FRESNO, Calif. (CN) – Stretching hundreds of miles from the mountains bordering Los Angeles north toward the state capital, the San Joaquin Valley doesn’t resemble landscapes typically associated with California. Devoid of the skyscrapers, beaches and bridges that make California famous, the sprawling valley is instead filled with thousands of farms and oil fields that quietly help drive the state’s $2.7 trillion economy.
Known as the “food basket of the world,” for over a century the valley and its rich soil have spoiled Americans with a wide variety of nuts, produce, wine grapes, dairy and even cotton.
The average motorist traveling on the valley’s north-south thoroughfares – Interstate 5 and State Route 99 – can scarcely tell they are inside the most altered rural landscape in California. But there is no mistaking the fact that humans have transformed the valley conservationist John Muir described as California’s “grandest and most telling” landscape when he walked it in 1868.
Since Muir’s journey, Californians have not only drained Tulare Lake – once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi – but built hundreds of miles of canals and aqueducts that irrigate over 5 million acres of farmland and deliver water to 4 million residents in eight valley counties.
Now stripped of its once vast wetlands and nearly sucked dry from the overpumping of groundwater during the West’s increasingly common droughts, the fertile valley is in need of a reboot: Its aquifers have shrunk and the remaining water is often contaminated with nitrate and salts.
Citing a new water law that will have major effects on water suppliers and farmers, experts are calling for an “all hands on deck” approach to fixing the valley’s water woes.
“This is a region that faces really unprecedented challenges and inevitable change,” said Ellen Hanak, director of water policy at the Public Policy Institute of California, at an event Friday at California State University, Fresno. “A lot is at stake for the economy, public health, the health of society and the environment.”
Preserving aquifers
Since 2016, Hanak and her team of researchers have been brainstorming ways to help water agencies and farmers comply with the state’s new Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The landmark act consists of three water bills signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown during California’s most recent drought. The package introduced regulations on groundwater use for the first time in state history, with the end goal of replenishing and bringing underground basins to sustainable levels by the year 2040.
Water agencies that tap into what regulators consider overused basins, many of which are in the valley, have been developing sustainability plans over the last few years. The state wants water agencies to speed up the recharging process for aquifers, improve water quality and stop land subsidence.
Valley farmers were forced to rely heavily on groundwater during the unforgiving drought, after state and federal surface water supplies were cut off. The accelerated pumping from 2012 through 2016 caused irrigation and drinking water wells to go dry and ultimately caused land in the valley to sink. Sections of the 444-mile-long California Aqueduct dropped more than two feet, threatening infrastructure that provides water to most of the state’s 39 million residents.
Alvar Escriva-Bou a research fellow at the PPIC’s Water Policy Center who worked on the report for two years, said the Central Valley’s groundwater overdraft is beyond serious.
“We estimate the amount of this deficit is almost 2 million acre-feet per year,” he said. “Almost 90 percent of the water is used by farms.
Hanak and the PPIC researchers believe there is no silver bullet available for valley water suppliers to comply with the groundwater regulations. According to the PPIC, farmers may have to fallow at least 500,000 acres of farmland and switch to crops that require less water, while suppliers will have to capture more runoff from storms and decrease reliance on expensive water imported from Northern California.