Water & the Feds

It's nothing new - the tug of war over who has what say over water.

One recent foray has been the Clean Water Restoration Act (earlier blog post) where Congress had been debating a seemingly small amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act - that of merely changing the phrase "navigable waters" to "waters of the United States". To some, this small change would have significantly broadened EPA's regulatory control over water, and this is why EPA wanted it so bad.  It was a direct assault on the right of the states to control and manage their waters.  The other side argued the amendment simply corrected what had always been intended by Congress, so it wasn't really any expansion of EPA authority at all.  This bill had been a lightning rod in 2009 and 2010, and according to Thomas, it did not survive the 111th Congress.  Moreover, I haven't been able to find any version of this bill in the 112th Congress either.  It was introduced in 2009 by Senator Feingold, who did not survive the 2010 elections.

I have also been wary of other more subtle Federal activities regarding, not the direct control of water, but the direction of water policy at the federal level.  It almost appears as if the feds have taken the position that if you can't get control of the water itself, the next best thing is to tell everyone what the water policy is going to be.  Take a close look at the federally organized and appointed Water Information Coordination Program (WICP) (earlier blog post).  This is by no means a direct foray into water control, but seems headed toward being a subtle process to direct and impose various aspects of a desired federal water policy on the states.  The specific element I looked at related to a sustainable water use policy.  Warning, this is a very intricate arrangement of committees, subcommittees and programs reporting to programs, so it's really hard to follow.  One sub group sanctioned by WICP is the Advisory Committee on Water Information (ACWI), which is organized into 8 sub committees - one of which is the sub committee on Sustainable Water - whose mission statement is:

"Serve as a forum to share information and perspectives that will promote better decision making in the U.S. regarding the sustainability of our nation's water resources."

Notice how this federally led group starts out their mission statement with a respectable and appropriate federal responsibility - that of discussing and sharing perspectives to promote better decision making - then seals the statement with what they think that policy should be - sustainable water resources.  If no one questions the mission statement this group simply has to point the train.  It's the classic approach of "hearts and minds", which eventually changes policy and law.  No federal group should be telling Kansas or any other state what their water policy should be, or is to be - even if it is a good policy.  My second post on this process.  If Kansans want a sustainable water resources policy, they'll make that happen.

The final example goes back to February, 1942 when the Republican River Compact was being debated by Congress as H.R. 5945.  By this time all three states (Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska) had ratified the compact.  Up steps the Federal Power Commission, who had not been party to the compact to date, with Compact amendments that were disturbing to at least Colorado.  Clifford Stone, Director of the Colorado Conservation Board was updating his board on the Legislative process and put it this way in his February 19, 1942 memo:

Apparently, the Federal Power Commission desires to reserve the right some time in the future to declare the river navigable in law, although not navigable in fact, in order that federal control and regulation may be interposed to prevent the control of consumptive uses for irrigation and other beneficial purposes under state law. This we do not believe to be the proper nor acceptable position toward western states which control water for irrigation under state laws. It represents the activity on the part of some federal bureaus and departments to disregard state laws under the fiction of "navigability in law".  If such a policy is carried too far, it will threaten the water rights on many streams of the West which, as you know, constitute property rights.

As it turned out, Congress did not adopt any of the Power Commission's amendments.  But, as a result, is it any wonder why non-federal entities cast wary eyes upon Washington?  I'd guess there must be hundreds of these kinds of activities if one had the time to research it enough.  But that takes a lot of effort and stamina. And it takes an almost equal effort to keep keeping up the vigil.

Sometimes I wish the federal government and its agencies would quit scheming and conniving over the control of water and introduce a clear and direct bill in Congress to take full control of the waters of the US, or mandate a sustainable water resource policy on all states and territories, or whatever it is they really want to do.  Then Congress can settle the water control issues once and for all and we can all get some productive work done.  Hey, that gives me an idea....

The Future of Prior Appropriation?

A report by the Environmental Law Institute: Western Water in the 21st Century – Policies and Programs that Stretch Supplies in a Prior Appropriation World - was released June, 2009 and says that prior appropriation state laws need to do some things to soften the added pressures their laws are expected to feel as supplies shrink and demand increases.  Basically two things:  Reduce disincentives to sustainability; and enhance market incentives to sustainability.  To reduce disincentives it lists a number of issues including:  addrerss the no forfeiture laws; address instream flow rights; embrace water banks; more water storage (especially groundwater); and a few more.

Market incentives to sustainability include allowing the use of conserved water and dealing with a robust water transfer processes that is expedited, protects third parties and is more generally more flexible.

The report also says that prior appropriation state laws have been fortunate enough to have survived earlier difficult times through "..deep-rooted entrenchment in practice and law..”.  The author (Adam Schempp) says this like shallower, less substantial laws would have been better?  And even if states do implement these recommendations (assuming none have them implemented already) what state is not going to try and deep-root these in practice as well? 

I was interested in this report in light of the new conservation ideas Kansas has been discussing of late - a replacement Water Rights Conservation Program (WRCP); a new, statutory Conservation use type; and a few others.  Our GMD 4 new conservation ideas clearly address some of these recommendations, but not all of them.  For this reason I’m not sure I agree with the report relative to all their recommendations, because I think Kansas is close to getting it right – at least in terms of what our conservation needs are.

