Climate Point: 20 families, billions of gallons of water

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. From Palm Springs, I'm Janet Wilson.

Five years ago this month, I drove south to California's isolated Imperial Valley for the first time. Hundreds of miniature rainbows danced in the air, created by the fierce Sonoran desert sun shining through sprinklers stretched across miles of verdant farm fields toward the Mexico border. Every drop was coming from the Colorado River, 80 miles away.

As the river neared collapse, I learned about the little known but powerful Imperial Irrigation District that holds historic sway over a huge share of the river's flow. I asked the district several times who its top customers were, but they declined to provide names.

With the water supply for millions at stake, the public had a right to know. So The Desert Sun and I teamed up with ProPublica data journalist Nat Lash, with a big assist from Mark Olalde. We combined NASA satellite data of crops with records of who owns and farms each field in the valley, along with district conservation data and dozens of interviews to determine exactly who benefits from the vast supply of water. The results were astonishing.

Just twenty farming families receive a whopping 386.5 billion gallons, our analysis showed, more than three Western states and whole cities. And they and other desert farmers top the list for who gets the fast-dwindling river water first, trumping 35 million people.

How a handful of families and a rural irrigation district came to control so much of the West’s most valuable river is another story, literally. Geography and good timing, intermarrying and shrewd strategy, and a rich but sometimes ugly past when racist laws and wartime policies excluded farmers of color all contributed.

As the federal government weighs paying more than half a billion dollars to the Imperial Valley and its farmers to use less water, we also sought to find out what they do with it. We found most use the bulk of it to grow thirsty alfalfa and other hay, which is used to feed cattle here and abroad. Others grow billions of pounds of salad mix and other leafy greens.

Farmers in the Imperial Valley are proud of the food and feed they grow. Most are already conserving a lot of water, and are willing to save more, especially if they're paid to do so. But some global water experts disagree. Take a read of our pieces to learn more. And thanks to Stanford's Bill Lane Center for funding my work.

Farm aid big time. Maybe. Speaking of agriculture, over the next five years, millions could be funneled into efforts to help farmers rotate their crops, preserve their soil, improve how their animals are fed and significantly reduce the 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that come from agriculture. That's if the multi-billion dollar 2023 Farm Bill gets passed, and if it includes subsidies for climate-smart farming.

Both are big ifs, reports Paste BN's Elizabeth Weise. Some in Congress are pushing to shift money away from conservation and climate change and instead increase already high payments for rice, peanuts and cotton. It's also not clear if the Farm Bill - the Depression era legislation that funds U.S. agricultural policy and which must be re-upped every five years – will pass this year given Congressional dysfunction, a possible government shutdown and an upcoming presidential election.

Can you hear us now? Great Lakes tribes’ knowledge of nature could be key to navigating climate change. In the first part of a four part series published Thursday by the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, reporters detail how brown spot disease, propelled by warmer, wetter weather, is attacking the last remaining wild rice bed on the Mole Lake Sokaogon Ojibwe Reservation, one of the few ancient beds left in Wisconsin.

Tribal officials said the plant, which once grew across the reservation, is mostly gone due to development that was out of the tribe's control. But Indigenous communities of this region have thousands of years of expertise. They believe their traditional ecological knowledge is critical to cleaning up the land, air and water, and they're keenly aware that our relationship with nature is at a critical juncture. The question is, will anyone pay attention?

Read on for more, including the risk of delaying turning on your AC in extreme heat. Some of these stories may require a subscription. Sign up and get access to all eNewspapers in the Paste BN Network. If someone forwarded you this email and you'd like to receive Climate Point in your inbox for free once a week, sign up here