Introduction
Statement of the Problem
Underground waters form one of the most widely relied upon water sources not only in the United States of America but also in many other parts all over the globe (Maureen et al, 2004). Due to the scarcity and inaccessibility of the surface waters in many parts of the world, a large population of people has been left to rely on underground water sources to surface their daily water needs (Howard, 2008). The United States of America is no exception.
In most of the US, especially in the state of California ground waters form the major source of water to almost half of the urban population and provide water to over 90% of the rural inhabitants and supply more than 50 billion gallons of water daily for irrigation purpose (Maureen et al, 2004). As a result of large underground water usage and overreliance on it as the main source of water, it has resulted in serious overdraft on groundwaters (Andrew, 2008).
It is important to note that underground water is the most effective way of water resources storage especially in rather dry arid and semiarid regions since there is minimum loss of water through evaporation compared to the surface waters. In addition, the storages are natural hence there is absolutely no cost that is incurred in the construction of the underground water reservoirs (Howard, 2008). This paper, therefore, discusses the underground water usage in Southern California’s kern and orange counties, the resultant groundwater overdraft, and its overall effects on the county’s water economics.
- Topic: Underground Water Usage –the effect of underground water overdraft in Kern and Orange counties in southern California.
- Thesis statement: the impact of underground water overdraft in kern and orange counties in southern California
Objectives
This paper sought to achieve two main objectives. These are:
- To find out the effects of underground water overdrafts in southern California’s Kern and Orange Counties
- To find out the effects of water overdraft on the development of water marketing in California between 1990 to date.
Hypotheses
This paper adopted two null hypotheses that underground water overdrafts have no significant effects on the southern Californian Kern and Orange county’s water economics. Also, the study sought to test the hypothesis that the water overdraft in orange and Kern counties had a significant effect on the development of water marketing in California in the latter years of the 20th century to date.
Research methodology
To attain the information needed to test the hypothesis and make conclusions on the underground water usage, overdraft and its effect on kern and orange counties the paper used a Literature survey in which literature materials, books article, prior thesis, and journals were comprehensively reviewed to obtain topic information.
Literature Review
Groundwater usage in California. History
In the past years, most parts of California were known to have very rich underground water banks. As a result, an artesian well could be sunk via drilling a shallow well (Maureen et al, 2004). Historically, for instance, the debut artesian well to have been sinking in California was recorded to have been bored in southern California as early as 1868 (Howard, 2008). Since then, many more such wells water developed such that by the end of the 19th century close to eleven thousand artesian wells had been developed and in full use in the area. Most of these wells were typically shallow with most of them not exceeding 50 feet deep into the ground.
Water could freely and effortlessly flow out of them and no pumping costs were incurred in obtaining the water. Due to overdraft of the underground waters, however, the underground waters in California have greatly reduced (Howard, 2008). As a result the artesian wells, from which water used to flow freely, have since dried up or experienced a massive reduction in water volumes (Andrew, 2008) consequently, it has necessitated the sinking of deeper wells and massive pumping.
Declining Underground water sources in southern California kern and Orange counties
In California, most of the water storages are underground aquifers (Robert, 2003).
According to Andrew (2008), underground water especially in the Californian states makes one of the most significant resources. The famous California River forms the most reliable form of underground water to the state. In addition, the Salina River in particular provides the state with the most reliable source of water to the Californians. Presently, in southern California, there are more than 30 thousand underground water pumps (Andrew, 2008).
The largest decline in the underground water resources in California has been recorded in the last few decades. For instance, an artesian well belt that existed between Stockton and Bakersfield and which had more than 600 free-flowing artesian wells has been by the hardest drop in underground water volumes due to pumping, hence wells have since stopped flowing. As a result, sinking deeper well and subsequent pumping of such waters have been left as the only alternative. Today the belt is the world’s biggest concentration of irrigation pump population with water being pumped from more than 50,000 wells (Robert, 2003).
Significance of underground water sources to Kern and Orange counties’ population
The regional underground water resource is so important to orange county that it provides more than 50% county’s drinking water (Maureen et al, 2004). According to the latter, the other half is outsourced from the nearby northern California and Colorado rivers as make-up to the reservoirs’ deficits. The underground water resources significance in the state of California is typically evident. Today, over 75% of the water that is used in the state for irrigating the farms is solely obtained and pumped from underground sources as the water imports from Colorado and Owena rivers is not at all used for irrigation (Maureen et al, 2004).
Instead, it is used in industries and domestic consumption. Similarly, most parts of Salinas, as well as Clara valley underground water, forms the major source of water with most of these regions relying wholly on the latter. In the same way, most towns and cities in California rely on underground waters (Andrew, 2008).