It is possible that the author has a different concept of conservation, however.  The report says it offers its recommendations to “..lead to more efficient, adaptive, or sustainable water use decisions.”  Without definitions of efficient, adaptive and sustainable, it's hard to tell what the institute is really trying to convey.  Anyway, the full report is available on line at the ELI Website.  It's a compact 82 page report that gives specific examples from the following states:  AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, TX, UT, and WA.

Would it Work?

I think there are several ways to define or achieve "sustainable" groundwater use here in NW Kansas.  You have to pick your poison, though, because they all entail using less water than we are today.  One intriguing approach involves the possibility of irrigating virtually every acre of the district to a lesser degree, rather than the 15% of the district we now irrigate fully.

The idea is based on limiting irrigations to match the long-term annual recharge rates - to assure an average dryland production rate every year, for whatever crop is grown.  In theory, we should achieve long term sustainability if we can do so.  For example, if it rains an average of 18 inches per year in Thomas County, and this precipitation regime produces a long term average dryland production of 60 bushels per acre of corn, how would we fair if every acre in the County was irrigated every year for the 60-bushel corn production level?  When it rains 18 inches or more, no irrigation would be required or allowed.  When it rains less, every acre could be irrigated only for the 60 bushel production target.

Another way to say this would be irrigation only as a supplement to average dryland production rates - be it wheat, corn, sorghum, beans or whatever.  I wonder how a 60 bushel per acre corn production history on every crop acre, forever, would compare socially and economically to the 225 bushel per acre production levels we're now achieving on 12% of the acres - while the declining groundwater table continues to promise us an eventual end to this practice?  I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the long term economic outlook is positive, but I'm not sure how the current economy would respond.  Cratering our current economic base to achieve any long term sustainable goal is always going to be problematic.

I'm sure there are a few things that would need to be factored in - like the very limited non-irrigation water use we have here (less than 2.5% of the total); the fact that crop production is not linear in it's regard to water use; the fact that annual rainfall is not known until after the crop year; and a few other things, but, these could be compensated for by either reducing the irrigated acres, or the crop production targets to some degree.

Such an approach would absolutely guarantee that the highest percentage possible of average annual precip would go toward crop production. Natural recharge would essentially cease, but with vitually no groundwater use coming out, the water table should stabilize over the long term (it'd still fluctuate a little bit in response to mid-term drought or wet cycles).  With no surface water issues to be held accountable for, this situation could actually become an economic and hydrologic advantage.

I'd be interested in anyone's thoughts on these ideas.  GMD 4 is NOT promoting this concept, but it'd be nice to know if it could ever be an option or not.

Agchat - Practical Sustainability

I've mentioned this before, but I log into #Agchat from time to time on Twitter to discuss ag issues.  This past Tuesday (July 13) the topic was Sustainability in Ag.  I thought this could be an interesting discussion - especially if the sustainability of Ag water was discussed.  To offer this as a topic, I shot in the following question (not knowing if it would be used by the moderator or not):  "How important is water resource sustainability to your Ag operation?  If it is, how much control do you have over the issue?"

Anyway, the discussion began with question 1:  "Begin by defining ‘sustainable farming’ and ‘un-sustainable farming’ (with examples)."  The discussion that followed had me scratching my head more often than not.  Right off the bat several of the participants offered:  "..our citrus crop in CA uses 76% less water than conventionally grown citrus & produces 5X more fruit per acre"  and  "Citrus crop uses dense plantings and newer technology" and  "sustainability = producing more with less" and "switching our corn/soys to 20" rows has increased yields and increased use of each acre".  

First of all, I'm pretty sure these folks' definition of sustainability was geared more toward sustaining their own farm/operation than toward sustaining their input resources - like irrigation water.  Simply stated, anytime production yields increase, consumptive water use increases - regardless of how much more or less water you physically apply to the crop.  More often than not the newer technologies transfer the inefficient (non-consumptive) water application to consumptive crop use - hence you don't have to pump as much, but actually use more (demonstrated by the increased yields).  If everyone did this, how can we hope to achieve sustainable water use as our water use continues to increase?

To be fair, there were some good responses too.  One said:  "Regardless of your definition, future impacts must be considered."  I think this participant was seeing the broader picture - at least I hope he or she was.

My question did get posed, but the discussion was ... well, polite.  Responses were:  "is vital to sustainability of life" and "Very important & controlled" and "My friends do a great water training on how to install drip".   Not at all what I was hoping for.

This is when I posed the following discussion point:  "What happens if you have a series of individually sustainable farms, but collectively they are unsustainable?"  It seemed like everyone was focused on what sustainability was for their farm, but refused to consider that collectively they could be having a very unsustainable impact - not so much from what they do to the land, air, water, etc., but certainly from what they take from the land, air and water.  My question was not discussed or even acknowledged.  What do you think?  Was it too cryptic?  Too close to home?

All in all, it was a lively discussion, as it almost always is, but I'm thinking Twitter is simply too limited a venue to seriously discuss any topic - especially in a 2-hour session.  This is where I think Google Wave could do a much better job.