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
The Partisan Politics of National Security
by Chris Capozzola
March 23, 2020
This interview with Chris Capozzola, MIT professor and author of Bound by War: How the United States and the Philippines Built America’s First Pacific Century, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
frank | Could you start by introducing yourself?
Chris Capozzola | My name is Chris Capozzola. I'm a professor of history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I teach 20th-century US political and military history.
I want to talk about the politicization of the military. More specifically in this time period between World War II and Korea – when we see a real shift in Democrats' and Republicans' stance on the military.
I’m glad to have a chance to share this history, because I think most Americans in the 21st century take for granted that Republicans are the party of national defense, national security, and a big military, and that Democrats are the party against that. This was not always the case.
In the 1930s, we saw the reverse. The Depression was underway and war looming in Europe after the rise of Hitler. As president, Franklin Roosevelt was committed to creating an active place for the United States in the world, and understood the military as crucial to his goal.
Roosevelt faces opponents. Some within the Democratic party think of entering World War I as a mistake, and don't want to repeat it. The Republican party is concerned that expanding the US military would commit the US to being more active in geopolitical conflict , which might strengthen the Presidency at the expense of Congress, or the states, or the people.
Roosevelt has to navigate that tension as the war's really looming.
Once we enter World War II what happens?
In some ways, the debate about a military build up and aid for allies is intense and ongoing until December 7th, 1941. Pearl Harbor brings that debate to an end. During the war, there was bipartisan support for the war effort and for most efforts to expand federal power over the military.
It helps FDR with the effort that he had been making in domestic politics to expand federal power. I always like to say that the Democrats won World War II. They convinced the American public that a strong federal government that provides for its citizens and is deeply engaged in the world is the solution to their problems.
What is the context behind this Democratic position?
I think for many Democrats were from two directions in this time period.
On the domestic side, they are supporting Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. They really believed that an active federal government, at the national level, will do more for ordinary people to get them out of the Depression. They also remember Woodrow Wilson and his legacy at the end of World War I. Wilson was a Democrat. He wanted to bring the US into the League of Nations, but he was defeated, mostly by Republicans, but also by some Democrats. With Roosevelt, Democrats are pushing for the US to join the United Nations, and for the United States to establish NATO. They do not want to retreat from international affairs after World War II in ways that they had after World War I.
And after the war is over?
No one quite knows what the military should look like after World War II is over.
The military had expanded dramatically. 24 million men and women served during World War II. Everyone knew that it was not going to stay that big, but there were also new technologies – the atomic bomb, and the makings of what would eventually become the Air Force in 1947. No one really knew what kind of Army was needed. No one really knew if we should still have a draft. The draft was brought to an end after World War II. There were new policies for veterans, like the GI Bill, which was adopted in 1944. It was an effort both to reward veterans, and also to get them to show up at the polls and support politicians who supported veteran initiatives.
Everything was up in the air in 1945, importantly including, America's relationship with its wartime ally, the Soviet Union. The Second World War has created a very cautious alliance between the US and the Soviets against Germany, and that alliance just falls apart as the Cold War replaces the Second World War. As the Cold War emerges, you see a shift in terms of the parties and politics of national defense and national security.
What’s the shift?
Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans support Communism. Neither party wants to see the Soviet Union succeed. Both parties agree that Communism is a threat to the American way of life. However, they don't necessarily agree on how to approach the issues, and between 1948 and 1950 the Democrats are taking the heat for any setback in the war against Communists. Harry Truman, a democrat, is the president. As the Chinese Communist party under Mao's control is consolidating its power, Truman is charged with losing China. Republicans use Communism to critique the Democrats, and that becomes a central way that Republicans have challenged Democrats on national security.
Ever since then, Republicans have generally been pushing for stronger anti-Communist measures, and larger military forces, and the Democrats have been put on defense.
The next war the US enters is Korea. What’s the partisan response then?
That's why this period from 1949 to 1950 is so intense, because you have the Chinese Civil War and the Chinese Revolution that leads to a Communist victory. You also have news that the Soviets have the atomic bomb.
