Who gets the water in the California Bay Delta has been a controversy spanning multiple decades primarily because of the estuary’s importance as a unique environmental habitat and as a valuable natural resource for Central Valley farmers. Near continuous litigation has spawned over the Delta’s designation as a “critical habitat” for a number of endangered species that live in the watershed like the Delta smelt and Chinook salmon. The Central Valley Project (“CVP”) is one of many Bureau of Reclamation water projects that divert northern California’s water from this watershed to Central Valley farmers. However, while these diversions provide necessary water to the agricultural industry, they simultaneously diminish the survival of endangered fish species.
Currently, environmentalists use the Endangered Species Act as the basis for lawsuits seeking to reduce the amount of diverted water. Reducing diversions helps fish species by inhibiting the spread of disease, lowering river temperatures to promote breeding, and increasing the optimal habitat range.
However, disputes arise when there is not enough water to satisfy user demands and protect endangered species at the same time. Drought has exacerbated this problem. For instance, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has found that recent weather patterns have caused the worst drought in America since 1956. Farmers have responded with increasing challenges to fish protection in order to receive their contractual water allocations from the state and federal water projects. For farmers, limitations on water supply create dire economic consequences, primarily felt by most Americans in the form of increased prices. Additionally, farmers facing restrictive water allocations react by pumping water from wells, fallowing lands, and switching crops to less water-intensive plants. These usage restrictions negatively affect job creation, access to credit, air pollution, and consequently, the economic viability of central valley farming.
However, there are also economic consequences in satisfying cities’ and farmers’ demands for water. For example, when salmon fisheries were closed due to lack of water during the early 2000s, California’s economy lost about $150 million.
This year, the drought has stretched beyond California affecting mid-west farmers. As grains become more expensive due to increases in water prices, farmers that rely on these grains to feed their livestock cannot afford to pay these skyrocketing prices, so they pass the expense along to consumers.
The constant polarization of this controversy has served only to make these water allocation disputes more adversarial than necessary. California has to recognize that choosing sides cannot be a viable solution going forward. Interests must be balanced to accommodate California’s growing water demand. If such a balanced solution is not reached, the consequences could be drastic going forward; especially considering California’s population is expected to exceed 40 Million by 2018.
California Governor Jerry Brown’s administration has proposed a plan to try to build a “peripheral canal” around the Delta to satisfy both water users and environmentalists. This next step in California’s water battle is an extensive environmental undertaking with the potential to restore many endangered species populations. However, the project also has a significant price tag ranging from 17 to 50 Billion dollars. The potential gains are plentiful, but critics argue that the price is too high and the positive effects are too uncertain.
Despite these concerns, it’s important that California moves forward in developing a solution that satisfies farming and environmental stakeholders rather than keeping the status quo. Policy makers must recognize that leaving controversial decisions such as this to the judicial system, as has been the tendency in the past, only undermines the state’s long term interests by creating long litigation and leaving important policy decisions to a judiciary ill-suited for the task.