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<H1 class=articleTitle>Cotton versus salmon</H1><!--subtitle--><!--byline-->
<DIV class=articleByline>Aldaron Laird/My Word/The Times-Standard</DIV><!--date-->
<DIV class=articleDate>Article Launched: 06/09/2008 01:34:16 AM
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<P>
<P>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.
<P>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.
<P>Much more water can be saved by achieving a similar 20 percent reduction in
agriculture water use. That saving would be 16 percent!
<P>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.
<P>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.
<P>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. </P>
<P>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.
<P>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.
<P>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.
<P>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?
<P>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.
<P>
<P>Aldaron Laird is on the board of directors for the Humboldt Bay Municipal
Water District. He lives in Arcata.<BR style="CLEAR: both"><BR
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