Nature's Archive Podcast

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[00:00:00] Michael Hawk: Sam, I’m super excited to have you on the podcast today because I found you online long ago but then I actually had a chance to see you speak at the California Naturalist Conference.

[00:00:11] I guess that was about a month ago. And, that was my sign to say, okay, I should talk to you and see if you’d be willing to come on the podcast. So thank you for being here today.

[00:00:18] Sam Sandoval: No thanks. Thanks everyone. And thank you nature’s Archive listeners. Yeah, it is a pleasure to be here.

[00:00:24] Michael Hawk: Before we jump into the topic of hydrology and water management, , I wanna know a little bit about you and how you came to this area , of study and, and career , I suppose even more broadly. Where did you grow up and where did you first become interested in this topic?

[00:00:39] Sam Sandoval: Born and raised on top of pavement. So I, I was born in Mexico City, la ciudad de Mexico, grew up there 26 years of my life. I got interested the last year of my major, I had the opportunity to work on projects that maintained the forest. And with the forest come a lot of springs.

[00:01:00] uh, Rural communities in Mexico that they manage the forest. Maintain the springs and use those springs for two reasons. One was water supply for these rural communities, and the other one was to bottle that water and create an enterprise, and then also get jobs, get some funding.

[00:01:16] So that’s how I got into the business of water later. Also, I recognize that water is not only individual issue is a, a communal issue, a communal benefit, and I really like about that. I really like that water benefits the greater society. It comes with its trade offs about who’s using water and how.

[00:01:39] But, but yeah, I really like it.

[00:01:40] Michael Hawk: So then did you find a, a major or a degree program that focused on this in university?

[00:01:47] Sam Sandoval: Yes, there are graduate schools on hydrologic. Civil engineering and environmental sciences, they have typically some tracks or some specializations in water. I think for the audience in here, there is a field that you can work that is called water hydrology, water sciences, that uh, we really need a lot of professionals.

[00:02:08] We are having much more problems and jobs that we can actually feel with the people that are, we are graduating. So if you’re interested in water, if you really want to get your feet wet, if you like rivers, yes. And the ocean. Lakes, eh, wetlands, eh, all of those that might be one career that you may want to.

[00:02:28] Michael Hawk: yeah, I think that water is one of these things that for many of us, we took for granted. If we grew up in a sort of suburban, middle class environment, and it’s becoming evident that we can’t take it for granted. It actually is a resource that must be managed and there are implications to how it’s managed and also our expectations of it.

[00:02:47] This is just such a huge topic. Can you help us understand how to think about water on the landscape, water management, and what’s a framework to think about this?

[00:02:59] Sam Sandoval: So most of us, , have the luxury to always turn in on the tap and water come out of the tap to open the tab and, and it will be there. That is not the case for everyone, and that is not the case in terms of water quality. So how to frame water management? Something that I would like our listeners to think is think of a bank account.

[00:03:19] So how much money you receive in a. How much do you spend and how much is stays on that bank account? It is the same with how much water it rains, how much water we use, and how much water we save or we store. The main difference is that we don’t have a regularly monthly income, so rain, it rains depending on where we are.

[00:03:42] It may rain, like in this case in California during the late fall, winter season in some other parts of the world would rain during the monsoon season in summer. But we need water throughout the year. So that mismatch in time, so when it rains or when we have water and when we use it, is a, that is related with water management.

[00:04:03] And for that to move water in time. Typically we have storages. One of those are reservable is snow, soil, moisture aquifers. We’re gonna talk about it. So that’s how we move water in, in time. How we store and water that. It was in some parts of the gear more, , plentiful. Now we, we move it to parts where we need it.

[00:04:26] The other part is where it rains and where we need water . That may depend again, because of the region that you are in the mountains all the way to the top, it says no. Or it may come in this heavy rain storms as monsoons , or hurricanes bring a lot of precipitation. we may need that water somewhere else. So then in that case, we develop systems to move that water. Sometimes we use rivers to move water. You may think of a river as a river, but sometimes it’s more like a canal. People, the society, we use it as a canal to move water from point A to point B. We also use actually canals, eh, we use auc.

[00:05:06] We use pipe systems to move water from one place to the other. So . What we do in water management is think of these different, how much water we have available and when and what are the users, how much water we need for what, and then how to try to, to match those. If it was individual bank account will be easier. but we have plenty of users and everyone wants to get , their fair share of water. And that’s where things , can get complicated. And also not only because everyone wants to get a fair share, but there are actually users that do not have a voice or typically do not have a voice. And that one, some of those is nature rivers, some other ones is some of the communities that do not have a seat on the table.

[00:05:56] But yeah, it’s managing is is mixing this, trying to match this too.

[00:06:00] Michael Hawk: I like that analogy a lot. So we have a temporal consideration, , when does the precipitation fall versus when it’s needed, where does it fall? And you mentioned mountains, mountainous areas. They may collect a lot more rain from forcing and other things. But that’s not necessarily where all the population or agriculture is.

[00:06:16] And then from the bank account analogy, the fact that everyone is sharing the same bank account and some people are locked outta that bank account. So there’s a lot of things that you mentioned that will dive into and. , maybe just before I forget this question, you, you mentioned aqueducts versus canals and I admit, I don’t know what the difference is.

[00:06:35] Sam Sandoval: Aqua do typically is a very length canal, or it can be a big pipe. But it’s, it’s literally moving water from A to B. We have, for instance, very designated aqueduct, so we have the some aqueduct that is called the California aqueduct. So moving water from the delta all the way to Southern California.

[00:06:57] We have the Central Arizona project and moving water from a Havasu all the way to Central Arizona in pumps and aqueducts canal is typically once water is arriving to irrigation districts, to places where you’re gonna be distributing water. typically you divert the water, so move water into the canal.

[00:07:18] And then those canals, we have a primary secondary canal, so the main canal that move water throughout the different fields, secondary canals, and so on. It’s think of canals, like if you have an interstate highway, that will be an ecut. And then if you have a local highway that might be a canal, and then you have the smallest street, secondary canal, still canals.

