Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers
To balance “Optimism, Inc.”, I offer occasional gloomy reflections on these revolutionary times.
Drought, drought, drought…
California did OK in March with rain and snow. It seemed for a brief moment as if the ongoing drought might end. Temperatures were below normal. The 6-7 feet of new snow in the Sierra offered hope. We thought there would be more storms, more of such “March miracles”.
Then nada. Not a cloud followed during the last month. Temperatures returned to normal. The snow is all but melted. The rain never returned. There are rarely “April miracle” storms.
A new administration in Washington greenlighted rather than resisted Gavin Newsom’s radically green agenda of envisioning snowmelt as a way to restore 19th-century California rivers and the delta—and not so much as water for irrigation, lake recreation, and hydroelectric power.
So farmers will pump 24/7 for the next year. Their costs will soar. The water table will continue to drop. The public will ignore the slight increase in food prices—small compared to the gas and housing inflation. And we will get one year closer to The Reckoning.
That day to come is when millions of farmed acres below Stockton will go out of production. The water deliveries of the California Water Project will be assigned solely to suburban sprawl. And the West Side will return to that of my youth, where tumble weeds, coyotes, sparse grazing, and Valley Fever were its trademarks.
The central Eastern Side where I live persists due to its proximity to the Sierra, the 19th-century delivery systems from the San Joaquin and Kings Rivers, and its centuries of stored water in natural aquifers.
But increased population, diversions of river water to the sea, and the end to third-tier reservoir construction to trap flood waters in wet years have conspired to curtail deliveries. So everyone here now pumps too. The curious 4-inch well in the yard—140 years old—went dry 5 years at 50 feet. The “new” house well my grandfather drilled in the 1960s at 120 feet began sputtering and pumping sand 4 years ago, as I had kept dropping the bowls to 60, 80, and finally 100 feet.
Four years ago I said “no mas”, and drilled a 440-foot, gravel-pack, 8-inch well overkill, and set the bowls at 150 feet. The water table is somewhere around 100 feet and dropping 3-5 feet a year.
You get the picture: A growing California. More claims on its water. More green restrictions of the use of mountain run-off. Refusals to build reservoirs. We are reaching the limits of water conservation with computerized new water-saving drip systems. Something has to give.
The state believes it doesn’t need the middle classes. Farming is passé. Silicon Valley and its 5-trillion-dollars in market capitalization and the upper, upper professional classes will pay the necessary taxes. Family farmers have mostly disappeared in the state. Farms themselves will too in 20 years, at least in the western Central Valley. The population knows nothing about how it gets its food or why it is so cheap—in the manner of its ignorance of where its gasoline and heating and air conditioning derive. The progressive classes are going to have a Rendezvous soon with reality. The enemy is not “conservatives” but truth, nature, and the age of old struggle to live one more day.
Discussion (22)
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"And the West Side will return to that of my youth, where tumble weeds, coyotes, sparse grazing, and Valley Fever were its trademarks." Put that together with the politically correct policies of local government dysfunction here on the west coast - and things are going to look like a California version of the Mad Max movies. Not good at all.
Sad commentary. It not only saddens me, it angers me. The Newsom crown, the Cuomos, the Clintons, the Pelosis, the Schiffs, the Schumers, on and on for hundreds, thousands, that think only one thing: power, re-election after re-election. They do not think of the people, their one and only responsibility. Jefferson to James Madison- “I hold that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Jefferson to Colonel William Smith- “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” I believe that we need 1776 Redux or perhaps an 1861 Redux. Our demographic is not that of our Founders; it is now 61% Founders and 39% Black and Brown; it will soon be inverted because of our open border and the birth rates of the latter. If that comes to pass, America is finished. We fiddle while America is on fire.
We moved from AZ to TN last November for many reasons. One of the reasons was the diminishing water resources in the West. AZ is low man on the totem pole for the Western States water resources from the Colorado River. When Lake Mead hits dead pool, the turbines will go off and AZ will lose it current supply of Hydroelectric from Hoover Dam. With the tree huggers ruling DC right now, coal plants will be out of fashion in spite of all the efforts made made by the coal industry to make those plants as clean as possible. I don't expect that a new Nuclear Plant will be built in AZ that could fill the power gap that will happen when Lake Mead hits dead pool. I had a terrible vision of AZ with water rationing and rolling blackouts in an attempt to keep people cool during the brutal summers. At my advanced age, I just did not want to experience potential future hardships like that. What really surprises me is that nobody seems concerned about any of this. We have such a bunch of nearsighted idiots running the country right now that it frightens me out of my skin. Thanks for your article. I am so sorry that you live in such a poorly managed state. It has to be stressful beyond belief.
Indeed...if memory serves me even Ronald Reagan spoke of the lack of forestry management. Thinning, mitigating over growth just plain ignoring the fact that forests must be managed. The Native Americans understood the value of thinning, ground cover control and deliberate burning of the forest floors to promote healthier stronger forests . An excellent book on the subject is called "Ponderosa" People, Fire and the West's Most Iconic Tree'; by Carl E. Fiedler and Stephen F. Arno. President Trump brought to the forefront, with all the fires devastating California, the lack of management in large part due to the so-called groups like "Sierra Club" and others who've prevented logging and other desperately needed actions, the devastation literally caused by so-called "environmentalists". Unfortunately much of my home state of Colorado's water is diverted to California so they can fill up their swimming pools!
The moronic Newsom would do better to read classic sci fi like Philip Dick to understand the dismal future of his Neroesque future for California. The party is rapidly coming to an end...barbarians at the gate and leaders dozing in a self infused self centered daze.
Great piece sir. If you have time, would you comment on the Salton Sea, the Imperial Irrigation District, and the QSA with the Metropolitan Water District? I live in Imperial Country. Please know you have many fellow Californians here who admire you and your work greatly.
