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
Black Colleges, White Philanthropists
by Melissa Wooten
May 12, 2021
This interview with Melissa Wooten, author of In the Face of Inequality, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
I currently work at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. I just moved into a staff role where I am focused on student-facing diversity programs on campus. Prior to that, I was a professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. That is where I began most of my research on Black colleges and on philanthropy. I'm still researching spaces where Black students excel and also continuing to research philanthropy, with a specific focus on how it provides a window into how educational spaces for Black students were once founded and funded.
How did you figure out philanthropy was something to look into within the context of the university structure?
After Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act, many organizations within Black communities ceased to exist. In many ways, integration meant the demise of organizations within Black communities. For example, you didn’t necessarily have Black hotels anymore. There were a handful of Black newspapers, but not as many as there once were. However, the number of Black colleges mainly remained. My dissertation project was focused on studying that phenomenon. In the process of learning about the history of Black colleges, the role that philanthropists played became clear.
What role do they play?
Well, it is not so much about the amount of money they were giving. The amount of money that was coming into the colleges from Black people in Black communities far outweighed what philanthropic foundations were giving. But philanthropists wielded a large amount of power. Philanthropists demanded that Black colleges institute conservative principles and philosophies into their curriculum.
Has your perspective on the role of philanthropy changed over the course of your research?
It would be hard to say it has changed because I didn’t come in with a strong opinion on it, it was something I fell into. However, the more I learn about philanthropy, the more I think it is perfectly appropriate to give it the side-eye. As a society, we should fundamentally question the amount of power that philanthropists have, especially when they are engaging with communities that have been historically under-resourced.
I try to be cognizant and balance that skepticism with understanding the ways philanthropy does provide money for communities.
One thing I have learned to do is marvel at the skill HBCU presidents used to navigate those waters. They created these shadow systems in these universities that produced people like Martin Luther King Jr and other civil rights leaders, despite conservative philosophies the schools were being held to. Clearly, something had to be happening in those Black colleges that the philanthropists weren't aware of in order to produce this generation that pushed the country forward so much.
How do you interpret the intentions of philanthropists?
I've oftentimes relied, especially on the work of educational historians and others who have studied the intentions of these people. One book that I reference a lot is called The White Architects of Black Education.
After reconstruction, white industrialists would get together to work on, what they called at the time, “the Negro Problem.” There was a lot of attention focused on the question of how they could use education to prop up their industrial interests because was clear that Black people wanted an education. After emancipation, schools were some first institutions that Black communities set up. So, it was clear to them that they were not going to be able to thwart their desire for education. The question then became, how can we shape education to benefit us. I think the historical record is clear that white industrialists ensured that they got involved with education to maintain a foothold.
Are there specific people who have had the most influencing power in this space?
In my first book project, In the Face of Inequality, I focused heavily on the Rockefeller family and its foundations. But one thing that I have been looking at recently, which oftentimes gets lost in historical conversations about philanthropy, is that most philanthropies require a 50-50 split in donations. They will commit to contribute 50% of the money for a given project, but they require the other 50% to be raised from your community resources. What that meant for a Black college trying to get, for example, a studio built, was that Black communities themselves were making large sacrifices.
That led me to look more at Julius Rosenwald. He’s known for his rural school building project that starts in the early 1900s. He would put up a certain amount of capital for these schools, but the rest has to be raised within communities. So, you have Black community members in the rural South who are being taxed by their government for schools that they are kept from attending who are now also fundraising to build rural schools. When you look through the records of Rosenwald’s contributions, you also see the match that came from Black communities. If you think about the circumstances under which Black communities were raising that money, in the true deprivation within the rural South, it is astounding.
Isn't it always the case, in terms of proportion, that those who are in desperation themselves, give much more than people who are comfortable.
Right.
One just draws more PR. It seems to bring up the question of what you define as philanthropy — is it small community donations or is it just the mega-donors.
Even if a 21st-century philanthropist does perhaps have a different way of thinking about the relationships between themselves and the communities that they are giving to, there's enough historical research on white philanthropists' intentions that it should give anyone pause. There is not much more we can uncover about white philanthropic intentions. I think a better question is why can a donation from a philanthropist be key to whether a college survives or not? A better question is why can people amass wealth to the levels they have with limited taxation? Donations are nice, but we need to ask, is this really what we want?
We should also think about smaller givers. We should try to figure out their motivations. We don't know near enough about them as we should. And these people are oftentimes Black and Latino and indigenous and, oftentimes, women. In many ways, it's just not a sustainable system.
Do you see philanthropy still playing a role in having an influence over how the university operates?
Oftentimes, when someone like Mackenzie Scott gives to Black colleges, it is as if people didn’t realize that Black colleges existed before that donation. I mean, these colleges have existed since the 1830s, but they only become a thing when somebody like Ms. Mackenzie Scott gives them money. So I do think that philanthropy is still playing a role in Black colleges, but I think, more so, Black colleges were a precursor for what ended up happening in the higher education landscape altogether. The way that historically Black colleges have had to cultivate relationships with private partners is now how public institutions have to fund themselves.
I've mostly only ever worked at publicly funded institutions, traditionally white institutions and increasingly, more and more money for these schools comes from private sources, rather than the state. We can no longer think about Black colleges as operating differently in this space.
Do you see a way out of needing philanthropy?
I do think I see a way out. Budgets. Budgets reflect priorities. Think about the recent, large bailouts: the airlines after 9/11, the financial industry after the housing market crash, and industry supported through the pandemic. Apparently, there's money somewhere. And it could be used to support higher education. Why is it not? There has been researching that has talked about how as higher education has become more diverse, state and federal government retreat from supporting it.
How do we move outside of the austerity framework when it comes to higher education? How do we have a society that will support poor people and middle-class people with the services that they actually need — like health and education. I think that is a larger political discussion that will be led by social movements.
I think there is also a second part to that question, which is: am I okay with the idea of philanthropy ever being a part of higher education?
Yeah. There are also specific, famous, predominantly white universities with enormous endowments. When does this move from being well-funded into greedy? Do you have parameters?
I don’t have specific numbers. But what I will is that these questions should be asked more often. There should be more spaces to ask those questions. In my book, I reflected on how there was never a moment when we re-imagined what higher education could be. People were fighting for the integration of traditionally white colleges. There was never a moment when we sat back and said, you know what, maybe we shouldn't be sending black students to the University of Alabama. They were founded on some really bad ideas. How about we sit back and reimagine what higher education could be? If we had more spaces to do that, I think we could get answers to some of these questions.
We can all agree, that just as I need to plan for my individual future, so do colleges. But is there a point where you have to say ask what is enough? Again, I don’t have an exact number, but, those are the sorts of conversations that I wish we had more often about education as a whole, but higher education in particular.
And I get it. You can’t just withdraw from the endowment anytime you want. But when we enter these moments of crises, at some point we're going to have to interrogate that a little bit. We’re going to have to have some conversations around what it means to have these financial vehicles that are set up in a way that you can't draw down from endowments in an emergency. That is actually a choice that was made. At some point, you could remake the choice to account for financial exigencies.