(This is the second in a two part series on WhirledView by John C. Dyer. The first is found here. For anyone tuning in late, Mr. Dyer served as Chief Counsel to the California
Department of Food and Agriculture from April, 2004 through August, 2007,
serving in a general counsel slot. Prior
to that he was a counsel for the department from July, 1996. On August 31, 2007 he retired after 34 years
in public service. This series is in response to the January 21, 2010 Economist article entitled: "California's Central Valley: The Appalachia of the West.")
How did this come to be?
Climate change may be a factor, but the biggest factor is obvious -- poorly restrained and managed
Poorly restrained and managed growth
It also came to be through the expansions to 100,000 cow ranches. It came to be as demand escalated for the resources needed to produce thousands of tons of product grown and harvested year after year with greater and greater efficiency but also greater and greater demand on nature’s capacity to sustain.
The Economist article did not mention how gross agricultural product has grown even in the past 15 years. California’s Valley has long been one of this nation’s most productive agricultural preserves. Today, it produces staggering numbers from farm and ranching operations. These operations are frequently water intensive, especially so-called “production crops” like cotton. These are thirsty enterprises.
But a public policy should not be simply assumed into being as the reversal of exigent circumstances. I have no question that the existing levels of production require more water than they are receiving. But the most important public policy consideration is a little different than the one into which the Article would back the reader.
Assume the bond issue passes - but what happens down the road?
Assume for the sake of argument that the bond passes. Assume the diversion facilities are built. What will California do for an encore in 10-15 years? In 10-15 years one can anticipate that the facilities newly constructed with the bond money will already be obsolete, perhaps even before they are constructed. Why? Because production continues to grow without restraint.
There are more questions. Production aside, what does California do when the population of Southern California alone can consume all the water captured in California and the Colorado River basin? From what resource will Southern California draw then? Who will pay for that? How will that be financed?
Not theoretical questions
These are not theoetical questions. The best predictor of the future is the past. Throughout the past, as new resources were thrown at agriculture and the cities, production and population increased. A plan based on today’s need will not meet that expansion and no restraint has been imposed or is likely to be imposed in California’s often anti-governmental regulatory climate. Moreover, while every problem has a solution, every solution has at least one problem. These have not yet been reckoned. (Photo left: threshers drawn by mule teams, Hogin Family Ranch, Minturn, California, early 1900s. Hogin Family Archves.)
The plan to be financed by the upcoming bond may postpone the day of reckoning but it will not break the chain of events that pushes California ever onward toward that day. By that time, it seems entirely possible based on the general decline in the economy of California that the resources needed to manage the day of reckoning will be spent. If this upcoming project is to be more than politicians and big interests buying themselves breathing room through an election cycle or two, the real public policy question raised by the dilemma described so passionately by Mike Chrisman, Bill Phillimore, and Carol Whiteside must be addressed.
But neither the Article nor the Legislation appear to do so.
The real question is when to say when. What levels of production and population are sustainable, given the amount of water that can be projected to be or become available to California in the future? What is the appropriate balance between environmental needs, environmental capacity, production and population?
These are not new questions. They were identified in President Carter’s Global 2000 Report a generation ago. A generation gone by and hundreds of facilitators working over a period of decades to bring together the “CAL FED” Project which was supposed to answer those questions, and the questions appear to have gone on the back burner reserved for issues not resolvable.
When to say when? The Economist Article lacks the needed information.
The upcoming ballot measure deserves careful study by every Californian. The Economist Article does not provide the kind of information citizens need to choose wisely. I should disclose that, if I were to take a position, I would probably join with Secretary Chrisman et al in vigorously arguing the Valley needs more water. It is not right to simply abandon existing production to the tender mercies of Malthus’ laws. The Legislature and the Governor should be commended for recognizing this need even if one disagrees with the particularly strategy they have taken for both framing and resolving the problem.
But the debate cannot end there and I must respect that others may well conclude it is not appropriate to invest more taxpayer money in rescuing agriculture and Southern California from overbuilding. I must respect the view that this new bond measure comes at a time when the treasury cannot cope with its current obligations. It is not where I would draw the line but I must respect that the line may be drawn there.
Nature's Limitations
I love agriculture. I grew up with farm families in the very region about which Mike, Bill and Carol speak so passionately and eloquently. Each day I went to work when I was counsel for the Department of Food and Agriculture, I spent a portion of the day thinking about the boys with whom I went bowling every week in a small rural farm town near Fresno, only one of whom remains in agriculture today. All those families have had to leave farming since I was a boy.
But I cannot fool myself. I cannot see an unlimited future ahead. There are limitations to what nature can provide. We are up against them. The real question California must tackle to deal with its water problems, its runaway demand from population growth as well as intensive farming, is, as with booze, when to say when.
Please note that I write only my own opinion and nothing in what I have written should be considered the view of anyone with whom I have worked in the past. I have not reviewed this commentary with anyone outside of Whirled View.