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Worksheet Grade 12 Social Studies & Civics

The Quinter Valley Water Lease: Winners, Losers, and Spillovers

A grade 12 worksheet on a fictional city's proposal to lease irrigation water from a farm valley, with acre-foot math and analysis of third-party effects.

Objectives

  1. Students will calculate the volume, share, and payment involved in a proposed agriculture-to-city water lease.
  2. Students will identify third parties affected by a water transfer beyond the buyer and the sellers.
  3. Students will evaluate lease terms designed to limit harm to the sending region.

Vocabulary

Acre-foot
The amount of water it takes to cover one acre of land, about the size of a football field, one foot deep. Western states use acre-feet to measure large amounts of water.
Fallowing
Leaving a farm field unplanted for a season so it uses no irrigation water. Farmers are sometimes paid to fallow fields during droughts so cities can use the water.

Also: lease, third-party effects, sending region

Teacher overview

When a growing city buys or leases water from farmers, the deal on paper involves two willing parties, yet the effects reach businesses and workers who never signed anything. This worksheet uses the fictional Quinter Valley Irrigation District and the fictional city of Norcastle to work through the arithmetic of a proposed lease and then the economics of who is affected outside the contract. Items 1 through 6 are computational; items 7 through 10 ask students to reason about land use, spillovers, and protective lease terms.

The Quinter Valley Water Lease: Winners, Losers, and Spillovers — Grade 12 Social Studies & Civics
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Student Worksheet

The Quinter Valley Irrigation District, a fictional district created for this worksheet, delivers river water to family farms that grow hay and vegetables. The fictional city of Norcastle, two counties away, has proposed a water lease. Use the figures stated in each item.

  1. The district irrigates 20,000 acres, and the average farm applies 3 acre-feet of water per acre each year. How many acre-feet does the district deliver in a normal year?
  2. Norcastle proposes to lease 9,000 acre-feet per year. What percent of the district's normal deliveries from item 1 is that?
  3. Norcastle would pay $220 per acre-foot for the leased water. How many dollars per year would the district's participating farmers receive in total for 9,000 acre-feet?
  4. The leased water becomes available when farmers fallow land, meaning they stop irrigating it. At 3 acre-feet per acre, how many acres must be fallowed to free up 9,000 acre-feet?
  5. One acre-foot is 325,851 gallons. About how many billion gallons is the 9,000 acre-foot lease? Round to one decimal place.
  6. In our scenario, leasing pays a farmer 3 acre-feet per acre at $220 per acre-foot, while farming hay on that acre nets $540 after costs. How many dollars per acre more does leasing pay than farming?
  7. Name two kinds of local businesses or workers, outside the farmers who sign the lease, that lose income when 3,000 acres go out of production, and explain the connection in each case.
  8. In two or three sentences, describe how the lease shifts water use and land use between the Quinter Valley and Norcastle, and what visible change each place would see over ten years.
  9. The district's rule for this lease says no single farm may fallow more than 20 percent of its acres. What problem is that rule designed to prevent?
  10. Norcastle also offered a "dry-year option," under which it leases the water only in drought years instead of every year. In three or four sentences, evaluate which option is better for the valley's long-term economy, and defend your choice.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Answer Key
  1. Answer: 60,000 acre-feet per year. 20,000 acres x 3 acre-feet per acre = 60,000 acre-feet.
  2. Answer: 15 percent. 9,000 divided by 60,000 is 0.15, which is 15 percent.
  3. Answer: $1,980,000 per year. 9,000 acre-feet x $220 per acre-foot = $1,980,000.
  4. Answer: 3,000 acres. 9,000 acre-feet divided by 3 acre-feet per acre = 3,000 acres fallowed.
  5. Answer: 2.9 billion gallons. 9,000 x 325,851 = 2,932,659,000 gallons, which rounds to 2.9 billion.
  6. Answer: $120 per acre. Leasing pays 3 x $220 = $660 per acre, and $660 minus the $540 farming net is $120.
  7. Answer: Accept any two with sound reasoning. Examples: the farm-supply store sells less seed, fertilizer, and equipment when acres go unplanted; hay-hauling truckers and seasonal field workers lose loads and hours; the local equipment dealer services fewer machines.
  8. Answer: Water that once irrigated valley fields is delivered to Norcastle's customers instead. Over ten years, the valley would show fallowed fields, and possibly fewer farm businesses, while Norcastle supports new households and businesses with the added supply. The transfer moves both the water and part of the economic activity it supports.
  9. Answer: It prevents any single farm, and the valley as a whole, from tipping too far out of production. Spreading fallowing across many farms keeps each operation viable, keeps most land farmed, and limits the shock to the businesses in item 7.
  10. Answer: Accept either position with support. A dry-year option keeps the valley farming in normal years and sells water only when the city's need and the price are highest, which protects local businesses; a permanent annual lease pays more reliably, and farmers can plan around it, but it locks in the loss of 3,000 planted acres. Strong answers weigh income stability against the fallowing spillovers.

Differentiation

Support

Provide the unit setup for items 1 through 4 with labels already in place, such as acres x acre-feet per acre, and confirm item 1 with students before they continue, since items 2 and 4 depend on the same quantities.

Extension

Ask students to draft one additional lease term that protects the sending region, in the spirit of the fictional district's fallowing cap, and to explain what it costs Norcastle and why the city might accept it anyway.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "lease," "fallow," and "acre-foot" with a sketch of one acre covered by water one foot deep. Allow items 7 through 10 to be answered in short phrases first, then expanded into sentences with a partner.