[00:07:41] Michael Hawk: Good way to think about it. I, I called them all canals before , so something that I really wanted to dig into and, and that’s, I guess partly an intentional pun is groundwater and water storage may be more generally because there’s more than just groundwater when it comes to storage. So in, in thinking about this temporal concern where rain may fall in a season where you don’t need it, and it doesn’t fall on the season where you do need it, how should we think about the different options and trade-offs for water storage?

[00:08:11] Sam Sandoval: Michael, this is a great question. There are different storages and those, I don’t think we, we, we tend to think that often, so I will start from the headwaters all the way till we end into the ocean. Okay. So in the headwaters, typically we have a snow in places with high altitudes. For instance, in California, above 5,000 feet of altitude.

[00:08:33] Typically it we may have precipitation in terms of the snow, not. That water that falls in terms of snow, that snow pack, that amount of snow, it is a storage thing that you have water store in there, like ice cubes that later you’re gonna melt it and use it. That is the first storage. And that one , sad to report that because of climate change.

[00:08:55] We’re losing it. I can show you some satellite pictures of the snowpack , and it’s been reduced. The second one will be as water gets into the rivers, and then it is typically stopped at some point by a reservoir. And a reservoir is a surface water storage. it is really like a big bucket. It is a big bucket with recollect water from rivers. Some of those are used for also for flood protection, but many of those are used for storage. That one, we can manage it. That is a water that you’re seeing. Then as water follows its way down into the ocean, typically it passes ballies. So think of a valley like a bathtub. A valley is a bathtub filled with sediment. So all that sediment that throughout many, many, many years has been moved into these lowland areas.

[00:09:44] It has filled water that passes through these valleys. Typically, it infiltrates underneath, so when it infiltrates, it becomes groundwater, it is that simple. The container underneath. Is an aquifer. So aquifer is the bucket filled with sediment as surface water reservoir.

[00:10:05] It is a big bucket that doesn’t have sediment. An aquifer is a container in the ground that is filled with sediment. That is another storage, A very important storage that we always under look is the soil, the soil moisture. So those first three feet, four feet of soil underneath our feet. That is an important amount of storage because think of it is the entire surface area, and that one can hold a lot of water and can help out to grow food and so on.

[00:10:37] That is a storage that any one of us can help to store water can, can improve it. So snow, typically, we’re gonna have snow storage, we’re gonna have surface water storage. We’re gonna have. Underground aquifer storage, and we’re gonna have soil storage. We also have sometimes a storage in the air, and that might be through eh, fog, that weather that we cannot capture, but it is there.

[00:11:07] Michael Hawk: When I think of snowpack, especially in California, but this probably applies to a lot of the West, where substantial amounts of snow can fall in say normal years, whatever normal is maybe looking back 30 or 40 years before the climate change really started to take off, there would be snow packs consistently.

[00:11:29] Into July as I understand it, substantial snow. In fact, I remember one time going up to Lassen National Park in July and there was still a drift that was, 10 feet tall that they had carved through to let cars pass in July, which was, pretty phenomenal. So what I take away from that is the snow pack allows you to, when you get these good years of snowfall, it allows you to spread out the income over a longer period of time.

[00:11:59] Back to your bank analogy. And, and now we’re starting to miss that it, we’re not getting this, this distribution. What is the impact on storage processes or, or storage management because of.

[00:12:10] Sam Sandoval: So Michael, the beauty about snow is that it is, opening the tap, very gentle as the gear is warming. It is just releasing water, very gentle and at a rate that we can use that rate that we can distribute, that we can store. What is happening is that we’re having either no rain or we have a lot of rain, and the worst thing to have is have a snow and then rain.

[00:12:40] Because now what is happening is that we have a good snow storm. And then three, four weeks after, or a month after, we’re gonna have a warm rain. So basically, whatever was a store as a snow, the rain will melt it and you will have two storms running in the rivers and gushing into the reserv boards at a one time. And then the problem that you have is flood. And also that you really have to evacuate water. So all that water that we use back in the day to save it there, now we’re just rushing it out, trying to save uh, people. That is, that is the first thing. The second thing is that this gentle release of water that was very beneficial for agriculture, for cities that were receiving water July, August, September because of that, still that is snow melt.

[00:13:38] Now that one is gone. And now we are just counting only on water that is on reservable. But that time, most of the times the moisture in the soil is already gone. It is , mid-summer. And the aquifers, we’ve been overusing it, we’ll, we’ll talk about aquifers, but when aquifers go down, when we use our savings account, not our checking, which is the actual one, but the savings for this kind of is called for rainy days.

[00:14:08] But in this case, we’ll live for no rainy days. When we’re using it as as our checking account, it really hurt us because we don’t have the snow. We are gushing water out. We have a small amount in reservoirs. And our aquifers, the water in the ground that was there is no longer there and that that is hurting.

[00:14:26] Michael Hawk: So the first thought I have is okay, it’s, it’s more of a boom and bust cycle now, and that means we need more storage. So we can take advantage of the boomers and then have this gentle tap release that, you know, we, maybe we would’ve had otherwise with more snowpack.

[00:14:45] So now then when you think of water storage and you just ran through the, the nons snow ways as well, this is where it gets complicated, I think, because it’s really easy to see surface water storage and know, it’s visible reservoirs are visible to the public and, and you can tell what it’s doing. You can see how full or how empty they are, but I know it’s a lot more complicated.

[00:15:05] So I think this is a good lead in maybe to the trade offs of surface water storage and groundwater storage.

[00:15:11] Sam Sandoval: So let me start with surface water and we went on a reservoir construction haze from 1940 to 1980. Like all the reservoirs that we. To build and all the good sites we did it, folks like we really did it In most of the cases we have. For instance, the Colorado, we can store I think four years of Abara channel flow. So reservoirs can hold up to four times the Abara channel flow that will pass through the Colorado. You have four times the bucket that it actually runs in a year. California, we have something very similar. We build all the dams, actually the dams that are along, when the Sierra Nevada enters the Central Valley, we call them the rim dams

[00:15:58] all the reservoirs that we could build, , we already did it. One of the largest storage that manmade, that nature provided to us is the aquifers, the Central Valley. So think from Redding to Bakersfield

[00:16:13] Michael Hawk: and for people not in California, what that’s maybe 250 miles or 300 miles, maybe more.

