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 Debt We Still Owe
by William "Sandy" Darity
September 10, 2020
This interview with William "Sandy" Darity, Samuel Dubois Cook professor of public policy, African and African American studies and Economics at Duke, head of the Samuel Dubois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke, and co-author of the book From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
What is wealth?
It's important to distinguish wealth from income because I think that people frequently confuse the two. Income is a flow of resources that people receive, primarily their earnings. Wealth is a stock of resources-- the difference between what you own and what you owe - the net value of your personal property.
Wealth is important because it provides a resource that can offset income losses in emergencies - situations where an individual might lose a job, or a family is confronted with a catastrophic illness. In all of these situations, if you are part of a wealthier household or family it is easier to cope with the situation because you can draw upon your wealth to compensate for your loss in income.
What opportunities are you locked out from if you can't accumulate wealth?
Wealth provides you with an opportunity to more fully participate in the political process in the United States. Electoral politics in the U.S. are driven by money.
Wealth provides you with the opportunity to buy your way into higher amenity neighborhoods that include higher-quality schools for your children. And if you are dissatisfied with the public schools, you can purchase private education for your children.
It becomes possible for wealthier families to make sure that their sons and daughters leave college with a degree in hand and no significant amount of student debt.
Wealthier households have the capacity to transfer resources across generations in a way in which households that have little or no wealth cannot. There are intergenerational benefits that are associated with being part of a wealthier family. You could argue that wealth begets wealth in the sense that if you start with higher levels of wealth, you have more opportunities to acquire more wealth. You can particularly think about people who are interested in business ownership or self-employment of some sort. If they initially start out with a larger stake of resources, it makes it possible for them to bear more risk and to be more likely to sustain a successful enterprise.
How do you view the racial wealth gap in the US?
In the United States, the racial wealth gap is something that I interpret in the context of the historical relationship between two groups - black folks and white folks. The racial wealth gap is enormous. The survey of consumer finances indicates that on average the net worth of a black household is $800,000 less than the net worth of a white household.
That is an enormous disparity. The origin, I believe, is in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. That's the point at which the newly emancipated did not receive any form of restitution. Although they had been promised 40-acre land grants per household, there was a failure to implement that.
How does the wealth gap differ from the income gap?
The average black household has somewhere around 60% of the income of the average white household. But the wealth disparities are far larger. The typical black household has about 10% of the wealth of the typical white household. This is a far more staggering differential.
This is a differential that is not closed by greater educational attainment. Black heads of households with a college degree have two-thirds less the net worth than white heads of households who never finished high school. These kinds of disparities in terms of the absolute magnitude of the difference in wealth, get larger and larger with higher levels of educational attainment. I also must add that income differentials do not well explain wealth differentials because whites who are the poorest in terms of income, those who are in the lowest 20% of the income distribution, have a median level of wealth of about $15,000. It is zero for blacks who are in the same income zone.
How does household debt feed into that?
My colleague Fenaba Addo is much more of an expert on the debt side of the ledger than I am.
But, I want to say at the outset that the major reason we have these substantial differences in wealth between blacks and whites is really because of the asset side of the ledger, not the debt side. Blacks have so much fewer in the way of assets than whites; that's what depresses the black wealth level in comparison with the white wealth level.
The average amount of indebtedness that blacks hold is not as high as the absolute amount of indebtedness that's held by whites on average.
Additionally, in particular categories, the black debt is higher on average than the white debt level. For example, student debt is actually indicative of the degree of black motivation to pursue higher education with fewer resources. We actually now know that for a given level of household income young blacks students will pursue and attain more years of schooling and more credentials than young white students who are from households with a similar level of income. If that's the case, if folks are trying to do more with less, it pushes them into indebtedness to pursue higher education. That's a category in which black debt is on average higher.
Obviously these statistics are not static. Which direction is the wealth gap moving right now?
I think that because of the COVID-19 crisis, it must be moving in a direction of widening the black-white differential.
The best evidence that we have, and this is really stunning, is 41% of black-owned businesses have gone out of operation due to the COVID crisis. Whether or not that's permanent is not entirely clear, but close to half are no longer conducting their operations. That means that this potential source of wealth has evaporated virtually overnight. We don't have any data that's been collected on what the wealth levels look like in the present moment, but it's fairly easy to speculate that the situation has to be significantly worse.
There's also evidence the gap became explosively larger over the course of the past 70 years. A lot of that has to do with the question of who has the capacity to purchase significant amounts of financial assets and who has the capacity to enter into the real estate arena.
