The land here has always been fertile, but it has always been dry.
Pioneers who settled west realized that with its permanent sunshine, the Imperial Valley could produce crops year-round to feed the growing population, as long as they could flood the fields with water.
His solution was to build an 80-mile (130-kilometre) canal from the Colorado River, placing himself first in line for rights to that river.
An agreement reached a century ago allows Imperial Valley farmers to use 3.1 million acre-feet of water each year—about 70 percent of the total water California is allowed to take.
An acre-foot is an acre covered by water one foot deep, which is equivalent to about 326,000 gallons (1.23 million litres), or about half an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
But as human-caused climate change worsens a drought that has lasted more than two decades, the river is struggling to keep up with demand.
The 40 million people who rely on it in the West, including some of America’s biggest cities, are being told they need to cut back.
Last year Los Angeles residents faced fines for watering their gardens too frequently, and were urged to take only short showers instead of a bath.
The plight has pitted suburban homeowners against nearby farmers surveying their brown lawns.
“As the largest user of water on the river we become a target because it becomes an easy fix,” says Tina Shields of the Imperial County Irrigation District.
“We’re not going to sacrifice our community for urban sprawl and urban development and other areas.”
In any case, says Shields, many people who complain about the water use by farmers are happy to fill their refrigerators with the food they produce.
“We grow one and a half million acres of crops a year that feed our country and other countries as well. So it’s important to our community and especially to our economy.”