[00:16:19] Sam Sandoval: at least, it’s 300 miles, 400 miles, and then with maybe 60, 80 miles all of that area underneath. We have a big aquifer, . We have a big bucket filled with sediment, but it’s still, you can fill it. I think the main reservoirs, surface water reservoirs, they are, they, they provided their benefit.

[00:16:41] We have built the ones that we have, think Michael. We’ll, we’ll get back to that, but we are focusing on a narrow part of the, of the bank account. What you’re asking me like, Hey, we have sometimes a lot of money, and then sometimes we need to spend a lot, can I get a bigger bank account? I think , what it is happening is do we really need to spend that much water or we really need to spend that much money.

[00:17:07] So that’s another part. And then the other one is that we still have places where to store water given the, the natural availability. the one other thing that I must say about the surface water reservoirs, we build them. It takes, it, it is sometimes with all our money, it may provide benefits to small amount of people, but then we need to deal with the ReSTOR.

[00:17:33] With the conservation portion of it, and guess who’s paying? So we pay for it and then we pay for fixing it. Ah, then it just becomes a lot. So groundwater, , let’s go there. We mentioned that groundwater is watering the ground and aquifer is the storage. Is is this bucket, filled with sediment , when you take water out of the ground, what your take, what you’re living underneath the ground is empty space.

[00:17:58] When you leave empty space and you have a lot of soil on top of it, it starts compacting. That compacting of soil is called subsidence. So the land start sink.

[00:18:09] Michael Hawk: And I, I maybe have an analogy here because I’ve, I’ve tried to think about this and how it works and. When I’ve planted a garden in a raised bed, , I fill it with, topsoil, bags of topsoil or, or different types of soil material to create what I want. And it’s usually fairly loosely packed in there and it works great.

[00:18:28] And then the next year I come back and suddenly it’s maybe half of the depth that it was before. And it’s because all of the little pockets that were in there had settled over time. There was no force to keep it, keep those pockets in place. There was only the force of gravity and, and compaction and animals walking on it and, everything else happening to push it down.

[00:18:48] So that’s how I think about it. And how accurate is that? I know that’s different forces at work, but how accurate is that when it comes to these bathtub full of deposit?

[00:18:59] Sam Sandoval: Yeah, I think the, the bathtub it to be sincere is, is very shallow as the same what you were thinking, but here the bathtub can be a thousand, 1500 feet. So it is a very, very deep bathtub and all the soil that is in there, it is really heavy. Water. Think of it like it is stretching out arms and, and legs and it’s just holding all the, all the soil particles.

[00:19:26] You can actually, you cannot compress water. Water is an incompressible fluid. You try to squeeze it, it, it will squeeze out, but compress it is not. And that’s basically what water does in the ground. It just hauls the soil. When you take water out, you leave those empty, empty spaces and the weight on top of that, that area, it starts to sink in.

[00:19:48] It starts to getting

[00:19:49] Michael Hawk: So is it fair to say from a geology standpoint, because we’re extracting this water now and I’m thinking how did it all get there in the first place? How did it get so deep? How is it sustainable? And I guess before people were extracting it, it would’ve been a slow and gradual process, as slowly over time the bathtub was filling with sediment, that was being kept expanded by the water that was already there.

[00:20:11] Sam Sandoval: So in many, many of the places, the Central Valley used to be one of the largest wetlands. We used to have a lake the Colorado River was passing and was reaching all the way to, to the Colorado delta. So we have water going into the ocean. They were holding it and the water table. So how high was the, the groundwater?

[00:20:33] It was at the same level as rivers. So the, if you dig a, a hole in the ground, And you dig it at the same level as the river, you will find water. Now let me, let me back it up here. Groundwater is exactly the same as the bank account that I mentioned. We have rainfall, precipitation, and rivers.

[00:20:56] That is the income. That’s what he’s actually putting water into the aquifer, into the ground. So that’s the water that is percolating. And also how water moves in the ground. It still follows gravity where it’s still on earth. So that’s a good one. It moves down. Okay. So it will go down there. And then we have, think of it like a milkshake and a straw.

[00:21:18] We put a straw. It is a well and literally a you dig a hole, put a pipe on it, and the pipe has holes. So water will infiltrate through the holes into that pipe. We call it ca or casing, Then you put a well pump underneath and you take water out. it rains. And the aquifer groundwater is percolating and the, the aquifer will move up, take water out in summer, and it will go down and it rains, it will go up and so on.

[00:21:50] So those are natural cycles. And also if you didn’t take any water from the ground, water will go into the rivers and that that groundwater will move out into, into the ocean. When we are extracting more water than what is replenished, what is recharging, then we have a problem because basically we are letting that soil never to replenish back with water.

[00:22:15] So that will start sinking, that will start compacting. We will have land of silence. , just to give our listeners an idea. There are parts , in Tulare Kings, some of the south, part of the Central Valley that some years it sinks from a half a foot, so six inches to one foot per gear. So think that your house sinks six inches to 12 inches a year. It’s a lot of groundwater is really taking much more water of, of what is actually being replenished.

[00:22:57] Michael Hawk: a famous photograph from the Central Valley of I’m, I’m not sure. I think it was a a university professor perhaps.

[00:23:03] Sam Sandoval: It was a U S G S geologist.

[00:23:06] Michael Hawk: that’s public domain. If not, I’ll link to it regardless. But I think that really brings to light and this, the subsidence, the sinking of the land. , it’s not an even process, So your house maybe sunk six inches, but some, somewhere down the road, maybe it sunk 12 inches or, or something like that.

[00:23:22] Sam Sandoval: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and I think the main difference between a snow pack and surface water is that we, humans, we see it groundwater because it’s in the ground, eh, we don’t see it. And as long as, some people can put a straw, put a well in there and take it out, it is it’s been taken out and put into product.

[00:23:47] Michael Hawk: So there’s a few things I want to delve into a little bit more about the groundwater and, and one of ’em is that fact that, out of sight, out of mind basically for groundwater. Yet it’s so important for so many things. So when subsidence happens, does the, then the overall capacity of the groundwater system,

[00:24:05] Sam Sandoval: Yes, because you’re losing the space to store water. Think of subsidence and sea water intrusion. I will explain it. So those are symptoms of actually a sickness. And the sickness is groundwater over exploitation. So using , more groundwater than what is replenished.

