In the October 13th edition HCN reviewed western
ballot measures. This year there apparently are only a few “environmental”
measures on western ballots and at least one of these – the California initiative on “green measures” –
is actually anti-environmental. I don’t
know about you but I find this troubling. In a national election year in which
Democrats are expected to do exceptionally well in the West, one would expect
green groups to try moving their agendas forward via the initiative process.
In my state of California, for example, streams are going
dry – or are already dry much of the year – largely as a result of the fact
that groundwater is unregulated. That’s right folks, with the exception of a
few counties which have put in place ordinances to forestall massive extraction
of groundwater for export – anyone can stick a straw into the ground anywhere
in the Golden State and pump as much water as she
wishes.
And there are plans afoot to do just that. For example,
irrigation districts and individual farmers on the California
side of the Upper
Klamath River
Basin have used state drought assistance and Farm
Bill EQIP funding to sink wells deep into the aquifer. Access to unregulated
groundwater gives these farmers an alternative irrigation source should surface
supplies once again be cut off as took place in 2001 when water was temporarily
reallocated for threatened and endangered fish. But the farmers have also been
selling water to a Bureau of Reclamation water bank. In fact, they have been
selling so much groundwater that the US Geological Service says the pumping is
not sustainable. Nevertheless these same irrigators plan to continue selling
groundwater. A proposed Water Deal
negotiated with agencies and some fishing and environmental groups would rely
on sale and purchase of groundwater to provide for Klamath
River flows during drought years. Some fish advocates say that the government purchasing water to meet fisheries needs is unsustainable and a threat to the Public Trust Doctrine. Others fear that these
same farmers will someday sell extracted groundwater to thirsty Southern California.
The environmental and economic harm already associated with
groundwater pumping in the Golden
State is large. Groundwater is often interconnected with surface flow and groundwater
pumping is typically implicated in stream flow reduction and stream
dewatering. Dewatering and depleted
stream flows in turn are implicated in the loss of ecologically and economically
valuable salmon and other fisheries. And
while the current harm is very significant, the potential for future harm if
unregulated groundwater pumping continues is huge.
So why hasn’t California’s
powerful environmental establishment sought to bring groundwater pumping under
government regulation via the initiative process? It’s a good question and one
for which I do not have an answer. But I can speculate.
California’s
environmental establishment appears to have become more interested in making
deals with the purveyors of environmental harm than in forcing those
perpetrating the harm to cease the destruction. For example, in the wine
country north of San Francisco
stream flow is decreasing at an alarming rate. Groundwater pumping is
implicated along with illegal surface diversions and the rapidly expanding wine
industry is known to be the main culprit. Yet the environmental and fishing
group Trout Unlimited recently accepted over a million dollars in state funding
to “form partnerships” with the wine industry.
Trout Unlimited is unlikely to support limits on groundwater pumping
which would surely be seen as a threat to its new wine industry partners.
Trout Unlimited is
calling its lucrative new partnership with the wine industry the Water and Wine coalition. There is no
word yet whether any Christian groups plan to sign on.
In California
the environmental establishment has become much too cozy with the purveyors of
environmental destruction. Perhaps they are not putting strong environmental
measures on the ballot as a result.
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