Californians have a love-hate relationship with rain: Too much, and we’re taking bets on which McMansion will fall down a cliff. Too little, and we’re worrying which golden hillside will burst into flames next.
With recent reports of a statewide drought and Los Angeles facing water rationing for the first time in its history, it’s easy for all Californians to catch the impending doom vibe. While no one denies that the state is withering under a series of drought years and that water levels are at their lowest in some time, the Central Coast is faring relatively well.
In particular, Santa Maria is uniquely situated: The city draws water from both the local groundwater basin and state water. According to Santa Maria Water Resource Manager Shannon Sweeney, that’s because the city paid for the infrastructure back in the ’90s to tie into the state water project.
Because of low average snowfall in the Sierras over the last three years (snowmelt there fills the reservoirs of the state water project), Santa Maria is only getting 15 percent of its state water entitlement.
But that’s okay, Sweeney said. She noted that when the city’s entitlement to state water goes down, Santa Maria makes up the difference by tapping into local groundwater.
“Last year was not a dry year in the area,” Sweeney explained. “I’m comfortable saying for the year … the city of Santa Maria is in good shape.”
Santa Barbara County Agriculture Commissioner Bill Gillette also said last year’s rains helped on the Central Coast.
“Bottom line here is, we were not as bad as many areas of the state,” he said.
What’s “not as bad” to Gillette? He noted that in the San Joaquin Valley, growers are fallowing about a million acres.
“There’s just not enough water to guarantee they’ll be able to grow a crop,” he said.
By contrast, some local growers have been thriving. Randy Sharer of Sharer Brothers Farm in Santa Maria said in 25 years of farming, last year was the best year they’ve had.
“Blind luck and stick-to-itiveness,” he said with a laugh when asked why the farm did so well. Sharer also wasn’t afraid to admonish the media for what he called its scare tactics.
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word [drought] as often,” he said. “Right now, if we growers continue to use our water resources reasonably, we’re okay. A couple more dry years, then we’ll be talking about something.”
Even though Central Coast water users aren’t facing such drastic measures as fallowing and rationing, there are locals who’ve suffered under recent dry spells. Growers in particular tend to rely on rainfall or their own wells—they generally don’t have access to municipal water supplies.
Salt and electricity
According to the Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County crop reports, more than 30 different crops spring from local soils, each bringing in more than a million dollars annually.
Growers planting and harvesting that bounty generally have two things on their minds—other than hoping for more rain. Whether their crop is broccoli or bok choy, they’re focusing on salt and electricity.
Tom Ikeda, a Nipomo farmer and member/owner of the Pismo-Oceano Vegetable Exchange, said while farmers are okay with using groundwater for irrigation during a drought, the water’s salt content can eventually cause trouble.
“Groundwater historically has a very high salt and carbonate content,” he said. “Those tend to build up in the soil over time. [After] three to four years of drought now, last year I really started to notice … salt-related problems in the soil.”
Salt-induced headaches include decreased yield, smaller plant size, and a condition known as tip-burn that leaves plants susceptible to insects and disease, further adding to growers’ troubles.
Watering more with groundwater, Ikeda added, is a catch-22.
“We can leach the salts to a certain extent with increased irrigation,” he explained. “Granted, the water has salts in it. If the salt builds up in the soil, [we’re] replacing some of those salts with salty water.”
As the wet months dry into hot, sunny days, farmers are forced to irrigate more, driving up their overhead costs with increased electricity bills. Mark Moore, president of the San Luis Obispo County Farm Bureau and a citrus grower in Nipomo, is facing that challenge.
“Last year was pretty hard: Basically, it stopped raining in January,” he said. “We didn’t have February or March rains that help carry us through a longer year. [During the dry months], we’re seeing 30 to 40 percent greater power use where we don’t have to normally irrigate.
“If this keeps going, some of our pumps—wells that are still working, not new ones—stop working,” he said. “That leads to a scenario where we have to look for more water.”
That’s not an easy task, Moore added, considering where his farm is located: on the east side of Nipomo.
“It’s not like the mesa and Santa Maria, not as much groundwater,” he said. “We have a lot more difficult time finding water.”
And even if he can find water, Moore said, drilling a well isn’t exactly a cheap endeavor—not in terms of time or money. Growers who commit to the task can watch it eat up six to eight months and up to $90,000.
“And while we can amortize it over several years, it’s definitely a significant cost,” Moore said.
Water and beef
While growers have the option to irrigate with groundwater regardless of crop, ranchers in the beef or dairy industry don’t get to make that call. For them, it’s pray for rain or bust.
Kevin Kester, a fifth generation cattle rancher, is president-elect of the California Cattlemen’s Association. It’s been a tough couple of years for cattle ranchers, he said.
“From Monterey to Ventura County, we’ve seen a liquidation of approximately 60 percent of the beef cows on the Central Coast,” he said.
California cattle are, for the most part, free-range. They feed off the land. Less rain means less feed, which essentially forces ranchers to sell off their herds, because they can’t support them on their withered land. Often, that means selling the animals before they’ve reached optimal size. An analogy comes from the real estate market: To make ends meet, sellers are unloading their houses for less than they’re worth.
Consider that this is all happening during a worldwide recession and downturn in beef prices.
“Some of these people liquidating their entire cow herds, those folks may very well never come back into the cattle business,” Kester said. “We’re on our own: There’s no state or federal bailout, no stimulus. The beef industry is pretty much stand alone.”
He lamented that beef demands declined seven percent during the fourth quarter of 2007/2008.
“That’s huge,” he said.
Hear it through the pipeline
While Santa Maria is well situated with its water supply—for now—smaller municipalities may be facing water rationing. Bruce Buel, general manager of the Nipomo Community Services District, said Nipomo totally relies on the water in its groundwater basin.
And that source is shrinking.
“Three years ago, there was approximately 98,000 acre-feet of storage,” he said. “In October of 2008, we were down to 65,000 acre-feet.”
To help combat this drawdown of Nipomo’s groundwater supply, there are plans to build a pipeline to tie into Santa Maria’s water supply. Problem is, construction isn’t slated to begin until 2010, and water won’t start flowing until 2011. If groundwater supplies reach historic lows—59,000 acre-feet—water rationing will become a court-ordered necessity.
The city of Santa Maria is willing to sell 3,000 acre-feet of water a year to Nipomo. That, Buel said, will help reduce the draw on Nipomo’s groundwater so the recharge rate will get closer to normal. But it does nothing, he added, to address future growth.
“We need rain and a pipeline,” he said.
To help address that future growth, Buel said, there are plans for a desalination plant in the future. But right now?
“All efforts are focused on getting the pipeline finished,” he said.
Praying for rain
While the general consensus seems to be one of cautious optimism for the Central Coast, locals are by no means out of the dry woods yet. Everyone interviewed for this article—while grateful for the recent rains—is holding a collective breath that the rainy months stay, well, rainy. Santa Barbara County Ag Commissioner Gillette said everyone still needs more of it.
“We would like at least a minimum of average rainfall on a historical basis over the winter months with a few heavier rains that drive the salts down into the soil and runoff into lakes,” he said.
The California Cattlemen’s Association’s Kester said with more than 90 percent of the stock ponds on his ranch dry, cattle ranchers in particular are keeping their fingers crossed for more rain.
In the end, though, Sharer explained this is all part of living off the land.
“My grandfather said you can farm for 30 years and if you’re lucky, you get five good ones,” he said. “You just hope it’s not the last five.” m
Contact contributor Nicholas Walter through the executive editor at rmiller@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 19-26, 2009.
