Students work on metal projects during an after-school lab for the Manufacturing and Robotics Career Technical Education track at Shasta High School. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

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“I’m trying to take the term ‘higher education’ out of my vocabulary.”

That’s what Jake Mangas, CEO of the Redding Chamber of Commerce, told Shasta Scout by phone in late October. He said he’s come to understand that using that term is offensive to some because it’s like saying technical training is a lower form of education.

“And it’s not a lower education,” Mangas emphasized, “it’s a different avenue.”

Mangas lives in rural, far northern Shasta County, California, which has about 181,000 people. Around 90% of the nearly 27,000 students enrolled in the county’s public schools are expected to graduate.

But far fewer will move on to attend or graduate from a four-year university. Countywide, less than 24% of the county’s adults ages 25 and older hold at least a bachelor’s degree, a statistic that deeply affects the county’s economic potential. On average, Shasta County adults with a high school diploma are earning only $38,000 annually compared to those with bachelor’s degrees, who earn almost double that amount, around $60,000.

The data shows the higher income that education provides can be enough to move individuals and families out of poverty: while 18% of those with a high school diploma find themselves at or below the poverty level, that drops to 4% for those who’ve earned a bachelor’s degree.

Overall, Shasta County’s poverty rate hovers around 14%, higher than the 12% statewide average. And with the median household income at around $60,000, many of the county’s students will qualify for deeply reduced four-year university tuition based on their family income.

But qualifying for aid also requires filling out a financial form known as the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Counselors at local school districts have been focusing on FAFSA completion in recent years to increase access to higher education. And the number of students turning the form in on time has increased from about 56% of seniors in 2017 to about 62% in 2023.

Completion rate for college readiness low 

But other obstacles to post-secondary education remain. One of those barriers is what’s known as the high school A–G completion rate, or the percentage of students who are graduating from high school with the foundational courses required for admission to California’s two statewide public university systems.

Last year, only about 31% of Shasta County students completed A–G, a figure that’s essentially unchanged over the last several years. It compares to a significantly higher statewide average of almost 45%. High school academic counselors are working to implement changes in the way courses are structured and scheduled and how students are advised, in order to slowly increase those numbers over time.

As a rural county with a poverty rate above the state average, and a relatively low number of parents who hold bachelor’s degrees, Shasta County faces obvious economic and information barriers to students’ post-secondary opportunities.

But the community also has another, more complex barrier: sociocultural resistance to university education. That’s one reason many educators, including Jim Cloney, superintendent of the Shasta Union High School District, have decided to “honor all choices” in post-secondary achievement, including certificates, the military, two-year degrees and four-year degrees.

“All kids do need training and school beyond high school in today’s economy,” Cloney told Shasta Scout by phone. “But that doesn’t mean that all kids (need to) go to a four-year school.”

Mangas and Cloney hold disparate roles in business and education, but they share a similar understanding of the hesitations some Shasta County parents have about their children attending university.

“It’s the social issues,” Mangas explained, expanding on the viewpoints he says he hears from others. “Like, ‘I don’t want my child to go to the city (for school) and come back with a different perspective on social issues and political issues.’ ”

Unlike most Cailfornians, Shasta County voters overwhelmingly supported former President Donald Trump — twice. And the county is marked by ongoing political divides that include a lack of trust in elections, anger over public health mandates and concerns about the influence of public education on families’ core values and beliefs.

Republican candidates for California’s Senate spoke in Shasta County in November, repeatedly triggering applause during their debate by referring to America’s four-year universities as “liberal, Marxist, woke” schools that are “brainwashing our children,” and saying such education is at the root of “anti-American” sentiment across the nation.

And in 2022, Bryan Caples, controversial superintendent candidate for the Shasta County school system, wrote in his candidate statement that he would empower school districts to eliminate COVID testing and vaccine mandates, establish local control and expand trade school and career technical training opportunities.

“I have seen firsthand,” Caples wrote, “how the State of California has overreached its authority by implementing programs and policies that do not meet the needs of our communities or children.”

But Judy Flores, who beat out Caples in the June 2022 primary to retain her seat as the head of Shasta County’s Office of Education, said California’s education model already includes a strong focus on technical and vocational training during high school.

Flores and Cloney are both participants in Reach Higher Shasta, a “county-wide, cradle-to-career collaborative,” which since its founding in 2012 has focused on increasing pathways to post-secondary achievement in Shasta County.