[00:24:24] so if you’re in a bathtub and you are standing on top of it and you’re taking more water out of what is coming in, it will start sinking. If you are close to the ocean and you take water out, Water is moving underground and is reaching the ocean, but it is also prevented that the ocean creeps under the feet and moves underneath your feet. Eh, water from the ocean is heavier, so it can move similarly as, as water from the ground is moving towards the ocean. Water from the ocean can move the other direction. Why? It’s important that water from the ocean doesn’t move inland because we have wells underneath. There is many of our coastal communities, rely on groundwater.

[00:25:09] And if we are overexploiting those resources, sea water will in truth, and actually they will be out of water supply. So that is, that is very important. Those are

[00:25:21] Michael Hawk: I assume that’s very measurable as well. Like the salinity of the water that’s being drawn is, is increasing over time.

[00:25:28] Sam Sandoval: Yeah. and we have plenty of examples. Los Angeles, orange County, PA Valley, Monterey. So there are plenty of places where, that is happening. And that is very sad to report because we’re using more groundwater than what is replenished. And we have known this for 50 years. This, the land subsides in the Central Valley.

[00:25:49] This is, this is nothing new. It’s uh, 1922. It is more than a hundred years that we know it. .

[00:25:57] Michael Hawk: Now subsidence as a concept is not unique to California most of my listeners here are in the United States and Canada, though there are some additional countries beyond that. But we could maybe for the sake of example, talk a little bit about Eastern us, central us, Western us , , and those situations.

[00:26:16] I had a guest on the podcast. It’s, it’s I can’t even guess how long ago it was now, but we talk, we were talking a little bit about the Alala aquifer that runs , maybe from South Dakota, even. I know Nebraska down to Texas at least, and how , that’s being overdrawn as well, and subsidence is an issue there.

[00:26:32] There’s not as much infrastructure being affected by subsidence. So I don’t know that it’s as high on people’s minds as, as maybe here in California, , can you talk a little bit about that? know, We, you mentioned houses and buildings sinking, but there’s ongoing cost to subsidence as well.

[00:26:49] Sam Sandoval: Yeah, and that is correct. It really affects because think that you have a canal that used to move water from point A to point B, and then land is, is subsiding or is sinking, and then all of a sudden it’s running the other way. So of course this is typically for agriculture. So they will ask for subsidies or the Bureau of Reclamation and some other entities will come and say okay, we need to fix it with everyone. Dollars, taxes with everyone’s money. So we’re paying for that one. So people that are extracting water, they are getting the benefit of that water and producing something with that and then making a mess around it.

[00:27:26] And then we’ll, we’ll also have to pay it. It’s something similar of what happened with reservoirs. I have to say something. There is, there are some good strategies to prevent that, and some of those is groundwater recharge. Now that we’re having this boom and bust cycles, something that is happening is we’re thinking how to recharge those aquifers.

[00:27:46] So whenever we have all these heavy storms, That are coming in we are now making sure that ahead of time we are releasing some water from reservoirs. That that water we can put it in canals, that we can put it in, fields, that we can infiltrate that water into the ground whenever we have a field that is clean from pesticides and fertilizers.

[00:28:06] We’re also doing the same in what is called recharge pond. So what is a recharge pond? Think of a swimming pool, but you don’t have the concrete underneath. It really is a bare soil , very large. We divert water, put it in there, and just let it infiltrate to recharge the aquifer. We have plenty of those.

[00:28:26] We have injection.

[00:28:28] Michael Hawk: We’ll come back to the injection wells. I wanted to ask about the recharge basins or the recharge ponds. I’ve seen a few municipalities where they’ve in partnership with a local water district or something like that. They’ve built these recharge ponds and they’ve actually turned it into habitat as well, and parkland and it becomes a multi-use facility that’s also functional from a water storage standpoint.

[00:28:51] And I, I just thought like, why isn’t everybody doing this? So let me ask you that. Why aren’t more places doing this? There must be something, it’s more difficult maybe than it seems.

[00:29:00] Sam Sandoval: No, it is. So before we came to the land and did some land use change, most of it it was wetland. So there are a lot of locations that naturally hold water and also infiltrate water. We change the land use. Some of those land use changes are now agricultural. The cheapest, the most cost effective strategy to put water from the rivers into the ground is these locations that naturally the river used to flood and then infiltrate water.

[00:29:34] Water there. Flood planes and fields that were closer, semi closer to the rivers that they were recharging. A aquifers that now are agricultural fields. Why is that? Cheap? Because you can keep that landing production. You don’t have to buy the land. can keep the landing production, and you just need infrastructure to put it in there.

[00:29:55] Recharge pond. So when you go buy a property and you will dedicate that property to recharge the aquifer, that is expensive because you have to buy the property and you’re gonna use it like five times every 10 years. Let’s say 10 times every 10 years, once a year, fingers crossed. And the reality is that it is expensive.

[00:30:16] Injection wells is the same. They are expensive because you need to have the pond and then the electricity to put it down. Another alternative is to time to coordinate the use of surface water and groundwater. So if you have a lot of surface water, like some years stop pumping, don’t use groundwater, save, keep that money on your savings account and use surface water.

[00:30:44] And when there is not that much surface water, when you have money on your savings account, you have water in the ground, then you can use it. That is the cheapest. And a lot of these things we have thought about it. Sometimes regulations do not help but to be sincere, this is mostly individual thinking rather than communal thinking.

[00:31:04] Something that, if there is anything that our listeners should take out of this. Is that it is not my water. It’s our water. Water is a communal benefit. And we have been thinking as private property, and we cannot live without water. We can share water and with that it comes, how much can I use when and where and how can I share it? Because , it is a shared resource.

[00:31:32] Michael Hawk: So I think that maybe some of the, the water use practices that exist go back to habit and a time where we didn’t have to think about optimizing the water use so you could just keep pumping. Or you could just use whatever was most convenient at the time. So you’re talking about the next level of optimization,

[00:31:53] Sam Sandoval: And, and now we’re thinking not only using groundwater or surface water, we’re also thinking to use recycled water or treated water for a agriculture or for cities rainwater harvest. So if it rains, you put it in a water barrel and later you use it. Gray water use from our dishwasher and our washing machines into the garden .

