Lake Ontario Basin Agriculture in the Coming Decades: Room for Expansion or Imminent Future Water Conflict

Stephen Shaw (sbshaw@esf.ed), Theresa Selfa, and Sherry Martin 1. Background

2. Survey of Water Use 3. Next Steps 3A. The NYS Barge Canal (the old Erie Canal) is a potentially underused piece of water infrastructure. Unlike western states which often have an extensive system of irrigation canals and reservoirs for conveying and storing irrigation water, most irrigation water in NY is only available from run-of-river sources that may not be reliable during dry periods. However, the Barge Canal acts as a direct, gravity fed conduit of freshwater from Lake Erie that passes in close proximity to tens of thousands of acres of farmland. Old design reports indicate the canal was intended to carry over 1000 mgd a day, a small fraction of which is currently used. Further work would evaluate the potential to better use the Barge Canal as a source of irrigation water.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) provides information on irrigated acreage per county, subdivided for vegetables and different field crops. However, USDA NASS does not provide information on county-specific water application rates or waters sources. To fill in these gaps, we compiled data from three sources: 1. NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation records, 2. NYS Barge Canal Records, and 3. our own surveys of irrigation practices. . Using a combination of telephone and paper surveys, we interviewed 33 different farms, 17 of which are irrigated. Based on irrigated acreage per county reported by USDA NASS, these three sources appear to entail farms covering at least 75% of the reported irrigated acreage in Genesee, Orleans, and Wyoming counties, the three most irrigated counties in Western NY. Notably, much of the irrigation appears to be done by several very large farms; data from these large farms is thus representative of the vast majority of the irrigated area

To help better understand humid region irrigation, there remains a need to collect basic data that helps better quantify the overall water balance. Thus, the primary goal of this project is to identify specific water sources and the magnitude of water use from each source. The central question is whether there is excess available water to expand irrigation or whether irrigation just meets the demand of existing farms.

References: McDonald, R.I. and E.H. Girvetz. 2013. Two challenges for U.S. irrigation due to climate change: Increasing irrigated areas in wet states and increasing irrigation rates in dry states. PLOS One, 8(6), e65589. Olen, B., J. Wu, and C. Langpap. 2015. Irrigation decisions for major west coast crops: Water scarcity and climate determinants. American Journal of Agricultural Economics. 98: 254-271.

Figure 4c. Profile of elevation changes along the Barge Canal from Lake Erie to western NY ag land.

Figure 4b. Crop land within 1 km of the Barge Canal and streams tributary to the canal. This analysis indicates potential underutilized land that could be irrigated at potentially little cost. Only 30% of land within the buffer is currently used for agriculture, with a lesser fraction irrigated.

SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY 13210

The streams with the greatest number of irrigation users were also those with USGS stream gages. We compared reported irrigation water demand to July water availability in those streams for two cases: minimum daily 20th percentile July discharge for the full record and minimum July daily discharge for 2016. The minimum 20th percentile July discharge is intended to indicate water availability during dry conditions occurring every 5 years on average. The 2016 July minimum indicates discharge close to the drought of record. Based on presumed irrigation withdrawal points, the USGS gage is upstream of irrigation withdrawals on Tonawanda and Oak Orchard Creeks.

While the majority of US irrigation is in arid regions of the west, there is also a sizable and growing amount of irrigation in humid regions. Especially with climate change, humid region irrigation may become an essential means of maintaining agricultural productivity (McDonald and Girvetz 2013). However, irrigation in humid regions is often carried out under a different set of circumstances than irrigation in the arid west: ● water allocation is determined by riparian water rights, not prior appropriation as used in the West ● water demand can greatly vary from year to year, with no water being used one year and sizable amounts used another year Due to these features, there is limited shared water infrastructure , little centralized coordination of water use, and few measurements of irrigation demands. When demand measurements do exist they can represent average conditions instead of peak demands.

Farm Crops Total Acres Method Normal Duration

Watering

Dry Season Watering

1 Potatoes, corn, oats 2100 Traveling Sprayer 8 weeks NR

2 Cabbage, onions, corn, peas,

snap beans, spinach, turf

6000 Pull reels As needed As needed

3 Apples, carrots, peaches,

raspberries, squash

400 Drip; Overhead

sprayers

NR NR

4 Apples, cherries, corn, wheat,

barley

4000 Drip As needed As needed

5 Apples 490 Drip 4 weeks 8 weeks

6 Peas, snap peas, carrots,

alfalfa

4500 Center pivot; Pull

reels

Not specified 12+ weeks

7 Potatoes, corn, alfalfa 5000 Center pivot < 4 weeks > 4 weeks

8 Corn ,alfalfa 4500 Center pivot 4 weeks 12 weeks

9 Strawberries, apples 180 Drip NR NR

10 Potatoes, carrots, beet,

cabbage, snap bean

8000 Center pivot As needed As needed

11 blueberries 1.5 NR 8 weeks NR

12 apples 75 spray 12 weeks NR

13 organic vegetables 20 drip NR NR

14 Onions, potatoes 400 Center pivot 1x ea. wk. 2x. ea. week

15 Hydroponic beans,

strawberries, & peppers

0.25 hydroponic Water refreshed

daily

NR

16 Sweet corn, eggplant,

peppers, lettuce, brocolli

220 NR NR NR

17 Cabbage, sweet corn,

eggplant, cucumbers, kale

85 NR NR NR

Figure 2. Farms with a 1) Barge Canal Authority permit for water withdrawal or 2) who report non-potable water use to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

Figure 3. Major watersheds in the western NY region. Table 2 summarizes irrigation water use and available supply for select watersheds.

Figure 1. Five county region of western NY analyzed in this study. The primary focus is on Genesee and Orleans counties, the counties with the largest irrigated acreage.

Medina

Albion

Holley

3B. A potentially comprehensive source of water application data is the NASS Farm and Ranch Irrigation survey (FRIS). With more than 80% of farmers participating, this data set provides a highly representative sample. However, this data is only typically released as state-wide aggregate values. At this statewide scale, it is not possible to discern regional differences in irrigation rates. We have made a special data request that will allow us to develop a statistical regression model relating seasonal precipitation, available soil water capacity, and crops grown to water application rate. While regional values cannot be revealed, the model should provide some insight into controls on application rates. One prior paper has made use of the NASS FRIS data in this way ( Olen et al. 2015 ), but for the most part this existing data appears underutilized.

Waterbody Irrigation Demand (mgd)

July - 20th percentile min.

(mgd)

2016 July min. (mgd)

Potential Deficit

Potable Water Source

Tonawanda Creek 2.3 8.4 3.3 Yes Y (Batavia secondary source)

Oak Orchard Creek 0.6 5.4 0.3 Yes N

Oatka Creek 0.5 23.3 26.3 No N

Barge Canal 1.5 NA NA NA N

Table 2. Comparison of demand versus supply for streams with sizable irrigation withdrawals. Other streams had more minor withdrawals: Eighteen Mile Creek, Coy Creek, and Johnson Creek.

Fig 4a. View of Barge Canal near Medina, NY

Table 1. Summary of survey data . Water source was also collected but it is only shown in summary in Table 2 below.

Acknowledgment: This work was funded by USDA NIFA Award # 2015-68007-23136.