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 Losing Battle for the Working Class Vote
by Cedric Humphrey
February 9, 2021
This interview with Cedric Humphrey was conducted and condensed by franknews.
Cedric | I'm 22 years old. I'm from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I'm currently a senior at the University of Pittsburgh, studying political science and economics. I'll be graduating in May — I’m down to days.
I guess I've always been interested in politics since I was really young. I was captivated by Obama’s election, I think that is where my interest kicked off. Throughout high school, I did Youth & Government and that sort of thing. I have interned in the Pennsylvania State Capitol for two summers. It's just been my life for a while.
frank | You got to ask President Biden a question at a Town Hall that ended up really resonating with people. What were some of the wider sentiments you were trying to get at in your question?
There were probably several underlying feelings behind that question.
I think the first, and the biggest, was referencing back to when Joe Biden was on The Breakfast Club during the primary campaign. They basically asked him to explain why Black people should vote for him, and he kind of shrugged the question off and said, well, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black.”
That really bothered me.
And that is how I saw the campaign move forward, they ran a campaign against Trump rather than showing what policies Joe Biden wanted to enact. I don’t think that is how campaigns should be run. I think you need to present why you are the best candidate. To me, it seemed that votes, at least my vote, was being taken for granted.
The second thing I've noticed throughout the last year and a half is that the Democratic party is no longer speaking to me as an American citizen or as a person. I feel like they're speaking to my morality. They speak to what I should be doing and what they are going to do. And I don't think that makes you a good candidate.
Politics increasingly exists on a plane of morality, material questions take a back seat. The more people just vote for the “good guys”, whoever the “good guys” are to them, the less either side has to run on material conditions. How do you think we move past that?
I am interested to hear you say that. I'm only 22, so I've only really been breathing in and digesting politics for like 12 years. When you think about when this "culture war" within the parties really started, it was probably halfway through that first Obama term. My entire life has been this volatile political environment. I don't know anything besides that. So, how do we move past this? I don't know how to answer that just because that is American politics to me.
I will say we have to start being able to hold our elected leaders accountable, and the electoral system that we have right now just does not do that. It does not give voters and the people power to actually exercise a public mandate on their elected officials. It's so hard to primary an incumbent. It's so hard to vote out somebody when you run the risk of getting them replaced with a Republican. The electoral system has a stronghold on the public's ability to hold their elected officials accountable. I think that reforming the system is the only way that we'll ever truly move past this culture war.
What do you want reform to look like?
I believe that we should change the entire electoral system. I'm a firm believer that we have a Constitution that's amendable for a reason. I mean, the first thing that we did was add 10 amendments to it.
I think rank choice voting would seriously help, especially in party primaries. Just think about the presidential election. If you're in Iowa, you have 12 people to choose from. You definitely don't want some people and you would be okay with others. Rank choice voting would help with that. Congressionally, I think multi-member districts, meaning that some districts have a Republican and a Democrat coming out of that district, would help so that you're not assigning all of the political power to just one member out of a district. Some of these very, very close districts it would be more representative of the actual electors. Australia and New Zealand use that system.
I feel like a lot of times people think when you're thinking about changing the electoral system, you're trying to manipulate it so that you have more power within the system. I think if you manipulate the system to work truly, you don't have to worry about having to maintain that power because you'll get it politically off of being the best.
I don't know how we get there, but there are things we could do. And I think we should just talk about that more.
When I was growing up I was always in these government simulations. Like you know, you're a Senator and you write a bill and you debate it. It's like a beautiful democracy. This is what we learn when we're 13, but none of this ever happens. We don't ever debate things in the public realm. You're told what somebody is doing and that it's wrong or that it is on the right side. We're not really like fleshing out these ideas. And I don't think that that's healthy for our democracy at all.
What do you think organizers and young activists need to do to push their agenda?
As far as pushing the Democratic party to the left, that's a doozy. They will come to the left on their own terms and at their own pace. I guess it comes down to maintaining control of the narrative around things like Medicare for all and the $15 minimum wage. When I was graduating high school four years ago, raising the minimum wage was seen as ridiculous, way more ridiculous than it's seen as now. Inflation hasn't gone up that much in four years, but people's attitudes about raising the minimum wage have slowly changed because we are refusing to stop talking about how it's a necessary thing for the survival of American families across the country. Keeping control of the narrative is really important, but we've got to break out of this two-party system for anything to happen in my opinion. I think effective mobilization looks like a third party taking hold of state legislatures across the country, and moving on from there.
Is there a third-party gaining real momentum?
No. Nobody's gaining enough momentum. I'm interested in what the Libertarian party might become with the whole shake-up amongst the GOP. I think they have the potential to really grow from the situation. I mean there is, of course, the Green Party, bless their hearts. If I could, I would register to be in the Green Party and vote for nothing but the Green Party, but I can't bring myself to do that because I just don't see them really advancing. I guess they got close in 2004.
