Sustainable Urban Living: Green Solar Energy for Food and Biofuels Production - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 411

In normal years, California produces over half of the vegetables and fruits consumed in
the United States. The state irrigates 9.6 million acres using roughly 34 million ac ft of water
either from lakes, reservoirs, and rivers or pumped from groundwater. Lester Snow, direc-
tor of the California Department of Water Resources, said in 2009 that California may be in
its worst drought in history.* The Central Valley Authority that distributes irrigation water
announced a zero allocation to many crop regions. The Bureau of Reclamation estimated
that 1 million ac would be put out of production and another 2 million ac would grow less
food than normal. He called the situation grim. 4 Agriculture consumes 81% of the water in
the state while providing only 3% of the state's revenue. Agriculture in California competes
constantly with cities for access to water that is diverted mostly from the northeastern part
of the state to the fertile deserts of the Central Valley and southern California.
Drought also plagues the West, South, and Eastern United States. In the fall of 2008,
farmers in Texas received no rainfall and lost their winter wheat crop and cannot plant
spring crops because there is no soil moisture. Texas farmers rediscovered the “WW”
problem that farmers have known for eons; “If there is insufficient Water to germinate
Weeds, food crops do not grow either.”
Biofuel crops consume huge amounts of water that is neither sustainable nor practical.
Land crops consume far too many fossil resources that will become unaffordable
or unavailable such as freshwater, fertile soil, fossil fuels, pesticides, herbicides, and
agricultural chemicals. In addition, land crops create severe erosion and pollution that
poisons the air, soils, and surface and groundwater.
Land crops grown west of the Mississippi consume irrigation water, much of which
comes from fossil aquifers that are not replenished by annual rains. An acre foot of water,
326,000 gal, covers an acre 1 ft high. The USGA Water Use Report reported that several arid
Western states such as Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona applied an average of 5.5 ac ft
to irrigate crops while the High Plains averaged about 2.5 ac ft of water. † The High Plains
get about a third of their water in rain—in wet years.
A single acre of irrigated corn consumes 3 ac ft—about 1 million gallons of water. ‡ An acre
of irrigated corn produces about 140 bu of corn, which yields 350 gal of ethanol. Therefore,
• Production of 1 gal of ethanol consumes 3000 gal of water.
• Each gallon of ethanol made using irrigated corn wastes 12 tons of consumptive
use water.
• The West cannot support biofuel production using irrigated crops and still have
enough water for urban centers.
Water rights are legal commitments by citizens, cities, and other entities for control of pre-
cious surface and groundwater. Many cities are buying water rights from farmers in order
to provide urban water. § Cities are assured water but decimate local food supplies which
means more fossil fuels are needed to transport food. Even in normal rainfall years, many
urban areas have over 100% of the local water promised under contract. In dry years when
water becomes insufficient, cities simply extract more groundwater. The pumping strategy
works until the wells go dry.
* http://www.owue.water.ca.gov/agdev/ (accessed August 10, 2011).
† http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2004/circ1268/htdocs/text-ir.html (accessed August 10, 2011).
‡ Personal interview, Gerry Sanders, Salt River Project, June 2007. Three acre feet is standard but some farmers
in the Southwest get 6.5 ac ft for their crops. The USDA Water Use Report, 2002, indicates and average of 5½ ac
ft were delivered for the western state, which approaches 2 million gal of freshwater per acre.
§ http://www.ewg.org/node/18330 (accessed August 10, 2011).