The program was originally funded by the public health branch of Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency. The investment was made because ensuring that more Shasta County students graduate into well-paid careers aligned with workforce needs is one of the most significant ways to improve the public health of the county.

Over the last decade, Reach Higher has already contributed to the comprehensive, cross-school-district planning that has led to reduced gaps in FAFSA completion and helped more students finish A–G requirements.

“We’re working towards better pathways for all kids,” Cloney explained,” not just those kids and parents that seek it out.”

Flores agreed, saying she too sees Reach Higher’s work paying off. “We’re definitely making steps towards a stronger understanding within our community of the value of some education beyond high school,” Flores said.

Funded by an $18 million dollar state grant, Reach Higher now hopes to connect educational outcomes with workforce needs by developing new pathways to careers in two of Shasta County’s most critically impacted professions, education and medical care.

Part of that process includes offering more information to students and parents about the educational options in local high schools and the opportunities and needs in the local workforce.

“For many students whose parents did not choose for whatever reason to do any education beyond high school,” Flores continued, “they don’t know what options are out there beyond what’s in their immediate circle of family and friends.”

Mangas adds that some parents think they did just fine without going to college. And so will their kids.

That perspective is understandable, says Leo Perez, who works with Cloney as an associate superintendent of Shasta Union High School District. But that way of thinking, he says, is also limited by an outdated idea of the needs in today’s workforce.

Perez oversees SUHSD’s technical education programs, known in California as Career Technical Education or CTE. It’s the kind of training, Perez says, that will help students succeed in Shasta County, but only if paired with an academic curriculum that includes teaching critical thinking skills.

“There are very few jobs (now) where you do the same thing over and over,” Perez explained. “Nowadays you have to adapt and react to various situations which require some level of critical thinking. You have to be an independent thinker, a problem solver that’s not just working out of a manual but taking input out of your education to come up with solutions.”

“Getting a high school degree and going (straight) to work in the mill is no longer a viable job,” Perez continued. “Now we need kids to have the skills to do a lot of problem solving and critical thinking.”

That means teaching more than the basics, or three R’s, of education, he says. The need for a well-rounded education is one that’s widely accepted across much of California, but in Shasta County, where the community’s proud blue-collar tradition was built on mining, lumber mills and dam construction, the idea doesn’t have as much support.

At SUHSD, Cloney and Perez are working to help meet those workforce needs through a number of vocational tracks including manufacturing and robotics, early education and agriculture.

High School teachers Bret Barnes (left) and Brian Grigsby discuss robotics challenges with students during an after school lab that’s part of the Manufacturing and Robotics Career Technical Education track at Shasta High School. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

Last month, students in the manufacturing and robotics track at Shasta High School joked and laughed together as they worked on welding and robotics projects during an after-school lab on campus.

Their teachers, Bret Barnes and Brian Grigsby said while some of their students will go on to careers in engineering it’s equally important that others get certified to help fill local trade gaps in other fields.

“For a long time we focused on getting kids into a four year university, hands down, forget everything else, that’s the plan to get them there,” Grigsby said.

“And I think that we started to lose some of these trade, skilled positions, some of these really good skills. . . . So we’re really ensuring the fact that while a four year education is an option, we also want to tell kids that there are some really good options available to get certification that  don’t require a four year degree. And we need more and more of those because it’s almost a lost art. Really.”

This reporting is part of a collaboration with the Institute for Nonprofit News‘ Rural News Network, and the Cardinal News, KOSU, Mississippi Today, Shasta Scout and The Texas Tribune. Support from Ascendium made the project possible.

Have questions, concerns, or comments you’d like to share with us? Reach out: editor@shastascout.org.

Lea este articulo en español aquí.

With her father, her brother, her daughter, her husband, three grandchildren, three nephews, two sons-in-law, and three nephews in the military, either serving or retired, Esther LaPore is dedicated to honoring their service with her work at Hollister’s Veterans Auxiliary Post 9242 and the American Legion Auxiliary Post 69.

LaPore’s daughter, Air Force Tech Sergeant Elisa Eclarin Perada, remembers her sending care packages to the ship where her husband, Second Lieutenant Ezra Eclarin, was serving on a record-breaking deployment.

“He was so proud just to have all of these boxes come in and be able to deliver them to the sailors,” said Perada. “It is hard to explain unless you are there and see what service members go through. But I can see its importance and the impact it has on the people around us.”

