Nuffield Scholars Field Reports

2nd August 2004
Tony Hamilton reports from Bakersfield, Kern County, California

Water has always been a part of life here. It has been a source of immense wealth and controversy. When Mark Twain said "In California, whiskey is for drinking and water for fighting" he was right on the money. In the 1850’s Hagan and Miller settled in this county and when Hagan diverted the Kern River into the Calloway canal for irrigation, the pastoralists were deprived of water and feed for cattle from marshy swampland fed from the Kern river. Cubbie Station in Qld comes to mind here. So the pastoralists came up and blew the diversion with dynamite. These days they use attorneys instead of dynamite. Boswell grew cotton here and the family continues in Australia with Auscott.

The water politics is every bit as complicated here as it is in Australia. However, there have been innovative solutions to overcoming shortages. In a nutshell, northern California has a surplus of water fed from snowmelt and southern has a deficit of water relying on obtaining it from the north. Water generally flows down hill, but they say "in California it flows to where the money is". Water is conveyed over 600 kilometres by massive canals, such as the cement lined California Aquaduct, which is as wide as any Australian river. It is lifted many times until it reaches southern irrigation districts and cities such as Los Angeles.

In years of high flows, surplus water is ‘banked’ in the aquifer below the irrigation district. This water is stored and pumped out in dry years to supplement low flows into the district. The largest ‘water bank’ in the world is administered by the Kern Water Bank Authority to supply supplementary water for 6 water districts (200,000ha) and the city of Bakersfield. The numbers are mind boggling. The project cost $50 million dollars. Water is spread into a series of ponds totalling 8,000 hectares. Up to 1.2 million megalitres (1.2Gl) can be stored underground. Huge 400 HP pumps can extract up to 300,000 megalitres each year in dry times from a series of 70 bores between 200 to 300 metres deep.

This county grows over 280 different kinds of crops ranging from annuals such as wheat and cotton to orchard crops such as almonds and pistachios. Nearly $3 billion of agricultural commodities are produced each year in Kern County. Table grapes alone account for $600 million. The top 20 commodities (by value, highest to lowest) last year were: grapes, almonds, citrus, carrots, milk, cotton, lucerne hay, nursery crops, potatoes, cattle, pistachios, tomatoes, capsicum, silage, apples, wheat, honey, onions, peaches, plums.

Its ‘all systems go’ in the fields. At the moment grapes are being hand picked and packed in the field. Teams of mainly hispanic labourers toil in 40oC heat. Almond trees weighed down with nuts are shaken and two days later these nuts are windrowed and harvested by teams of machines. Every conceivable type of irrigation is in use to keep up with evapo-transpiration. Systems range from furrow flood irrigation, to liner moves, hand-set, micro fanjets and sub surface drip irrigation. The scale of operations is amazing. To see a ‘section’ (square mile, 1500ha) of carrots or grapes or almond trees in a block is an amazing sight.

Water is life here. Farmers pay between $20 to $160 per megalitre depending on which water district they are in, how much water is sourced from the Kern River, the California Aquaduct or from bores and whether it’s a wet or dry year. Pumping costs to extract ground water are huge, as much as $45,000 per bore per month thus farmers make every drop count.

Air quality is also a problem in this county. A haze envelopes the region most days in summer. The High Sierra Range is a distant memory most days, yet majestic snow capped mountains materialise in winter when wind clears the haze. A combination of dust from farming and pollution from cities as far away as San Francisco being trapped at this southern end of the great central valley. New EPA regulations are putting pressure on farmers to change to direct drilling to reduce dust, modify almond harvesters and cease burning waste products such as orchard prunings.

Despite the heat and haze,the friendliness of the locals and the site of ‘section’ after ‘section’ of irrigated crops makes Kern County, a wonderful place to visit and see agriculture California-style.