Two rejoinders on risks and consequences

Readers, speak up

Two readers in different places offered responses to yesterday’s column, linked below, on our fellow citizens migrating to “risk prone” regions. Both ideas strike me as cautionary tales of actions and consequences so I include them in full.

It’s logical that more people concentrating in any particular area increases competition for water or a number of other resources, goods, or services. Water shortages or abundances become a central concern for planners, average Joes and Joannas, businesses, and anyone else looking ahead. However, the nuances of this argument become quite interesting.

A Monterey, California reader stressed the centrality of the water issue for state residents. As anyone reading this column often knows, I remain skeptical that the decades’s growth so vital to the most populated state in the nation will continue apace as we increasingly face a moment of truth on water. Yes, the past two years have provided more traditional snowfalls in the Sierra Nevada, replenishing the snowpack which in turn refilled reservoirs but will this continue? As I heard at the Hoover Dam 72 hours ago, this sustainability of fresh water in an era of drought highlights the long-term challenge many will experience.

“When talking about water availability in California, it's interesting to note that 80% of the water goes to agriculture and only 10% is for human consumption. The restrictions on water usage are such that one must be on a waiting list to even get a ‘water permit’ before being issued a building permit to remodel a bathroom. Get a load of Monterey County's Ordinance 98: ‘allows a property owner to request water credits to support a second full bath without having to deduct a like amount of water from the City's reserve. Please note that if the home has 1 and ½ baths, then the owners can add a maximum of ½ a bath. The maximum number of bathrooms for a SFD on a single parcel under Ordinance 98 is 2 full baths, and that includes a Master Bath.’ So, enjoy your lettuce and broccoli, folks!! It comes to you courtesy of your California brethren!!”

The note reminds all of us that county regulation is as decisive a factor in governance as is anything at the state or federal level. Many of the agricultural products we so adore from the vast California agricultural bounty such as almonds, walnuts, and pistachios are extremely water-intensive to grow. With California’s pistachio holdings producing all but a single percent of the nation’s crop, this is indicative of how skewing water use can prop up a vulnerable crop (It’s worth remembering, of course, that the world’s largest producer of that nut is actually Iran). And as a daily consumer of almond milk, I am certainly contribute to the bizarre pattern of agriculture receiving privileged water use rather than humans in Monterey or elsewhere in that state.

A report in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat lists the following list of water demands required to cultivate an acre of the indicated crop, in declining order of magnitude.

pasture

almonds and pistachios

alfalfa

citrus and subtropical fruits (oranges, grapefruit, lemon, dates, avocadoes, jojoba, olives)

sugar beets

deciduous fruits (cherries, walnuts, apricots, apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, plums, prunes, kiwi, and figs)

cotton

aliums (onions and garlic)

potatoes

vineyard

The Press Democrat cites a study, however, that 85% of California’s agricultural employment revenue results from fruits, vegetables and nuts on roughly half the cultivated land there.

Hmm. So it’s not just that we enjoy the bounties of the land but these crops also provide significant employment and taxes. Without water, how would these water-intensive crops persist?

Then it gets complicated as agricultural employment, of course, always raises the question of the farmworkers’s immigration status, a topic not raised in the article. By extrapolation, however, one can see that to alter the current balance of water usage and/or to deport the immigrants working the crops would dramatically increase food prices across the country.

Ooof. Actions and consequences indeed. And that doesn’t even address the financial burdens of water usage.

Our second reader similarly had a thoughtful revelation on risk and reality.

“Sobering....and sad. As we discussed, a recent drive through the wide-open spaces of N. Nevada shows a lot of ‘livable’ land that may see expansion by necessity at some point. It's lacking infrastructure for towns / cities to take root but for the many reasons you mentioned, those ‘fly-over’ areas of the Country may see growth as there is nowhere else to go.” [added emphasis to his final phrase-CW]

While water is the essence of life, this observation is a manifestation of the tension so pervasive in our society right now, at the core of the sense of frustration and divide between hopelessness versus optimism of the New York Stock Exchange at its record highs. As our reader keenly notes, some migration is occurring into the least hospitable portions of our nation. Those locations certainly will lack the fancy stuff, the accouterments of the Vegas Strip or the Phoenix gated communities, along with some of the most basic infrastructure and resource sharing for the foreseeable future. Yet for affordability and jobs people must move.

These are just two reminders on those moving—or still inhabiting—these “risk prone” areas of this beautiful nation. We cherish the freedom to move to places where we want to live but that doesn’t mean the challenges from nature, our fellow citizens, and financial constraints aren’t ever present.

Any further thoughts about this question? I welcome any and all challenges, concerns, doubts, or support. I appreciate your time today and any day you read Actions create consequences. We too often assume our individual actions come without an effect but that is rarely if ever the case.

Thank you to the subscribers who make this newsletter possible with their generous financial support.

Autumn is supposedly here but it’s warm enough we sit with the balcony door open to the warm temperatures for late October. We need rain as I know other parts of the country do but I hope it’s not tomorrow evening to spoil the unbridled excitement of children tricking or treating as they strut their costumes.

Be well, please vote, and be safe. FIN

Matt Pera, “These are the California crops that use the most water”, ThePressDemocrat.com, 24 June 2023, retrieved at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/specialsections/these-are-the-california-crops-that-use-the-most-water/