LaPore, 65, was born and raised in Hollister. Her father, Corporal John Z. Hernandez, Sr.,  served four years in the Army, including two years of deployment to Korea.
“My dad was always bitter because they called it ‘the Korean Conflict’ when we all knew it was a war,” she said. “But he was a proud American citizen and a patriot. He was the first person in Hollister to be awarded the Veteran of the Year. They gave him a medal, and he was so proud of it that he never took it off.”

John Z. Hernandez Park on Central Avenue is named after her father, in honor of his advocacy for Hollister’s Hispanic community.

“He would advocate and fight for the Westside where we grew up,” she said. “He would go to City Council meetings and be a thorn in their sides. He helped a lot of migrants fill out their paperwork for housing, and he would also go to the courthouse as an interpreter.”

LaPore was introduced to her future husband, Marine Sergeant Brian LaPore, in 1987, when her brother, who served with Brian at Camp Pendleton, brought him to the family’s Thanksgiving. Brian served twice, from 1984-98 and 1990-93.

“They would go out on ship for six months,” she said, “and this time, they were back for a four-day weekend, so he brought him home with him. Then they went out on ship again until the next July.”

LaPore’s daughter, Elisa, now retired, currently works in a wound care clinic in Virginia after 20 years in the Air Force.

“I’m most proud of her because of what she accomplished and where she is now in life,” she said. “You wouldn’t have thought, back when she was going through high school and giving me problems, that the Air Force would have been the best thing for her. I miss her the best, the most.”

Following the death of her father, LaPore joined the American Legion Auxiliary in 2013 and the Veterans Auxiliary in 2015.

“I wish I would have joined while he was alive,” she said. “My dad never asked us to join, but after that, I got my mom, my daughters, and my granddaughters to all join up to help with all of the good things that we do.”

As part of her service, LaPore works with a spinal cord unit in Palo Alto, providing food and clothing for patients, as well as blankets and things to entertain them. The unit also offers services for visiting families.

“We provide supplies for Fisher’s house and the Defenders Lodge at the hospital,” she said. “It’s where if your husband was having an appointment in the morning, you could stay overnight in a room, and it doesn’t cost anything.”

She also works to support Blue Star Moms, a nonprofit organization that provides assistance to families of service members, and G.I. Josie, which offers support for women in the service who suffer from PTSD.

“A motto we have says, ‘Remember your “Why?’”, she said. “‘Why are you doing all of these things?’ My why is my family, my kids and my grandkids who went into the service. Like my grandsons Lance and Ezra. We serve our veterans first and foremost and honor the sacrifices that veterans have made.”

Pointing out that 22 veterans nationally commit suicide every day, LaPore says there is a need for more volunteers at the auxiliaries and more attention paid to veterans’ issues.

“I just finished on June 30 being the district president of the American Legion auxiliary,” she said, “On July 1, I became the district president of the VFW, so I feel like I’m doing double duty  because, in our small organization in Hollister, we need to step up and get new recruitment our small organizations in Hollister so that we can someone can follow me.”

LaPore said that she is concerned the organizations might be fading out, which would leave service members and veterans in need.

“If we die away, then who’s going to be there for our veterans when it comes time to take up for them?” she asked. We have to support our Legion Post and VFW Post in their endeavors. We’re right behind them and right with them doing what they do for veterans.”

Members of Esther LaPore’s military family

• Parker Anderson, Sergeant, Marine Corps – son-in-law
• Ezra Eclarin, Second Lieutenant, Marine Corps – grandson
• Elisa Eclarin-Perada, Tech Sergeant, Air Force – daughter
• Arthur Hernandez, Tech Sergeant, Air Force – nephew
• Gabriel Hernandez, Lance Corporal, Marine Corps – grandson
• John A. Hernandez, Sergeant, Marine Corps – nephew
• John Z. Hernandez, Jr., Master Sergeant, Marine Corps -brother
• John Z. Hernandez, Sr., Corporal, Army – father
• Richard Hernandez, Staff Sergeant, Marine Corps – nephew
• Derrick Jackson, Seaman, Navy – grandson
• Brian LaPore, Sergeant, Marine Corps Airborne -husband
• Jenner Pereda, Senior Chief, Navy – son-in-law

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Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Cathy Darling Allen stands next to California’s Deputy Secretary of State, Susan Lapsley, as she speaks to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors on February 28, 2023.

