Thomas J. Graff is Senior Counsel at EDF.
Oversimplification is inevitable in any editorial opinion dealing with California water issues. Nevertheless, former California Food and Agriculture (and U.S. Deputy) Secretary Richard Rominger and his co-author Michael Dimock, hit many of the right notes in their "Action Needed on the Drought Now". High-level federal and state government-led drought response is critical and it needs to be timely. And the leadership in all sectors of California's water economy (agricultural, urban, and environmental) needs to engage constructively, with the state's overall interest at heart.
Less convincing is the authors' focus on one clearly reprehensible, unrepresentative, and since disavowed statement to a TV station in Fresno as being emblematic of the rising emotions over water in the drought that many in all sectors are suffering from. Emotions are running high on all sides of the drought debate and intemperate remarks have been made by representatives of all the factions, including, to take one example, the statement that the San Joaquin River Settlement Act will take hundreds of thousands of acres out of production. Hon. Devin Nunes February 9, 2009.
The toughest question, similar to that facing the President and Congress with respect to our economic crisis, is whether to focus primary attention on this year's drought or whether to follow President Obama's Chief of Staff's (Rahm Emanuel, Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, D.C. , November 19, 2008) admonition: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." Can we use the attention the drought has focused on water to address long-term issues, including most notably the effects of climate change, simultaneously with the focus on addressing this year's immediate drought-related problems?
As the party split on the stimulus package in Congress demonstrates, there is no consensus answer to this question. Rominger and Dimock seem to say, do both at once, but that may be asking too much of a polarized body politic.
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One Comment
Tom — Now is the time to introduce the radical (!) notion of markets for water in the agricultural sector. Markets would allow ag to reallocate 80% of "our" water among themselves without getting into the pain of ag-urban or ag-enviro transfers.
With a drought AND poor economy, it makes sense for ag to improve the allocation/pricing of its most important input.
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[...] Farmers Need Water Markets, Especially in Light of Water Shortages, Drought and Economic Crises (Aguanomics) Feb.17, 2009 in Water Industry (Feb. 17, 2009, Aguanomics) Tom Graff of EDF asks: [...]
[...] Graff of EDF asks: Can we use the attention the drought has focused on water to address long-term issues, including [...]