The water crisis in California is reaching epic proportions.
And it’s going to cost everyone, big time.
After a sustained drought, NASA has reported that the state has less than one year of water reserves remaining, with no
back up plan if things go wrong.
Now, there is so much demand for water in Southern Californian cities,
that many farmers are opting to sell their water rights to urban dwellers –
not just at a premium, but at an unbelievable and unprecedented rate.
CBS News profiled some rice farmers with historic rights
to the Yuba River who are being offered so much for water, they have decided
to forego planting their crops altogether and sell the new “cash crop” –
liquid gold.
The going rate has jumped from the $50 per foot acre, which many farmers
have been willing to pay, to an astounding $700 per foot acre.
Many fields will stay dry because farmers will be doing what was once
considered unthinkable: selling their water to Southern California. He and
his fellow growers have agreed to sell 20 percent of their allotment to Los
Angeles’s Metropolitan Water District as it desperately searches to add to
its dwindling supply. This new price means growers will earn a lot more money
on the fields they don’t plant, making water itself the real cash crop in
California.
Fourth generation rice farmer Charlie Matthews knows that the soft
approach is the early one, and fears that cities will use any means at their
disposal to steal or take his water if he isn’t cooperative. The crisis is
that big:
“In the long term, if we don’t make it available we’re afraid they’ll just
take it,” said Charlie Mathews, a fourth generation rice farmer with senior
rights to Yuba River water.
That desperation will express itself in terms of draconian water rules for
urbanites – who have already been reporting each other for using too much
water on their lawns – and higher costs… much higher costs. According to
these farmers, there is virtually no upper limit on what people will pay for
water when they really need it.
Agriculture, it appears, will go elsewhere, with market demand for water
in a crisis enough to trump just about everything. As SHTF has already
reported, the drought could impact the food supply and create shortages
or extreme prices.
According to Matthews, water will sell at any price:
“They have to pay whatever the last price, the highest price, people will
pay,” Mathews said.
There is no short term plan for recovering from California’s water crisis,
and the stakes will only get higher until a solution is found.