Six nonprofit voting rights advocacy groups have formally requested California’s Secretary of State, Shirley Weber, to provide monitoring and support for Shasta County’s upcoming elections. Among other requests, they’re asking her to deploy in-person monitoring of the local elections process both during the November 2023 and March 2024 elections.

Intervention by Weber’s office, the advocates write, could have “tremendous benefits . . . not only for the citizens of Shasta County but for all of the people who are watching these events unfold.”

Logos for the six organizations who participated in contacting California’s Secretary of State.

The nonpartisan coalition includes the California Voter Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union, California Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, Verified Voting, Disability Rights California, and the California Voter Foundation. The same group of voting advocacy organizations worked together earlier this year both in February and in March to contact the Shasta County Board of Supervisors about concerns with changes to the county’s voting system after a contract with Dominion Voting Inc. for voting machines, was canceled.

Yesterday, October 24, the advocates sent a joint letter to Weber asking her to respond to what they refer to as “grave concerns” about Shasta County’s election system stability which, they said, “call for urgent, decisive, and sustained response.” As California’s Secretary of State, Weber is the state’s chief election officer. Her duties include ensuring “that elections are efficiently conducted and that state election laws are enforced.”

The coalition of voter rights advocates say Shasta County voters are being subject to a “torrent of misinformation and disinformation” which “can be seen at nearly every Board of Supervisors meeting (and) truly threatens the electorate’s ability to discern the truth about how their upcoming elections will be administered and their confidence that their votes will be counted accurately and in accordance with the law

Voting advocates are particularly concerned about Board Supervisor Patrick Jones’s public statements saying he does not plan to follow new state law, AB 969, which requires the county to use machine, not hand, counting to tally election ballots. They also expressed concern about ongoing misinformation about the election process that’s being shared in public meetings, including by officials themselves. In particular, the coalition of advocates expressed concern about Jones’ statement that the county’s new Hart voting machines are “unauthorized,” which, they emphasized, undermines confidence in the election process.

Voter rights advocates also pointed in their letter to Weber that the need to deal with these extraordinary pressures has diverted time and resources from Shasta County Elections Office staff as they work to deploy a new voting system for the first time. A situation, they wrote, that endangers “the smooth administration of the upcoming elections and thus the rights of voters, including voters with disabilities.”

Advocates have asked Weber to respond by monitoring elections in-person during the upcoming November 7 special election and again next spring for the March 5, 2024 election. They’d also like her to provide any assistance required by Shasta County’s Registrar of Voters, Cathy Darling Allen, to ensure she is able to fulfill her election duties without interference, including interference from the newly-formed county Citizen Elections Advisory Committee.

Advocates also say they hope the state will work to supplement and support voter education efforts in Shasta County, including providing more information to voters about the safety and security of the voting system, including the California certification process.

You can read the full letter sent to the Secretary of State embedded below, or by following this link.

Have questions, concerns, or comments you’d like to share with us directly? Reach out: editor@shastascout.org. If you choose to leave a comment please keep in mind our community guidelines. All comments will be moderated to ensure a healthy civic dialogue.

A photo inside the Shasta County Elections Office on November 8, 2022. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

On Tuesday the Board of Supervisors will vote on whether to approve a new county ordinance that would bolster the role and power of their freshly formed Citizens Elections Advisory Committee (CEAC). The board approved the five person committee on September 12, and appointed the first committee members last Tuesday, September 26.

One committee member was appointed by each of the five supervisors. They include Dawn Duckett, Susanne Baremore, Lisa Michaud, Bev Gray, and Ronnean Lund. All have been vocal public speakers over recent months with Duckett and Baremore often opposing the board majority on elections changes and Machaud, Gray, and Lund all supporting changes and expressing concern about election fraud.

Less than a week after approving the committee members, the board is looking to modify and expand CEAC powers by codifying its role into law with a local ordinance that would allow it to “provide oversight . . . over all elections related activities in Shasta County.”

The ordinance appears to also remove the committee’s previously-stated end-date and give members the power to access records, make copies of public records, observe all election-related activities, and receive “timely” answers of members’ questions from all election officials. The new ordinance would also give the board’s chair, currently Supervisor Patrick Jones, authority to request and serve subpoenas. The committee’s powers seem to be limited to providing the board with information and asking the board’s permission to request subpoenas. It is unclear if the committee will need to agree in order to exercise those powers, or what the board will be able to do with the information gathered.