I think the lack of momentum also comes down to the rules that allow people onto ballots which are really crazy all across the country. It is different from state to state. The rules for being allowed on the presidential debate stage are really strict. The amount of votes that the Green Party would have to get a presidential election to even be on the debate stage at the next election is insane. You can't get there without being on the stage first. So, I don't know if there's one party right now that is effectively capitalizing on people's discontent.
What do you think effective third party messaging looks like?
It would start with equity. I think that bridges the race versus class debate. You can't have equity without considering both race and class. I think that if your messaging was to be centered around that, that could work.
I also think that we just have to start talking about the real problems facing people.
There is always all this talk about this “average American.” Campaigns are all about “average American this” and “average American that”, but who we picture when we say that is totally skewed. If we really were to get an actual idea of what the life of an average American looks like on a day-to-day basis, how much they make, and what their real needs are, if you were able to actually speak to that person and meet their needs, that is incredibly effective. I think a third party could win if they were able to do that.
When people talk about the “average American,” their mind goes right to average income. Well, the average American’s income is an upper-middle-class family, but that is because there are billionaires in this country that make so much money that they shift the average American’s status. If you look at the median American instead, they are so far below what the average American makes.
I think voters recognize that which breeds the discontent with the Democratic party we've seen over the last several years. They are speaking to the wrong person.
I wonder to what extent people, those controlling the narrative and those controlling the policies that shape the narrative, refuse to accept the obvious failure of their ideas and their actions.
I agree. I think a lot of people felt that sentiment with Joe Biden during this election. The inability to reckon with what you've done was obvious. You have been in the Senate for 40 years. You were vice president. You have a track record. To not be able to stand on that resume says a lot.
I know you were supportive of Bernie during the primaries. Arguably as the candidate that tried to run on an equity message along the lines of what you described, what do you think went wrong, what do you think went right?
A lot went right. I think most of it went right. This question really took the heart of where my real break up with the Democratic party came from. You really could not convince me that Bernie's downfall was not the result of a concentrated effort by moderate Democrats to push him out of the race. You just can't tell me that. Especially now after I see Buttiegeg getting a cabinet seat, Kamala Harris selected as VP, and Klobuchar basically running the inauguration. Those are promises being kept. At least that is what it looks to me.
So, what went wrong? I mean, the Democratic primary system is not in favor of somebody who was running without establishment party support. I think that's what really went wrong because he came out of the gates so strong that even I was surprised. And slowly, it goes downhill. Then South Carolina happens and it's all she wrote. And everybody knew it was happening, but nobody talked about it. Like none of the mainstream news sources talked about it.
I don't really know what else Bernie was supposed to do? He got the most donations ever. He had unilateral support amongst an entire generation. I think the Democrats are scared of that, simply put. They have to be scared of the amount of support that Bernie Sanders has from people under 30. That has to scare them for what the future of the party looks like.
Where do you think that unilateral support came from? Amongst you and your friends and your family in Pennsylvania, was there a particular message that stuck out, or do you think it was anti-establishment energy more broadly?
I'd say it's definitely the energy amongst my friends. I have a lot of friends that are into politics but on a surface level. You can't really expect that much more out of people who have maybe voted in one election ever. So for them, I think it was the energy.
Refusing to be beholden to corporate donors and not needing to rely on large sources of funding to run your campaign gives you flexibility and freedom to do things that we may have never seen before in American politics. That was really the big point for me. That made me think, okay, Bernie is for real.
As you have been watching the first couple of weeks of the Biden administration, and of Democrats controlling the government, do you feel hopeful?
Hopeful is an interesting word. I think I'm a realist, so I am not expecting too much. We'll see if we get better healthcare for the average American. We'll see if we cancel student debt. But, really, I don't know what I should be hoping for. I mean, Biden really ran a campaign on a return to the status quo. I don't know what to be cheering for. I was told that I'd be receiving a $2,000 check if they won Georgia. We'll see if that happens.
What I am really waiting on is for the Democrats to listen to their constituents. They have still not given one of the most deserving demographic groups in America, college students who were claimed as dependent on their parents' taxes in 2018, a stimulus check to date.
I have friends that are working full-time during a pandemic, who are not financially supported by their parents, and they have been ignored and ignored and ignored throughout this entire pandemic. They are the workers who are delivering your food day in and day out, and they're getting no assistance. I don't know how a 45-year-old couple with two kids that makes a hundred thousand dollars a year has gotten more stimulus support than my friend renting a studio apartment in Philadelphia who literally works at a Chinese restaurant every single day, even though she has pre-existing conditions that make her more vulnerable. That comes back to this idea of who the average American is. Are we really giving support to the people that need it?