California Rice-Farmers ... Dollars For Their Water

The offer from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and others to buy water from the Sacramento Valley for $700 per acre-foot reflects how dire the situation is as the state suffers through its fourth year of drought. In 2010 — also a drought year — it bought water but only paid between $244 and $300 for the same amount. The district stretches from Los Angeles to San Diego County.

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The offer is a hard one to turn down for farmers like Tennis, who also sits on the Western Canal Water District Board. Farmers can make around $900 an acre, after costs, growing rice, Tennis said. But because each acre of rice takes a little more than 3 acre-feet of water, they could make around $2,100 by selling the water that would be used.

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The water purchase may be cancelled in some areas if the selling districts end up with shortages of their own. If the Western Canal Water District doesn't get a full allotment of water from the state, the deal is off, Trimble said.

Top Dollars For Water

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OBSERVATION:

Seems unnatural; growing rice in semi-arids ... (regardless!).

( i.e. "depending upon water availability" )

Rice Production Uses ...
Almost a Third of Earth’s Fresh Water.

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PREVIOUS-RELATED:

Mar, 13 2015: California ... About One Year of Water Left

Mar, 7 2015: situation appears ... astonishingly-dire?
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Figures that this failure of a state would spend billions on a worthless rail system instead of investing in desalinization plants that would damn near solve their problems permanently. All they are doing is transferring the problem to other areas of their state. Take that money and invest it in the infrastructure to solve the problem long-term instead of looking for a short-term solution.

a reply to: FarleyWayne

With all this dire need for water, I still can't understand why there hasn't been a concerted effort to get a team of engineers together to devise a way of transporting melted snow from up north or melting arctic ice to areas that need water. Sure it's a major undertaking, but the longer they sit on their hands and do nothing to solve the problem, the chances of one day millions of people waking up without water will someday become a reality.

The Infrastructure of the U.S. is being neglected in favor of spending trillions of dollars on military equipment and bases around the world. States are running out of water, our power grid is outdated and vulnerable to cyber attacks. Our reliance on oil as an energy source and the reluctance of abandoning the combustion engine, not only pollutes our environment but leaves us dependent on foreign oil. Our land fills are becoming full and were running out of space to bury our trash, yet there has been no concerted effort to devise a system in which we can recycle all the waste we produce.

All of this will some day cause the U.S. and the world to have a major catastrophe on their hands. It's a shame that we prioritize military spending over the needs of humanity and the preservation of our environment. We have to wait until were faced with catastrophic problems before resources are used to fix the problem. In many cases it my be too late.

Seems like then now they are a bit late on this ongoing situation. Washington Stat's governor put out a drought warning as did surrounding states with the same issue, looks like Washington State so far has a plan.

The Washington Department of Ecology has requested $9 million in drought relief from the legislature. The money would pay for agricultural and fisheries projects, emergency water-right permits, changes to existing water rights, and grant water-right transfers.

Source
Maybe they can take a cue from neighbors to the north if possible. Not sure how that's gong to fair yet, such as with personal wells, in projected drought areas.

a reply to: WeRpeons

I take it you live close enough to your job and shops so you can walk to them, and don't need a car? A lot of Americans are not so lucky and need a car, hence they also need gasoline. Which has to come from somewhere.

a reply to: FarleyWayne

I am in SoCal and see new developments have automated sprinklers for community landscaping gets watered every night for many years...no adjustment to the controllers ever.

People expect the green spaces regardless of the added cost.
That is the current status quo for many years now.

i live in so-cal and don't see it being bad right now. every reservoir next to a golf corse is still full. every man made lake around me is still full. i have seen it much worst around here. i believe all the propaganda is to justify raising water rates and taxes.

a reply to: Metallicus

Desalination plants can only provide a temporary band aid for the massive arterial hemorrhaging of life sustaining water across the U.S. southwest. Not to mention, seawater desalination plants are enormous toxic engines, which accelerate environmental imbalance.

"Potential Impacts of Seawater Desalination"
source: www.paua.de...

I predict that over the next 25 years cities across the U.S. southwest will begin to collapse one-by-one, starting with Las Vegas Nevada as the first metropolitan ghost town.

"If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the Aquifers Are Drained"
source: news.nationalgeographic.com...

This focus on the short-term is because all of them grew up in water rich times. They can't believe that it is perfectly normal and natural for the entire southwest US to go through decades-long cycles of drought, and even if they concede that possibility, they don't want to acknowledge that it might just be happening again now and their direct problem to deal with.

They would rather grab what they can in the short-term over making the difficult long-term decisions that would torpedo their shiny rail system they NEED, er, want to have. Because as far as they're concerned the water will come back in a year or so ... it really won't be that decades long climate cycle-induced drought. It really won't be.

a reply to: FarleyWayne

I have a thought...and hear me out on this:

If you are growing a crop that is so heavily dependent upon water, such as rice, should you farm it somewhere that has an overabundance of water?

Just saying.

originally posted by: SlapMonkey
a reply to: FarleyWayne

If you are growing a crop that is so heavily dependent upon water, such as rice, should you farm it somewhere that has an overabundance of water?

Just saying.

DING! DING! DING! ... We Have A Winner !!!

My wife of 10-Years is from California and I told her this morning about this story ... that I stumbled-upon in the Wee-Hours-of-the-Morning.

She told me that everyone in Northern-California is/was aware of it ... (described as an insecticide mess primarily due to the mosquitos that are also produced).

OPINION: Disturbing.


If I remember correctly, Wile E Coyote originated in California.

( a self described ... 'super genius' )
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a reply to: SlapMonkey

They used to grow it in the coastal areas before cotton.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: SlapMonkey
They used to grow it in the coastal areas before cotton.

I'm from Bakersfield (the crotch of the central valley in California), and before it was settled and the Kern River damned up by Lake Isabella, that entire area of the valley used to be a marshland. Now when I visit and as I was growing up, I get amazed if there's even water in the "Kern River" that runs through town.

The point of my comment was that there is a sustainabilility issue in California, and it appears that it's at a breaking point where industry and crops and populations that can no longer be sustained by the natural resources need to relocate elsewhere and try their luck there. Either that, or the state needs to get its priorities straight as to what the limited resources should be used for--I'm going out on a limb and saying that watering lawns for vanity's sake shouldn't be one of them, or every third house putting in a pool.

Just my two cents from what I've seen growing up in a region of Cali that relies heavily on water. I'd be willing to be that half of the officials spoutting off about saving water go home and jump in their multi-thousand-gallon pools after a long hard day of working to tell everyone else how they should live, but not taking their own advice.

I'm cynical because that's the reality of much of California--do as I say, not as I do...but as long as it makes the state look superficially fun and attractive to tourists, we'll allow it. Farmers and other industries be damned!