Commentary by Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau
As we all manage the implementation of our groundwater management sustainability plans in the next 15 years, there will be some hard choices that communities will need to make. Most of these will include financing various water supply solutions, such as resource projects, land fallowing and repurposing, and even water allocations. Communities that rely exclusively on groundwater will have the hardest decisions to make.
With our state’s human right to water, there are more discussions on how our stretched-thin supply can continue to manage a growing state population and continue to produce food to feed our hungry nation. Yes, many are moving out of California due to any number of reasons, including the high cost of living, but there is still incremental population growth in many regions.
This brings to light our decades-old water delivery systems to larger municipal areas, which often see demand exceeding capacity. What was planned in an era when California encompassed half its current population now comes under scrutiny as we wrestle with how to get more water for housing development, industrial and manufacturing expansion, and let’s not forget farming. Almost all communities struggle with aging infrastructure.
Now we experience a rush to claim all “rights” to recycled or reclaimed water supplies. No longer is it possible to dump this effluent in the ocean as having no value. It is smarter to sell this reclaimed water to end users such as municipalities, constructed wetland and groundwater
recharge projects. This newfound value in reclaimed water has turned the wastewater paradigm on its end.
In the Salinas Valley—the Salad Bowl of the World—wastewater effluent is coming under more demand than ever. Back in the late 1990s, a project was built to provide reclaimed water to 12,000 acres of farmland, primarily for two reasons: first, to relieve existing groundwater pumping in the coastal zone, and second, to take the wastewater from communities that didn’t want to deal with it or couldn’t process it for another use.
It was, in short, a wastewater nuisance, and agriculture stepped up and said, “we’ll take your wastewater, build the processing plant and then make productive use of it on our farmlands.” This was a first-of-its-kind reclaimed water project that was approved for fresh food production.
Fast-forward 20 years and that wastewater is now under increasing demand to supply shortfalls in domestic water in an area of Monterey County that has steadfastly refused to solve its own water supply issues, even under a California State Water Resources Control Board order.
Big dollar investments are going into increasing wastewater processing capacity and pipelines to supply an area encompassing 100,000 residents. Most of the source wastewater for this reclaimed drinking water supply is coming from interruptible flows that question the ability to manage consistent supply. Thus, the human right to water will trump other uses when those interruptions occur.
What this may ultimately cause is a significant increase in the costs of reclaimed water that farmers are entitled to use in their own delivery project—probably more costly than what can be sustained financially for even high-value crops. This then begs the question of how the impact to an already functioning project can be displaced by the newer demands for constant supply.
With everyone searching for any and all water resources to satisfy our sustainability plan requirements, the use of reclaimed water will become a targeted opportunity for municipalities, developers, water purveyors and groundwater recharge projects. The retail price of this reclaimed water will probably go higher than the actual cost of processing and delivery, in essence creating a bidding war for who can pay the most for this new resource.
As the price of all water moves to overly high values and impacts the financial stability of most farming operations, crop market pricing will not be able to support these additional costs. Farmers cannot compete in a bidding war and remain financially viable.
The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act presents us all with interesting challenges, but the most imperative is how much the solutions will end up costing our local communities. We cannot allow farmers to be priced out of the marketplace by the staggering water costs in a changing environment of groundwater equity.
The next 15 years will be telling as plans solidify and hard choices are made. And communities must find ways to pay for the resource projects and their economic impacts.
Norm Groot is executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau. He can be reached at norm@montereycfb.com.