Thank you Victor. Though nearly all news is bad it is impossible to address a problem unless we admit we have the problem. As such bad news is good for reckoning what problems we must face.
Grew up on 80 acre farm in shafter with 4 siblings knowing the value of hard work first hand. So sad to see what is happening to all farmers in this state. Thankyou mr. Hanson for being a spokesman speaking candidly the facts. Hg
Dear Professor Hanson, Below is something I posted in 2015 regarding the rice crop in California. As a farmer, I hope there are common sense conversations about agricultural crops that should not be grown in drought areas of the country. Jerry Brown has attacked the drought in California by going after developers (and people) and has turned a blind eye to farmers in California. Here are the facts regarding just one agricultural crop: 1. Since WWII, the rice industry in California has been protected as a "strategic" crop. 2. 97% of all rice grown in California is grown in Sacramento Valley. A total of 550,000 acres is flooded annually to maintain 5" of standing water above the soil. 5 billion pounds of rice are produced at a water cost of 299 gallons per pound. 3. 90% of the water that floods the field evaporates and it takes 8.3 acre- feet of water annually to maintain this 5" flooding. Imagine standing in the middle of 550,000 acres (723 square miles) and the water level is 2 feet above your head. 4. Just one agricultural crop uses 2,718,182 gallons per acre. This is 39,000 gallons water for each of California's 38.8 million residents per year. Thank you, Mark
VDH, you are so right—in both senses of the word. Stupidity your name is Democrat, either because you are a progressive (Not Really—what a mis-used word) or because you are blindly manipulated by the so-called progressives. Somehow, VDH, we must teach those people to actually analyze and think. You are one of a few shining lights in this very dark time in America’s history.
I know you will not do it, VDH, but you should run for governor. How did we get this corrupt man-child whom I would not trust to put air in my tire. I admire you mightily and read and watch all you write and do. Thank you
Colorado is there. California refugees are coming (with their huge housing pocketbooks) and water is getting scarcer. Well regulations determine allowable depths and annual draws. Some permits don't even allow outside faucets (imagine the owner of an $800K house carrying buckets of water from his kitchen to his garden). But technology and money can solve the problem (nuclear powered desalination plants on the gulf and a pipeline). I drink San Pelligrino shipped from Italy in glass bottles for $1.50/quart. Oil, a much more viscous and hazardous substance, is piped economically. What is lacking is the incentive and the political will.
On a planet on which the surface is 75% covered in water, one could think that a Country that put a man on the Moon could conceive and achieve a project to provide sufficient water for its western third from local regional sources. The Romans had aqueducts, the Middle East has desalination. I've lived the last 55 years in IA, WI and IL, a relatively moist and verdant section of the US.. Forty years ago I began to wonder whether CA would ever have the political muscle to tap into the Great Lakes. Based on recent political developments, I can envision a scenario in which CA would be allowed to continue making irrational decisions on snowmelt management while a trillion dollar 'infrastructure' project would pursue pumping Lake Michigan water westward. Why do we make it so hard on ourselves sometimes?
When does the Day of Reckoning come?
Farming has become a millionaire world with the cost of equipment and the price of land continuing to climb, it will be a matter of time before there will be no more middle class farmer. Water is precious beyond most people's imagination. Good write up Mr. Hanson.
As a Pilot for Two Large Farming Companies and Pepsi Cola I flew for 50 years in Calif. When flying for Pepsi I flew continuously to San Diego and back to Bakersfield. I was always astounded at the rate the p tops of hills were cut away and thousands of homes here stacked on top of them. I wondered where will the water come from. When I changed jobs and went to work for Two GIANT farming companies I learned very quickly where the water will come from. These two companies ( under the guise of farming) have obtained control of the majority of the water rights. Because the State government cares nothing about farming, these two companies will stop farming and make a fortune off of water sales to the coastal cities. Then Eastern part of California ( the Valley ) will return to the good old days of fallow land and the population that works the farms will disappear. The Valley a welfare state full of unemployed farm workers. The fools living there had best look for options to live on. The state is cratering! The day of reckoning is upon them!!! Reply↓
As a Pilot for Two Large Farming Companies and Pepsi Cola I flew for 50 years in Calif. When flying for Pepsi I flew continuously to San Diego and back to Bakersfield. I was always astounded at the rate the pops of hills were cut away and thousands of homes here stacked on top of them. I wondered where will the water come from. When I changed jobs and went to work for Two GIANT farming companies I learned very quickly where the water will come from. These two companies ( under the guise of farming) have obtained control of the majority of the water rights. Because the State government cares nothing about farming, these two companies will stop farming and make a fortune off of water sales to the coastal cities. Then Eastern part of California ( the Valley ) will return to the good old days of fallow land and the population that works the farms will disappear. The Valley a welfare state full of unemployed farm workers. The foolds living there had best look for options to live on. The state is cratering!
The further the coastal elites stray from nature’s reality the more susceptible they become to its’ reckoning. Never have so many been so reliant on the agrarian few.
Who is buying or will buy the parched farmland? I've read that China likes to buy farmland.
I do not think the CA coastal elites believe they need inland CA for anything at all. They are smug, and with good reason. All of their mundane needs can be easily met by their soulmates in DC and the East Coast - i.e., subsidized importation of natural resources and legalized immigration of cheap labor. So long as the left is allowed to get away with this stuff, the rest of us have to take a deep breath and say, "thank you sir, may I have another?"
Spot on Sir and thank you for being a free thinker.. Its a rarity here in Kaly
Mr Hanson: My wife and have always kind liked the character Eeyore. Please don’t denigrate his name. It would be a sad thing to lose the happy memories. RM Banks