Once again, Truman, a Democratic president, gets the blame for Korea. The US experiences some military victories, but a lot of defeat. Very quickly, the war in Korea becomes a stalemate between the Communist and non-Communist forces. This makes it harder and harder for Truman to say that the Democrats have the right answer on defense.
What's the public Republican stance on Korea?
It’s two-fold. There's certainly bipartisan support for stopping Communism and for supporting American troops and allied troops in Korea. But there are also plenty of Republicans who want to take the war efforts a step further.
Truman doesn't want the war to get big because he knows it would start to affect the economy. It might require drafting large numbers of American soldiers, and he knows that the war is not that popular. Also, Americans don't quite understand the stakes of this war - its complicated and far away. It's not clear to Americans why this is part of American interest.
There are plenty of Republicans who are angered by Truman's limited war strategy. Including General Douglas MacArthur, who starts publicly advocating a much more aggressive war, even while he's serving in uniform under Truman.
Certainly through Iraq and Afghanistan. How does the electorate respond to the transition?
I think the transition happens during the Korean War, but I think we can see it playing out for the average American voter over the course of the Vietnam War in the 1960s.
Kennedy made moves to bring us into Vietnam, and Johnson, of course, expanded the war. He does this, in part, because he felt that, as a Democrat, if he did't send American troops to Vietnam, he would be seen as weak on defense. He feared that he would look as bad as Truman did for having lost China and Korea. Over the course of the Vietnam War era, you start to see the emergence of an anti-war position within the Democratic party. Senator Eugene McCarthy, a critic of the Vietnam War, challenges Johnson during reelection. .
This is where the Vietnam War is different from the Korean War. With the Korean War, there is a bipartisan consensus that the war needs to happen, that the Communists need to be stopped, and that Americans need to beat them -there was just division about who had the better plan. By the end of the Vietnam War, there is an anti-war wave in the Democratic Party, and that will remain an important force. It was critical of Reagan's Cold War policies. It was critical of the War in Iraq in 2003 and 2004, and continues to be a voice today.
Do you think there’s a clear Democratic line on military engagement or intervention post-Vietnam?
I don't think so. In fact, you see deep divisions within the Democratic party today and in the last 10 or 15 years about when to use military force. Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright felt military intervention was necessary in the late-90s in Kosovo. Some of President Obama's advisors advocated a greater involvement in the war in Syria. But Obama's hesitation to committing US troops to Syria, reflected the ongoing reluctance within the Democratic party to engage in large-scale military commitments abroad.
It seems that there are similarities in this in terms of the Republican narrative. Since Korea, the GOP has been strong on defense, big on military. President Trump and a rising white nationalist sentiment seeks a return to isolationist conservatism. On the left, Senator Sanders moves towards pacifism. Actionably, how different are those stances?
I would make a distinction there. One wing of the Democratic Party has a clear spokesman in Senator Sanders – an anti-interventionist who would actually seek to reduce American troop strength, reduce the number of US missiles. President Trump, for all his talk has made few moves. And in the moves he has taken are anti-interventionist nor do they reduce the size of the military. Instead, he is simply shifting from multilateralism towards unilateralism.
Unilateralism is about going it alone. This is what President Trump calls "America First." There was, in fact, an organization in the 1930s called "American First," which sought to oppose international treaty commitments, the League of Nations, and multilateral forces. In that sense, Trump is not inventing something new. He's tapping into a very old strand in the Republican Party, the kind of thing that was right there in the 1930s, and that Franklin Roosevelt had been fighting against when he was trying to get us ready to fight Germany and Japan.
There is a hyper-clear difference in motive and context. But what’s the difference in terms of orders?
The difference would be very visible in military size and its power. President Trump has made no moves to reduce troop strength, to reduce troop presence at overseas bases.I think that an anti-interventionist president from the Democratic Party would make those moves. That's the difference between a reductionist approach, or even a disarmament approach, and a shift towards unilateralism.
Does this say anything about party ideas around hegemony or global order?
