In 2012, Harvard University's endowment purchased over 8,000 acres of former grazing land in the Cuyama Valley, a rural area about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara. The point of Harvard's massive multibillion-dollar endowment is to make money, and it can easily do this with its new property by establishing water rights in the Cuyama River Basin. This will inflate its property's value because as water scarcity worsens due to the drought and climate change, properties with strong water rights (especially those that were established before state restrictions on water usage) will become more and more valuable. Harvard can then sell the land for a hefty profit.
Because of the way that California's water laws work, Harvard has to create a history of water usage to ensure future access to water in the already critically over drafted basin. It has put its plan into action. Since 2012, Harvard has drilled a dozen water wells on its property and planted a vineyard. Harvard is now the third largest water pumper in the Cuyama Valley. The Wall Street Journal noted the stark contrast between the lush, green vineyards and the surrounding dry fields.
Now, Harvard is attempting to build on its property "frost ponds," or large above-ground reservoirs that would be filled from below-ground aquifers, on its property. The so-called North Fork Ranch Frost Ponds Project ("the Project") would install three frost ponds which would pump water from the Cuyama River Basin. This new project would essentially allow Harvard to hoard water, increasing its property value, expanding its history of water rights in the Basin, and making water more scarce and therefore more valuable in the region.
The Cuyama River Basin is home to an estimated 1,259 people (according to the 2010 Census). It has approximately 372 wells. Groundwater accounts for 100% of the Basin's water supply, meaning if a groundwater well runs dry, locals have no access to any other water short of drilling a deeper well or importing water from other areas.
Harvard's water grab, and the Project more specifically, is disastrously harmful for a number of reasons. For one, significantly increasing water pumping in an already critically over drafted basin threatens neighbors' access to water. This is especially true for local communities and rural farmers who have shallower water wells. As Harvard pumps more groundwater, the water table for the groundwater aquifers gets lower and lower, and local water wells become drier and drier. It is also a logistical nightmare when the water table is lowered at such a rapid speed.
The Project threatens to exacerbate this issue. Harvard's profits depend on lowering the water table while increasing its own access to water rights. It's a loss for everyone—except, Harvard's pockets.
Additionally, with the acceleration of climate change and California's drought, it is inevitable that the brunt of water restrictions and shortage will fall on the state's agriculture industry. This will be most deleterious to small rural farmers, who will likely be unable to afford the costs of drilling deeper wells or importing water from elsewhere. Big Ag will likely also feel the effects of the increased cost of water. I'm expecting it will transfer a significant portion of this burden to its already exploited rural workers—and raise food prices for consumers.
Not to mention that none of the benefits or profit from the water grab or the Project will go to local communities. After astronomically inflating the value of the property by creating a scarcity of water in the region, Harvard will likely just sell the property and leave. Harvard then, already the richest endowment in the entire world with $41.9 billion in assets at the end of 2020, will pocket all of the profit and take it back over 3,000 miles to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
While it is too late to stop Harvard's ownership of its property and current pumping of the Cuyama River Basin, it is not too late to stop the Project. This is largely due to local outrage. On March 29, 2023, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission will hear public comments regarding the Project and vote on whether to approve or reject it. A group of UC Davis Law and Harvard Law students have written a public comment in opposition (which can be found on page 409 of the Proposed Final EIR) and will be speaking at the meeting. They believe that they only need to sway one person on the Planning Commission to win a favorable vote.
Anyone is welcome to attend or speak, and the meeting will be available over Zoom here. I would encourage anyone with a passion for defending rural communities to attend and even speak if willing. We must stop Harvard from exploiting California's rural communities and natural environment for their own monetary gain. Please support in any way you can.
4 comments:
This is an interesting article about a topic I don't know enough about, thanks for posting! I guess I've never thought too much about the profitability of the land that college campuses sit on. I recently red an article about the University of Arizona, a public university, attempting to acquire a for-profit online college to try and expand their operations. It seems really indicative of the modern reality of public university education, that seems ironically more motivated by profit than any other concern. I know that Harvard is a private university, but honestly the point should still stand. We are so far away from the days where, for example, one of the main tenets of Stanford was having free tuition. It's a disheartening reality, and I'm not exactly sure how this course can be reversed.
The article can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/upshot/university-of-arizona-ashford-zovio-online-college.html
Thank you for calling attention to this issue while there is still time to take action to prevent the project! In the face of a crisis that already can seem insurmountable, it is so disappointing to see a powerful organization like Harvard exploiting water access for profit without much regard for the affected local population. Your post reminded me how important it is not just to govern one’s own personal behaviors in ways that serve the environment and vulnerable communities, but also to proactively and vigilantly monitor larger organizations who are prone to engage in such exploitative actions wherever they are able to get away with it.
Thank you for this post, I had read an article about Harvard's water investments years ago and had forgotten about it entirely. One could go a number of directions with this, it could be framed as wealtjy resource hoarding ahead of ecological disaster or one could question why universities (public or private) have amassed such large endowments to begin with while students and staff live in poverty, or one can make the poignant points above. I'm fantasizing about the day when Harvard becomes Univeristy of Massachussets - Cambridge and am reminded of this article: https://jacobin.com/2020/07/nationalize-ivy-league-tuition-free-public-university.
This was an interesting topic that I have not heard about! It never crossed my mind that universities would invest their endowment in real property. I did some activism work during college on divestment from fossil fuels, which brings up issues of a university’s moral values and whether a university should act like a corporation. It was interesting to learn that university-corporations are also trying to make profits with land so far removed from their actual campuses. One point of contention between NYU students and the school is its gentrification and monopoly-game acquisition of properties in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn (and its 14 global sites). Harvard’s water grab goes one step further because the land is not used for educational buildings. Thank you for this post!
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