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
How You Win in the South
by MaryBe McMillan
March 28, 2021
This interview with MaryBe McMillan, President of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO, was conducted and condensed by franknews and Payday Report.
MM | I got involved in the labor movement when I was a graduate student in sociology at North Carolina State. I went to grad school, never wanting to be an academic, but hoping to do public policy research and create change by pushing for policies that help working people. While I was in the sociology department, UE Local 150 was organizing service workers on campus — janitorial staff, the housekeepers, and the maintenance workers.
They asked faculty and students to help with the campaign and a bunch of us in the sociology department volunteered.
To clarify, you are taking a nontraditional approach. Collective bargaining is banned in the state of North Carolina for public employees. The UN has actually denounced that ban. So how are you able to do collective action without having collective bargaining?
Even without collective bargaining, workers coming together in numbers can force management to make changes. By coming together, going to the administration, and getting the student body and faculty to sign petitions and come out to rallies, they were able to create pressure and get the administration to make changes. We see it with teachers in North Carolina, who, by joining together to lobby the legislature, have been able to make changes around wages and benefits. It is certainly not the same as collective bargaining, and we're fighting hard to overturn that Jim Crow ban on bargaining, but workers can still make a tremendous change by joining together in the workplace, enlisting community support, and building a movement.
There is supposed to be some Supreme Court case about denying unions access to company properties. I said, “if your union is worried about getting on the company property, then you've got bigger problems.” What's your experience been in the labor movement in North Carolina?
North Carolina is one of the least unionized states in the country. We flip-flop with South Carolina for that unfortunate distinction. I like to say we have a small, but mighty labor movement here.
We have a long tradition here in the labor movement of working in coalition with community partners, with the NAACP, and with the faith community. Many of the victories we have won here, we have won through community organizing and support. I think about the victory that UFCW had with Smithfield Foods in Tar Heel, NC.
Can you tell us about that?
That plant is the world’s largest pork processing plant with 5,000 workers. It took them 15 years to win a union because of how broken our labor law is. But, ultimately they were able to win when they began building a community campaign. They enlisted folks to do rallies outside grocery stores that stocked products from that plant. They got civil rights and faith leaders to request a tour of the facility and to pressure the CEO about issues in the plant.
People think, "oh, there's no union organizing happening in these places that don't have high density." But there is a lot happening.
Yeah, absolutely.
My frustration is that unions have been too slow to invest in organizing in the South because they view it as too hard, given the legal and political climate here. But the only way we're going to change the country is if we organize workers in the South.
The labor movement talks about the idea of "hot shopping." But, that is not always the best approach.
No, it’s not. Too often, unions want to swoop in and do a short-term campaign. What folks need to realize is that organizing in the South requires long-term investment. It takes building community relationships. I think that you have to go in knowing you might not win the first time around so you must have a plan for how you're going to continue to organize workers, cultivate relationships, and keep fighting.
What sort of challenges do you face when trying to talk to people about why they need a union?
We have such a long history in the South of union-busting and an anti-union climate. There is a lot of misinformation out there about unions. This really is an education process. That is one role we try to play at the state federation. We try to educate the general public about how we've all benefited from unions and the labor movement. We try to inform workers about their rights and the right to organize. That's another area where we need much more investment in the South. Whether it's cultivating relationships with clergy to do more labor in the pulpit and preaching about the moral urgency of economic justice or whether it's launching a popular education program so that folks understand what a union is all about, we need a massive education effort about unions in the South. I think that is critical if we want to make real long-term, large-scale gains among working people and in the South.
Does that hesitation seem to come from fear, or a misunderstanding of what a union can provide?
I think both. I think there is a lot of misinformation out there and there are unfortunately so many examples of virulent anti-union busting in the South--workers illegally fired, harassed, and intimidated. Our labor laws are broken and there are no real penalties to hold companies accountable that harass workers for trying to organize.
During the campaign at Smithfield Packing, the company illegally fired workers. They used race-baiting to divide workers. They stamped "Vote No" on the hog carcasses as they went down the assembly line. Amazon is putting anti-union propaganda in the bathroom stalls at their facility in Alabama. Elected officials in Tennessee told Volkswagen workers that the plant would shut down if they voted in a union. This kind of union-busting has created a lot of fear among workers, no doubt.
