Being concerned about the drought, and water usage, is a sensible thing. But Justin cutting down some trees and planting vineyard is literally a drop in the proverbial bucket in comparison to high density development for population growth all over the state. I’m surprised people aren’t up in arms every time a new restaurant opens, with all the water they use for cooking, cleaning, and dishwashing.
Look, California is screwed long term for water. Our population has grown too much, too fast, and too little has been done to develop new water sources. There are housing developments all over the state where hillsides have been cleared of trees and brush, and those continue. You cannot stop “progress”, no matter how much you would like to continue living in the 20th, or even 19th centuries.
But anytime someone says… “We need to put limits on immigration” the left goes bat guano crazy and accuses the person of being a racist.
This water problem in the West requires bold thinking. We need to develop a “water super highway system” to pump water from places that are susceptible to flooding in the mid-west and bring that water to western states. The current aqueducts and water transportation systems in California are good, but they’re simply not enough.
This far, far less than a drop in a bucket. Maybe a few H2O molecules in a bucket.
If Andrew’s argument is against any new agricultural planting in the state, and he’s consistent in that view across the board and not just selectively when it’s “uncool winery owned by uncool big corporation,” then it at least makes sense to me, even if I don’t agree with it.
California obviously has a water problem. It’s really an allocation and usage problem, rather than a “shortage” problem, but there are better ways to allocate the available water than what we do right now. I don’t know that Wine Talk is the place for a full spectrum discussion of that topic.
One thing the drought reduction requirements and achievements over the past year made clear, is that in many residential areas water usage per capita is largely about local weather and landscaping.
And if Andrew wants to ban folks from moving to CA, or prohibit historical family farms in the Central Valley from engaging in INFINITELY more water-intensive agricultural practices going forward . . .
. . . Look, oaks are pretty, and I like them too, but you don’t limit someone’s use of their property for pretty things. You need to have a substantive environmental concern, and there is NOT one here.
David - I say “suspect” because I have not cited research. My suspicion is based on a general understanding of the topic. Do you have research comparing the carbon holding of Oak Woodlands vs Vineyards? If so, what does it show? Are the vineyards in question tilled or no?
There are 2 Andrews (at least) here. Would people please use Andrew K and Andrew M so we can be sure we know who you are talking about unless they are in quotes?
How can you say that anymore than other people say there is one? I think all you can say is that cutting down oaks for vines isn’t self-evidently bad. As you’ve argued, it’s not a simple calculation.
By the way, while I accept the rampant uninformed speculation about wines here, it’s pretty entertaining to see everyone speculating flagrantly about this event with pretty much no solid knowledge of the facts/environment on either side that I can detect.
Sure, I don’t see what the difference would be. I was opposed to proposed tree-clearing for new vineyard land in the Annapolis area of the Sonoma Coast a few years ago too. True, these were larger-scale developments (which have both since been shelved) but the overall scale of the Justin/Fiji development plans are unclear - what has been brought up recently sounds like it’s only one parcel out of many that may be developed for more vineyard land. With respect to Ridge, I suspect that they would not be allowed to clear considerable more vineyard land on Montebello Ridge without going through review and approval from the County, unlike what’s currently happening in Paso Robles. It’s not that Justin is so different, it’s that it’s happening now. What was done in the past cannot be easily undone so we need to focus on what is currently happening and what may happen in the future.
Obviously forests have been cleared for agricultural use for many centuries, and for millennia in some areas. But look at the satellite photos of the area near the Justin/Fiji project - there’s lots of land that has already been cleared in the past for orchards. Why not find one of those properties to purchase and convert already-cleared orchard land to vineyard, as has been done many times all over California? And even though this may be a relatively small project in the big picture, where does it all end? Oak woodland is not easy to recreate once it’s gone. Oaks mature quite slowly and don’t thrive everywhere as noted above.