For instance, the San Francisco downtown region has well over 150 underground water aquifers mostly constructed in the basements of buildings, from which waters for hotels use, use in the departmental stores, and domestic consumption in most buildings is obtained (Howard, 2008).
In North America, underground waters form the major source of domestic waters providing a continuous water supply to more than 90% of the inhabitants especially in the rural areas (Robert, 2003). Also according to the latter, underground waters provide water to almost half of the total North American people. Although underground water is more susceptible to pollution, it continues to constitute one of the most relied upon water sources not only in America but also in many other parts across the whole world (Maureen et al, 2004).
Underground water overdraft
California’s overreliance on underground water resources is unmatched perhaps the greatest cause of underground water overdraft prevalent in the state especially in orange and kern counties which have the state’s richest and largest water aquifers (Andrew, 2008).
According to Robert (2003), Underground water overdraft means a situation where the rate at which water is drawn from an underground source or aquifer exceeds the rate at which such a source produces water or the rate at which the water is replaced at the source. An increase in population that depends on underground water sources increases, water demand also goes up hence if the water resources do not expand with such increase, therefore, the water demand will be higher than the available supply causing overdraws of water from a source.
Consequences of over-pumping of underground waters
Due to this great overreliance on underground waters, a crisis looms in that the wells are drying up as demand for the waters exceeds the supply and expansion of such resources. Consequently, the costs of obtaining these waters have greatly gone up since as the number of underground waters goes down at this alarming rate individuals are forced to incur more well-sinking costs as well as pumping costs since it has necessitated sinking deeper into the ground to obtain this valuable resource (Andrew, 2008).
If not checked, overdrafts of underground resources are likely to cause exhaustion of available water reserves, drying up of wells, severe water shortages, deterioration of water quality and increased water rates as well as increased pumping cost as individuals are forced to sink deeper into the ground in search of more waters. When water lies many feet inside the ground it will require more power and sophisticated technology to pump it up to the surface for the use which is an implication of more costs (Robert, 2003).
According to the United States Water News Online on October 27th, 2002 (Robert, 2003), it was reported that the orange county underground water aquifer one of the largest underground water source points in southern California had been overdrawn by more than 133 billion gallons representing the biggest deficit of underground waters in its history. The underground water resource that was known to be relied upon by close to 2 million Orange County residents was at the risk of drying up a crisis that the county’s authorities attributed to the drought and increasing demand as a result of a rapid increase in the counties population.
Although the county had experienced worse overdrafts in the past, the orange county water district expatriated believed that the overdraft was enough to sound an alarm to the state’s authorities saying that it could degenerate to serious water shortages causing water rationing and pushing up water rates. As a reaction to this overdraft and the resultant deficit the orange and kern county water districts moved with aptness to find alternative measures to take care of the deficit.
Consequently, they contracted the south California metropolitan water district (MWD) to pump between 90000 and 100000 acre-feet into the orange county underground water reservoir annually as a preliminary measure to mitigate the problem caused by massive overdrafts. In addition, the water overdraft in major soaring demand and over-exploitation of underground waters leading to overdrafts led to the federal government of United States to intervene by establishing major federal water projects in the early 1990s.
Such projects included the CVP and SWP in Orange and Kern Counties respectively. Currently, California‘s state water project (SWP) and the central valley project (CVP) are the largest water projects in California and have to a greater extent succeeded in making up for the shortage of water caused by overdrafts from the underground aquifers and severe droughts that have been affecting the lower parts of California.
Scarce and declining underground water resources and its effect on water marketing development in California
Underground water reserves in the state of California have been declining at an alarming rate from the onset of the 20tth century to and until today (Andrew, 2008). This fact has often been compounded and further complicated by the long droughts that hit the state and other parts of the United States in the latter years of the 20th century and which led to the region experiencing severe water shortage and massive decline of the existing water reserves (Robert, 2003).
Going by the fact that California’s population largely relies on underground waters these calamities especially the drought of 1976 and 1977 had very adverse effects on the Californian water reserves. As a result, alternative sources of water had to be identified to keep up with the ever-increasing demand caused by the increase in California’s population (Andrew, 2008).
Consequently, the authorities embarked on a water marketing strategy as a tool to offset the shortage by allowing individuals who traditionally held the underground water usages (farmers in the farming strongholds) to sell water to the rest of the population. As a result, the marketing of water was highly supported by California’s state, introduced reforms to the states water code, and established water banks as a more explicit form of water marketing in 1988 after the state was hit by more serious droughts that lasted for many years thus complicating further the issue of water crises. The direct result of this support was the increased water exchange to the tune of an annual average of up to 600000-acre feet.
