This past weekend I was driving along route 5 in California from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles. I’ve done this same drive at least a dozen times, but this was the first time I recall seeing signs like the one in the photo above. They state – Congress Created Dust Bowl. Although the sign is difficult to read in the photo, what is clear is the dusty landscape behind it. I must have passed dozens before I noticed them, and probably dozens more before I read the message – Congress Created Dust Bowl. At first I thought their message was that Congress was responsible for the dust bowl in the mid west of the 1930s. But why would anyone be making such a point in the center of California’s largest agricultural region? Stranger still was the idea that this area was very much like a dust bowl before farming began, so how was Congress doing anything that nature couldn’t easily do if you stopped the man-made alteration of the landscape? If you shut off the water being pumped from aquifers and redirected from wetter parts of the state, nature would very quickly return the region to a dusty desert.

Upon my return home I started digging and was shocked by how much chatter is out there about this issue. Over the past four months nearly 500,000 acres of agriculture land in the San Joaquin Valley have be abandoned or fallowed due to a number of factors. This post could easily go on and on if I tried to cover every aspect of the story in detail, so I’ll boil it down to three major points: man-made drought, natural drought, and unsustainable irrigation practices.

Man-Made Drought – In 2006 the a lawsuit was filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council to protect a Delta Smelt in the San Joaquin and Sacramento River delta. In December of 2008 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued what is called a biological opinion concluding that water restrictions were required to protect the Delta Smelt under the Endangered Species Act. In many of the articles covering this issue, environmentalists are disparagingly referred to as crazy or callously unconcerned about the lives of farmers, or how this is a good example of the mishandling of the Endangered Species Act, or how the real endangered species are the farmers, or that the fish is just a minnow and not worthy of protection, or that this is a battle between fish and farmers. Commentators like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have been quick to sensationalize the story and serve their own agenda by telling only the parts that prove their narrow view point.

Check out these links for video examples:

I have two thoughts on this. First, what’s the point of having the Endangered Species Act if your not going to protect species that are endangered. In virtually every case you could make an economic argument that protecting a specific animal causes economic hardship on the very group that caused the species collapse. There’s no reason to protect animals if the economic interests of the people causing the demise rank higher. In this case, the Delta Smelt population has been decimated because of water pumping along the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers for agricultural irrigation. The recipients of the water being pumped are the very farmers now being effected by the reduced pumping. The total disregard for this fish has caused the problem, not the work of some nutty environmentalist group.

Second, the Delta Smelt has become the target of this feud but it’s actually a symbol of a larger problem on these two rivers. This fish is low on the food chain, and it’s potential collapse is an indication of an ecosystem on the brink. Saving this particular fish saves many other fish populations that would likely collapse as a result. Because it’s small, the Delta Smelt makes an easy target for those who think animals should not take precedence over human activity. But what’s really at stake is the total river ecosystem. All the articles I’ve seen conveniently leave this issue out of the story. But still, if an economic argument is required, then try to calculate the cost of losing the ecosystem of two major rivers against the farming revenue in an artificially irrigated landscape.

Natural Drought – California is in the third year of a severe natural drought which shows no sign of easing. Snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains this year was as much as fifty percent less than average. Many of the major reservoirs throughout the sate are well below their average level. And some are perilously close to being totally empty. Early last month the state took steps to restrict water access to everyone which touched off long standing and quietly simmering animosity between farmers in the norther and central valleys and the urban residents of Southern California. Water supply from northern California to the Los Angeles metro region through the LA and CA Aqueduct systems has been significantly reduced in the past two years. And farmers are getting less of that water as well. Conveniently, stories that frame this issue as a man-made drought only give scant coverage to the state-wide restrictions and reductions due to the natural drought currently taking place.

Unsustainable Irrigation Practices – Perhaps this is the first sign that the current central valley industrialized agricultural farming business model may be seriously flawed. California is the world’s largest producer of fruits, nuts, and vegetables – supplying more then half of all produced in the United States. Every year many of these farmers get subsides from the government, produce vast surplus, and irresponsibly irrigate their crops with inexpensive water. Their business model does not include ecosystems costs – those associated with the care and preservation of the environmental. They draw upon mountain runoff, the Central Valley Aquifer, reservoirs, and man-manipulated rivers without a concern, or cost, for the potential environmental impact. Now the chickens have really come home to roost. Combine a natural drought, federal and state water restrictions, and a business model that depends on inexpensive and plentiful water supplied by state and federal governments through man-made means and you have a recipe for hardship.

The northern and central valley farmers of California didn’t create this system, so it’s not fair to pin them with total culpability. But they do share the blame and must be part of a solution rather than continuing to be part of the problem. Fifty years ago it may have been unthinkable that agricultural water supply would ever be tapped out, or that animal species would brought to the point collapse due to pumping. But lack of foresight is a principle cause. And here’s where we can learn something. Instead of writers and television commentators focusing on how this is a battle between man and earth, let’s admit that humans are not disconnected from nature but a force of nature who can have dramatic impact on the environment – especially when we disregard it. Let’s not frame issues like this as government vs. farmers, man vs. planet, environmentalists vs. commerce, or any other meaningless competition metaphor. Let’s take responsibility for our actions and poor planning. Let’s not put signs on the highway to sensationalize a situation, refer to a terrible part of the nations economic and agricultural past, and blame the government for a problem with multiple contributing factors – the least of which is that the farmers placing the signs bare some degree of responsibility.

Go here for a follow up post on this topic. Additional conversation about these signs and this issue can be found at Highway Hags.

related posts:

• March 13, 2010 -- water wars at MiaGreen (4)
• October 7, 2009 -- the valley Hannity forgot (2)
• October 16, 2009 -- thirst for independence (0)
• August 6, 2009 -- don’t live here (0)
• April 22, 2010 -- Earth Day origins (0)