[00:32:14] , we’re thinking desalinated water. The radical idea to think of water as water. So regardless whether it is we can use it. We, we have to manage it.

[00:32:24] Michael Hawk: you’re talking about recharging along floodplains, I’m also thinking about some of the programs that exist to flood, like rice fields in the Central Valley. Is that one in the same? Is that what they’re attempting to do in addition to supporting wild.

[00:32:38] Sam Sandoval: Some of these recharge areas are yes, they’re in, these different location. Rice fields, they actually do not recharge the aquifer. It really is made underneath with clay. And the clay doesn’t allow the filtration.

[00:32:51] Actually, we use to flood rice because we want to prevent the wheats to grow in the rice. So you throw the seeds and the wheats don’t like to be underwater so that the only one that wants to be underwater is the rice. So that’s why we, flooded. They provide good habitat.

[00:33:10] Similar of what you were saying, other locations where we have these temporary flood of eh land, two weeks, three weeks, that is what I call a parking space for all the migration birds. So all the birds are coming, they see some water, they are gonna get a nice rest. So that’s, what they are good for.

[00:33:32] Michael Hawk: There’s so many topics I’m already thinking like, oh, maybe I’m gonna have to politely ask you for a second appearance on the podcast at some point. But we haven’t touched too much on environmental impacts and frameworks for managing the needs of the environment and the needs of people, and also, I guess the needs of the systems themselves.

[00:33:50] And I can see this getting really complicated really fast. Are there guidelines or frameworks for water managers to think about when it comes to how they move the water?

[00:33:59] Sam Sandoval: So there are guidelines, and think of that every state is a nation. So every state defines how water will be managed for the environment. in California, the highest priority is water quality. So we shall not pollute water, surface water, ground water, any water, and also that the benefits of the public come first and the benefits of the individuals, and that is called public trust doctrine.

[00:34:27] What that means is, The environment. So when I talked about the environment here, I’m talking about rivers flowing and what lives in the river and along the river. So that what you’re seeing in the picture that you have of watching a river flowing that environment around the river and in the river that is protected first.

[00:34:50] Then water for other individual users I think that the environment is not an user. The environment is the provider of water. All the water that you can think of, it comes from the environment. We can trace it back to the environ. Think or I would like to encourage our listeners that they think that they are the breadwinner of their home. Might not be or might be or partially, but let’s just think that you are the breadwinner of, of your household. What would happen if you bring all the money, put it on the table and you’re mute, you cannot speak everyone takes 90 or 95% of the money that you bring you left to live with 5% or with 1%, or actually you are left with no money for living. How would you feel it that that is exactly what is happening with the environment? And I think that’s in some parts we are trying to back paddling. Why is good water for the environ. Recharge aquifers. It provides good water quality, it provides recreation. We can use it actually, it’s not that all the water has to be for the environment.

[00:36:02] We can have a health environment and a thriving economy and a thriving agriculture. I don’t think those two things are separate. I would strongly encourage our listeners also to go to a farm. I, and if you can try to go to family oriented, a small farm, and one that have more diversified crop, and also try to go to um, conventional, large industrial farm.

[00:36:29] And you’re gonna see the difference of, how sustainable agricultural practices and unsustainable are compared with the environment and , how things , can work , in conjunction with, the environment. So the framework is set by each state. I think our philosophy, how we are thinking of the environment has also changed through time,

[00:36:50] and this is not an either or. We can have a tribe in agriculture and we can have a Trin environment. I think , , the main issue there is how big and for what.

[00:37:05] Michael Hawk: I’m intrigued and I’m curious, given that we don’t have a ton of time, but what ideas do you have to find a better balance to have thriving a agriculture thriving environment and enough water for individuals

[00:37:18] Sam Sandoval: when you’re thinking about, once again, the bank account, we have to adapt to how much you’re receiving on your monthly income, right? Or your yearly income. That is to mean , for starters, if you’re thinking. spending or spending more than what you naturally have. If you’re thinking to over spend money more than what you’re receiving.

[00:37:40] Your friends will tell you like, Hey, come on Michael. That’s not a good idea. So that is very basic agreeing on that then Yes, folks, we are here and actually cities don’t use that much water. , we can save water. Yes. And all of us, were part of the solution, but water for humans, , we can make it water for industry and agriculture will have to adjust.

[00:38:01] And that one, it will come like, well, let’s bring more water. No, no, no, no, no. Rather than is like, Hey, , the problem is not spending, you just need to get another job. You get a second job. Oh, no. Now you need to get a third job. It’s like really is is, is that it or is it actually that?

[00:38:16] I need to start figuring out how much I can spend. The strategies we mentioned conjuncted use of surface water, groundwater, recycled water, desalinated water, irrigation efficiencies, water savings on the inland. I’ll talk a little bit later, but the place where we use more water is actually three times a day in our plates. Folks, that is where we are actually using the most water. And, and I think is, that is important. So what are we choosing? How, how we’re using water. We can have desalinated water. We, we can have a lot of strategies around it and managing reservoirs different, putting water in the ground. , we have all the strategies.

[00:38:57] I think the also take home message here, Michael, is that there is no one single solution. We need to do a lot of solutions and we need to think differently. To actually, how much water do I really have in here , and how can I adjust for the water that we have in here?

[00:39:17] Michael Hawk: It’s human nature to want the silver bullet, the single solution, and it’s so easy to say, build more reservoirs. And I think you’ve made it pretty clear that would not solve the problem.

[00:39:29] I appreciate you walking through the different reasons why , that is not a solution by itself.

[00:39:34] Sam Sandoval: Yeah. Reservoirs don’t make water. Reservoirs are not water factories. If it doesn’t rain, we’re just gonna have it empty.

[00:39:41] Michael Hawk: and one thing that we haven’t even really talked about, maybe just spend a couple of brief minutes on this, all of the infrastructure necessary to connect these different water systems. You talked about aqueducts and canals. But I think it’s even more complicated than that because we’re, we’re bringing water from, say, the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada over up another mountain chain on.

[00:40:03] Western side , of the Central Valley. and, and that doesn’t happen by gravity. So can you tell me a little bit about some of the infrastructure in place that makes this, these mass movements of water possible?

