In its dreams, an unusual coalition of farmers and environmentalists sees summer rice fields become winter lakes 10 inches deep and miles across, thick with ducks and geese wintering in the Sacramento Valley.
In the dream, the lakes are drained in March. Tens of thousands of acre-feet of water are released into the Sacramento and Feather Rivers. Salmon smolt get a push on their way seaward. The spring shot of fresh water reinvigorates the delta.
There`s even enough water left to pump some into the State Water Project for Southern California.
Rice industry leaders and the Nature Conservancy, an unlikely alliance, are about to undertake a project to test whether that dream can be transformed into reality.
Instead of draining the land after the late-summer harvest so rice-straw can be burned, they`ll leave thousands of acres inundated through March, creating a winter stopover for migrating waterfowl.
The potential positive effects are numerous:
– California could solve the problems of disappearing wetlands, declining waterfowl population and the air pollution caused by rice-straw burning.
– Rice farmers, criticized for lavishing scarce water on a marginal crop, would not only survive, but they also might be acclaimed.
– Because the water would be drained in spring, when it`s most needed around the state, thirsty urban areas might acquire a new supply without the expense of building a big new dam.
”I don`t know of another project that creates these kinds of benefits,” said Marc Reisner, author of ”Cadillac Desert,” the best-selling chronicle of water use and misuse in the West.
Reisner, who once wrote that rice is ”a monsoon crop in a desert state,” is an unlikely catalyst for the project.
Wounded by Reisner`s criticism, rice industry leaders invited him for a guided tour about a year ago, and it changed his mind.
”If you`re going to have wetlands,” Reisner said, ”they`ve got to be man-made.”
California has about 600,000 acres of rice land, but growers planted just a little more than half that last year because of the unavailability of water. Most of the state`s prime rice land is underlain by hardpan, a layer of hard soil with almost insoluble materials that restrict the downward movement of water and roots. Thus, other cereal, fruit and vegetable crops don`t grow well on it. Increasing the land`s attractiveness as waterfowl habitat is, in effect, ”double-cropping,” Reisner said.
The Central Valley provides winter habitat for 20 percent of all ducks in the U.S. and 50 percent of all midwinter waterfowl in the Pacific Flyway. Habitat loss has depressed waterfowl populations to their lowest recorded levels.
Farmers who sign up for the ”conjunctive-use” project won`t follow the traditional practice of burning the stubble in their harvested fields. Instead, they`ll leave 10,000-20,000 acres flooded until March, when the fields will be drained, dried and worked up for planting the 1993 crop.
The results will be tested by the numbers of waterfowl it nurtures and its effect on the Sacramento and Feather River fisheries and the delta.
Rice farmers are under legislative mandate to start phasing out the burning of rice straw, a major cause of air pollution in the Sacramento Valley.
John Roberts, executive director of the California Rice Industry Association, said the project ”is not a savior to the drought, and it`s not going to completely recover waterfowl in California. But it will help with the drought, and it should be fairly dramatic in its ability to provide habitat. We like it a lot.”
”We look at this rice flooding in winter as not only providing wetlands but also additional water storage for California. We can actually improve the environment,” said rice grower Allen Garcia.
A huge problem, if the drought persists, is persuading the state Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to lend the project water with releases from Oroville and Shasta dams so the fields can be flooded when migrating waterfowl arrive.
