A small group of farms in California use more water than entire cities, and it's mostly going to a single crop, a new report finds
Maiya Focht
Updated ·4 min read
A small group of farms in California use more water than entire cities, and it's mostly going to a single crop, a new report finds
The Colorado River flows into Lake Mead.George Rose/Contributor/Getty Images
An investigation from ProPublica and The Desert Sun focused on farmers' water use in California.
They found that 20 farming families used a majority share of one region's water.
Those families used the water mainly to grow hay to feed livestock, the investigation found.
The Southwest United States is slowly losing access to its foremost source of water — the Colorado River, which provides more than 40 million people across seven states access to water for drinking, irrigation, hydropower, and more.
Warmer temperatures due to the human-driven climate crisis have reduced the river's flow by more than 10% from 2000 to 2021, a study from the University of California found.
Other researchers have estimated that if greenhouse-gas emissions are not quickly curbed, there won't be enough snow to melt and contribute to the river, which could lead to the flow dropping more than 20% by 2050.
As the Colorado River dries up, scrutiny about its use has increased. This has left governments, activists, and locals searching for ways to cut water use and save what's left of this critical resource.
Hay is a water-intensive crop to grow.Rafael Elias / Getty Images
An investigation from ProPublica and The Desert Sun found that one farming region in southern California, the Imperial Valley, was using more water than the rest of the entire state. The investigation also found that most of the water in the valley was being used by just 20 farming families.
Most of those farms were found to use the bulk of the water to grow just one crop — hay.
A small group in Imperial Valley soaks up billions of gallons
The winter growing season in Imperial Valley.halbergman/Getty Images
Hay is an especially water-thirsty crop because of its deep roots, long growing season, and dense vegetation.
The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Utah's 9,300 hay operations devoured most of the state's water resources.
For their investigation, reporters at ProPublica and The Desert Sun estimated the water consumption of farming families in the Imperial Valley by combining satellite data with records of who owned and farmed each field.
The reporters calculated that the family with the thirstiest farm used more than 84 billion gallons in 2022, which is more than the city of Las Vegas and about 3% of the Colorado River's entire flow to this region.
Aside from using exorbitant amounts of water compared with the rest of California, the report found the families were exporting a significant portion of the hay outside the valley. Critics told outlets that exporting that hay was basically the same as exporting billions of gallons of valuable water away from drought-ridden regions that need it most.
Where the hay goes
Hay is used to feed livestock.John Harper/Getty Images
Hay is mainly used to feed livestock, which The Breakthrough Institute reported to produce between 11% and 20% of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Yet, the incentive to keep growing water-thirsty hay to continue supporting greenhouse-gas-emitting livestock will probably continue if changes aren't made to the cost of water.
ProPublica reported that the Imperial Valley district got its water free from the US Bureau of Reclamation, which was then selling that water to farmers for cheap.
"Cheap water helps make growing hay in the Imperial Valley profitable," ProPublica and The Desert Sun wrote.
In an effort to reduce farms' water use, the Biden administration earlier this year allocated $125 million to help pay Colorado River farmers to stop farming and let their crops go dry.
But farmers previously told Business Insider it wasn't enough money to stop them from growing.
The federal government has created initiatives to assist farmers who are willing to curb their water use by using new irrigation techniques, such as using sprinklers instead of flooding fields.
Other states have begun dealing with this reckoning, too. Troy Waters, a fifth-generation Coloradan farmer, previously told BI that he was doing his best to conserve water to save the river but wished he saw similar efforts in California.
"Gosh damn," he said, "independent farmers now are having to start thinking politically."
A wolf expert in B.C. is praising a Yellowknife woman for the way she handled an encounter with a pack of wolves near Yellowknife over the weekend. Stephanie Yuill told Lawrence Nayally, the host of CBC's Trails End, she was walking along the shore of Fox Lake on Saturday when she rounded a point and spotted what she initially thought was a group of sled dogs trotting toward her."I probably took another five or six steps, because I was thinking it was a dog team, and then they started howling, a
An equipment failure killed 100,000 Atlantic salmon worth $5-million at the Sustainable Blue land-based salmon farm in Nova Scotia earlier this month, the company said Tuesday.A filter that removes carbon dioxide from holding tanks experienced a "structural collapse" on Nov. 4, the company told CBC News.The land-based salmon farm is the only one in North America with zero waste discharge thanks to its proprietary water filtration system which constantly recirculates water on-site.The fish kill h
Several storms will hammer the Northwest over the next few days, courtesy of multiple atmospheric rivers that are forecast to dump heavy rain and snow.
Chilly nights and snow-covered slopes may not be easy to come by in much of Canada during the first part of the winter season, according to the winter outlook from one of Canada's prominent forecasters. The Weather Network predicts El Niño conditions will lead to above-average temperatures and lower-than-normal precipitation levels in much of the country, particularly in Western and Central Canada. While that trend is expected to hold throughout the winter in British Columbia and the Prairie pro
Ontario First Nations leaders are asking the Federal Court to exempt their communities from the federal carbon tax, a policy they call grossly unfair and discriminatory.The Chiefs of Ontario, which represents more than 130 First Nations in the province, filed for a judicial review on Thursday jointly with Attawapiskat First Nation, a remote Cree community located on the northwestern shores of the James Bay Coast.The First Nations argue that the imposition of the price on carbon is leaving their
A collaboration between Colossal Biosciences and conservationists plans to bring back the extinct dodo and reintroduce it to its once-native habitat in Mauritius.
Video shows a tamandua named Gonzo going for an adventure at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma on World Tamandua Day, Wednesday, November 29.Tamandua, also known as lesser anteaters, have 16-inch long, sticky tongues used to grab insects.Gonzo is an eight-year-old male tamandua and has lived at the zoo since his birth. Credit: Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium via Storyful
Parks Canada has started work on a 49-hectare fire guard in Yoho National Park, near the Alberta-B.C. border.The plan is to clear a section of forest next to Highway 1 north of Ross Lake to help protect the communities of Lake Louise, Alta., and Field, B.C. It's also intended to create habitat and wildlife corridors for deer, elk, bears and other critters.Years of fire-suppression efforts in the national parks have led to dense forest heavy with fuel that can lead to intense, fast-spreading wild
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The North American wolverine will receive long-delayed federal protections under a Biden administration proposal released Wednesday in response to scientists warning that climate change will likely melt away the rare species’ snowy mountain refuges. Across most of the U.S., wolverines were wiped out by the early 1900s from unregulated trapping and poisoning campaigns. About 300 surviving animals in the contiguous U.S. live in fragmented, isolated groups at high elevations
New York released a new offshore wind solicitation on Thursday to keep the state on track to meet its renewable energy goals and support a nascent industry that has faced financial trouble in recent months. Offshore wind is expected to play a major role in New York's plan to reduce carbon emissions by getting 70% of the state's electricity from renewable sources by 2030. It is also a pillar of President Joe Biden's plan to decarbonize the U.S. power grid and combat climate change.