[00:40:13] Sam Sandoval: Let me put you an, an ex two extreme examples. So Southern California, Los Angeles brings water from Wyoming. just think about it like, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah. That water goes into Lake, pow lake meat, so Glen Canyon and Ho Dam. Then it will go to Lake Havasu following down the stream.

[00:40:36] Then we have big pumps that actually po water and move water from the Colorado towards the Los Angeles. It’s a lot of energy. The same, the California Ecuador water that falls in Lassen Modoc as we started, will run through the Pit River into the Sacramento River. Shasta will go all the way down to the Delta.

[00:41:01] They need to pumps they into the California Ecuador, moving south. Sometimes he’s parking St. Louis Reservoir. Sometimes his MoPac goes. A lot of pumps in the Taha and the of you go down. We are using a lot of energy in a time where we know that the energy we get hooked to the energy and fossil fuels and oh my God, we really need to start reducing the energy consumption.

[00:41:23] And so what I’m trying to tell you here is that we have systems that we are borrowing water from other places. It’s, it is not that we haven’t thinked, Hey, let’s bring water from the Missouri. We, we have even thought think bringing water from Alaska, like seriously I’ve seen plants, but it is this mindset that the problem is not me spending the credit card.

[00:41:45] The problem is not myself spending money is where can I get the money? the, the problem is not spending the water. Where can I get the water and getting the water? What? what would you think? If I actually take the water from your house or from our listener’s house, you’ll be like, Hey, some, are you doing?

[00:42:03] Like you’re taking water out of my place. And I, that’s something that we need to change the mindset

[00:42:08] Michael Hawk: Yeah, I guess that actually literally happens when it comes to groundwater extraction as well. And, and I think this really hits on, there’s so many second and third and fourth order impacts of moving water around and managing water, and there’s costs to all of those. You have to maintain the infrastructure.

[00:42:27] In some cases, subsidence is breaking that same infrastructure , as you pointed out before. And, this critical infrastructure that has to be protected as well. So there’s, there’s all this overhead that goes along with it.

[00:42:38] Sam Sandoval: And there are some other infrastructure that is not real, that we are rethinking it. There. There are a lot of nature-based solutions that we are rethinking that. We are now looking at that native American communities, that people living on the land, they knew it and we’re just rethinking of it.

[00:42:59] That it is very sad because these folks have been here for longer time. We know some of the solutions and I think rather than pulling concrete and pipelines, there are ways to think this better native communities when they are thinking of a given policy or a given way of thinking, they think three to six generations ahead.

[00:43:21] I would really like that. Us when we’re thinking like, Hey, let’s just borrow water from Wyoming. How will that look for six or three generations ahead for people in Wyoming and in ca?

[00:43:32] Michael Hawk: Mm-hmm. . Yep. Long-term thinking. Something that we sorely lack . So why don’t we move along to myth busting and Yeah.

[00:43:39] I know you’re excited, , for this topic. So what are some of the , biggest myths or inaccuracies that you would like to help correct here today when it comes to water management and hydrology?

[00:43:50] Sam Sandoval: There are, there are many. I think the largest myth is that we are never gonna run out of water. So that is a j and no, we don’t have enough water for all the uses that in 2022, the West of the United States wants. , and our reference point is today , for the amount of things that we have today, folks, we don’t have that much.

[00:44:14] That is, a fact. The next one will be like, Hey, let’s delineate water. It’s not economically possible and we’re gonna pollute quite a lot. The, the ocean. That is the second one. The third one is oh, you’re driving agriculture out of the west. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Agriculture will still be here.

[00:44:30] If all our listeners and the two of us might, if we have breakfast today, we value agriculture. Food comes from agriculture, period. It can be processed food, it can be natural food, but it comes from there. We value agriculture. I think the main issue is the type and the size of agricul. The type, we have some types that are not environmentally conscious, that are not socially conscious. And with that agriculture to be sincere, I, this is Sam Sandoval. As a person, not as a professor. I don’t align with those, I don’t align with, with agriculture that over struck water from the ground that put pesticides, fertilizers, that doesn’t pay good labor.

[00:45:14] That one, I, I am not well aligned. The agriculture that actually grows food, that take cares of the soil, of the water, of the air. That one I’m, I’m well aligned with it. That one, that, that pays good salaries , and that agriculture is under threat. So that one, I’ll be there, I’ll defend it. And you know why?

[00:45:36] Because I really like food. I , I’m not sure about you, but I really like food. I, I really like a, a good apple I was putting here I have a Mandarin that I, I’m just a good eater.

[00:45:48] Michael Hawk: I’m gonna quote you on that that’ll be the title of this episode. Sam Sandoval. Good eater.

[00:45:53] Sam Sandoval: but the reality is that we’re not gonna run out of water, but for the size that some people want us to think that we need to have right now. No, that’s, that’s, we don’t have that much water. So let’s go to the next one.

[00:46:08] Michael Hawk: I think that listeners are going to be interested on what you just said and a comment you made a little bit ago that so much of our water use comes off of our plate. Can you drill a little bit deeper into that? Like, What are some of the high water use foods that maybe we should be a little bit more socially conscious about?

[00:46:26] Sam Sandoval: Transportation. We think of it as one of the most climate change drivers of it. Agriculture. Agriculture. Is it an animal? Agriculture? Is it, I know that everyone no, don’t go towards my meat. No. Okay. It is the same, not at the same rate, and not at the same type of the amount that we are eating.

[00:46:46] I declare myself, I’m a healthy omnivore, so I eat all the type of meat and vegetables and so on. I’m a healthy omnivore. Think of your grandparents. , they didn’t eat as much meat as we’re eating right now. let, let me be painfully clear. We’re producing food, we’re producing alfalfa and some of the forages, we’re irrigating grass that will go into some of the cows, chickens, pork, corn that we are producing for them that later we’re gonna be eating.

[00:47:21] And a lot of that is, is just using a lot of resources and also only soil, water, air, polluting some of those. Those of you who are meat eaters, I am go to a, a dairy and see how milk is produced. Go to to some of the cattle productions and, and see what is the difference between conventional meat and natural meat.

