Capital Press
The West’s
July 24, 2015
A g
Weekly
DROUGHT
CapitalPress.com
SPECIAL REPORT
MORE frequent,
severe DROUGHTS
probable in the WEST
Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
In this photo taken May 18, irrigation pipes sit along a dried canal on a fi eld farmed by Gino Celli near Stockton, Calif. Celli, who farms 1,500 acres and manages 7,000 acres, has senior water rights and
draws his irrigation water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
R
ED BLUFF, Calif.
— In a time of
persistent drought,
Kevin Greer’s cal-
endar is full.
Greer visits farms throughout
the northern Sacramento Valley
with his mobile irrigation lab
— a dusty brown truck outfi tted
with buckets, beakers, hoses and
other equipment to test whether
growers are making the most of
every drop of water they use.
As the current drought has
developed into one of the worst
in history, Greer has near-daily
farm visits scheduled for the rest
of the summer and into fall. And
as a warming trend is expected to
lead to more frequent and severe
droughts, he believes his services
will be needed more than ever.
“The problem is that peo-
ple have short memories,U said
Greer, who operates the lab for
the Tehama County Resource
Conservation District. “We’ve
come a long way and seen a lot
of growers do a lot of things with
effi ciency.
“Every winter brings a dif-
ferent story in the spring and
summer,U he said. “But with the
population of California pushing
up to 40 million and with more
and more pressure being put on
water resources, I don’t see (the
need for conservation) going
away soon even if we do have a
big winter.U
Drought common
Droughts in the West certain-
ly aren’t new; in fact, they’re a
“fundamental feature of the cli-
mate of western North America,U
researchers Daniel Griffi n of the
University of Minnesota and
Kevin Anchukaitis of the Mas-
sachusetts-based Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution wrote
in a recent paper examining the
current drought.
Current lack of water
has developed into one
of the worst in history
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
Just in the last century, parts
of the West have experienced
decade-long dry periods such as
during the Dust Bowl era and the
1950s which caused economic
and agricultural upheaval, the
scientists wrote.
In California, which is bearing
the brunt of the current drought,
natural evidence points to 37 dif-
ferent droughts of three years or
longer having occurred in the last
1,200 years, they wrote.
However, the current drought
has been the worst during that pe-
riod, with 2014 surpassing what
tree-ring evidence has found to
be the driest years in history —
1580, 1782, 1829 and 1941 —
because of persistent below-aver-
age soil moisture and record-high
temperatures, Griffi n and Anchu-
kaitis wrote.
“In terms of cumulative se-
verity, it is the worst drought on
record … more extreme than lon-
ger (four to nine year) droughts,U
they wrote.
More to come
And things could get much
worse. According to paleocli-
mate records, the last 150 years
have been wetter than the last
2,000 years on average, and av-
erage global temperatures have
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Kevin Greer of the Tehama County, Calif., Resource Conservation
District pulls out buckets and hoses he uses to test growers’ irriga-
tion effi ciency. As droughts are expected to become more frequent
and severe, he believes there will be a continued demand for his
mobile irrigation lab.
been considerably higher at times
within the last 6,000 years than
they are now, including during a
medieval period about 1,100 to
600 years ago, explained Lynn
Ingram, an earth science and ge-
ography professor at the Univer-
sity of California-Berkeley.
After fl uctuating over the past
few centuries, global tempera-
tures have been on the upswing
again since the 1960s, causing
reduced snowpack and evap-
oration rates, drier soils, more
frequent wildfi res and increased
dust levels, Ingram said in an
online workshop. In the future,
more energy and more water
vapor in the atmosphere could
bring larger fl oods and deeper
droughts, she said.
“The expectations are that it’s
going to continue to get warmer,U
said Mike Anderson, California’s
state climatologist. “We’ll see
a future drought that again sets
records for temperature. The
characteristics may include set-
ting low marks at different time
windows … for snowpack.U
California’s snowpack typi-
cally supplies about 30 percent
of the state’s water needs as it
melts in the spring and summer,
but statewide electronic readings
April 1 found only 1.4 inches of
water content, or 5 percent of the
historical average of 28.3 inches
for the date, the state Department
of Water Resources reported.
This year’s April 1 snow-
pack was the smallest in state
records dating back to 1950, and
last year’s tied with 1977 for the
second worst, Anderson said. He
expects it will more consistently
rank near the bottom in dry years
because of a warming climate.
“That has a signifi cant impact
on water supply, particularly here
in the West,U he said, noting that
a drought has taken hold in Ore-
gon in Washington despite close
to average precipitation because
of a meager snowpack.
How do scientists know what
will happen in the future? By
studying more than a century of
instrument readings as well as
tree rings, fossil and sediment
records and other evidence found
in nature to determine trends.
For instance, anthropologist
Scott Stine of California State
University-East Bay looked at
expanding and contracting lev-
els of Mono Lake near Yosem-
ite National Park over hundreds
of years to determine periods
of drought. He examined sub-
merged tree stumps throughout
the Sierra Nevada to fi gure out
when water levels were so low or
rivers were so dried up that a tree
could grow for decades.
