Photo: I. Rimanoczy
When I was a pre-teenager I attended an "adults only" class in - German. The threshold was set at 16 and I was about 12, but they made an exception since they had no groups of my age and skill level. The downside was that the assignments were way over my head. I recall one paper we had to write that asked us to give our opinions about a statement of playwright Bertolt Brecht, "First the food, then the moral". At my age, I was simply unable to 'get it'. What was this all about? Many years later I learned that humans go through specific stages of moral development, and that some things that seem nonsensical at one age, become more relevant or meaningful sometime later in life.
What the German novelist was suggesting was that basic needs, like food, trump moral decisions. In other words, people can be ethical or fair only after they have met their basic needs. Not before.
This story was brought back to my mind by a news comment on how the California drought was causing farmers to dig deeper into the groundwater reservoirs. The reason is clear, as any farmer involved would explain: I simply need the water! If we have to dig a bit more, so be it. The crops are at stake. If we don't water, they don't grow. No crops, no business. No vegetables (or fruit, or wine, or raisins, or well fed cattle) to sell. No income. Consumers should see the point too. According to California law, anyone has the right to drill a well on their property and groundwater pumping is expected to replace 75 percent of the surface water deficit.
But something else is happening. With this increased sourcing of deeper groundwater, we are creating a vacuum in the deeper layers of the earth - and what happens when you take a brick out of a pile? The pile sinks. So the ground is sinking - at the scary rate of 2 inches a month in some places. This is two feet in a year.
Let me be share with you the candid question that I asked myself first: If my ground is higher or lower, what does it matter? Unless there is a sinkhole, of course. But those things don't happen in California, only in Florida - (or do they?)
The answer came rapidly: sinking ground means that the very well sinks too. And so well owners just do what's common sense - they dig deeper. "We are reaching into water levels that have been stored there for millions of years", reflected Kim Hammond, a representative of Arthur and Orum Well Drilling Inc. in Fresno. It doesn't stop there. Structures like roads and bridges also sink and break. This means that road safety is at stake, and insurance companies may take a look at this and, before going broke, review their premiums! Which may affect car owners and the trucking companies. In addition, the loss of roads will have an impact on transportation of goods, on the mobility of people, and on emergencies. Sinking grounds have exhumed pipelines that are supposed to be protected under the earth; moreover, the slope of the land can be altered, thus changing drainage patterns. Which can mean flooding. Which in turn can lead to the urgent necessity for additional money from tax payers. How much? No one knows. "No agency is tracking the sinking statewide, little public money has been put toward studying it and California allows agriculture businesses to keep crucial parts of their operations secret", writes Nathan Halverson in Mother Jones.
And then, when the underground water sinks even a few inches upstream, it inhibits the flow downstream, making the picture even worse. Something I, as a Californian farmer, may not think of, since I am busy digging my well deeper because I need the water.
The big lesson that we are being taught is that thinking of what I need is never -ever- disconnected from considering what is best for us all. Until we learn this, we will be experiencing -- and struggling to deal with -- more and more systemic consequences.
You may call it moral or not. It's simple connectedness, a law which we, self-centered as we are, cannot escape. The reason? That's just how nature works.
Keywords: water, California, drought, farmers, Bertolt Brecht, water wells, Fresno, nature.