Water: More Precious Than Politics

This week marked the first big rain of the fall. Traditionally this means the beginning of the school year, and the first week of sweater weather. Rain also brings sighs of relief– the end of fire season, refilled reservoirs and water for thirsty plants.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Oregon is moving towards a pattern of increasingly dry summers, and increasingly rainy winters. Both of these things are linked to global warming. Hotter and drier summers are a staple of rising temperatures, increasing our forest fire risk here in Oregon and reducing the water available for agriculture, wildlife and recreation. Global warming also contributes to rainy winters as the rising temperatures cause the snow level to rise. Much of the water that would have fallen as snow, to be preserved as snowpack all winter, now falls as rain instead (Click here for the full report). This has two main effects.

Rain hits the ground and waterways immediately, instead of sticking around as snow. This is more likely to cause flooding and overwhelm drainage and collection systems, which can be damaging to infrastructure and also prevents efficient water collection.
Snowpack is critical for summer irrigation. The water that gets trapped as snow in the winter melts in the spring to help provide water for the summer, when there is less precipitation. With rising temperatures, not only is less water getting trapped as snow but it is also melting earlier, causing snowmelt water to run out earlier than before.

Water is already a precious commodity in Oregon. While our state is commonly associated with the coast, rain and evergreens, not all of Oregon fits this Pacific Northwest Stereotype. Much of Eastern Oregon is high desert, with some counties receiving less than 10 inches of rain a year. The shift towards drier summers has put Eastern Oregon at risk for major droughts, compounded by the decrease in snowpack. Droughts are hard on everyone, but especially brutal for farmers and ranchers, who make up a large part of Eastern Oregon (See this article for a closer look at the challenges ranchers are facing).

As droughts become more common, one of the issues that gets pushed to the forefront is water rights. Growing up here in Oregon, I had heard arguments over water rights my whole life without ever understanding how they worked or what the argument was about. Now, water rights are becoming a more and more pressing issue, so with this in mind I set out to figure out how they work.

What are Water Rights?

Water rights are the rights of an individual or business to use water. This includes groundwater and surface water. Groundwater is any water that’s underground, like aquifers and wells, while surface water accounts for rivers, lakes, creeks, etc. In Oregon, all water is publicly owned, which means none of it can be used without a permit.

To obtain a permit, you have to apply with the Water Resource Department, stating your intended use for the water and how much you would like to use. When you are granted a permit the date that it is granted becomes your “priority date”. By keeping track of priority dates the WRD knows what order they gave the permits out in. This is important because when there is not enough water to go around, priority is given first to the oldest permit holders. This is called “Prior Appropriation”.

Prior appropriation is an important piece of the Water rights puzzle. In times of water shortage, the WRD first grants water access to the oldest permit holder. If there is still water left over after that permit holder has taken the water they need, then access is granted to the next oldest permit holder. This continues on down the line until the water runs out (Learn more courtesy of oregon.gov)

This is a pretty straightforward system, but when you think about it there’s guaranteed to be conflicts. Say you’re a farmer out in Eastern Oregon and your neighbor has older water rights than you. They could get all the water that they are entitled to, but if the water runs out before it’s your turn, you could get none at all. Hopefully, your old-permit holding neighbor is considerate of the people below them, but there is nothing compelling them to be generous besides staying in your good graces.

Additionally, conflicts arise regarding what water is used for in times of drought. One recent local conflict arose between the Klamath Tribes (composed of the Klamath the Modoc and the Yahooskin) and the farmers and Ranchers in Klamath County. The Klamath Tribes have the oldest claim to water rights in Klamath County, but it wasn’t until 2012 that those rights were finally clarified and enforced in their current state (source here). The Klamath Tribes trace these rights back to the Treaty of 1864 which took a bunch of their land away but left them the right to water based resources like fish. This meant that the waterways had to be protected in order for those resources to be available (learn more here).

In 1954 the Tribe’s reservation was terminated, but they kept the right to hunt and fish on former reservation land. . . And the protection of those resources continued. This was all laid out in a ruling in 1979 called the Adair case (click here for a history of the treaties and court cases). The courts have basically been working on this issue ever since. The Tribes rights to water are used to ensure a minimum water level necessary to maintain the coho salmon population in the Klamath River, as well as two species of sucker fish, the c’waam and the qapdo (source here).

The final 2012 decision was that the Klamath Tribes do have the oldest water rights (to time immemorial), and that as such, they are allowed to claim enough water to sustain the health of the streams and lakes and the species in them before the water gets doled out to ranchers and farmers (click here for article about the decision to withhold water from ranchers). As you can imagine, this led to a lot of pushback from ranchers and farmers who had previously had access to this water and were concerned about having enough water to make it through the summer.

My point in bringing all of this up is that water is a precious and important resource that is shared by a lot of different interest groups. (Also I recognize that there is a lot to be discussed about the government’s handling of indigenous rights to land and resources, but I just don’t have room for it here). Our waterways and wildlife are an integral part of not only our state identity but also our economy. People come to Oregon from all over the world to fish, hike and sight-see. However, as of 2016 agriculture accounted for 13.2 percent of our economy, and agriculture also requires water (See here for full report). As our state starts to see more and more of the effects of climate change, the issue of water is going to become more and more pressing.

So. . . What Can We Do?

Well, we can’t create more water so all we can do is manage the water we have as best we can. In my opinion, that means making the water we use go further in every sector, in order to preserve enough water for our waterways and wildlife. As cities and households, we need to look for ways to conserve water. Making sure that infrastructure is running smoothly, that no water is being lost while it’s being transported, avoiding gratuitous water usage — these are all critical pieces of the puzzle.

Our agricultural sector needs to look for ways to be more water efficient as well. Open drainage ditches leave water vulnerable to evaporation and seepage, and not all crops use the same amount of water. Improving irrigation efficiency and substituting more drought resistant crops where possible could make a big difference (See here for USDA report on Irrigation and Water Use and here for the National Agricultural Library’s collection of reports on how to conserve water while farming).

Finally, our politicians need to recognize this issue and give it the attention it deserves. While Portland and Salem may still be wet, the rest of the state is not. This is a bipartisan issue, but it’s going to be a tough one. Eastern Oregon is the most conservative part of the state, and with a democratically controlled state legislature it can be hard to push their issues to the forefront. But what liberal politicians need to recognize is that what is happening in Eastern Oregon is not an isolated issue. Water shortages have hit across the west coast, and will probably continue to spread. We need to address this issue now so that we can get ahead of it, rather than waiting until it’s an emergency.

This is not just true in Oregon. Across the country, it’s time to bring farmers and ranchers into climate change conversations. While farmers and ranchers are stereotypically part of the conservative voting base, liberals cannot neglect rural issues. The availability and use of water affects all of us. As we discuss climate solutions and water management we need to make sure that farmers, ranchers and other members of rural communities are included and heard along with conservationists and ecologists.

We all know that Trump doesn’t really care about rural issues (remember the China Tariff situation? Farmers were not happy). So imagine what would happen if liberal candidates actually talked about water– asked for suggestions on how to improve efficiency, asked about what farmers would need to make that happen, offered incentives, and made a plan.

Water is the source of life on this planet. As such, this is a conversation that needs to include all of us. Water use here in Oregon and across the country is an issue that is too important to be politicized, and as we move towards what could be the most politically divisive year in history, I hope that water is one thing we can agree to come together on.

Water: More Precious Than Politics

What are Water Rights?

So. . . What Can We Do?

Works Referenced

Published by thecommonthieme