Recent stories in the New York Times highlight a groundwater crisis throughout much of the United States, including the San Joaquin Valley. While depleted aquifers aren’t news to Valley citizens, the urgency of the situation has yet to strike home, especially in the northern part of the Valley where last winter’s heavy rains have led to a false sense of security and a “it can’t happen here” mindset.
Farther south, wars between water barons Stewart Resnick, the Boswell company and John Vidovich have dominated news even while Tulare Lake has reclaimed mile upon mile of its natural heritage. Widespread flooding and a near-record snowpack have made it easy to forget that drought has been the dominant weather feature of the last fifteen years and climate change is virtually certain to put future water supplies in even greater peril.
One of the Times stories reports that in “ parts of Utah, California and Texas, so much water is being pumped up that it is causing roads to buckle, foundations to crack and fissures to open in the earth. And around the country, rivers that relied on groundwater have become streams or trickles or memories.” Widespread subsidence has yet to affect the northern Valley, but it’s an ongoing and growing crisis in Valley cities and towns like Fresno, Chowchilla and Corcoran, where “subsidence bowls” can extend hundreds of square miles.
In Minnesota during the drought of 2021, demand for French fries and other popular food products drove farmers to pump, “at least 6.1 billion gallons more groundwater than allowed under state permits,” even during one of the state’s severest droughts. The huge overdraft was reminiscent of widespread planting of almond orchards during the Valley’s extreme drought years, all of them dependent on groundwater.
The wanton destruction of aquifers nationwide doesn’t just threaten the nation’s food production, it jeopardizes urban dwellers as well. Most Valley cities depend on groundwater to serve their residents’ needs. Even the City of Modesto, which has a surface water treatment plant, still depends on groundwater for almost half the city’s water demand.
Meanwhile, squabbles about out-of-district water sales dominate news in Modesto and Stanislaus County, with little attention to the almost certain future need for enhanced storage. Projects like River Partners’ expansions of wetlands get too little attention and depend on inadequate and uncertain funding, even though wetlands are among the most inexpensive and efficient means of flood control and groundwater recharge readily available — far more cost-efficient than dams, for example.
Also neglected in most local news coverage, the scandalous 2020 deal between the Trump administration and Westlands Water District should have been front page news in every Valley newspaper. Under the agreement negotiated by Trump’s Secretary of Interior David Bernhardt, former lawyer and lobbyist for Westlands, Westlands would receive permanent rights “to as much as 1.15 million acre-feet of water per year, more than double the amount of water that Los Angeles’ 3.9 million residents use annually.”
This true “water grab” has received far less publicity than the state’s attempts to balance water usage so that it serves the needs of riparian ecology, farmers, the San Joaquin Delta and the fishing industry in just and equitable ways. Fortunately, tribal activists, environmentalists and fishing groups have had recent success in court as they attempt to invalidate the Westlands water grab.
Valley citizens need to awaken now to the need to ensure a reliable water future. The best ways to do so include far greater emphasis on wetlands preservation, groundwater storage options, and conservation of precious water resources, especially during wet years. Most especially, Valley citizens need a greatly heightened awareness to the destructive effects of the commodification of water in the form of sales to distant buyers and water grabs like the Westlands water deal. At stake is nothing less than the future of our cities and agricultural economy.
Thank you Valley Citizen for the overdue wake up call for the Stanislaus County groundwater basins that should have already been categorized as critically over-drafted basins, (which include the Turlock and Modesto Basins) due to the rapid decline in the water table and wells going dry, both domestic and agricultural wells.
The Stanislaus County Supervisors should amend their Groundwater Ordinance and prohibit groundwater transfers out of basins and specifically limit groundwater transfers to in-basin only, not basin to basin nor out of Stanislaus County.
Stanislaus County is blessed with some great previously foresighted districts that I wish would make some policy changes like eliminating district operational spills, a District Zero Farmer Drainage Water Policy and a policy that penalizes groundwater pumping when district surface water is available like other districts have done.
Unfortunately some of the institutional investors that are in district are depleting the groundwater resources when district surface water is available .