I don’t know whether water is a particularly big issue in this case but that’s not the main thing that most people in Paso seem to be upset about, it’s about clearing out oak woodland - in an area named for those very oak trees, no less - in a way that seems unnecessary. I’d be surprised if SLO County regulations on mature oak trees aren’t changed as a result of the Justin/Fiji project.
Actually some of biggest opponents of limiting immigration are Central Valley growers who appreciate their business us dependent on immigrant labor. And they “ain’t” left or liberals. Quite to the contrary.
If big business, again not liberal dominated, wouldn’t hire they couldn’t come.
Whose gonna pay for the hundreds of billions (or more) needed for an intra state water supply system.
The areas suspects led to flooding have seen the goalposts changing. What state wants to commit their water for export knowing that changes in global climate have dramatically impacted rainfall distribution?
Now salt water desalinization sounds like a sound idea as well as reclaiming water from sewer systems and water run off. So we agree we must do better.
We must also stop exporting water during fraughts. That is insane. Bad bad water policy.
There is no shortage of oak trees in California. Are they destroying a critical habitat? How many vineyards in Paso Robles were once covered with trees? Probably all of them.
My understanding of the current state of the research is that forest achieve the highest carbon sequestration of any type of cover, but at the price of a low albedo. So high latitude forests are net warming, since the albedo warms more than the carbon sequestered indirectly cools. In contrast, low latitude forests are net cooling, since the carbon sequestered indirectly cools more than the albedo warms.
Temperate forests are right on the edge. Given that a strong driver of the albedo effect is unobstructed winter snowcover, my GUESS is that these forests, net-net, are cooling, but it’s probably a close call.
No, there’s a group of posters with science backgrounds -many of which (as best I can tell) would self identify as environmentally conscious! - rolling their eyes at the bullshit, and then a couple of posters who prefer to be able to make up whatever they need to justify their beliefs.
It’s always easy to debate the best and highest use of land. But an existing oak forest, if managed sustainably, can be an incredibly valuable asset to the environment.
Here’s a link to the SLO county Oak Woodlands Management plan. http://ucanr.edu/sites/oak_range/files/60623.pdf
Among other things, the plan discusses a range of benefits of oak forests in SLO county.
Oak trees are among the “best” plants in an environment because they host so many diverse species.
Oak woodlands generally don’t need irrigation, grapes generally do.
Oak woodlands are a very good carbon sink that can store carbon in cellulose and eventually, organic matter in the soil…possibly up to 1,000 years?
The last I heard, the theory is that a vineyard sinks about the same amount of carbon as the fermenting grapes it produces puts into the atmosphere…thus, no net carbon benefit.
In a perfect world there would have been a land swap, conservation easement, or some other beneficial arrangement to save the oak trees. Oak trees, let alone an oak woodland, are worth saving. Vineyards are valuable too - but they would be best sited where their impacts are minimized. With all that said, if the rules say they can develop and permits are approved, all one can do is hope to educate the next guy before he does the same thing.
Just another 2 cents worth.
Cheers, Ed
FWIW, there is little evidence of this, at least with respect to the current CA drought. (Long term may be a different story, but impacts on local or regional rainfall distribution as a result of global climate change are still poorly understood.) There are many natural, multidecadal climate cycles that affect west coast climate. See e.g. National Geographic. The current drought is within the range of the paleohistorical record.
On the contrary, one thing that is certain is that water resources will become more scarce in CA as temps rise, even if precip is unaffected. CA water usage relies on snowfall to effectively store and gradually release water. They are not set up to capture liquid runoff from winter storms nearly as efficiently as snowmelt.
What is the effective difference between human impacted climate change and rainfall distribution, naturally climate cycles (which do not follow any specific pattern) and rainfall distribution, and/or a combo of both?
And the article you cited suggests that may be a 200 year drought. Nothing in that article refutes my statement. Nothing in paleohistorical dealth with man made impact (which seems to be fairly established science) so there never will be a very reliable manner of comparison.
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