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 Emperor Has No Clothes
by Lee Drutman
December 31, 2020
This interview with Lee Drutman, senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America and author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
Lee | I'm a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America. My focus is trying to make sure American democracy doesn't self implode.
frank | In the vain of imploding American democracy, what were some of the fears held by the founders?
Well, the framers of the constitution were doing something pretty radical at the time, which was establishing a system of self-governance. At the same time, they were afraid of tyranny, the concentration of power, they were deeply afraid of division. The historical record of democracies showed they frequently collapsed in civil war as people became deeply divided.
We've had two political parties at the helm of American politics for a very long time. You argue that parties have changed, for the first time, into two truly distinct groups. What changed?
I consider the mid to late 20th century to be a period of really four-party politics: liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. The parties had considerable overlap ideologically. It meant that different coalitions came together to work out compromises. That created a certain amount of flexibility and fluidity that allowed Congress to function reasonably well. As Democrats became more dominantly the party of urban and cosmopolitan, Republicans became much more clearly the party of a traditionalist and ex-urban America, it became harder and harder for conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans to exist. Parties became more homogenous in Congress and leadership became stronger as a result.
It's certainly the case that there are tremendous disagreements within the Democratic party and tremendous disagreements within the Republican party. The parties themselves are still these uncomfortable coalitions, but what's different now is that those coalitions don't really have much overlap.
Which lends to this idea you write about – that parties have become much more nationally focused. Can you talk about what that means and when that shift started to happen?
It started in the 80s and really was solidified in the 90s. Practically, it means that voters don't look at candidates as separate from their parties. It used to mean something to be an Alabama Democrat. Now, an Alabama Democrat is just a Democrat.
Additionally, candidates are running on national issues. In the past, an Alabama Democrat would run on local issues. Now, nobody votes on local issues. Everybody wants to know, what's your stance on the Supreme Court? The Democrats are trying to tie all the candidates to Trump, Republicans are trying to tie all their candidates to Nancy Pelosi.
It seems like such a destructive situation. Parties have become very powerful as institutions, more powerful than the individuals that make them up. What is there to do when parties become dominant, top-down institutions?
Let me back up for a second. We know that binary thinking is incredibly reductionist. It's an oversimplification. There's a ton of psychology, that humans have an innate tendency to reduce the world into us versus them, good versus evil, black and white. You look for a dichotomy. That is an incredibly dangerous way of thinking. It reduces the world and makes it hard for us to incorporate new information because we want to be on the right side. It makes it easier to demonize the other side by reducing to a caricature.
We have highly consequential, high stakes, very close national elections, in which a high percentage of the messaging involves describing the other party as an existential threat to the country, in which the other party is described by their most extreme positions and extreme figures. We live under a constant sense of threat, which further makes it hard for us to really think rationally about things and leads us to somewhat extreme behavior in response.
It's a very destructive way to run a democracy. You might say, well, we always have had a two-party system, so why are things so crazy now? The answer is yes, we've had a two-party system, but now we have a party system where parties are truly nationalized and stand for two very different world views. For most of our political history, the parties didn't really stand for all that much. There was considerable overlap. There were a lot of voters who could shift between the parties during elections, and also a lot of people who had friends and community members and family members who were members of the other party.
As we've increasingly only surrounded ourselves with people who share our politics, it becomes easier and easier to think of the other side as something distant and dangerous. That makes them seem like more of a threat, which then justifies more extreme rhetoric. We lose a shared sense of legitimacy in our political system: if one party is viewed as illegitimate, maybe extreme measures are justified.
We saw that intensely in this year's presidential election.
There are a lot of Republicans who believe just absolutely crazy things about what happened in the election because Donald Trump is telling them there's some crazy conspiracy.
In terms of the electorate, obviously, there are people who are true believers. But what's disturbing, is listening to somebody like Ted Cruz abandon the political platform for the individual in charge. It makes it really hard to believe they believed any of it ever, let alone now.
Well, I mean, what is reality?
Right, does it matter if Ted Cruz believes what he's saying?
Ted Cruz is an ambitious politician. He's working under the assumption that if he wants to become the next President of the United States and he wants to win the nomination for president on the Republican ticket, he needs to give credence to this grievance. If he gets out there and says, this is not what happened, you are crazy, that is going to hurt his chances of winning the Republican nomination.
I mean, anybody who's ambitious in the Republican party right now is not going to get cross wires with what they perceive as the energy in the party. It's a funny thing, because if everybody said, you know, the emperor has no clothes, then Trump would magically disappear, but in order for that to happen, everybody has to jump at once, and…
It hasn't happened yet.
That hasn't happened yet. And I think the rationale for that, if you were to ask someone like Ted Cruz, would be, "I know some of these people are a little crazy, but I think their heart's in the right place. I believe in conservative values. And I think this country would be better served if I were president. The way for me to do that is to acknowledge the grievance and then use my power for good.”
Do you think moving to a multi-party system is likely or possible?
Well, it's possible. You can see what it could look like when you look at the splits in the Republican party. You could see a potential for a center-right party that is. And on the other hand, there's not a lot of overlap between the really progressive Democrats and the moderate centrist Democrats.
We have a much more diverse political culture than the two-party system really allows us. And parties have to cobble together coalitions through negative partisanship. For example, a lot of Democrats weren't excited about electing Biden, but they were really excited about electing somebody who could defeat Trump. Similarly, people like Donald Trump, not because of his policies, but because he fights.
It is possible, but the question of is it likely is a harder one. All we're doing right now is digging a deeper and deeper trench in this zero-sum warfare we've been doing for about 30 years, in which we're devastating the landscape around us both metaphorically and literally. We are fighting for a few inches of territory that we end up giving back. It's just the definition of insanity.
There's a lot of folks on both the left and the right who think that the only way to end this craziness is just to crush the other party. But that never happens and seems unlikely to happen anytime soon, given the state of partisanship. That way of thinking is itself the problem, because if Democrats want to crush Republicans, and Republicans want to crush Democrats, it's not so much about enacting policy anymore as it is just about winning. And this is Trump's appeal. To some extent people like his policies, but a lot of conservatives really like him because he's a fighter — he's fighting the liberals and he's fighting back against the cultural establishment. At some point we all have to wake up and say, whether or not you think the other side is evil, as long as you have a two-party system, the other party is not going away. I think a multi-party system would benefit almost everybody in politics because nobody feels like they're winning under this current system.
Every time I ask why about politicians or campaigning, the answer comes down to what you described above – power. And it’s so dissatisfying. It’s so trite. But I guess it’s really that simple.
With people in politics, there's some level of justification. You start out with some idea of what you want to do, and then you realize that in order to do what you want to do, you need to accumulate power. And then power and winning become everything because you spent all your time focused on that and you forget what it was you even came into politics to do.