This
week, Gov. Brown mandated non-ag CA homes and businesses need to cut
water consumption by 25%, effective immediately. I am not sure what the
enforcement mechanisms are. Like the sequester, an x% across-the-board
cut is lazy governance and pretty stupid too.
There are
smaller households or efficient households that barely use any water -
they should be rewarded and not asked to cut even more (which may be
very painful on them to achieve). There are also larger, more wasteful
households that probably should cut more than 25% (part of that may be
tied to landscaping - and I think Brown plans to prohibit lawns as well -
which some other Southwest communities have tried). Sacramento and LA
consume much more water per capita than SF or Oakland. Likewise, some
businesses consume more or less water per employee (or per $revenue) due
to the nature of the business.
Why not implement quotas
instead? Depending on the severity of the drought in your county, you
are allotted x gallons/day per capita. If you remain below the quota,
you get a rebate. If you exceed it, you pay a penalty with growing
magnitude. Maybe some waivers and exceptions can be put in place for
unusual circumstances. Frankly such a system should be in place with or
without the presence of drought.
But of course the water
cuts ignore the elephant in the room - CA agriculture, which accounts
for 80% of state water usage (BTW the energy sector is also exempt, and
they use a ton of water for power plants, drilling, etc.). CA farms
don't even use drip irrigation like Israel - they just spray water
indiscriminately because it's subsidized (which also causes a lot of
runoff with harmful fertilizer/pesticide chemicals sickening the
locals). CA economy is both high and low tech, but the mix has to evolve
to favor high tech. Tech and service industries produce way more GDP
per capita and per unit of resources (and often much less environmental
impact) vs. farming. The only profitable farming these days (apart from
cannabis) is large corporate ag. Profits are concentrated to the owners
and execs, and workers are often temporary and poorly-paid with few
benefits. I understand that not everyone can be a software engineer or
account manager, but if we're in a crisis and we have to pick what parts
of our economy/society to protect, and what parts are less critical, I
don't think there are many strong arguments in favor of farming.
Apart
from wine grapes, I don't think there are many crops that have to be
grown in CA these days. With global trade, we can get produce and other
foodstuffs from anywhere. Already many of our fruits and veggies come
from south-of-our-border, nuts from the Maghreb/Middle East (CA almonds
are a noteworthy culprit), and rice comes from Asia. We might as well go
all the way. Maybe there is some risk associated with a dependence on
foreign imports, but there's also a lot of risk associated with giving
CA farmers the lion's share of our dwindling potable water. And
currently, desalinization is very expensive (maybe not quite
cost-prohibitive, but close) and harmful to local sea life. Maybe
farmers could pay a water tax to help fund desal?
Environmental
conditions have caused human migrations and adaptations since the
beginning of our history. Just because we settled and farmed the CA
Central Valley in the past doesn't mean that we have to always. And it's
not like we'd be losing so much - Central Valley communities lead the
state in terms of unemployment, some forms of pollution, and crime,
significantly contributed to the housing bust, and all their structures
are in a flood plain with 100 year old levees. Maybe it's best if we
stop the "making the desert bloom" experiment, and stick to the coasts?
Just maintain an urban, non-resource-intensive society and economy. Like
Dubai, but without the crazy construction projects. Let the Central
Valley return to its natural state. Just putting it out there.
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After discussing this issue with some economists at work, there is of
course the libertarian-market approach (for better or worse). Forget
quotas and reduction targets - just open up water to market forces and
let people decide how much it's worth to them. Of course there are a lot
of practical considerations and details that need to be resolved, but
"properly priced" water will eliminate the wasteful farmers (using a lot
of water on low-profit crops like alfalfa), and people will only buy
what they can afford to use. There should also be a water credit for
low-income or at-risk persons/groups to ensure that they have fair
access to a minimum living supply, no matter the market price. But like
most traded products, I can see such a system vulnerable to
exploitation/manipulation by certain privileged groups at the expense of
the less sophisticated.
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I think the privileged groups is pretty clearly the farmers. As you
note, they use 80% of California's water to produce 2% of California's
economy. They pay 1/10th of the consumer rate for water. I think the
attached graphic pretty well illustrates it.
Why
should consumers go through radical water savings techniques when the
real solution is to increase the rate farmers pay? You're pretty much
squeezing water from a stone from residential users as it is to get
further efficiencies.
San Diego is spending
billions to build a desalinization plant when almond farmers are
spraying water like there's no tomorrow. It's a horrendous misallocation
of resources. Even if we didn't fully marketize the price of water,
even bringing it a little more in line with market forces would go a
long way to hitting water reduction targets.
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For a seasoned, liberal politician, Brown has proposed and
implemented some pretty questionable stuff during his recent tenure. As
you said, the 25% residential-business cutback is a complex, unfair way
to barely affect the problem - while ignoring the no-brainer, big-impact
approach.
I was also surprised how small a % of CA GDP ag
was. Anything that consumes 80% of a scarce resource and returns 2% of
value should get cut. But they have political clout, so it's much easier
to lean on residents/SMBs who can't as easily take collective action.
Time to relocate to Oregon? :P
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It is interesting to note that in the us there are some things that would be unobtainable if ca stopped producing:
Artichokes 99% of us consumption, broccoli 94%, cauliflower
89%, celery 95%, garlic 95%, almonds 99%, apricots 97%, figs, grapes,
kiwi, nectarines, olives, pistachios, plums, and walnuts all over 90%.
So off shoring of our food may be possible but it will be
painful for many foods. But all those pointing at irresponsible
California and its water wasting aren't putting their money where there
mouth is (literally) and mostly non Californians benefit from the water
subsidies.
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But you have to wonder - why aren't other states growing those crops?
It's not like they can't if they really needed to, and other states have
more favorable tax/labor/regulatory environments. I know CA soil and
climate are pretty good, but I don't think it's such a differentiator.
Maybe the economics just don't make sense for the rest of the US? And
for scale - CA's ag sector was $34B in revenue in 2009 (with profits of
$8.8B), vs. $21B for the runner-up Iowa - a much smaller state. So to
normalize for geography, actually CA is not that grand. We just have a
diversity of crops, which may not be unique to CA. Ironically if you
look at the financials on pg. 24 of the doc, they don't even list water
as a cost, so I have no idea what they're paying.
Say we did
significantly cut back on CA ag production - we would have shortages of
some of those products in stores. Prices would go up for the produce
that people really wanted, but suppliers would respond by planting more
of those in other states (or we would import more). Maybe they don't
taste quite as good or the fruits are a bit smaller, but it would get to
market in a season or two. Heck, it's not like CA grows those crops all
year either - when CA farms are fallow or those crops are out of
season, we get supply from greenhouses (which don't have to be in CA) or
foreign farms anyway.
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