Colorado River water: Is fallowing farmland a fair way to conserve?

What’s a farmer’s favorite vegetable to eat?

“The one that’s making the most money,” Craig Elmore says. 

Crops bring profit. But this year, as before, Mr. Elmore isn’t farming some fields. These more than 2,000 idled acres – roughly a quarter of his terrain, he says – could have sprouted plumes of Sudan grass or wheat.

But he’s wary of running out of water allocated to him from the drought-stressed Colorado River. California’s Imperial Irrigation District, which serves growers like him, has the single largest entitlement to the river. The Colorado is also its only source of water.

Mr. Elmore isn’t the only one worried. Seven basin states, including large metro areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, as well as 30 tribal nations, and part of Mexico depend on the river to sustain not only livelihoods but life itself.

Though critically low reservoirs along the river may see some relief from recent heavy snow in the West, chronic deficits are likely to persist. The federal government on Tuesday announced draft plans for revising Colorado River management through 2026, offering paths forward that could invoke major water cuts – including here in the Imperial Valley.   

“To meet this moment, we must work together through our shared values and a commitment to protecting the river. Leading with science, and with creativity, and a shared understanding that unprecedented conditions require new solutions,” said Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Calimlim Touton.

Imperial Valley farmers wonder if that “commitment” will mean they need to fallow more land.

Mr. Elmore sees economic opportunity in short-term fallowing – like he’s doing now – if farmers are compensated for it, which could pay for further conservation on farms. For others, fallowing takes on a more bitter taste, with fears of local job loss and industry shrinkage. They call fallowing the “F word.”

Unknowns abound: what compensation could be offered for idling fields, when more water-saving deals will be announced, and who will raise hands to participate. Even the full economic effects of a previous fallowing program in the Imperial Valley are unclear.

What is known: Colorado River users are grappling with a future that calls for sacrifice. And solutions seem to snag on a century-old legal landscape that has largely benefited – justifiably, locals say – Imperial Valley farms. Yet the high level of water use has made some observers argue the district’s farms should sacrifice more.

All this raises another “F word.” Fairness.

“I don’t think there is a solution to the Colorado River that doesn’t somehow include the Imperial Valley,” says Mr. Elmore, suspenders hitched to khaki slacks. “But it needs to be done in a way that doesn’t jeopardize our industry, or our community, or the livelihood of everyone in this valley.”

Much of the current crisis appears to result from bad math and a warming climate.

How did we get here?

From the purple mountain majesties of Colorado, the river slinks southwest for some 1,450 miles toward the teal-toned Sea of Cortez. Agriculture is by far the biggest river consumer.

An acre-foot of water is roughly the size of an American football field, filled up one foot deep. Around the time of the Colorado River Compact of 1922, the river flow was expected to be up to 20 million acre-feet a year, says John Fleck, water policy researcher at the University of New Mexico School of Law’s Utton Center. Today, however, he says annual flows are estimated at around 12 to 13 million acre-feet.

A century ago, some scientists “recognized that they were making a mistake, that they were basing their numbers, allocation numbers, on an unusually wet time,” says Mr. Fleck. And yet, in negotiations, “those scientists were ignored.”

Add in overuse and a system hit by the effects of human-caused climate change, which has intensified a decades-long regional mega-drought. Today, major reservoirs on the river are about three-fourths empty – Lake Powell at 23% and Lake Mead at 28%. Those historic lows threaten water supplies and hydropower if they continue to sink.

Some help is on the way. The Department of the Interior last week announced that the Imperial Irrigation District, the public water and power agency for the valley, would receive $9.5 million for a water storage project. It comes from funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that are meant for Colorado River conservation.

And last year, the Imperial Irrigation District submitted a proposal to the federal government for water conservation funding marked for the Lower Basin states, including California, by a November deadline.

“We’re frankly concerned, because we’re running out of time to implement programs this year,” says Tina Shields, one of the district’s water managers.

A clock on the wall of a district meeting room isn’t notched with numbers, but the words WATER and POWER. It hovers above board meetings.

Those start with the Pledge of Allegiance and a prayer.

History of a bounty

Ask Tom Brundy how he is, and he’ll answer that he’s “blessed.”

He talks of farming with patriotic pride, knowing that his fellow Americans are nurtured through melons and milk. That milk depends on the cow-munched crops like alfalfa that he grows. Water-intensive alfalfa accounts for the most acres harvested in Imperial County, which is also known for vegetables like lettuce, broccoli, and carrots.

“We are concerned about every drop of water that we use, and we want to better the situation,” he stresses over the phone, ahead of a visit. “Not make it worse. Not take advantage.”

Imperial Valley farmers like Mr. Brundy point out water conservation efforts on their fields, like drip irrigation. But growers here look back as much as they look forward, seeing history on their side.

Fields in the Imperial Valley were once stark desert. Investors, including the California Development Co., began to divert and claim water from the Colorado River into the area in the late 1800s. 

“At a time where all natural resources were being rationalized, this enabled the [California Development Co.] to basically convert the melting snow of the Rockies into units, into commodities,” says Eric Boime, professor of history at San Diego State University, Imperial Valley.

The Imperial Irrigation District, formed in 1911, acquired water rights from those previous ventures. The district is considered a senior water-rights holder and has the single largest entitlement to the Colorado River – 3.1 million acre-feet annually – though it uses less. Nearly all of its water goes to agriculture, passing through the All-American Canal and greening nearly half a million acres.