Our surface water blessed districts should redirect any conserved water at a workable price range for all to the critically over-drafted areas within Stanislaus County for long term groundwater substantially for all.
It’s time that the Stanislaus County Supervisors take the lead on these issues for groundwater and surface water substantially within Stanislaus County.
Rocket-man
QUESTION: Do the Stanislaus County Supervisors even know what they are doing?
Let’s face FACTS: any number of legal voters can vote in the County Supervisors. DO voters even know which knowledge and which skills they should be looking for in a County Supervisor? Sincerely doubt those who DO vote know which knowledge and which skills a County Supervise MUST have to be proficient in position. Sincerely doubt they CARE to know. Earnestly doubt the Supervisorial candidates CARE to know, thus far.
Stanislaus County has some MAJOR obstacles to move out of Stanislaus County’s way. Moving these obstacles cannot be left to chance.
Where are the Rocket-men when we need them on a Supervisorial Board? And how would citizens know who they are?
Stanislaus County is facing both: the tyranny of the masses who do not know any better or worse, who DO NOT CARE until it is too late; and, the tyranny of the too few who DO vote, thinking they alone know best.
When these candidates show up at events, scrutinize them. Ask hard questions. If you do not know what to ask, bring along the someone’s who do know what to ask. Then long prior to a real vote, before the crowd goes home, ask those in the know, to give us their honest opinions as to whether specific campaigners know their stuff. This is not about feelings or saving face. This IS about hard core NEED to know…
Meetings should be held according to subject matter. One (1) obstacle needing moving per meet.
Televised meeting. No questions off table…
I would rather a seat on the board remain open than having ill-equipped members fill valuable positions just to take up seats and lodge non-sensical votes.
Same for Modesto City Counsel and MID, etc No quoram, NO vote. Sound dangerous? No more dangerous than voting in thieves who smile up in our faces and stab us in the back.
I am tired of watching government charades. I want ACTION from genuine righteous decision makers who KNOW the subject matter they decide on. Otherwise we are NOT long for this land. We will be spit back out, BEFORE we mismanage and completely destroy Earth!
Mark my words. Earth can survive without us. We cannot survive without all ecosystems on the land, we were gifted, regenerating. Snap out of it. This is not a dress rehearsal.
I understand that 6 million acres are being farmed in the San Joaquin Valley. It has recently been suggested that somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million of those acres need to be fallowed in order to help stabilize our water crises. Might dry farming be an option once again in the low lying foothills? Granted, that would just be a drop in the bucket but it may contribute at least part of the solution.
Wake me up when things change.
I don’t see it happening. What I see happening is water slowly but surely running out (as it is) and leaving parts of the Valley even more useless. Maybe put some solar panels in the dead zones where the almonds were. Maybe we can lease that land to the natives as part of a renegotiated treaty. We could store toxic waste there too. Eventually we will buy (semi) clean air and water from Walmart, so whatevs.
I think on DraftKings you can bet which towns go dry next. I put my money on Shafter.
Always good to hear from you JT. We know we are in trouble when irony and sarcasm are taken literally and for good reasons. This is the world of Jonathan Swift and Lewis Carroll and we are prisoners in funhouse mirrors, each more distorted than the last.
Many farmers already do store toxic waste, it is called manmade chemical fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, fumigants, and GMO’s, but these toxins are stored in the dirt and the produce grown and sold in markets as “food.”
As for leasing the dead zones to the natives, as a renegotiated treaty, that is a low blow and should never be meant as humor assuming you meant it so.
How about the true natives, kick the rest of us all off their land? And, send us packing with all the toxins we allowed to be manufactured to poison their soil. That sounds environmentally just.
Needing to be awakened is exactly what I meant above, when stating that people DO NOT CARE.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-41379-9
How MID manages our water is crucial to well owners. It is vital that our water is
distributed ONLY by a board that has proven expertise by which to make sound decisions.
Be on the lookout for new board members, next time around. We can no longer accept doing water business the way it was always done. No more guess work will do. The water is down below the line.
More to seriously consider:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2992