Irrespective of the rains returning at around 1995, the state authorities didn’t relent in their efforts to support water marketing but rather enhanced it to reach a remarkable transaction rate of more than 1.2 million acre-feet annually as a total of water exchanged for industrials, agricultural municipal and other domestic uses. However, the rural authorities had remained opposed to the idea of exporting water arguing that it only had the effect of complicating the underground water decline and shortage further (Andrew, 2008). Typically, the rural population in various Californian states’ counties
were so opposed to underground water sales and exports that until recently (2002) almost half of the 58 Californian’s counties had enforced underground waters regulations, aimed at fundamentally guarding against underground water selling or exportation
Challenges facing underground waters resources regulations in California
Initially, the move by the California rural counties to come with and enforce underground waters sales and export was mainly faced by stumbling blocks. During the 1980s for instance such a move by Inyo and Nevada counties were struck out by the court after they were challenged by the state’s authorities. Nevertheless, the third county went through successfully, which later saw many other counties establishing a similar decrease. In California, state authorities are yet to set up clear and comprehensive laws and regulations to govern groundwater usage.
As a result, it has proved very difficult for the counties to enforce their efforts to control usage of their underground water resources a factor that has contributed greatly to the overdraft and exhaustion of underground water reserves. The underground waters have greatly been overexploited due to the absence of clear laws governing its use in California. Personal county’s efforts to regulate it greatly lack support since such laws do exist at the states level. Ironically surface water usage is well regulated in California despite its little usage relative to underground waters (Robert, 2003).
Due to the lack of such important controls on mining of underground waters in California, the access to and usage of this valuable resource is greatly uncontrolled in many rural California’s counties, the effect of which is the overexploitation of aquifers leading to critical overdraft of groundwaters (Robert, 2003, Andrew, 2008).
Consequently, the resource is nearing exhaustion at a very high rate a condition that if not arrested well in time could lead to severe water shortage in California in a few years time (Andrew, 2008) To achieve this more than just the counties effort to restrict the export of water resources is needed as the restriction by the counties do not necessarily solve the underground water overdrafts but rather complicated the economic use of underground water resources and banking space via underground water substitution transfers as well as importation and storage of surface waters to the underground reservoirs
Summary Conclusion and Implication
Underground water forms a major source of water in any part of the world and provides water to a large population which is used for irrigation, industrial or domestic purposes. In California, the usage of underground waters is so extensive that almost 90% of the total water used in the state is obtained from underground aquifers and which has caused over-reliance on underground waters. Going by the findings of this paper, it can be concluded that the overdraft of underground water resources in the orange and kern counties is a reality. As a result, the demand for such water has exceeded the rate of sources replenishment causing underground waters overdraft and which spells a threat of future water shortages since the current water banks are getting depleted at a very high rate.
The most adverse effects of the overdraft are the drying of several artesian wells especially in the Bakersfield artesian well belts that traverses between the two counties. In addition, individuals are forced to sink deeper into the ground and thus incur more sinking and pumping costs an effect that has greatly increased the water rates (costs). Consequently, the farmers and domestic users have been forced to bear additional water costs which are an implication for increasing cost of production and hiking of cost of living.
In addition, the overdraft, intervention of metropolitan water district as well as the establishment of the federal state water project and the central valley project to make up the underground water deficit. The establishment of additional water projects also has especially the construction of the Central Valley Project and the state water projects that were inspired by diminishing waters resources had adverse effects on the federal governments’ budget since they were funded as contingency budgets.
As a result the result of hypothesis one is negative since the paper found out that underground water overdrafts had significant effects on the Kern and Orange counties’ water economics. Similarly, although the development of water marketing was mainly inspired by the droughts that have continued to hit California, the overuse of underground water reserves and the resultant overexploitation (overdraft) led to a serious water resources deficit. As result, water marketing was enhanced to make up for the extra demand for water by the two states since underground water reserves could no longer service the demand. In conclusion, therefore, the second hypothesis also tested negative
Work cited
Andrew stone, Competition for America’s Ground Water Resources: The Public Perception: American Ground Water Trust, Concord New Hampshire (2008). Web.
Howard Pertman, Ground Water Use in the United States of America: US Department of the Interior, Geographical Survey (2008). Web.
Maureen B, et al. Ground Water in Central America: Its Importance, Development and Use with Particular Reference to Its Role in Irrigated Agriculture: GWP-Centraamerica, Correo, and Electonico (2004). Web.
Robert L, Water Follies: Ground Water Pumping and the Fate of America’s Fresh Waters: One Woodrow Wilson plaza, Washington DC (2003)