“Imperial has a tremendous responsibility – not only to their community, to their growers, as well as to their partners in the All-American Canal – but also to the basin, because of the magnitude of their water use,” says Chuck Cullom, executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission.

Of course, Native American tribes predated the stakes of settlers, but they’ve had to press for inclusion in river negotiations. And despite tribes’ inherent rights to Colorado River water, not all have accessed their desired shares, reports the Associated Press.

The “Law of the River,” which governs use and management of the Colorado, is a bramble of contracts, decisions, and decrees, rife with disputes. Some stakeholders say that climate change has invalidated the river’s priority system, which has spared California shortage-driven cuts.

On Tuesday, the Bureau of Reclamation offered three options: take no action, adhere to a water-rights priority system already in place, or distribute cuts of the same percentage among the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada. (The draft review notes that anticipated water shortages would trigger a temporary uptick in fallowing and farm production loss under all scenarios.)

The Imperial Irrigation District, which could lose the most from the third option, “continues to have concerns with any alternative that involves ‘equal cuts’ among water users,” the district said in a statement.

Following a public comment period, the federal government says it will announce its decision this summer. In the Imperial Valley, that may lead to more fallowing.

The hidden costs of idling fields

Fallowing can take different forms, but it’s generally known as the idling of agricultural land. The option raises questions of equity. 

Job loss and other economic impacts of fallowing depend on what crops are taken out of production, says Josué Medellín-Azuara, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Merced.

Growing forage crops like alfalfa is “highly mechanized, and they are less reliant on labor,” he says.

Still, fears of lost local revenue and fallowing’s knock-on effects to businesses that rely on crops, like machinery and livestock, are common in the valley. Job loss tied to temporary land-use loss is another concern in Imperial County, where one in six jobs is linked to farming. Employment is shaped by migration over the Mexican border and varies widely by season. Even so, the February unemployment rate in the county stood at 15.6% – far above that of the state and the nation. 

“It’s not what is the cost to conserve an acre-foot of water, it’s what does it cost our community to lose an acre-foot of water,” emailed grower Mark McBroom, not a fan of fallowing.

“There has to be a community benefit” from fallowing, says Eric Montoya Reyes, executive director of Los Amigos de la Comunidad, an advocacy group for underserved communities in Imperial Valley. Even as poverty persists alongside an agricultural industry valued in the billions, farming generates jobs. “On-farm conservation is the best, because it keeps farmworkers working,” he adds.

Ms. Shields, the water manager, agrees. The district currently conserves around half a million acre-feet of water a year, but has proposed an additional 250,000 acre-feet. That means, however, “more than likely we’ll have some level of fallowing to achieve those goals over the next three to four years,” Ms. Shields adds. 

What can we learn from the past? 

Fallowing isn’t new to Colorado River-reliant farm regions, including the Imperial Valley. Its effects just haven’t been fully tallied here.

The controversial Quantification Settlement Agreement began in 2003 as a bundle of contracts between California water districts and state and federal agencies. It was meant to rein in California’s use of Colorado River water to 4.4 million acre-feet a year, after it had swelled to nearly a million more.

Through the QSA, the Imperial Irrigation District entered into a major water-transfer deal with districts in neighboring San Diego County and the Coachella Valley, while extending a deal with a district serving Los Angeles.  

The arrangement faced fierce resistance in the Imperial Valley. Yet through compensated fallowing of fields, the district helped serve this broader region, thereby reducing the state’s overall use of river water. And a portion of the water conserved went to the valley’s Salton Sea, whose decline has spurred environmental and health concerns.

Between 2003 and 2017, fallowing in the valley spanned around 300,000 acres, contributing to some 1.8 million acre-feet of Colorado River water conserved. Though farmers and landowners were paid the most for sacrificing water at around $161 million, some $50 million in “mitigation payments” were made to a range of local farm-related businesses, community groups, and even schools. Since 2017, Imperial Valley growers can still get reimbursed for water-efficiency programs on their fields, but not for fallowing.

Ms. Shields says the district didn’t complete research to quantify the full economic impacts of those 15 years. Limited analyses were conducted by multiple economists during the first few years. But the analysis process proved highly contentious and didn’t lead to a consensus on the net gains or losses to the region.

A solar solution?

Questions of future farmland use in the valley also involve a crop that doesn’t use water at all. A crop not nourished from below, but above.

Solar arrays come into view as rows of silent soldiers, whose upturned shields tilt toward the sun. A few hundred acres belong to Kay Brockman Bishop, at least the ground beneath. 

Ms. Brockman Bishop used to farm. She inherited land from her family, who settled in the southern tip of the valley at the turn of the 20th century. 

But the ground is tough, thick with clay. Farming, she says, was “just plain hard.”

That’s why it made sense for her to begin leasing land to a solar company two decades ago. “It was an economic decision to begin with, and it’s been a good one for me,” says Ms. Brockman Bishop. She also saw water issues “getting worse.” 

The solar projects have local detractors concerned with habitat loss and job loss. Yet some growers agree that turning poor, unproductive land like hers into renewable energy is an acceptable decision. 

Federal officials appealed to a spirit of community at Tuesday’s press conference.

“Some of the commentary has depicted an us-versus-them dynamic in the basin. I don’t see that at all,” said Interior Department Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau. “I see commitment, collaboration, and problem-solving.”