[00:47:45] Really, I strongly encourage you because you are gonna be surprised that in some of these places, nothing happens naturally, and you’ll be surprised. And this is what I’m trying to tell you is that that’s, that’s one of the issues that we need to see when we are having food in, in front of us. Now, let me be clear.

[00:48:05] So when you enter a grocery store talking about food, that’s where we go and get our food, right? And some of us, I’ll talk about some other places and we can get food, but you go to a grocery store and you see the area of the different parts of the store. So we have the produce, we have all the cookies, the sodas, the and dairy products and so on. That is where actually also where water is going. Those products that are dairy didn’t come by because of the hand of God. We really had to put water on it. Like really? What is the diet that we are deciding is how we’re putting the landing production and the water that we’re using in California.

[00:48:45] We produce a lot of food, a lot of lettuces, a lot of green studies. The produce department, that jersey in there. Most of it, not all of it, but 50, 60% of it. Okay. We have the Midwest growing EH three types of crops, corn, sorghum, soybeans, eh, alfalfa for the processed. It’s not that we don’t have water. It is not that we don’t have land to, to grow food.

[00:49:11] We, we do have it, folks. Like we really have it. It’s how we are deciding us as a consumers to go into a store, buy stuff and that send, send a signal. Yeah, we really need to be producing all these things. And with that, our health. How, how can you think water is important? Every morning when you look into the mirror, 70%, 75% of what you’re seeing in the mirror is water. And three times a day you’re putting things on your mouth. You are putting the environment, the water, the labor, the soil, the pesticides, the fertilizers, the organics that is passing through your body. That is how we’re using the most water, 80% of our water consumption daily. It’s in the three times that we see in front of it on in our plates.

[00:50:01] And with that is, it comes also our health. One last thing here. So we are thinking about where to get our food so we can get it from regular grocery stores, and that will be mostly industrial agriculture except when you’re in the organic. And with that comes the problem with non-environmental, non socially responsible companies.

[00:50:22] then we can go to farmer’s Market or to um, uh, Stan. And that typically is local. Yes, I know. It is more money. It’s either right now or later that you’re gonna pay it on the health. One other thing that I, I really want to mention, and this is , the justice part is not all the people can afford it and that really sucks.

[00:50:45] Think that the invisibles, so the people that grow our food, The farm workers, they sometimes don’t have a good salary to afford the food that they are growing. It is impressive. And that one, so where we’re putting the subsidies to these three large crops that we’re putting subsidies, folks, we are producing corn to make biofuels that you’re putting in your cars.

[00:51:11] We’re subsidizing these folks to, to put it in there, to, to produce fossil fuels. Ah, yeah. Yeah. That really hurts. Where we have other people that are growing food that they don’t have access to food. So next time that you go to a grocery stores or next time that you’re thinking where to buy stuff, think of this.

[00:51:32] Think who do you want to put your money for? How do you want to send the signal? Because on the other side, folks, we are seeing it. I, I am seeing how market is changing. Land use is changing based on that.

[00:51:45] Michael Hawk: It brings to mind this simple model that I think anyone taking an ecology class has seen, and that’s trophic levels and starting with plants and, and moving your way up through consumers only 10% of the energy is transferring between each level.

[00:51:58] So you’re, when you’re eating meat, you’ve already. Lost a lot of energy just in that process, okay. I wanna make sure we hit another couple of, of myths before we run out of time. So what’s next on your list of MythBusters

[00:52:12] Sam Sandoval: So another one is we will never run out of water. We can desalinate all the water that we want. Again, it is not economically feasible, not for agriculture, which is the large one. We do desalination for cities. We can pay it in our water bill and monthly, , it pollutes a lot. It, it really, the byproduct is brine, which is a salty moth that typically we put under the carpet.

[00:52:35] We throw it back into the ocean and put it in the. it is very energy intensive. So that one, yeah, let’s don’t do that. Okay. So we talked about it. Do we need more reservoirs? No, no, no. And actually we are in the process of taking reservoirs out.

[00:52:50] Michael Hawk: , and can I paraphrase a little bit of that? So you mentioned that there’s already. Approximately four times the annual average capacity of a river in terms of reservoirs and that we’ve picked basically the best sites already. So it’s, diminishing returns at best. is that roughly accurate?

[00:53:07] Sam Sandoval: that is very accurate.

[00:53:08] Michael Hawk: How about one more?

[00:53:09] Sam Sandoval: Let’s do two more. Environmentalists are driving out agriculture of a given region. I think that is not true. The same agriculture is driving themselves out, and again, not all the farmers. The greedy sometimes corporates, large agriculture, large industrial agriculture, they’re driving themselves out.

[00:53:32] They went to this land, overused water, overused soil. And then we are seeing the consequence and as an environmentalist we’re raising our hand and saying Hey, they are extracting more water than they were supposed to. We, we are thinking these folks, they are already driving out themselves, but they are blaming the environmentalists.

[00:53:52] Like, Oh no, you’re, you’re driving us out. No, no, no, no. I mean, we didn’t put or force you to take this much water out of a well, like really, we didn’t Like I’m, I never have a phone call and say Hey Farmer, can you please take way much more water than he’s supposed to? No, we didn’t. We really didn’t.

[00:54:10] They are driving themself out. We’re calling them out, and I think we are at a point where, where we have to do it. Otherwise, that will not come back. Oh, okay. So another one. Environmentally care.

[00:54:21] More of a fish than a farm or than people. That is not true. So pretty much we have bio indicators. So we have a species that are a good indicator of the health of an ecosystem. Michael, you mentioned one beavers. We can have amphibians, frogs, we can have fish while they are good bio indicators, because basically if they are there, the water is clean, the riparian vegetation is, is fine.

[00:54:50] It’s, it’s okay. They have enough wood to actually put the beaver dam. , there is enough food to actually, they for day to live. The seasonal cycles are there so they can actually do all their life stages. Those are good. What we care about is the health of the ecosystem. We’re not putting Aber a fish, an amphibian, a frog ahead of the life of people.

[00:55:13] No, we, we don’t do that. What we’re just saying Hey look, this, which is a key species, is about to go extinct. And the theory or four 40 that are behind it, that are just going straight into the same because the degradation has happened. What we’re saying is like, Hey, look, this, this is happening we’re just seeing that the environment is degraded and, and I think it’s a good policy to have the environment and the economy having in a thrive again, it is not the, the type of uses that we have is the amount, is the, is how we are using water.