Meanwhile, Ingram’s Lab-
oratory for Environmental and
Sedimentary Isotope Geochem-
istry at Berkeley has taken sam-
ples of sediment layers to test his-
torical salinity levels at different
places in the San Francisco Bay,
whose watershed covers about
40 percent of California.
University of Arizona re-
searcher Tom Swetnam exam-
ined fi re scars in tree rings in
giant sequoias in Yosemite to
determine when wildfi res were
more common, suggesting peri-
ods of drought.
All the evidence pointed to
several “megadroughtsU includ-
ing two century-long dry periods,
said Ingram, who co-authored
a book titled “The West With-
out Water: What Past Floods,
Droughts and Other Climate
Clues Tell Us About Tomorrow.U
During a medieval warm pe-
riod, evidence in the Four Cor-
ners region of the Southwest and
along the California coast points
to abandoned communities and
collapsed civilizations, she said.
“Archaeological evidence
shows that there was starvation,
malnutrition and even confl ict
and violence between groups
as resources dried up and dwin-
dled,U Ingram said in her pre-
sentation. “They had increased
competition for resources and
fi nally mass migration in search
of water and other resources.U
ADVERTISEMENT
Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association: Failed Water Management in the Odessa Subarea
Successful water resources management requires competence and honesty. Competence depends on
comprehending sound technical and financial information; and honesty means not deceiving others, or
worse, deceiving yourself. Neither the Pacific Northwest Region Office, USBR nor the East Columbia
Basin Irrigation District have embraced this standard in “reviewing” the new System 1 Water Service
Contract requested by Irrigators and CSRIA, for the Odessa Subarea. There are two issues at play here:
water use efficiency and the prudent use of financial resources, the irrigators’ money.
The first issue is the wise and effective use of water. It would take an extraordinary level of
incompetence to not optimize, via state authorized water spreading and well established practice, the
new surface water allocation for the Odessa Subarea, given that Western water resources are under
great physical constraints and public demands. The USBR has been loudly criticized for inefficient water
use, leading to uneconomical projects. The lack of USBR sensitivity to these factors is, in this
circumstance, mind-numbing.
Prompted by the USBR-District, a recent “opinion” letter from Ecology legal staff suggesting that
optimizing water use efficiency (water spreading) in the Odessa Subarea is inconsistent with the
legislative intent for Subarea water use is phenomenal nonsenseand it is completely counter to Ecology
Management’s original approval of the provisions that are contained in the System I WSCsubmitted to
the USBR. This letter’s source reflects Derek Sandison’s (Office of Columbia River, Ecology) irrational
reversal of support for irrigator direct project financing and development—an action contrary to best
management practices for water use and to financial integrity for the project. Mr. Sandison’s judgment
here was profoundly misguided, and it will now be on the shoulders of the Ecology Director, and
legislative leaders, to reverse this damage to water management reality.
The second issue involves basic financial literacy. The Irrigators have fully secured $42 million of
private sector financing to initiate System 1 construction; and up to about $100 million is available to
proceed with a broader systems package. The District is still stumbling along, and even the progress on
East Low Canal modifications is moving very slowly--but this may be intentional given the District’s
disorientation surrounding system development and financing.
The PNRO-USBR/District’s proposed “normative process” for project development and financing is a
product of considerable self-deception. There is no cost advantage to this ephemeral and fiscally
insecure concept: there is no cost advantage to having the District build the systems more acres would
be subjected to higher costs, actually discouraging participation the annualized systems’ costs would be
higher than the direct private irrigators’ costs; the total 30-year debt service costs would be substantially
higher than the privates; and there is no tangible public sector revenue bonding package even on the
table.
To the extent that the District is offering limited water contracts that include “normative
development fee” costs, those costs are fictitious in substance, and likely fraudulent relative to state
legal provisions that do not allow irrigation districts to access fees that exceed actual benefits to the
ground served. The Odessa Subarea surface water supply objective is to put water on the ground, not
to put excessive funds in the District’s coffers.
Unfortunately, the lack of District concern for Irrigator costs goes further. The District spurned
CSRIA’s efforts to secure additional state funding ($20 million) to finish East Low Canal modifications
below Lind Coulee, to allow for access to water for all South of I-90 systems. Allocation of this
additional funding was contingent upon the USBR releasing the System 1 WSC, but this would have
effectively eliminated any feeble justification for even pondering a “normative fee process.” Thus, the
District preferred to increase costs to Irrigators rather than allow the Irrigators to proceed with
system(s) construction. How does this inexplicable action represent the Irrigators’ best interests or
leverage their direct financing capability?
Each day, it becomes increasing apparent to observers, that the USBR-District are disregarding an
effective standard for water resources management. This carries with it a patronizing disservice to the
Irrigators, the broader Irrigated Agriculture Industry, and their dependent communities. The wells are
going dry, farmers and communities suffer as the USBR-District folly continues.
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