The years of the Cold War, when the US was a clear power on one side and the Soviets on the other, are maybe more of the exception than the rule. In the years before the Second World War there were multiple competing powers: Britain, Germany, the United States was rising. As we move into the 21st century, I think we’re looking at a more multipolar world again. The US will certainly be a strong power, but so will China, so will Russia, so will various European powers.
I think as that multipolar world plays out, and as Americans start to understand that, they will want leaders who can help them navigate that. A lot of Americans, of every political viewpoint, are still operating under a Cold War mindset. They are imaging that we will always live in a bipolar world, but we probably won't, and we might already not.
Do you think, politically, on the right and the left, we need to acknowledge US standing internationally?
Yes. I think there's also a space in between that's actually quite larger. It's something that critics on both the right and the left call, "The Washington Consensus," which is a shared bipartisan viewpoint that the United States should be the most powerful force in the world, that it will work through multilateral institutions where it holds a disproportionate power, and that this will keep the United States the force that determines, that sets the rules, of the global game.
That's the most common opinion, the one held in the middle by most of both parties. That idea isn't at the front of people's mindsets right now, in part because it's not the viewpoint of our current president, but it hasn't really gone anywhere. It certainly is part of the day-to-day operation of both civilian and military institutions.
Do you think the politicization of the military is inherently bad?
The politicization of the military is always bad, in the sense that it is bad for democracy in general.
That's part of what makes a democratic military democratic. By design military institutions are hierarchical and insulated from partisan politics and, to some extent, from democratic accountability. We have to trust them, and we trust them most when we feel like they represent us and that they reflect us.
Over the last 40 years or so, there has been a divergence in who serves in the US Armed Forces. This is, in large part, a product of the institution of the all-volunteer force in 1973, the end of the draft, as well as broader trends toward inequality: both inequality in terms of wealth, but also education and job opportunities particularly for young people in the 18-to-30-year-old range. This has basically made it less and less likely that all Americans will serve.
This is something that all Americans should be concerned about, and I'm not sure that there's a clear solution to it. I'm not sure that bringing back the draft is a solution to that. It certainly wouldn't give us the highly-skilled, professional, high-tech Army that we have now. It's not clear we should unmake the Army we have now just to solve social problems that are external to the Army itself.
There's a quote I think of often and will butcher, that is maybe misattributed to Thucydides, that says, "The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” Do you feel like historically there was a lesser divide because the draft or size of the wars, or is this a reflection of rhetoric over time?
I think it's a reflection. I mean, certainly, the draft was the mechanism, but it wasn't the cause, if that makes sense.
Right.
The service in the US Armed Forced by large swaths of the male population was caused by the draft. But the US Armed Forces have changed, and would have changed even if we kept the draft. We are an incredibly technologically advanced military right now that does best when people join and stay for a long time to learn skills. But as they do stay in the US military, they start to develop its own values, and when those values start to diverge from the values of the population that doesn't serve, then those differences get accentuated.
But I'm not surprised that only 1% of Americans have served in the US Armed Forces. I always compare that statistic to the fact that only 1% of Americans are farmers, but we still eat every day. But you might also say, "Well, we don't live as close to the land today. We don't understand our land. We don't understand our food." I think that same disconnect is sort of happening with the military.
We don't necessarily understand the choices that the military makes, we don't understand the service that they do on a daily basis. I'm not sure we can undo either our food system or our defense system, but we should think about what kinds of indirect effects they're having on our society.
I feel bad asking historians to predict the future, but I’m going to anyway. Where do you think we go from here?
Well, yes, you're right. Historians don't like to predict the future. But when we are asked to, we know one way to get it right every time, which is to say, "This too shall change." I really do think that is the case.
When some sort of demographic shift happens, or, God forbid, some kind of military crisis happens, they could shift rapidly again.
The tasks of the US Armed Forces will also change in the future. We tend to think that large land wars with hundreds of thousands of infantry soldiers are over, but they might not be. There will be other crises, particularly related to global public health, to the global climate emergency, to natural disasters. That may require a different kind of military, and it would probably require different ways of thinking about who serves in it.