Projects: Incomplete: California's Dust Bowl

Those of us that live in California know that much of the nation’s fruit, nuts and produce come from our state’s San Joaquin Valley. Most of us know that most of California gets its water from the huge estuary called the Delta, where the Sacramento and American rivers join in the center of the Valley. We know that there are a lot of people in this state and we know that there is only so much water to go around. But the only time I’m personally confronted with the actuality of the state’s water shortage is when a handful of months in the year, my city tells me I can only water my lawn a few less days. The only ‘discomfort’ I experience is that I have to look at a slightly less green lawn for three months.

But in a farming district called Westlands, the biggest irrigated region in the country, farmers are only able to receive a small fraction of the water they need. So much water was being pumped out of the Delta that a tiny smelt there, a controversial endangered species that is not native to California, is disappearing. So late last year, a federal judge ruled that the amount of water being delivered to the south had to be sharply cut back.

The lack of water has systemic implications for the region that is already experiencing 40% unemployment. Farmers have up to 80% of their land sitting idle, as a result, they are cutting over half of their workers. The surrounding towns in the valley are dusty, half-deserted replicas of a Mexican town, with clusters of men gathering on the main drag. The state has projected that over 24,000 full-time workers have lost their job.

Multi-million dairies that rely on having feed close by are having to simply abandon their facilities because alfalfa farmers are forced to use the little water they are allocated to keep permanent crops, such as almonds, alive.

And of course the farmers, who still must continue to pay property taxes and till land to prevent it from reverting to its natural state, have lost over half a billion dollars in revenue; this in a state that has a 26 billion dollar shortfall.