According to Tuesday’s agenda packet, the county’s newly-seated legal counsel has “reviewed the proposed ordinance” and “found it legally insufficient and unenforceable” but it has nevertheless been moved forward by Chair Jones for the board’s vote this week.

If passed, the ordinance would take effect immediately. It will be voted on just 35 days before the county’s next scheduled election on November 7 for a local school board and fire safety district board. It will also be voted on the same day that the board should respond to certified signatures by calling a special election for the potential recall of Supervisor Kevin Crye, which must occur some time between January and March of 2024 according to state law.

It’s unclear to what extent this ordinance is intended to give the Board a greater role in the upcoming certification of a recall election for Supervisor Kevin Crye. The ordinance does specifically mention the certification of attempted recalls and this recall attempt specifically, saying that, “the recall validation process is precursor and is part and parcel to the entire special election process.”

Signatures for Crye’s recall election were just certified to move forward by elected County Clerk and Registrar of Voters, Cathy Darling Allen, earlier this week and will be presented to the Board later in the same meeting this week. Speaking to Shasta Scout by phone today, Crye said he will meet with County Counsel Monday to determine whether or not he should recuse from the agenda item on the elections committee. He says he definitely plans to recuse from the second agenda item regarding the certification of his recall process.

Earlier this year, on January 24, Shasta County’s Board voted to cancel the county’s contract with Dominion Voting Systems for electronic voting equipment. While the board dumped Dominion machines in order to implement a manual count of election ballots, the action was taken without having a legally approved system to manually tally votes in place.

At the end of March, the board instructed the Elections Office to develop a plan for the upcoming November 7 special election, leaving Elections Clerk Darling Allen with 8 months to create and submit a new system to the California Secretary of State for approval, implement state suggestions, perform any needed testing, make necessary system changes, and conduct the election.

Darling Allen still does not have access to a state approved system to run elections, which will occur in  just over a month. She did submit a hand tally plan, which the Secretary of State provided suggestions on. The Elections Office has also scheduled an October 5 open house for members of the public to observe a mock election using the hand tally process.

Meanwhile, AB 969, which would make hand counting ballots in elections where there are over 1,000 eligible, registered voters illegal, has been passed by the California house and senate and is sitting on California Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk to be signed into state law. He has until October 14 to sign, approve without signing, or veto all remaining bills.

“As an independently elected official, I’m going to continue to do the job that voters elected me to do.” Cathy Darling Allen, the elected County Clerk and Registrar of Voters told Shasta Scout on September 8 in response to questions about the original resolution. “The Shasta County Clerk’s office is a nonpartisan entity dedicated to making sure that every vote is counted and every voice in our community is heard,” she said.

This is a developing story. You can find the draft ordinance and staff report here for the Citizens Election Advisory Committee here. The staff report regarding the certification of recall for Kevin Crye can be found here.

If you choose to leave a comment please keep in mind our community guidelines. All comments will be moderated to ensure a healthy civic dialogue. Have questions, concerns, or comments you’d like to share with us directly? Reach out: editor@shastascout.org.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died on Thursday evening at the age of 90, leaves behind a long and complex legacy on climate and environmental issues. Feinstein represented California as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate for more than 30 years, becoming the longest-serving woman in Senate history, and during that time she brokered a number of significant deals to protect and restore the natural landscapes of the West. In recent years, as politics shifted, she found herself on the receiving end of criticism over her approach to tackling the climate crisis.

After taking office in 1992 following a decade as the mayor of San Francisco, Feinstein established herself as a champion for conservation. She worked to pass legislation that would protect millions of acres of California wilderness from development and extractive industry, using her deft skills as a negotiator to bridge disputes between competing interests. She succeeded in that conservation effort where her predecessors had failed, spearheading a 1994 bill that created the Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks, which encompass millions of acres. She later passed bills to protect Lake Tahoe, the California redwoods, and the Mojave Desert.

Feinstein also supported action to reduce carbon emissions for much of her Senate career, and she was a key backer of a cap-and-trade bill that failed to pass the Senate during the first years of the Obama administration. She also authored successful legislation on automobile fuel economy standards, and pushed forward new regulatory standards for oil and gas pipelines following a 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people.

Even so, as a compromise-oriented legislator from California, she often had to weigh the competing interests of farmers, ranchers, and environmentalists, and at times she angered all of them. This tendency toward centrism was evident in her legislative work on water in the state’s Central Valley. She brokered a monumental restoration agreement on the valley’s overstressed San Joaquin River in 2009, but then helped override species protections for fish on that same river in 2016.

