Archives:Water

Water News and Updates

Energy Production, Sprawl Threaten America's Rivers
September, 2006 - this article by the Environment News Service states "the Eel River in California has been parched by a small, two dam hydropower project, causing salmon and steelhead populations in the once robust fishery to fall by 97 percent."

Power Play: the Sale of PG&E's Hydropower System and the future of California's Rivers
PDF report prepared by the Environmental Defence and the California Hydropower Reform Coalitio

WATER CRISIS IN SONOMA COUNTY
Jenny Blaker/ the O.W.L. Foundations describes the current water crisis in Sonoma County

Turning water into wine
To water grapevines or not -- the roots of the wine industry's next great controversy
Alice Feiring, Special to The Chronicle
This article appeared on page F - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, June 1, 2007

For years, I took the New World's thirst for vineyard irrigation for granted. I believed what I was told: Napa Valley was a desert and needed its 100 to 200 gallons of water per vine per season.

I never realized how complex an issue water was until I visited northern Oregon's Willamette Valley, where I noticed black irrigation pipes snaking through the vineyards. The region gets 40 inches of rain annually, double the oft-quoted number necessary to grow wine grapes without delivering any extra water to the vineyard. I accepted the need for water in California and even more so in desert-like eastern Washington. But the Willamette Valley?

In the best vineyards of Europe, the practice of dry farming -- relying solely on natural precipitation to water grapevines -- is almost universally accepted. Yet in the New World, irrigation is now viewed as essential to the wine industry's survival. And what began as a novel innovation -- drip irrigation -- has become standard practice, such that throwing dry farming into a viticulture conversation is like pitching a lit match into a brittle summer forest. Who knew that something as simple as watering plants could be so, well, hot?

Here's one reason why: California is anticipating drought conditions this year. Most vintners who dry-farm aren't worried; they've seen it before and have gotten through just fine. But some, like Kunde's Steve Thomas, acknowledge that the future of viticulture will have to be sensitive to water shortages. With global warming, drought-tolerant practices are likely to become a way of life.

"We're going to have to start to think of it. It's got to be coming down the road," Thomas says.

Whether adding water or withholding it, water management is a crucial aspect of wine-grape growing, and drip irrigation can be found in about 70 percent of the state's 471,000 acres of wine grapes.

Originally, the preferred watering method was flood irrigation, in which parcels of vineyard were deluged with water. According to Peter H. Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, which studies global water issues, flooding was quite wasteful, using 20 percent more water than the current technology. It was replaced by drip irrigation, a method that applies water in drops to each individual vine, which was devised more than a century ago but refined by Israeli researchers after World War II. Drip irrigation arrived in California in the 1970s.

And it was firmly in place when the devastating vine louse phylloxera hit the state in the late 1980s. Large swaths of California vineyards were replanted. One key decision during replanting was to ditch the drought-resistant rootstock most of the state was planted on -- phylloxera-resistant St. George as well as the popular hybrid AxR1, which had been thought to fend off phylloxera but turned out to be vulnerable.

They were replaced with riparian rootstock -- water-loving stuff. Roots that previously had to dig deep now hung out close to the ground -- and that's where University of California Davis viticulture and enology professor Larry E. Williams likes them.

"If you're a grape grower, you want to have that vine dependent on what you do so you can manipulate them," says Williams, whose academic work focuses on irrigation management. Williams further explained: "Since the vine is getting most of its water from the drip system, then a grape grower has greater control on how much the vine gets water."

The other objective for replanting was to mirror the density in Bordeaux and Burgundy, up to 2,500 vines per acre instead of the previous status quo of 450. Vines competed for the soil's water and prompted the need for 100 to 200 gallons of water per vine per season -- each vine typically produces two to four bottles of quality wine per year. Though water consumption in California rose as a result, replanting helped revive the state's fine wine industry, and the practices became standard.

But not all vintners are convinced. In Oregon, the Deep Roots Coalition views irrigation as an unnecessary, terroir-occluding manipulation.

"When Oregon's wine pioneers ... planted the first vinifera wine grapes in the north Willamette Valley, they understood that with the abundant rainfall and careful attention to timely cultivation of the soil, irrigation was just not necessary for the vines to thrive," says Doug Tunnell of Brick House Vineyards. "Today, 40 years on, those same first vineyards have yet to see a single drop of water from a drip hose."