To win in the South, it would help if unions would collaborate more. For example, if there's an auto plant and there's a poultry processor down the street or in the same community, the UFCW and UAW should be working together to build community partnerships and to cultivate relationships among elected officials. There are probably workers in the auto plant who have friends in the poultry plant and vice versa.
We are building a Charlotte Airport Workers Committee. There are multiple unions representing workers in the airport and all of them are interested in growing their memberships and improving conditions. We are thinking about ways we can put pressure on the catering companies and the airlines themselves to improve wages and working conditions for their workers. That's a good example of where we're trying to build collaboration and cooperation among unions.
You talk a lot about the need to build movements in order to build unions. How do you think BLM and the Fight for 15 have played a role in doing just that?
I think that the Fight for $15 and the campaign at Amazon are doing a great job of making the connection between labor rights and civil rights. The two can't be separated. The fight for workers in the South is one for dignity and for racial justice both inside and outside the workplace. We all have to be standing together and fighting for both economic and racial justice. We are not going to win one without the other. That is why the Amazon campaign is so symbolic and so meaningful. It is a fight for all working people. If Amazon is allowed to treat workers like robots, surveil them, limit their ability to go to the bathroom, you better believe that other companies are gonna follow suit.
It is so hard for us to imagine a different world or a different way. Unions seem to give people the space and community to do so.
The sense of empowerment that a union creates changes people. That is why I am in the labor movement. It transforms people. I’ve seen people who are timid and shy become outspoken leaders in their unions. Women who had been afraid to leave abusive husbands left their abusive relationships after seeing how they could stand up and create change in the workplace.
I've also seen unions really transform the way white folks think about race. And I think that that's a really important role that unions can play. We bring people together around this common identity of worker.
It forces us to realize why it’s important for all of us to stand together. I have seen so many white union members change from having honest conversations with union members of color about their experiences with racism. And I just think it's so important that unions and the labor movement commit to creating opportunities to have those conversations in our organizations.
Do you feel like the South is in a moment of transformation?
Folks are fired up. With the pandemic, too many workers have been exploited and exposed to unsafe conditions. People are ready to organize and make change. It is time for the labor movement to make investments here.
Labor leaders say we are for raising wages, that we are committed to taking on voter suppression and mass incarceration and that we want to be the movement for immigrant workers and workers of color. Well, if that's really true, then the labor movement needs to put its money where its mouth is because the South is ground zero for all those things.
For too long we have not had a long-term vision and strategy for growth. I think you see that going back to Operation Dixie. There was no long-term commitment to do the organizing work in the South that was necessary to win union victories.
Any union that is going to undertake a major campaign in the South has to be prepared that the campaign may not be won in months. Maybe not even a year. It is going to take a long-term effort. And I think that's true too about political campaigns as well. Too often, we want to throw down for a few months before an election. That's just not how we can change the political climate in Southern states. It is going to take bottom-up organizing over the long haul.
I think bottom-up organizing is really important. Not enough folks know how to lead from the rank and file in a lot of these unions.
I think the Fight for $15 has done a great job of developing rank and file worker leaders. When there are rallies and events, workers are the speakers, not the paid union staff. And I think to build the movement we need in the South, we really have to follow that model where you are cultivating and developing new leaders and building a solid and lasting organizational structure. We need to grow the movement and keep the momentum going, and you can't do that if there's just one leader. If there is one leader, you don't really have a movement, you have a fan club.
What do you mean by fan club?
There are a lot of charismatic leaders within the progressive movement. It's great that they can inspire people with fiery speeches and rhetoric. But what happens when the speech is over? Do people go home and engage and continue to be mobilized? Is there a structure that they can plug into? Or, are they just enchanted with the personality and rhetoric of this charismatic leader? Some of what we call movements haven't yielded the real changes and results that they could have if there had been the cultivation of other leaders and the development of a real organizational structure.
What does it mean to build?
It is about finding opportunities to open the door for new leaders, especially younger leaders and leaders of color. It's about leadership development, empowering other leaders, and creating opportunities for new leaders to grow and emerge. That means existing leaders need to sometimes step back and give up control and open the door for new ideas and new leaders. A “leader-full” movement is a strong movement and it’s the kind of movement that has the power to change the South and to change the nation.