The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recently established a working group to examine America’s groundwater risks, building on a December 2023 PCAST meeting.
Some of the discussion at that meeting refers to agriculture as “the elephant in the room” and “the culprit” of depleted aquifers.
Our experience suggests that federal water management policies that redirect water once used for decades by agriculture towards environmental purposes may be a more realistic cause for concern.
For example, in the absence of once reliable surface water supplies provided by the federal Central Valley Project, many of California’s farmers over the past 15 years have been forced to rely on pumping groundwater from underlying aquifers.
Similar impacts to groundwater have been experienced by farmers and other landowners in and around the federal Klamath Project in southern Oregon and Northern California. Groundwater levels have declined as once-reliable federal water supplies for irrigation have been steadily redirected away and sent downstream to meet flow requirements for salmon, which are protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The lack of surface water to such productive agricultural regions has detrimentally impacted groundwater use, local and state economies, and has the potential to increase food prices.
In both the Central Valley and Klamath cases, the water insecurity imposed by taking away surface water creates not just financial costs but also emotional costs as people face uncertainty in meeting basic needs.
Plus, replacing surface water irrigation with groundwater pumping in effect imposes a “double whammy” on the underlying water resource. Not only is groundwater replacing the lost surface water, the recharge provided by the surface water application is also lost.
Managing groundwater resources in the West is best handled at the state and local level. States have unique expertise and have established working relationships with agriculture, irrigation, municipalities, and water users that are most affected by groundwater supply and have the highest interest in finding solutions.
For example, despite facing very complex and contentious challenges in the Eastern Snake River Plain Aquifer in Idaho recently, state and local water users are working together to achieve local solutions.
In the Central Arizona Project (CAP), nearly complete loss of surface water due to drought has left CAP farmers with sole reliance on groundwater pumping to even maintain half of their normal crop production. While Arizona has been subject to one of the most comprehensive groundwater management laws since 1980, the State also recognized the need for certain pumping allowances in Pinal County in order to further preserve agricultural production.
In a widespread federal groundwater law, such allowances in order to preserve local and rural economies would seem unlikely.
We fear that tasking federal agencies to develop a “national strategy” on groundwater would inevitably result in yet another one-size-fits-all, top-down approach, adding a new layer of conflicting regulatory interference in existing state groundwater management and undermining water rights and the flexibility of local water users.
We’ll advance these arguments at PCAST’s workshop at Arizona State University on Monday, July 22.
Keppen is executive director of the Family Farm Alliance.
Farm Progress / Western Farm Press, July 19, 2024
https://www.farmprogress.com/commentary/u-s-seeks-to-propel-action-on-groundwater
By, Dan Keppen
Image cover: A groundwater recharge project seeks to rebuild an aquifer in California’s Central Valley. The White House has established a working group to examine America’s groundwater risks. Todd Fitchette.