Less water, more terroir

Pinning their belief on old-world wisdom about grape growing, the Deep Roots Coalition's seven Willamette-based wineries believe dry farming is the way to deliver a specific sense of place to a wine and one that reflects the vintage -- not the viticultural decisions of the winemakers.They believe that vines get addicted to water, that watering makes vines physiologically lose track of when it is time to shut down and prepare for harvest, all leading to less complex fruit.

One of the primary reasons they believe so fervently in dry farming lies in the nature of grapevines and their miraculous roots, which can Roto-Rooter through just about anything -- including granite and dense clay.

Loire Valley vintner Nicolas Joly, a guru of the biodynamic movement, claims vines can wriggle down 60 feet into the ground. British wine writer (and Chronicle contributor) Jancis Robinson writes in the "Oxford Companion to Wine" that it's more likely 20 feet, and usually that's in more arid areas like Portugal's Douro Valley, where vines must seek precious water to nourish their grapes and stay alive.

Besides water, vines also suck up a diversity of minerals in the soil that leave a minerally stamp on the fruit. In the right deep soils, and if there are 18 to 20 inches of rain in the winter, conventional wisdom dictates that irrigation is not necessary.

Europeans seeking fine wine associate irrigation with overcropping -- when vineyards have large yields of under-ripe grapes -- and generic table wine, which prompted regional laws that outlawed the practice in places like Burgundy and Bordeaux. Though the beastly hot summer of 2003 resulted in some bending of the irrigation rules and further changes were announced recently by French officials, the practice is still frowned upon as a violation of terroir among the Old World's greatest wineries. But things are never that simple.

UC Davis professor Williams acknowledged a few examples of California vineyards that can dry-farm, many even in relatively arid Paso Robles and others in Sonoma's Dry Creek Valley. But he talks about those remaining old vines -- beautiful head-pruned gnarly vines, such as those found in Kunde Estate's Century vineyard -- as oddities.

Growers' insurance

Steve Thomas is the vineyard manager of the 600-acre Kunde Estate in Kenwood, out of which 100 acres are dry-farmed. Thomas said that even if he was able to convert to dry farming he would keep the pipes -- installed to the tune of $1,600 an acre -- as insurance to deal with the variability of weather and for applying vineyard treatments such as nutrients, fertilizers and pesticides.

Like many others, he underscored that if California returned to dry farming, vintners would have to rip out rootstock, replace with drought-resistant types and replant vines farther apart.

Which is exactly what Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles did when it put in new plantings. Most of the property gets two deep waterings a season with drip pipes. General manager Jason Haas says his family planted that new plot in 2006 and 2007 -- totally dry farmed -- because they had no water access on the vineyard.

They planted on 1103-P, a rootstock known for its excellent drought resistance. Haas planted less densely, based on 600 vines per acre, more similar to traditional dry farming in Paso than in Chateauneuf du Pape, where the Perrin family -- a partner in Tablas Creek -- also farms vineyards.

Irrigation is part of the ongoing debate between traditional and modern winemaking, Haas mused. "But it really depends on whether you are trying to make a product that is consistent or a product that represents that place and year in as compelling a way as possible," Haas says. "It's like Fresno State (viticulture and enology) profs rolling their eyes at the use of native yeasts (and saying), 'Well yes, if they want to take that risk.' "

In Napa, soft-spoken winemaker Boris Champy takes such risks -- with both native yeasts and dry farming -- at Dominus, owned by Christian Moueix of Bordeaux's legendary Chateau Petrus.

"When I was in school in Bordeaux my professor told us about the dry farming on the Greek island of Santorini, which illustrated how adaptable the vine could be," Champy says. "Sometimes they only get 4 inches of rain a whole year. But because the soil is made up of crushed pumice and is greatly absorbent, it transfers the tremendous nighttime humidity as moisture to the vine."

Irrigation not only keeps vines well hydrated, it is a significant player in manipulating fruit flavors and quality. Since the early 1990s, the fashion in grape picking has typically been to leave fruit on the vine until late in the season in order to elevate the level of Brix, a measure used for grape sugar.

"Remember eucalyptus and green bean flavors?" asks Philip Coturri, who runs a vineyard management company Enterprise Vineyards that specializes in organic farming. "Those were due to unripe grapes. To get today's super-ripe flavors the vines need hydration. Irrigations produce a very different type of wine. Irrigation is a tool for extended ripening."

But isn't there a taste in between green beans and jam? What happens if wine drinkers start wanting a less opulent style? Fashion changes, after all.