[00:55:50] Because I think all of us, we have to deal with it. It’s, it’s just how.

[00:55:54] Michael Hawk: Yeah. I, this all ties together as well. When, when we think about , there’s the indicator species that’s often latched onto as a representative of what balance looks like and people who are used to using water one way that maybe haven’t really thought about sustainability in that way.

[00:56:11] It takes some time. It takes time, even if they’re open to it in the first place, to understand that what they’re doing today, back to the three to six generations concept, even if we did what they wanted to do, that would not be sustainable three to six generations down the road. .

[00:56:30] Sam Sandoval: Michael, ? So let’s send it up in the good spirit. , I’m not sure I, I hope that none of our listeners are being depressed about it. I think there is a lot of hope. There are solutions , and we know it. And there are plenty of solutions. There is people that we dedicate our life to find those solutions. The solutions are there that we have the societal willingness. So we as a society said like, Hey, you know, actually we value this. We, we value our environment. We value our Indian communities. We value our invisibles, our farm workers. Do we value them and do we want to improve them?

[00:57:09] And that, so that is the first thing that changing in the mindset. The second thing is that there is no single solution we will have to do conjunct use of surface water groundwater, recycled water aquifer recharge, optimized reservable operations, use better the soil and do cover crops, improve irrigation efficiencies.

[00:57:29] Torture the plants deficit irrigation and save water in the house. Save water in our landscape and we can do a lot of those and there is no single solution we have to do a lot. All of us, we are part of the problem. All of us, were part of the solution.

[00:57:47] In terms of, if it was only the problem of agriculture, it is very convenient because it is out of our shoulders. We have part of the problems. Again, every time that we are turning on and off the facet, every time that we’re sitting on the table, every time that we are thinking of how to call our representatives to say Hey, here is a species that is about to go extinct, but we have Ry behind it that they are coming into extinction every time that we’re seeing like, hey, this industry is polluting our air, polluting our soil.

[00:58:20] But we have other industries, other farmers that I’m actually going and buying produce for them because I really want those type, that type of agriculture to, to be sustainable. We are part of the solution. It is exactly the same as climate change. This is not an individual. Yes, we need to ask politicians to be more upfront of it, but also us, we have a good impact.

[00:58:47] And that one I think is, is one difficult reality for everyone to grasp. That it is a communal solution and we, it needs all of us,

[00:58:57] Michael Hawk: I think that’s well said. Okay. Thank you so much for spending a few extra minutes with me today. We’re at that time where we do need to wrap up. So, One question I love to ask is, what has nature taught you about living life?

[00:59:08] Sam Sandoval: I think nature and also mom and dad. My parents treat everyone, treat each other as you want to be. if we treat well, modern nature, nature will treat us well. If we treat well other people, you will be treated well. I think that’s, the key message. Nature is very forgiven. I’ve seen rivers that had really broke my heart, that I’ve seen in that they are polluted.

[00:59:34] , you may think that there is no solution and you start coming back and doing one thing at a time and restoring, and it’s very forgiven. They come back to life. So I think that we should treat nature as we want to be treated.

[00:59:48] Michael Hawk: always good advice. So looking ahead, do you have any upcoming projects, speaking engagements that you want to high.

[00:59:56] Sam Sandoval: Yes. So we have, this is a crossover, eh, with two other colleagues uh, Malek and Kars. We have the Water Talk podcast. , please listen that one to. We bring different perspectives into the water world. I have a couple of projects that I’m really interested. One is we have the human right to water in California, and also we are thinking on the human right to sanitation.

[01:00:21] We have 1 million people in California that doesn’t have access to clean, safe, affordable water. So think that you are turning on the top and water comes black, or it comes with fertilizers and pesticides. That’s not fun. We have 1 million people in California with those, even with arsenic,

[01:00:39] we are focusing on bringing clean, safe, affordable, drinking water, and also how to take that water out because otherwise then you’re gonna have , a health problem.

[01:00:50] Michael Hawk: Is there a, website or anywhere I can point listeners to, to learn more about those initiative?

[01:00:54] Sam Sandoval: The Water Talk podcast is water talk podcast.com. Human right to Sanitation. We still don’t have a website for that. The one last one. I am collaborating with the water education for Latino Leaders. So this is a program that helps, that provides elected officials and knowledge about water. And we don’t teach them that much about water, but we teach them how to learn and that is good.

[01:01:22] Teach your politicians how to learn, how to get information, accurate information, and make decisions that is important. And that is I think is Latinos for water.org, their website. I also would like to mention before I end that uh, Michael and the listeners, thank you for all the work that you are doing.

[01:01:40] Thank you for giving a voice to something typically doesn’t have a voice, which is the environment. We are as good as we are protecting our environment. our listeners, myself, we are part of the environment. I know we live in our homes and our cities, we are part of the environment and we define how we want our environment to be.

[01:02:03] And for that stewardship, I’m really.

[01:02:05] Michael Hawk: That reminder is so important too because we feel very disconnected from the environment in today’s society, and that’s a recent thing in human development to be as disconnected from the environment as we are. So we have to keep reminding ourselves of this connection. . All right. Sam, thank you so much for all the time you spent, I, I really appreciate you and the work that you do.

[01:02:26] And where can people follow, like you mentioned the Water Talk podcast, but where else can people go to get more resources to follow your work?

[01:02:33] Sam Sandoval: We have a water management Wuc Davis, so that is our lab website. There is also another website that is related with environmental flows in California, and it’s called E Flows, WUC davis dot, and those, will be the two things and very accessible through a email. Sam Sandoval, uc, Davis, dod. I’m really happy, really happy to, to help everyone.

[01:03:01] we can do a better work. We can improve our work,

[01:03:04] Michael Hawk: And you have some great links to webinars with visuals too on the water management website. So I’ll make sure these are all linked in the show notes. So with that, thank you so much. Again, this was really enlightening and I look forward to sharing this with my listeners.

[01:03:17] I think that everyone’s gonna get a lot out of this, so thank you again.

[01:03:20] Sam Sandoval: Thank you everyone.