How have government programs contributed to the disproportionate accumulation of wealth?
Let me start with The Homestead Act of 1862. First enacted in 1862 and spanning the subsequent 70 years, allocations of land grants were made in the Western part of the United States. These were made almost exclusively to white families. About 1.5 million white families gained access to these plots of land during the course of the operation of the Homestead Act. According to Trina Williams' research, about 45 million, if not more, white Americans living today are beneficiaries of the effects of the Homestead Act land grants. This was one initial policy that drove a wedge between black and white wealth. Particularly because the formerly enslaved received no restitution, even though they had been promised 40-acre land grants.
We can start with the introduction of restrictive covenants that were designed to exclude blacks from access to homeownership in particular neighborhoods. Then we have redlining, which denied blacks credit for purchasing homes in particular neighborhoods. Then we also have the New Deal legislation, which first introduced any significant amount of federal home loan subsidies to facilitate homeownership. Black people were disproportionately excluded from the New Deal plans and policies.
And then we come to the GI Bill, which is perhaps the most important legislation passed in the 20th century by the US Congress to facilitate upward mobility. It did so by providing returning veterans from World War II with two types of benefits. One was financial support for attending a college or university. As a result, you had a significant number of individuals who were, what we now call first-generation college students. The other dimension of the GI bill was the provision of home mortgage subsidies that facilitated people buying their way into the middle class through homeownership.
Again, this was also disproportionately executed on behalf of white Americans. In fact, to get the legislation passed with the support of Southern senators, it was essential that the program was designed to be decentralized. Therefore, it was conducted at the local level where local authorities would exercise, complete discretion over who would receive the resources. This disproportionate benefit for whites took place both North and South, but in some of the Southern States, it was extraordinarily extreme.
Who were the elected officials of Mississippi at that time?
There was a particular Congressman who was decisive in this process - Congressman John Elliott Rankin, a Democrat from Mississippi.
Democrats in Mississippi were segregationists then...
In the 19th century, the Republicans were much more associated with black emancipation than the Democrats. Although, the president who reversed the policy of allocation of 40-acre land grants as restitution was Republican Andrew Johnson.
In the 20th century, the process of resistance to black empowerment and black improvement was largely in the hands of Democrats from the Southern States. However, in the late 1940s, the Republican party progressively moved away from being the party of Abraham Lincoln to being the party of Strom Thurmond. Today the Republican party appears to be even more strongly allied with anti-black sentiment and anti-black policies than the Democratic party, even though I'm not at all satisfied with what the Democratic party is doing either.
It seems like people on all sides are just very dissatisfied with this election.
It's fascinating how our electoral process actually produces candidates that it's very difficult to be enthusiastic about. But one of them is so extremely dangerous that maybe there is no choice, but to vote for the other. And the one that I think is dangerous in the extreme is Trump, to be clear.
Are there things that you are hoping to see from Biden and Harris in the next 60 days or so that would make you feel more enthusiastic about supporting them?
I actually don't expect to see anything from them in the next 60 days. It's not a question of hope. I don't place any hope in them doing something that's different from what they've already committed themselves to doing.
Some of your work was discussed in the context of this larger election cycle – specifically baby bonds. What are baby bonds?
I think baby bonds are a terrific idea. And I've worked on it since 2009.
The idea of baby bonds is that every American child would receive an endowment at birth that they can access once they reach young adulthood. The amount of the endowment would vary with the wealth position of their families. The program would be universal, but the payments would not be uniform.
A child that's born into a household that has the same wealth level as Bill Gates might get a $50 donation into a trust account. A child that's born into a family at the lowest end of the wealth distribution would get between $50,000 and $60,000.
I want us to be cautious about not confusing this kind of a program with a reparations project. Reparations would focus on eliminating the racial wealth differential between blacks and whites in its entirety. While baby bonds can be useful in terms of mitigating general wealth inequality, and perhaps on the margins, reducing racial wealth inequality, it will not substitute for a reparations program that targets the wealth gap between blacks and whites as the object for closure.
I really liked how you phrased reparations as a national debt that we already have. Why is it important to talk about it in that language specifically?
I think the redress should go to living descendants of persons who were enslaved in the United States and those living descendants have a claim that is anchored on the failure to provide the 40-acre restitution that was promised at the end of the Civil War. There have been intergenerational consequences of the failure to provide that form of redress.