Some wine writers and consumers have complained about high alcohol levels and smack-you-over-the-head fruit coming from a long hang time and the often-needed dealcoholizations and acidulations to correct them. Coturri, who besides his family's eponymous farm in Glen Ellen works vineyards for Hanzell Vineyards in Sonoma (which farms with little or no irrigation) and Oakville Ranch Vineyards in Napa, doesn't see that happening. People like the ultra-fruity flavors, he insists.

And then there's the money.

Unlike Europe, California's vineyards tend to be large, making it more difficult to work the land manually and much more difficult to control
without irrigation. "As an organic farmer," said Coturri, "I'm in demand. I pay my workers between $10 to $12 an hour. To do that I must produce a consistent 2.5 to 3 tons an acre. On so many of these properties if I dry-farmed them, I'd get 1.5 to 2 tons. It's a matter of sustainability."

But in addition to Dominus, such long-standing Napa properties as Grgich Hills and Frog's Leap dry-farm. John Williams, founder of Frog's Leap Winery in Rutherford, recalls buying his vineyards in 1987. "The vineyards were dry-farmed but then I started to irrigate, because I came from UC Davis. By God, we know how to take care of a vineyard!" he says.

"Under irrigation, I soon realized the vineyards were not thriving. Phylloxera attacked. Fortunately Frank Leeds, our neighbor then -- now vineyard manager -- was driving by the vineyard and said to me, 'I don't want to interject here, but you're killing that vineyard.' And that's when he taught me dry farming. What are the great wines that built the reputation of this valley -- the old Inglenooks and BVs? Not a single one of those wines were irrigated."

Despite using AxR1, Williams' vines fought off the louse in the '80s. He suspects that when he irrigated, the roots shrank up to the danger zone that phylloxera inhabited in the soil. By reverting to dry farming, the roots ran down to water and safety.

One essential requirement of dry farming in arid regions like California is the need to plow the land. This keeps the soil sponge-like, ready to absorb every bit of water that comes its way. If the land is hard or has cover crops during the growing season, dry-farming can't be effective.

Ivo Jeramaz, Grgich Hills' vice president of vineyards and production, agrees: "There's an old saying that one cultivation is worth two irrigations." Jeramaz comes from Croatia, where soils are rocky and the water is scarce. He also says that his vineyards resisted the louse at Grgich's Carneros vineyard site, despite use of the vulnerable AxR1 rootstock. He believes his roots went deep enough to a sandy spot beneath dense clay where they stayed safe. That said, there are no clear scientific conclusions about any link between irrigation and phylloxera.

Art of dry farming

"Where irrigation is a science, dry farming is more an art. It's not always possible, but when it is, it's the best option," conceded Coturri, who oversees both farming options in his vineyard management business. "You see, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. As far as usage? Am I aware of the water I use? You bet I am. And the pavement we put up depletes the aquifer more than vineyard irrigation. Growing high-quality plants is a balancing act. I will use every tool at my disposal to produce something that I love."

Those who endorse dry farming see things in a starker light. "The mind-set of irrigation needs to be challenged. It is just like the great gas-guzzling cars that we have decided are our God-given right to drive," says John Paul Cameron, an Oregon winemaker who's a founding member of the Deep Roots Coalition. "Since water, like oil, is becoming an increasingly scarce commodity, I believe that our position is the wave of the future."

When pressed, others will often agree. The Pacific Institute's Gleick first said dry farming was impossible. Later he reflected: "As water gets more scarce, we might see a revival of dry farming. Water is still pretty cheap, but when the cost goes up people will look to alternatives and look at lessons from the past."

RE: Turning water into wine, Chronicle article (response to above article)
article by David Keller, Bay Area Director, Friends of the Eel River
June 1, 2007

This is a great article, and it ties together some of the water, fishery and watershed/groundwater management problems in current  viticultural practices and our region. 

[disclosure: I did make award winning organic apple wine for 10 years, and took a series of classes at Davis, so I do have some first hand experience with them, tho' I never grew grapes or made grape wine. The UCDavis program seems to have been 'better, consistent industrial wine products through chemistry, irrigation, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers.' Definitely not the traditional French or dry farmed approach.]

RE: local water storage impacts

Unfortunately, local reservoir and pond storage, usually built along small and ephemeral creeks, seeps, springs and streams on ranch properties, significantly interrupt normal flows and runoff from these sub-watersheds.  As a result, there are in fact frequently unregulated but significant damages to those creeks, the streams they feed, and the Russian River (or other waterways) downstream. 

