[env-trinity] Cotton versus salmon

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9527353?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com
Cotton versus salmon
Aldaron Laird/My Word/The Times-Standard
Article Launched: 06/09/2008 01:34:16 AM PDT



The governor has declared that California is in a drought. Generally, there are two solutions: Build more dams to store water (one of the governor's proposals) or reduce our use of water. But it takes a long time to build new dams, so that plan will do nothing to help us during this drought. We need to prioritize water use. 

Of all the usable water behind dams, urban water users consume 20 percent and agricultural users 80 percent. The governor would like to see a 20 percent reduction in urban water use; this would yield only a 4 percent savings in the amount of water now being consumed. 

Much more water can be saved by achieving a similar 20 percent reduction in agriculture water use. That saving would be 16 percent! 

California needs its agriculture, but farmers need to become much more efficient water users. California can no longer afford the water demands of the status quo. Our climate is changing, and how we use water must change, too. 

It is now popular to consider the carbon footprint generated by the energy demands of our way of life and the goods we consume. We need to do the same for water by accounting for how much water is used when we live wherever we choose, and when we grow whatever and wherever we choose. 

The water we Californians consume also requires lots of energy to pump, filter, clean and deliver. Depending on where and how we secure that energy, water use has a significant carbon footprint. For example, it takes much more water and energy to keep a 100-square-foot lawn green in Anaheim than it does in Arcata. 

Where you grow plants matters. Hotter and drier areas evaporate more water from the soil, the irrigation system and the plant. Cotton, one our state's major crops, needs a lot of water to grow, yet one of the largest cotton-growing areas in California is located in the hot, dry, southern portion of the Central Valley, an area called Westlands. 

The water imported to raise cotton in Westlands comes from the Trinity River, which is a major tributary of the Klamath River. If water used to raise cotton was instead allowed to remain in the Trinity, the recovery chances of the threatened salmon fisheries of the Klamath would be much improved. 

In this age of climate change, we have our priorities wrong. Perhaps the water in the Trinity should be used to recover and raise a bountiful crop of salmon on the North Coast, not cotton in the Westlands desert. 

Raising cotton in a hot dry environment can waste as much as 41 percent of the irrigation water due to evaporation (www.waterfootprint.org). How many salmon could have been raised with that water? 

Reassessing our water use priorities will be difficult, but the status quo cannot be maintained and with our climate changing right now, we have no choice. We have no time or water to waste, and California needs leaders with the vision to face the water crisis of the 21st century. 


Aldaron Laird is on the board of directors for the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. He lives in Arcata.


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