Brad Howard: Water is a crucial resource that all humans need.
Emma Newburger: And right now what we're seeing is there's
just not enough water to go around.
Unknown: The current situation is that large swaths of the West
basically all of California, Oregon, Nevada and Utah, and a
few other states are in a state of drought right now,
Kathryn Reed: it's hard really to find a business that's not
being affected.
Brad Howard: When the water runs low, the economy feels the
effect.
Morgan Levy: Agriculture consumes more than 70% of the
available water supply. during drought years, agriculture will
drink up an even larger fraction of water supplies.
Brad Howard: Tourism, landscaping, homebuilding and
farming are just some of the businesses that get hurt because
of one of the worst droughts the West Coast has ever experienced.
In 2020, wildfires and drought cost the us a total of $21
billion. According to the National Centers for
Environmental information, and with lower water levels and
higher temperatures, the wildfire risk runs hotter. In
the west climate region alone, which includes California and
Nevada wildfires caused 12 point 1 billion in damage in 2020.
With fires, political feuds and a changing climate, water wars
are becoming more important to the US economy than ever.
Emma Newburger: Right now the West is experiencing major
issues with water shortages and water scarcity. During the
drought. We've seen unrelenting high temperatures, dry soil and
vegetation that is essentially fueling wildfires earlier in the
season in depleting reservoirs. So for example, like Oroville in
Northern California is a significant source of water for
the region. Right now it's at less than 50% capacity.
Maddie Stone: Climate change is causing droughts to become more
intense rising temperatures are leading to less snowpack
accumulation in the winter and more. A wintertime precipitation
falling as rain instead of snow which diminishes it diminishes
the snowpack
Brad Howard: water from melted snow in western mountain ranges,
the snowpack we're referring to has helped sustain the region's
rich farmland turning some areas into agricultural powerhouses
farming in California brought in around 49 point 8 billion in
2018. And another 14 point 3 billion was produced by farms in
Oregon and Washington State wildfires can seriously hurt
these billion dollar enterprises.
Jim Whittington: What we have is a number of systems that that
operate in wildland fire that were created in the mid 20th
century, based on assumptions of that environment. And that world
no longer exists. entry level federal forestry technicians on
the front lines are paid about $13 per hour, something that
bind administration is working to change the issue is not only
pay, which we need a significantly a significant
increase in it's the fact that most of them are seasonals. And
so there's no career path for folks.
Emma Newburger: So this year, firefighters are undergoing
massive preparations for a wildfire year, their forecasting
could be even worse than last year's. with fire season getting
longer and longer. states are now faced with this mounting
challenge of adequately preparing and responding to
these climate disasters. They're seeing more and more of So just
a couple months ago, President Joe Biden said that FEMA is
going to double funding available to help cities and
states prepare for these worsening disasters.
Brad Howard: as farmers saw the writing on the wall that it was
going to be a dry year, some protests about water
distribution emerged.
Levan Elbakidze: So what is a drought? Well, drought is a
natural phenomenon. It's a precipitation precipitation is
less than normal. So this year, it also coincides with with
unusually high temperatures, which produces its own set of
problems including fires and high energy demand for cooling.
Fish die offs, tourism losses,
Kathryn Reed: our water year in California ends on June 30. And
we had the least amount of water ever, we had 11.46 inches, and
that's just less than half of what a normal year would be.
Brad Howard: water scarcity is a problem that affects everyone
from a local level to the federal government.
Morgan Levy: In the background, state and local agencies like
the Department of Water Resources and local water
agencies work year in and year out not just during drought
periods on water management in light of climate change and
climate extremes. At the local level.
Brad Howard: Water Conservation is nothing new to the residents
of California.
Kathryn Reed: They're people who were already collecting water
from when their showers turned on and putting it in a bucket
the cold water in a bucket and then using that for landscaping
or flushing a toilet.
Morgan Levy: Right now we're in the second consecutive dry year
and these consecutive dry years do make droughts, more severe
Brad Howard: water markets in California, for example, can
help ease drought realities by allowing the transfer of water
from one user to another for a set period. Unfortunately, water
scarcity usually means that lawsuits built between people
living in affected states and between states that share Water
Resources crop up over who gets what some bodies of water don't
end at the state line. Water in the US is at times driven by
agreements between states like the Colorado River compact,
which was designed to help states downriver from facing
shortages.
Levan Elbakidze: So these agreements between states were,
my understanding is were were put in place when there was
abundant water in Colorado River.
Unusually so. And so that amount of water declined. And now we
have these droughts. Obviously, we will have shortages.
Brad Howard: Sometimes the federal government dictates
water access with agencies like the Bureau of Reclamation,
weighing the needs of farmers and other interested parties
with environmental concerns like water needed for sustainable
fisheries and to power hydroelectric dams.
Kathryn Reed: You always get the infighting between whether you
should the fish or some aquatic species get the water should the
farmers get the water should municipalities get water. These,
these aren't new issues for California by any means.
Brad Howard: The economic effects of climate change are
hard to ignore.
Maddie Stone: A large body of evidence suggests that climate
change is driving changes in the frequency and duration of
droughts both in the US and globally. And we can see the
fingerprints of climate change on this event in several ways.
Brad Howard: farmers get hit the hardest when temperatures rise
and water runs low.
Morgan Levy: The impacts of drought really vary by crop
within the agricultural sector. Perennial crops like almonds and
orchard crops like peaches. Those have a really large
upfront cost. They don't produce immediately and they frequently
have costly and more permanent irrigation systems like drip and
micro sprinkler systems. Because of this water shortages that
result in the need to follow those crops represent the loss
of a long term investment.
Brad Howard: The government keeps track of the drought
levels in the US and the numbers don't look great for parts of
the West this year.
Maddie Stone: The most recent ones from last week place just
over 85% of California in a state of extreme or exceptional
drought, compared with this time last year at less than 3% of the
state was in extreme or exceptional drought. So we
really are in an unusual situation right now
Morgan Levy: In California. There's been this gradual
transition away from annual crops and towards these
perennial orchard crops like almonds, which are higher value.
The perennial crops can be irrigated more efficiently than
many of these annual crops because growers can install
these permanent and more efficient irrigation systems.
But the downside is what I said before they can lock in the
water demand and you can't follow them in dry years.
Maddie Stone: California had another extreme drought from
2011 to 2016 rivaling this one in its intensity. And we're also
in the midst of what scientists consider to be a mega drought
out west.
Emma Newburger: Essentially, a mega drought is a period of
severe dryness with not a lot of relief from wet days. That goes
last for decades and basically triggers wildfires and water
shortages and all the issues we're seeing in the West right
now,
Brad Howard: water indexes could be a free market solution to the
unpredictable water availability.
Levan Elbakidze: And in fact, we have seen more active trading of
water futures there has been a water futures market in ces
2018. And it has become more active recently. But it's not a
futures market in the traditional sense where water is
delivered. It's it's more like insurance instrument.
Brad Howard: Upgrading infrastructure and technical
innovation are also two more ways to help mitigate the future
drought conditions that result in water scarcity.
Morgan Levy: Contemporary solutions include the use of
efficient technologies and practices across all sectors,
and urban agricultural and industrial sectors. And even
more recently, preserving and increasing storage of water
underneath the ground, which is something that is typically
called managed aquifer recharge,
Levan Elbakidze: so think of desalination, which currently is
too expensive. But But think of Israel, you know they they
export water to other regions from the salvation, I'm
optimistic about ingenuity of American enterprises. So if
shortages and high water prices persist, this will attract
bright minds and investment in technology to enable more
efficient distribution. And maybe new supply sources