This is the subject of a very heated debate at the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) going on right now, which compounds and intersects with the problems that you've read about with the SoCo Water Agency's recently granted petition for "urgency low flows" in the Russian River. It's not just low water levels in Lake Mendocino that are problematic.  These mostly unregulated diversions of surface water for storage or direct irrigation, have proven to be a major cumulative problem for the Russian River.  Trout Unlimited and Peregrine Audubon Society have petitioned SWRCB to get control of an out-of-control situation on North Coast rivers and streams. Under the California constitution, you cannot 'own' water but can only have rights to 'reasonable and beneficial' use of it; the SWRCB is the legal entity that regulates any one's rights to use water, so clearing up this mess is up to this agency.

Right now, parts of the upper and mid- Russian River are "fully appropriated" (meaning all the legal water that can be taken is already granted);  however, this is made worse by illegal and unpermitted diversions, leaving the Russian River 'over-appropriated' during the late spring through fall, when the rains start again.  The Eel River diversions (through PG&E's Potter Valley Project to the Russian River via Lake Mendocino) are used to subsidize and mask this overdrafting of the Russian River, to the detriment of the Eel River, its resources and population.  The SWRCB's task is to find and eliminate the illegal diversions, and they are ill-equipped to do that, and with many ranchers not wanting them to do anything at all. Thus, the upcoming public hearings at SWRCB on what to do, if they should do it, and how to do it, coming up on June 19th.

http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/workshops/enforcement/revpn_workshop061907.pdf

The collective interruption and storage of the runoff by agricultural ponds and reservoirs means that the downstream flows are reduced.  Part of the significant problems with the Russian River is a result of all these impoundments: they reduce tributary flows, which then damage spawning tributary streams (very important), the Russian River, and downstream legal water rights holders, and of course, salmon and steelhead during migration and juvenile stages and other public trust and instream uses. 

In the Russian River basin there are many illegal and legal local reservoirs, and more unprocessed water permit applications than in any other river in the state.  These small agricultural reservoirs, frequently not overseen by any regulators, also fill up with gravel and sediments that would otherwise flow downstream during storms, and as a result "starve" the lower waterways from receiving new gravels and cleaning the existing gravel beds necessary for fish spawning and rearing habitat. These sediment deprived runoff waters produce "hungry water" flows which then erode the banks and beds of these creeks as they flow downstream in storms. 

"Hungry water" is water moving downstream that has lost, or is deprived of, its sediment loads.  Since moving sediment takes energy from the flowing water, the resulting 'clear water' has more energy to erode banks and lands downstream, picking up sediments and debris from the banks and beds as it flows downstream. 

Part of what happens in the Russian and Petaluma Rivers is a result of just that, and can be seen as downcutting and bank erosion of both the tributary streams and the river itself.  Bad for fish, water quality, riparian habitat and groundwater. Most all urbanized streams and many tributaries of the Russian and other western rivers show these consequences.

The resulting erosion also causes loss of valuable topsoil, and the riparian trees along the banks that provide critical shade and nutrients for the creeks and streams.  The erosion also cuts the stream beds down to a lower elevation, which then start to drain the associated groundwater into the lowered creek bed and result in lowered groundwater tables nearby.  The reduced runoff also reduces the ability to recharge downstream groundwater basins' permeable gravels, sands, soils and fractured rock.

Another issue with ranch storage is the water taken from streams, springs and creeks for "frost protection" for crops, in addition to water for irrigation.  This water is also frequently unregulated and unpermitted, and contributes to the degradation of these streams and have all the downstream impacts noted above. 

The consequence of all of these practices, in combination a host of other problems, such as water diverted for municipal and industrial purposes, gravel mining (of the very gravels and sands of the Russian River aquifer which store and cleanse the storm waters), polluted urban and road runoff, sewage discharges, clear cutting of forested slopes, loss of riparian trees and shrubs, high temperatures and a few other human-caused problems have led to the decimation of salmon and steelhead in the Russian and Eel Rivers. 

So, enjoy that wine, but be aware that there are consequences of what methods are used to produce them, and that there are choices made by different vineyards as to what role they will play in either continuing damages, or in their role in the path to restoration of these precious and irreplaceable watersheds.  We don't get another watershed to live within. Ever.

David

David Keller
Bay Area Director
Friends of the Eel River

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