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
On Philanthrocapitalists
by Zahra Moloo
May 30, 2021
This interview with Zahra Moloo, journalist, filmmaker, and part of the ETC Group, was conducted and condensed by franknews.
Zahra | My name is Zahra Moloo. I'm a journalist and filmmaker. I currently work with an international organization called the ETC Group; we monitor and track the impact of emerging technologies and corporate concentration on biodiversity, agriculture, and human rights. I am also doing a Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Toronto. I'm from Kenya and have spent the last 10 years or so doing investigative stories and documentaries from east and central Africa, some parts of West Africa, Libya, the West Bank, and Canada.
Initially, I worked a lot on investigating the impact of multinational mining companies and their practices and later began to work on neoliberalism, philanthrocapitalism, and conservation issues.
frank | When did philanthropy start coming up in your work?
The issue of philanthropy and philanthrocapitalism first became of interest to me when, as a journalist, I went on a fellowship with the International Women's Media Foundation, the IWMF, to write stories from the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa. The fellowship was funded by Howard Buffett, the son of Warren Buffet, who, as many people know, is one of the richest men in the world. We were told that the Foundation was interested in agriculture and conservation stories. I was especially interested in looking at indigenous people that have been displaced from the Virunga National Park in Congo, and I realized that Howard Buffett was also funding the national park. While I was there, people told me that you can't really go anywhere in Eastern Congo without eventually touching a project funded by Howard Buffett. He was funding hydroelectric projects in Eastern Congo, the IWMF’s reporting trip, as well as projects in eco-tourism and conservation. Buffett is also good friends with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and has given a lot of money to his government. This is a government that has killed people, disappeared people, and waged a really terrible war on the press.
Here Buffett is partnering with Paul Kagame on one hand, and then giving money to this media project on the other. And while the IWMF does do stories on Rwanda and calls out governments for their treatment of local journalists, I had not seen a story critical of Paul Kagame and his treatment of journalists. So it became clear to me the insidious ways in which money from Buffett was influencing media narratives and development projects. That is when I started being interested in the power of philanthrocapitalism.
Is it obvious to you what the driving interest is of someone like Buffett or Gates in this part of the world?
I think that's a difficult question to answer because there are numerous aspects. It is quite interesting to look at where philanthropy comes from. The very first foundations in the 20th century were set up to shield businessmen from taxation, to give them a voice in global affairs, and to build prestige. I think this does inform their interest in influencing agricultural projects in the Congo or in East Africa. As well, if you look at the projects they are pushing, they constitute a very market-based vision of agriculture that is beneficial to agribusiness and agrochemical companies. The push is towards a privatized model of agriculture.
The DRC has been completely devastated by colonialism, by extractive practices by mining companies, by neoliberal policies which destroyed the public sector, and now these very powerful, wealthy foundations are coming in and pouring money into various projects.
What is the response to these outside investments from people where you are?
I think that there are different responses. For instance, in Kenya, the proliferation of NGOs is part of the entrenchment of neoliberalism in this part of the world. Very few people doubt that people like Bill Gates are doing good. He's all over the news. He wrote his book about climate change and went on a book tour. There's a film about him on Netflix that paints him in a positive light. So while there are people challenging the influence of very wealthy, white, often American, philanthropists in East Africa and Central Africa, they are up against powerful narratives. The case of gene drives and Bill Gates’ influence on this technology, in particular, is quite astounding.
What is a gene drive?
Some call a gene drive GMO 2.0 — it's the next stage of genetic engineering in which you can use CRISPR-Cas 9 technology to modify the traits of particular organisms and enable those traits to spread through a whole population.
For example, if you want to turn fruit flies yellow, you can modify the gene of the fruit fly. It's not just modifying one organism, it's modifying an entire species. That is the technology behind gene drives. There are several projects in which institutions are trying to experiment with gene drives.
One of them is funded by Bill Gates. Since 2003, his organization has poured millions of dollars into research on gene drives. He's funded a number of university institutions, and one particular research institution called Target Malaria. Their aim is ostensibly to eradicate malaria by genetically modifying the DNA of the anopheles gambiae mosquito species in order that they will eventually go extinct: future generations will either not be able to reproduce or will not be able to produce female offspring. The first experiment of this technology, outside of the lab, will be in Burkina Faso.
Why Burkina Faso?
What's fascinating about this case is that it shows the extent to which the Gates Foundation is able to influence the whole debate – basically, they're able to influence lobbyists, regulators, the media, and public narratives around gene drives in order to facilitate their adoption.
Not only has the Gates Foundation financed a lot of the research into this by giving money to UC Irvine and to the Cornell Alliance for Science, but they have also paid a PR firm, Emerging Ag, to coordinate a fight against opponents of gene drive technology.
They have influenced the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. They've created a network on gene drive research whose intention is to raise awareness about the value of gene drive research for the public good. They even paid for some African delegates to be present at UN negotiations to advocate in favor of gene drives. They publish op-eds in media publications, which are themselves financed by the Gates Foundation. You see this whole machinery at work.
The reach of this foundation on this particular technology is incredible, and it is not overt. This information has only come out through investigations and through freedom of information requests. It's totally antidemocratic.
You know, I hear “be for the future, it's coming anyway,” – so I don’t mean to sound square, but the notion that you have to eradicate a species in order to eradicate malaria, feels like the beginning of a bad movie.
What is even more frightening about this is that malaria eradication is not the main purpose of gene drives. That is the front that the Gates Foundation and others are pushing. There is actually a lot of interest from agribusiness companies in using this technology in the food system, but that's not being made explicit. It's even more frightening if you think about what can come in the future.
Do you know what the relationship looks like between the science community and researchers and the foundations that fund them?
I don't know about the particular personal relationships between researchers, but if you look at Gate’s approach, it is very similar to the approach he takes at Microsoft – he has a monopoly on technology and that is the same kind of approach that he uses towards vaccines, towards this gene drive research.
It is a very technocratic approach to two very long-term structural problems: climate change, in the case of geoengineering, and malaria, in the case of gene drives.
It places innovation at the core. Do you believe innovation comes from competition?
I think you can probably deduce that I don't.
I mean, look at the COVID vaccines. The only reason we have these vaccines is because they were publicly funded. The research was funded by taxpayers. It is not only competition, and maybe not even competition, that leads to innovation. I think that's a very simplistic way of looking at the world and one that comes from a very particular worldview. To do any kind of research, you need resources. If scientific institutions in Africa actually had resources from their governments to do research, or if African scientists did not have to receive money from the Gates Foundation to do Gates-funded research, we would see very different things coming out of the continent. But because there are no resources in the public sector and for public research, there is no room for that.
What does it mean? Innovation and technology do not just come from the west, but that is what we are taught. This is about imperialism. This is about imposing certain ways of seeing the world.
Not to mention this is not sustainable. We have no idea what might happen with gene drives and what may happen when you start fiddling with extinction technologies. What if this technology jumps to other species? What happens to the ecosystem? All these things are very, very dangerous.
How are people pushing back?
There is a whole range of civil society groups and social movements on the continent here that have been fighting back against gene drives and have been trying to reframe the philanthrocapitalism narratives.
They are trying to say that this is not about a new technology that's going to help Africans fight malaria, this is actually very colonial.
But it has been difficult, if you look at the media, almost all the reporting on gene drives has been more or less quite positive. They give very little time to opponents of gene drive research.
In the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is a very interesting movement called Lucha, that called on the government to provide basic public services, like running water and proper infrastructure. They are also fighting for increased political participation. However, they also faced a great deal of repression. People fighting back and changing the narrative on these sorts of projects is really essential to the future.