Drought hits home

Thanks to Governor Brown’s drought declaration last week, the general public is now aware of what farmers and ranchers have been fretting over for months. Depending on how you look at it, the current drought started in January of 2013, or even earlier than that. As this newspaper has reported, rainfall in the calendar year 2013 obliterated local records for the driest year with just 2.56 inches. Ranchers have been suffering under drier than normal weather for even longer than that; this is the third year in a row that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared Santa Clara County a primary natural disaster area due to drought.
How the drought is impacting farmers and ranchers
Farmers and ranchers are naturally optimistic. The governor’s drought declaration was not news to us, but it does make things seem more dire and the need for rain feel even more urgent. It also makes it harder to be hopeful.
The lucky local ranchers have sparse forage available for their cattle to graze. Without adequate grass growing naturally in the hills, many have had to pay to buy and transport hay to feed their cattle. The unlucky local ranchers are also having challenges getting enough water for their cattle to drink. Many ranchers are considering selling part of their herd so they have fewer mouths to feed.
Many farmers in semi-arid California rely on irrigation to grow their crops during the dry spring, summer, and fall months. Farmers who irrigate face severe cutbacks in their water allocations this year and some may need to leave farmland unplanted as a result. Thankfully, the Santa Clara Valley Water District does an outstanding job of providing reliable water in our area and local farmers do not anticipate the need to fallow land this year. The water district reports good groundwater supplies and local reservoirs at 60% of the 20-year average. For farmers who do not irrigate, like most local hay farmers, time and money has already been spent to prepare the ground for planting and to sow seed in November in anticipation of rains that never came.
What you can do to help
This may go without saying, but droughts are especially challenging because a drought is a compound problem—it is a simultaneous decrease in supply coupled with an increase in demand due to lack of natural rainfall. While we cannot make it rain, we can all do our part to conserve water. Governor Brown has asked Californians to voluntarily reduce personal water consumption by 20%. This is a great goal, but it is also a little vague. According to the Santa Clara Valley Water District, residential water users in Santa Clara County use 100 to 120 gallons per person per day. In order to meet the Governor’s goal, local residents should reduce water consumption at home by 20 gallons per day.
The good news is the Santa Clara Valley Water District has an ongoing campaign called Save 20 Gallons along with a website www.save20gallons.org. The website has a number of tools to help you conserve water including scheduling a Water Wise house call to get a personalized assessment of how you can save 20 gallons per day. The website also has a water saving calculator to determine your water use and identify ways to save.
The water saving calculator is enlightening and I encourage everyone to check it out. Your results will also help you better understand your water use. When you are trying to conserve 20 gallons a day, it is helpful to know that your shower uses 2 to 3 gallons of water per minute and your toilet is using 1.5 gallons per flush. I was pleased to learn that dishwashers typically use less water than washing dishes by hand.
The best place to reduce water use is outdoors. According to the Santa Clara Valley Water District, 50-60% of water use for single family residences is outdoor use. Reducing your lawn irrigation frequency and duration, checking sprinklers and garden irrigation for inefficiencies, transitioning to drought tolerant landscaping, and cleaning sidewalks and driveways with a broom instead of a hose can all significantly reduce outdoor water use.  
We can all pitch in to do our part to reduce demand for water during this dry season. And if anyone knows of a way to make it rain, by all means get moving! While farmers and ranchers continue to cope with the effects of the drought, they also remain resilient to the drought’s impacts and hopeful for rain at any moment. Like the mushroom grower I talked to yesterday said, you never know, this high pressure system could break up tomorrow and we could be soaking up the glory of seasonal rainfall by the weekend.