“That is wrong, it is shocking,” her colleague Senator Barbara Boxer said at the time, according to E&E News.

Even so, as the pace of the climate crisis advanced, Feinstein attracted criticism from the left for not supporting more ambitious policies to tackle climate change, and her reputation as a broker of compromise came back to haunt her. In early 2019, a group of activists with the Sunrise Movement confronted Feinstein in the Capitol building, urging her to support progressive calls for Green New Deal legislation.

Feinstein rebuffed the protestors.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’ve been doing,” she said in a viral video. “You come in here and say it has to be my way or the highway.” Her office later released a statement on the incident that mistakenly referred to the protestors as part of the “Sunshine Movement.”

In the following years, following reports that Feinstein was experiencing a loss of her mental faculties, some politicians called for her to step down from the Senate. She resisted those calls and instead said she would retire at the end of her current term, which would have lasted through next year’s election.

The senator’s death will create even more turmoil in Washington, D.C., as lawmakers tangle over a looming government shutdown. The Senate has moved closer to passing a resolution to fund the federal government over the course of the week, but it’s unlikely to pass the House of Representatives thanks to a revolt from hardline Republicans.

Feinstein cast her final vote on Thursday morning on a procedural item relating to the Federal Aviation Administration, but she didn’t vote on an environmental bill later that afternoon. In the vote she missed, Republican lawmakers tried to override President Biden’s veto of a bill that would have rolled back endangered species protections for the prairie chicken. The final vote total was 47 Republicans to 46 Democrats, not enough to override the veto.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the outcome of a vote on endangered species protections.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Dianne Feinstein dies, leaving a complicated legacy on climate issues on Sep 29, 2023.

A summit in Fresno last week was upbeat on a dour topic: the megadrought of the American West.

If the recent blockbuster report about civilization exceeding nearly all of Earth’s natural limits was harsh, the summit – thrown at Fresno State’s newest building, the Resnick Center, named after Stuart Resnick, California’s wealthiest farmer – was the more relaxed counterpart to this fact.

Water district managers and policy makers talked about the future of the San Joaquin Valley’s groundwater aquifers – whose collapse has long been the poster child for an industry growing beyond the provisions of rivers and aquifers.

The cream of the state’s water policy experts said their expectation of drought and climate change was rosy.

At the meeting, a new vision of water in the valley emerged.

As climate change and regulations threaten to fallow farmland, early experiments show that a new water stockpile for the state’s most valuable farmland is possible, leaders at the meeting said.

This could happen by using the force of free markets to harness climate change’s wild swings of drought and flood into a multi-billion dollar bonanza.

Through an expanded groundwater trading market, more water could be shifted to the state’s lucrative nut orchards, and away from vegetables and field crops, according to a new report presented at Wednesday’s meeting by the Public Policy Institute of California, a think tank based in San Francisco.

By expanding the supply of water that can be bought and sold, the Valley’s agricultural economy could defy climate change and drought, and grow by $1 billion dollars by 2040, instead of the alternative – a $4 to 6 billion shrinkage over the same time span if water trading isn’t utilized.

To get more groundwater trading done between farms, and from agriculture to cities, the state needs a new water rights system, said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.

California groundwater trading requires the state to “modernize our water rights system,” Nemeth told Fresnoland. “There’s got to be a new kind of trading partnership between urban and agricultural users.”

Water markets decide which fields go dry

Expanding groundwater trading in the future would primarily work by growers converting captured floodwater during wet years into groundwater credits that can be cashed during periods of drought – when people need the water most.

While good for economic growth, the groundwater trading would put small farmers at an increased risk for land fallowing, according to the PPIC report. This is because they would likely sell their water to bigger agribusiness corporations.

“It’s not a mystery: we have a market that is very dominated by bigger organizations that are more sophisticated,” Nemeth said about the state’s water trading markets.

DWR’s groundwater banks have been criticized in the past for unfairly helping the state’s wealthiest growers.

In the mid-1990s, DWR set up California’s largest water bank in a series of hidden meetings in Monterey. The bank became controlled by entities associated with Stewart Resnick, who used the bank’s water to help double his nut acreage.

According to Wednesday’s PPIC report, a larger water market in the valley would cause a similar outcome.

The Valley’s nut empire would be the primary beneficiary.

