“FARMERS and teachers are not factory workers. Good peaches and good students must be grown slow. Trees and young minds are certainly not machines. Just as there’s an art to farming, there’s an art to teaching. Our work is not about speed and productivity. It includes a necessary slowness. Fast-food education doesn’t work. Learning is not an exact science with a single method appropriate for everyone. Education must be slow because it’s a human act –filled with wonderful individual subjectivity and expression. Young teachers and farmers rely on a youthful energy; older ones draw on a reservoir of experience. Our profession embodies this perspective: we see the past in the present in order to shape the future. Each peach tree or grapevine or student carries baggage from the past. Our challenge is to help shape it for the future.” —David “Mas” Matsumoto, “Four Seasons in Five Senses”, 2003.
When we had plenty of water from springs, the enterprising sought to package water in a plastic bottle and advertise it as coming from purified sources, near the mountains. We were then horrified that when the public health agency’s scientists and investigators made actual visits, the “spring source” was nowhere to be found. But not all were unethical; plenty were legitimate manufacturers, but the drought has pointed the blame at many.
“They’ve made a scapegoat of big names like Nestle, which operates five water bottling plants in California. Dozens of activists protested outside two of the plants last week and online petitions have garnered thousands of signatures demanding Nestle (NSRGF) halt its bottling operation. In fact, there are 110 water-bottling plants in the state. In addition to Nestle, others big bottlers include Pepsi (PEP), which bottles Aquafina; Coca-Cola (CCE), which bottles Dasani; and Crystal Geyser,” Money.cnn.com reported on May 26, 2015.
“It’s a pretty small amount,” said Tim Moran, a spokesman for the state’s Water Resources Control Board. The International Bottled Water Association says that about 3.1 billion gallons of water are bottled in California annually. Nestle, for example, uses 725 million gallons of water annually at its California bottling plants. But that volume is dwarfed by the 4 trillion, (with a “t,”) gallons used by residents every year, “ Money.CNN.com reports.
Crystal Geyser Natural Springs, transparently disclosed in its website: “Our newest plant is nestled below the majestic Mount Shasta. Our protected source is located within California’s Shasta-Trinity National Forest. This plant serves the west coast as well as our exports in Japan.”
Sixty jobs in this once lumber-generating part of California are enough, perhaps for manufacturing to continue, even in the height of the drought. But should we not add that as long as water is sold in California locally, and not exported several thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean?
Yes, the State of California benefits from income taxes as well as personal income taxes paid by the hired employees of this bottling plant, including sales taxes from bottled water products sold to consumers.
But, Japan?
Do we see the value in depleting our watersheds, our reservoirs, our water tables and our spring sources to benefit the residents of Japan? I have nothing against Japan, as Japanese citizens have long been caring neighbors to ASEAN-situated neighboring countries like Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Even today, they continue to be a model of harmony and peacebuilding nation.
But, in these periods of drought, how do we balance our internal domestic needs for water while growing crops (where 25 percent of food is grown for the entire US) with exports to foreign countries?
What should future-oriented Californians and Americans do?
Each water drop is sacred
“Parched land wrinkles to the horizon and in one place, a rock outcrop, a seep emits a drop every minutes, a light tap on the rocks below. The drop is sacred. Doled in such apothecary increments, this scarce water is almost deafening, surrounded by total silence, by hot sand, fine as confectioners’ sugar. It is a single word, a mantra. In places it gathers speed, finding pathways, turning from seeps to springs to streams to rivers. To be near such moving water in the desert is like being in a vacant concert hall with a solo cellist, like standing on a tundra with a grizzly bear. You must listen. You must make eye contact.” —Craig Childs, “The Secret Knowledge of Water”, 2000.
We have not seen that abundant flow of water, described by Craig Childs, to justify our present “high flow flood-style water irrigation” of agricultural crops. Along Interstate 5, many of the agricultural crops were using the “high flow floodwater style of irrigation,” and disturbingly during the rainy days in May.
Could we not ask these agricultural farm owners to monitor the weather and shut down their water sprinkling systems during rainy days, much like conscientious farmer Matsumoto who has since switched to drip-style irrigation, resulting in the most flavorful peaches grown from his farms?
We are seeing the switch to “low-flow drip irrigation” in some vineyards, and even the growing of smaller varieties of flavorful peaches by David “Mas” Matsumoto, in Central Valley, as reported by the Los Angeles Times. However, this is not yet the norm amongst farmers. We now have heard about a gallon of water needed for an almond, yet we persist to grow more almond trees. Or even 99 gallons of water used per pound of rib-eye steak! Switching to less red meats and fewer almonds can re-balance the water uses.
Conscientious water use and recycling
In Los Angeles, we have a conscientious Mayor Eric Garcetti who would post on Facebook the night before, when rain is forecasted, with a request to shut off our sprinklers.
Another is Larry, a neighbor, who is quite exemplary in hosing his plants at sundown to minimize day evaporation, prunes his trees meticulously to reduce water use, and his actions have made us follow his examples, while a reminder from the mayor also reinforces these conservation practices.
Inspired by these examples, we called a neighbor, a single mom, who was at work that evening, to inform her that her sprinklers are dripping down to the streets. She has since reprogrammed her sprinklers.
But, how much is diverted to water golf courses, for aesthetic private use and for public fountains?
In Australia, during drought periods, all public fountains are shut off.
Which leads us to appreciate a thoughtful assessment by former Governor Gray Davis who complimented Governor Jerry Brown in handling this drought, by mandating agricultural farmers to disclose how much water they are using, a problem before, given unregulated well water uses.
60 Minutes recently reported that wells in Central Valley now have to be drilled down to a depth of 1,200 feet, while ground water before drought allowed a much shallower depth of 600 feet for water to be had.
Gov. Brown has mandated conservation uses in households, which led LA city to limit days for watering lawns and incentives to remove lawns for drought-resistant gardens.
But what about swimming pools or man-made lakes around subdivisions? And group uses in camps or state parks? Or leaky faucets in public parks’ bathrooms? Or toilets that have not been updated, still at double the water use? Or tub baths that can be discontinued, in favor of tabo baths or two-minute showers? Or sensors malfunctioning in automatically flushed toilets?
Do you know in Japan that there is a quite an obsession on clean bathrooms, and with that, restaurants and hotels are part of a culture of keeping toilets clean, but also well-functioning faucets?
Gov. Davis pointed to recycling water in Orange County, a practice of seven years now, which changes wastewater into tap water, called “toilet to tap.” It removes solid wastes, then through a series of filtration and lastly, ultraviolet light, after which, treated water is pumped back into the groundwater. It is a much cheaper alternative than importing water from Colorado and Nevada, according to him, and it has neutralized the depletion of water supplies in Orange County, once a county which was bankrupt economically, but has since used that to reexamine its wasteful behaviors into healthy practices to conserve resources for future generations.
Change begins with us, and we must all become conservationists for California! Instead of exporting bottled water to Japan, let us export the process of changing wastewater to all cities of California and in that regard, include Japan and the rest of the world.
That way, we prevent water wars in the future, but also improve water resources of neighboring countries. It might be a short-term dip in profits but it gains for us all, more precious sacred drops of water, the liquid oil of the 21st century! We need not go to war for water. We simply must recycle and conserve.
* * *
Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for Asian Journal Press for 8 years now. She contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in the field of science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium and Mexico and 22 national parks in the US, in pursuit of her love for arts.