By Peter Deneen
5-minute read
This op-ed appeared in print in the Ojai Valley News on April 17, 2020 for the paper’s Earth Day 50th Anniversary edition.
Despite significant spring storms, it looks increasingly like Ojai will fall short of its average rainfall this year. This is to be expected. Since the beginning of the industrial era, we’ve reached our average just a third of the time. Over that same period, Ventura County warmed more than any other county in the continental United States—a feverish 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit. As demand for more water continues to increase, less water is available. Drought-driven wildfire and the accumulation of fire-related debris have complicated reservoir storage and groundwater recharge, while decisions by last century’s water managers—like the construction of the Matilija Dam—have only exacerbated these impacts. This combination of climate, human systems, and politics has forced a moment of reckoning.
In the Ventura River watershed, there is a water problem—and a momentous opportunity to reimagine our relationship with water. Here’s how we can do it:
We must remind ourselves of the scarcity of fresh water on Earth—barely one percent of the planet’s fresh water is readily accessible. In a dry climate like Ojai’s, water is even more rare. Summers here are long and hot and winters are mild. Rain arrives fast and hard in Ojai, or hardly at all, and drains from the landscape quickly. The same steep slopes that create orographic lift—squeezing rain out of the clouds—also cause runoff to shed rapidly, draining to from over six thousand feet to the Pacific ocean in just 34 short miles.
Projections indicate wetter wet periods and longer, drier droughts in Ojai’s future climate. The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased climate volatility in recent decades. Studies suggest we will see more days with extreme fire weather in the fall, due to warmer temperatures coupled with a decrease in autumn precipitation. A warming climate leads to more variable rainfall, enhanced drought, wildfire, and in turn, less available water for humans and ecosystems. This is the backdrop of the ongoing water dilemma that has been characterized as a ‘water war’ between two communities with deep ties to one another who are wholly dependent on the same local water source.
We must understand and courageously embrace that Ojai and Ventura are inextricably connected—by family, by economy, and by common resource. We cannot allow fear to distract us from the interdependence of our communities. There is no water war. The ongoing litigation is unfortunate, but it is unsurprising that our lack of courage to collectively confront our overconsumption of water has resulted in litigation. This must change and it will. But it should happen through an integrated water resources management process, which will ensure water-sharing agreements that work for every water user and properly recognizes the water needs of the environment we depend upon. With a bottom-up approach, we can find ways to build resilience, have a lively economy, and enough water through being creative together. The water problem is our collective issue. It is not an ‘us versus them’ battle that humans tend to make of resource conflict and that has so far characterized the rhetoric of our current dilemma.
We must re-situate ourselves in the water hierarchy—from one which places human use above ecosystem needs, to one that is part of an ecosystem. We should use only what is necessary. When humans began intervening in the flow of the Ventura River in the middle of the 20th century, the priorities were flood control and ensuring sufficient water for human development. Ecosystem services for the more than one hundred special status plant and animal species were hardly even a consideration—we know better now. An agreement for how and how much water should be reserved for human use is overdue. But to define that need, we must determine how much we actually require. Let’s define our need and not take more than is necessary.
Ojai’s collective response to the last drought, a sustained reduction of water consumption to far below required levels, was inspirational. After the Stage 3 drought declaration in September 2016, Casitas water customers were astonishingly efficient—users reduced consumption down to Stage 4 levels and sustained it for more than three years. Ojaians have proven that our water security lies not in seeking an additional supply of water, but in our ability to drastically reduce our use with minimal impacts to quality of life.
I have a modest proposal: let’s take that conservation culture and apply it not just during times of drought—but all the time. Solutions for water recycling are being studied and implemented around the valley. Lawns are being replaced by drought-tolerant vegetation and incentivized by rebates. Recycled greywater is replacing drinking-grade water for irrigation. Zones for groundwater infiltration are being identified and runoff is being guided to those areas using swales. Drip technology is being applied to our agriculture and regenerative farming principles are taking root. While Ojai residents’ commitment to the water issue is evident, we are a tourism-based economy, so we must address the use of our visitors as well.
We must make Ojai a place where it’s not just residents who are water-conscious—but our guests too. When non-residents enter the valley, they must do so with the knowledge that they are being welcomed to share in a finite resource pool. We must facilitate their understanding that they are here as part of a collective—not as plunderers of resources. This culture can be instilled through social nudges. We can signal our community values through citywide policies that steer people toward heightened consciousness of their environmental impact, like the banning of single-use plastics. Policies like this can be a pathway toward increased awareness of personal consumption that can then leak into other areas of consumer consciousness, like our water use. Ojai’s hotels and resorts should orient guests to a mindful stay upon check-in, including useful information about the local climate and water culture. More than anything, people crave integration into community and want to be seen and recognized for their participation—to feel part of an authentic experience higher than self-indulgence. Through water conservation, non-residents can be made to feel as though they too are stewards of a delicate balance between humans and nature in a special place. If that culture can’t be cultivated here in Ojai—then where can it?
We must decide that we want to set the bar for other communities—they are looking to us to lead the way. The very factors that have led this watershed to its current predicament are developing elsewhere. Ojai is batting first—here’s why:
The Ventura River watershed is simple—located entirely within one county of one state, passing through just two primary communities of water users. Yet the agricultural, industrial, and residential demands for water resemble that of larger, more complex watersheds, making it the ideal proving ground for novel water-sharing ideas. That makeup—combined with the climate warming that has led to our rapid warming and aridification—make Ojai and the greater watershed a forward-looking telescope for state water managers. As carbon concentrations from humankind’s activities increase, the warming of other regions’ climates will follow, and so too will water scarcity issues. State water managers are watching the situation in Ojai closely. The hope is that stakeholders in this basin will come up with a model that can be replicated in watersheds across the West.
Finally, we must understand that the health of our community cannot be divorced from the health of our watershed. We must remove the Matilija Dam and rewild the Ventura River. Thanks to a collection of activists and community non-profits, a comprehensive plan to remove the dam is in place. Removal of the dam requires significant funding, multiple phases of work, and most importantly—the awareness and support of a community that recognizes the need and musters the political will to take it down. Ojai and Ventura were designed around a heavily engineered and modified river. In the plan to rewild the river, we must avoid the engineering follies that led to the Matilija Dam in the first place. We must invest in the sustainability education of our people—both in school curriculums and our adult citizens. We can offer knowledge to our neighbors and empathetically recognize unawareness when we see it. Our community can then evangelize its success to others.
We are in this together. If we open our minds and hearts to one another we can see we all are connected, to one another, and to nature. What’s good for the river is good for us. The challenge is for each of us to learn new and innovative approaches and collaborations that we didn’t know were possible, with respect to our personal use, that of others, and how our consumption fits into the greater system. We must ask our leaders to commit to this ethos with us by prioritizing resilience-building for our future climate. Cumulatively, we can have an outsized impact. For this climate and the warmer climate coming, we need to reimagine our relationship with our water.
Peter Deneen is an Ojai native, climate journalist, former Coast Guard officer, and holds a Masters in Climate and Society from Columbia University.