Overall, fewer pistachios and almonds orchards would be lost, and a greater portion of the 500,000 – 1 million acres of lost farmland over the coming years would be vegetable and field crops.

“One of the key things to take away is that trading is not affecting the total amount of fallowed land,” said Andrew Ayres, a research fellow at PPIC and one of the lead authors on the report.

Instead, the California groundwater trading market “allows you to move that water from crop applications that are less profitable to ones that are more profitable,” which prevents the richest agribusiness operations from going bust during drought, Ayres added.

These new water solutions could be a breakthrough, said Allison Febbo, the general manager at Westlands Water District – home to some of the biggest pistachio and almond orchards in the world.

“It’s important for our district that our land re-purposing is long-term, but temporary,” Febbo said. “We may be able to bring some of that land back into irrigation at some point.”

The riches of flood: an idea born in crisis

When the floods came earlier this year, an awakening happened, panelists at the meeting said.

With record snowpack, a million acre-feet of water could have been stopped from reaching the Pacific Ocean, said Sarah Woolf, a farmer who owns roughly 30,000 acres of farmland in Fresno County.

She said that water could have been put underground in the Valley, to be pumped up later on.

“That is a big amount that…if it’s in the ground, we can use years later,” she said.

“We get a real sense of catastrophe during these dry periods and then we had 2023 to help remind us that there’s a lot we can do,” said Nemeth, California’s top water official.

“We’re not quite ready to make the best use of those moments like we need to be,” she added.

Eric Averett, CEO of Atlas Water LLC, said groundwater banks could use these floods as a bulwark for private equity firms in the San Joaquin Valley.

Wildland habitat restoration projects along the San Joaquin River are a potential opportunity to farm these newfound groundwater credits, he said.

“We go in, we’ll acquire the ground, and develop a groundwater banking project so that we can bring in additional [flood]water in, generate the credits, and monetize them.”

Once traded, water commodities will be central to the private sector’s revenues on the climate transition in the San Joaquin Valley.

For solar projects in the San Joaquin Valley, the primary money generator is selling off the water rights of the newly fallowed land, Averett added.

A new water supply

“That trading thing is a very fun, controversial idea. It’s got everything all bundled into one.” said Aaron Fukuda, general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District.

By certifying floodwater as recharged groundwater, Fukuda said an aquifer monitoring network from SGMA has helped farmers grow the amount of groundwater they can pump.

“We figured out that the same tool that was a detriment became an incentive, now that the [SGMA] water dashboard was giving credit to growers,” said Fukuda. “The market opens up these windows.”

Don Cameron, a manager of a 6,000-acre ranch 15 miles south of Fresno that relies entirely on groundwater, said groundwater trading is gaining more traction along the Tulare Lake Basin.

“In the Kings sub-basin, we’re starting to see more cooperation,” said Cameron, who is also president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture. “There’s a lot of potential to move water within the basin.”

The possibility of finding a new, one million acre-foot water supply fundamentally changes the conversation over the San Joaquin Valley’s climate transition, said Ann Hayden, vice president of climate resilient water systems at the Environmental Defense Fund.

“We can’t be talking about demand reduction…without also talking about the [water] supply augmentation that is possible,” she said.

Unknown risks of California groundwater trading

Last year’s Nobel Prize lecture, however, pours cold water over the idea of well-designed water markets anytime soon.

Stanford professor Paul Milgrom – a 2020 Nobel laureate who created key trading schemes in telecommunications – said water markets in California are one of the most daunting challenges he has encountered.

“Water is not like other commodities. It’s not like oil, for example,” Milgrom said. “The externalities that are inherent in water are different from anything else I have ever seen.”

Milgrom said that the unknown downstream effects of trading water – a key ecosystem resource – made water trades difficult to account for without a major overhaul of the state’s water regulations.

Political risks are also plentiful, according to a paper from 2020.

The researchers said that deciding the fate of farming communities — for example, sacrificing a small vegetable farm for a hedge fund’s almond speculation — could lead to backlash.

“[I]f water transferred out of a region results in impacts on local employment and income, such third-party effects can lead to transfers being politically unattractive (and lead to limits on transfers),” the paper said.

The lone person to push back on the water trading idea was also one of the only people of color who was invited to speak at the summit on Wednesday.

“Water markets are going to serve the purpose of profit,” said Sonia Sanchez, senior community development specialist at Self-Help Enterprises. Sanchez, however, stopped short of opposing groundwater trading entirely.

