part of the problem?
I think low income and first generation college students need more community building spaces. I know first-gen activism has taken off over the last 10 years. You have offices for first-gen programming and first-gen learning communities, which is really great. The same thing should be done for low-income students on college campus’ so they can talk to each other and share experiences and realize that they're not alone in this college experience. University administrations need to recognize they have low-income students on their campus because it's a very touchy subject for them right now.
Acknowledging that it is a socioeconomic thing is probably the first step. Particularly in America, we don't talk about class. And so when we gravitate towards certain people, we don't know that it's because they share our socioeconomic background. They don't know that diversity also includes socioeconomic diversity. I feel like naming that issue and making it clear that a lot of the decisions we make are the results of our socio economic backgrounds will make it easier for people to see the class disparities in higher education, and it will hopefully empower low income students to advocate for themselves and to feel confident enough to participate in the college experience so that they're meeting different people, people who might be wealthier than themselves.
Do you feel like this perpetuates itself into the post-collegiate professional world?
Yes. It's a combination of financial and cultural factors. Wealthy students coming in have parents who have probably gone to college, that have careers where they can get the students internships or fellowships, and pay for them to do unpaid internships. There's that aspect of it. But then there's also that cultural capital. Those students know what clubs to join, they know where to apply, and they have connections somewhere. That trajectory is already set for them. Whereas low-income students can't afford to do unpaid internships, don't know anyone in the industry, don't know how to navigate the process of applying to those internships, or even that they have to do internships in college.
When do we need to start preparing students for these realities of college campuses?
This is one of the issues I have with college affordability activism – it starts way before students enter college. The K-12 education system is so vastly unequal, that needs to be addressed in addition to how we're setting up low-income students to succeed in college. There's so many low-income students we're not capturing because our education system is so unequal. It's a rare phenomenon to even get low-income students in the door at these elite institutions.
That needs to be addressed. But that’s a combination of segregation and the way public schools are funded. There are a number of legal ways in which rich parents give their kids a leg up in the admissions process.
Does your academic focus cover these issues?
Yes, I try to make that really clear. I am also responsible for creating a minor and social class in equality studies at the university. It basically teaches about how social class influences outcomes and access to opportunity.
That's something I tried to bring into my activism around affordability because affordability is inherently political, and to talk about it you also have to talk about class and race and all that stuff.
Class is a very un-American conversation.
Exactly. People are starting to have that conversation.
Do you find it easy to explain?
Oh, it's so hard. Particularly if you're communicating it to wealthy people, which a lot of the times I'm doing because of the campus. But telling people that their success is the result of the combination of hard work and privilege is really hard, and people get defensive. You have to coddle them a little and say, "You worked really hard in high school, but have you considered that these factors may have helped you get to a place like the University of Michigan?" And then they get it, but sometimes they're still mad because the American dream tells us that if you work hard you can succeed – and it doesn't say anything about class privilege.
What do you think happens to the value of college when the reality of attendance is so tied to privilege? As an employer, what does it really mean to hire someone from Yale, if I have no context for how they got there?
People are still under the impression that if you went to one of these very elite schools, you must be very smart and that's how we maintain the system. But if people start to think that, hey, maybe this is the result of socioeconomic privilege and not necessarily merit, then the only solution to keeping people from losing faith in the education system is to admit students in a truly meritocratic way, which means admitting very smart, high performing low-income students. Hopefully the problem solves itself that way. But if not, then we're going to have this distrust of higher education.