This represents all the water used in one year in the Western United States.
For the past 20-plus years, a megadrought, made worse by manmade global warming
has left the West drier than it’s been in over a thousand years.
That includes the Colorado River system where reservoirs have been depleted to record lows.
Which has people talking about ways to cut back.
“Cities are taking aim at the backyard swimming pool.”
“Restrictions, such as not washing cars at home, and no power washing houses.”
“Businesses and residents must cut their outdoor watering to just one day a week.”
But this is all the residential water use for 115 million people
across 17 Western states.
All the lawn watering and tooth brushing and pools and showers
use only 6 percent of all water consumption.
The rest of this tells a totally different story.
A team of researchers came up with these water use estimates.
And they found that another 8 percent goes towards commercial and industrial uses
like offices, hotel fountains, mines, and power plants.
Together with residential use
that’s 14 percent of all water consumption in the West.
All of what’s left in here — the other 86 percent is for growing crops.
Irrigated agriculture is the big story.
All the other water users added together...
don't come close to irrigated agriculture.
In the dry western states, farms can’t count on rain
so crops need irrigation.
So here’s soybeans, nuts, wheat, fruits & veggies, corn.
But what’s even more surprising is that the biggest share of this water
goes to crops humans don’t eat.
The biggest water guzzler is alfalfa.
You might not recognize this plant
but if you’ve ever seen a bale of hay that looks greenish: that’s alfalfa.
Unlike a lot of crops, with enough water
farmers in the West can harvest it up to 12 times a year and sell every last bit.
It's about a 9 to 10 month crop down in our part of the desert.
And so you're farming it 9 or 10 months
and therefore, you're irrigating it during that time.
We can group alfalfa’s water with the water used for other grass hays
and for corn silage.
Together, this accounts for 32% of the West’s entire water footprint.
And what they have in common is that these are all crops grown almost exclusively
to feed cows.
That’s more than all the residential and commercial uses combined.
A third of all the water consumed in the West...
just for feeding cattle.
Americans eat nearly 4 times more beef than the global average.
Our dairy intake has been increasing for decades, too.
And we’re not alone.
At least 10% of this cattle feed ends up on container ships crossing the pacific
to feed cows in Japan, China, and the Middle East.
Agriculture in the United States is built to supply a world export market.
So what do we do about this?
It’s clear that letting our lawns die
would make less of an impact than changing our diets.
But that solution is a hard sell for consumers
even the most informed ones.
In case anybody takes me for like a meat hating like college professor...
cheeseburgers are my favorite food.
And my cheeseburgers come from Colorado River water.
So I have thought about it and I think that before we all stop eating meat
we should explore a couple of other solutions.
Ben and his co-authors highlight an approach called “rotational fallowing.”
It enables agencies representing metropolitan water users
to set a price that they’ll pay farmers
to temporarily stop irrigating a portion of their fields.
Farmers decide whether it’s worth it in any given year to take that deal.
And the unused water can then be sent to the cities...
or left in reservoirs.
Can fallowing hay and alfalfa in the Colorado River Basin
solve the current 2022 year drought crisis?
The answer is yes.
There’s a long-term agreement like this
in place between the water district that serves LA and San Diego
and the Palo Verde Irrigation District in rural California.
The deal allows up to 29% of the total farmland to be fallowed.
It's been largely well received in our valley.
I think farmers like it.
Bart Fisher’s farm depends entirely on water from the Colorado River
so he supports the conservation program.
But he also says it doesn't work for everyone.
Whenever you do fallowing
there are economic losers and economic winners.
And some of our vendors who may sell seed or fertilizer, they're a loser.
Jobs, communities, and global supply chains currently rely on western farmers
growing vast amounts of cow food in the middle of the desert.
But as water supplies continue to shrink, something has to give:
in how we eat, what we grow, and where we grow it.
When you look at the water use on the river
the short term savings has to come out of agriculture.
There's no...
there's no other place to get it.