Instead, she said she hoped agribusiness would work with low-income communities to balance the industry’s groundwater contamination with their groundwater trading.

When small town’s local groundwater supplies become contaminated by agriculture run-off, Sanchez said, “we don’t want to have low-income communities buy their water on the market.”

Sanchez also said that putting all this floodwater underground, instead of into the ocean, could concentrate unknown types, and amounts, of toxic chemicals into local groundwater supplies.

At the summit, this risk was mentioned in passing as something to look into the future.

Klemeth said the department of water resources is looking into the problem.

“I do think when we’ve got these bigger recharge projects that are underway, getting constructed, getting ready for operations, it does have to come with a more complete water quality program, Klemeth said.

“The groundwater sustainability agencies are working on that, and that really has to be hand-in-glove.”

The post Is groundwater trading the future of California water? appeared first on Fresnoland.

During three weeks in December and January, storms dumped 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow on California. With it came unwelcome floods for many communities of color.

The winter and spring storms were a rare chance for drought-stricken communities to collect rainwater, rather than have their farms, homes and more overwhelmed by water. Much of the rain that fell instead overflowed in lakes and streams, leading to disaster in low-income Central Valley towns like Allensworth and Planada.

“It’s a long history of disinvestment in disadvantaged communities and communities of color, in drinking infrastructure, water systems and flood control,” said Michael Claiborne, an attorney for the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, an environmental justice organization based in the San Joaquin and East Coachella Valleys.

In the aftermath of the damage, community leaders are reiterating a call to diversify water boards to give marginalized groups more power.

The California State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees the distribution of water in the state, has acknowledged that its workforce does not reflect California’s racial composition. Part of the State Water Board are nine Regional Water Quality Control Boards. These regional boards develop “basin plans” to manage water quality in their area, taking into account their region’s unique environmental factors.

In 2020, 69% of water board management was white, while 31% were Black, Indigenous or other people of color. By comparison, 37% of California’s population is white and 63% are Black, Indigenous or other people of color, according to the 2019 American Community Survey.

“More local representation would ensure that when decisions are made, the needs of the communities impacted aren’t ignored,” Claiborne said.

The communities that flooded don’t have proper infrastructure such as levees and canals, experts said, which divert water to floodplains or groundwater basins that wells can draw from for later use.

Members of the State Water Board were not available to comment on representation by the time of publishing.

The State Water Board adopted a plan this January to improve racial equity and better represent California’s diversity. This resolution also applied to the regional boards, which used the resolution as a guide to develop their own racial equity plans.

“A lot of these board seats go uncontested,” said Allison Harvey Turner, CEO of the Water Foundation. “The same people have been in these decision-making positions for decades.”

Inequality still remains a concern when it comes to California’s water infrastructure, the first defense against floods.

Allensworth, a small farming community of mostly Latinos in the San Joaquin Valley, was ordered evacuated because of flooding from this year’s storms. The town sits at the edge of the Tulare Lake basin, which was the source of much of the flooding. Drained and cultivated decades ago, Tulare Lake was revived by the storms in less than three weeks. But its resurrection submerged miles of valuable Allensworth farmland.

Other cities near Tulare Lake, including Corcoran and Alpaugh, also suffered devastating flood damage. What were once roads, homes and farmland ended up at the bottom of almost 170 square miles of water.

While many agencies manage water, Claiborne said those bodies are dominated by wealthier, “bigger water users.”

“Disadvantaged communities have very little ability to influence local decision-making,” Claiborne said.

The central coast town of Pajaro and Merced County’s Planada are two other low-income, farming communities of color destroyed by floods. In both towns, county officials were blamed for not properly maintaining the levees that failed.

“In places that have gotten a fair amount of tension like Pajaro, levees needed work, but the investments made to shore them up failed and communities flooded,” said Harvey Turner, of the Water Foundation.

Efforts are underway to improve representation on water boards, which would give small landowners and communities of color an avenue to advocate for better water infrastructure. The Water Foundation provides grants to support organizations such as the Leadership Counsel, which helps local advocates learn about their regional water boards and run for those positions.

One current Tulare County Supervisor, Eddie Valero, is an outcome of those programs.

“That can be super powerful – if we are able to shift the faces and communities that are reflected in these water positions,” Harvey Turner said.

Bella Kim is a reporter with JCal, a collaboration between The Asian American Journalists Association and CalMatters to immerse high school students in California’s news industry.

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