A recent newspaper article noted that a large resort ranch along the base of Montana’s Crazy Mountains was using water for irrigation on a golf course. Worse, according to the news account, the ranch did not have water “rights” to use this water. Many people are outraged.
While we can debate whether using scarce water resources for golf courses is a public “good,” golf courses or even urban development are not responsible for most water consumption in Montana or the West.
The real outrage should be focused on the livestock industry’s annual dewatering of Montana rivers. Some 97% of the water removed from Montana’s waterways goes to agriculture, with 70% being the growing of irrigated pasture, hay and alfalfa.
While precipitation is one factor in water availability, transpiration and evaporation are one of the main determinants of water use. The drier the air, the more water is lost to the atmosphere. Irrigation systems like sprinklers lose a tremendous amount of water to the air. With global warming, water losses are increasing, making it even less desirable to grow livestock forage or cattle in the arid West.
Cattle are a water problem. But few groups are willing to even mention this. How many articles do you see in places like HCN that focus on swimming pools or golf courses as the main problem for fish and other aquatic wildlife, never mentioning livestock production, which is the biggest consumer?
Not to mention, irrigated Ag fields are biological deserts. When you fly over the Gallatin Valley, Central Valley, and Willamette Valley, much less rural areas, you see hay and alfalfa fields dominating the landscape, not housing tracts, despite the presence of cities and towns.
A single plant species dominates these pastures and fields for mile upon mile. The average urban landscaping provides a far more diverse habitat than an alfalfa field. But we are taught to consider green fields a “good” thing.
Even if you want to eat beef, there are better places to grow cows than in the arid West. New York State grows more pounds of beef than much larger but more arid Nevada.
Even if you consider employment, casinos employ more people than all the agriculture in the state. For instance, all farming operations in Nevada only employ 16,300 people, while casinos employ 149,000 people.
I’m not arguing for casinos or golf courses, as much as I am suggesting that if you are concerned about water waste in the West, your focus should be on livestock production and irrigated hay and alfalfa fields.
The Big Hole River is nearly blocked by a dam designed to push the majority of the river’s flow into an irrigation canal. Removal of water for hay irrigation is one factor in the demise of the Montana grayling. Photo by George Wuerthner
Even in California, with its large urban population, golf courses, swimming pools, and other non-agricultural water uses, urban use accounts for 10% of the water consumed, but agriculture uses 80% of the state’s water. Though California grows the vast majority of the nation’s food, including things like strawberries, wine, and lettuce, irrigation for livestock forage is the number one use of all water in the state.
1. “We find irrigation of cattle-feed crops to be the greatest consumer of river water in the western United States, implicating beef and dairy consumption as the leading driver of water shortages and fish imperilment in the region,” wrote Brian D. Richter, Dominique Bartak, Peter Caldwell, Kyle Frankel Davis, Peter Debaere, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Tianshu Li, Landon Marston, Ryan McManamay, Mesfin M. Mekonnen, Benjamin L. Ruddell, Richard R. Rushforth, and Tara J. Troy, in their article “Water Scarcity and Fish Imperilment Driven by Beef Production,” in the journal Nature Sustainability volume 3, pages 319–328 (2020), https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0483-z
2. Irrigated agriculture is responsible for 74% of direct human uses and 52% of overall water consumption. Water consumed for agriculture amounts to three times all other direct uses combined. Cattle feed crops, including alfalfa and other grass hays account for 46% of all direct water consumption.” That’s according to Brian D. Richter, Gambhir Lamsal, Landon Marston, Sameer Dhakal, Laljeet Singh Sangha, Richard R. Rushforth, Dongyang Wei, Benjamin L. Ruddell, Kyle Frankel Davis, Astrid Hernandez-Cruz, Samuel Sandoval-Solis, and John C. Schmidt, “New Water Accounting Reveals Why the Colorado River No Longer Reaches the Sea,” Communications Earth & Environment volume 5, (2024), article 134,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01291-0
Given North America’s ongoing aridification and climate warming, water extracted for livestock and growing livestock feed significantly degrades our waters, lands, and wildlife habitat.
Irrigation withdrawals have numerous ecological impacts on Montana’s aquatic ecosystems. Entire streams are dried up, or water flows are significantly impacted, leading to higher temperatures that can be lethal to fish. Dewatering and its flow reduction are some of the main reasons Montana grayling are endangered in the Big Hole River.
Dewatering also concentrates fish in smaller amounts of habitat, leading to greater competition and stress. The result is fewer fish in our waterways.
This, in turn, impacts other wildlife. A reduction in fish populations affects bald eagles, osprey, otter, mink, and numerous other wildlife that depend on fish.
Dewatering also impacts riparian vegetation.
Water in a river or stream has a hydrography that is an inverted V shape. The water influence extends well beyond the banks of a stream, allowing trees and shrubs to tap into the subsurface flow.
As water is depleted from the stream, the size of the riparian vegetation zone is reduced. Across the West, riparian habitat is utilized by 70-80% of all wildlife.
Riparian vegetation also shades streams, reducing water temperatures and again benefiting cold water fisheries.
While I am not aware of any economic studies that have looked at the economic benefit of using Montana’s water for growing trout vs. beef, I am certain, given the value of fish for wildlife and activities like fly-fishing, keeping water in a stream likely results in a far higher economic return per acre-feet of water.
The term “water right” was created by the Ag industry to suggest they “own” the water they consume. I prefer “water privileges” because irrigators do not own the water. The citizens of the state ultimately own all the water in Western states.
In Oregon, for instance, the state Supreme Court has determined that the primary purpose of the state’s water is for wildlife, recreation, and ecological values. All other uses are only permitted if they do not harm the primary purposes. Irrigation significantly impacts the value of the state’s waterways, but so far, the state government has failed to enact its Public Trust obligation to protect the public interest.
Even more egregious is that irrigators do not pay a cent for the water they remove from rivers nor compensate the public for the ecological damage their industry imposes on natural ecosystems.
Similar unwillingness to challenge Ag’s stranglehold on water occurs throughout the West. However, ill-informed articles focusing on golf courses, swimming pools, or urban water uses as the main threats to our waterways do not help. They divert the public’s attention from the real source of water loss— primarily for livestock production.
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