Trinity River
From: Editorial Staff, SF
Chronicle
Until this week, a record salmon
run swimming up the Klamath River faced soupy-warm water, high bacteria levels
and low flows that add up to deadly conditions. But a federal court bowed to
scientific testimony and bitter history in choosing fish over farms and
released extra water to smooth the spawning migration.
From: Editorial Staff, Santa
Rosa Press Democrat
A federal agency, under pressure
to supply water to irrigators, diverts a North Coast river, creating a killing
field for tens of thousands of chinook salmon and other fish.
Sound familiar?
It's the Cliff's Notes version of
events 11 years ago on the Klamath River - an unnatural disaster with
disastrous consequences for coastal communities and Indian tribes that rely on
salmon fisheries for their livelihoods.
(The following comment is
submitted in response to the above editorials.)
Coalition response...This editorial does not include the complete information surrounding the
court ruling that allows supplemental water to be sent down the Trinity River
from Trinity Reservoir. During the court proceedings, the U.S. Department
of Interior reduced the amount of water they wanted from up to 109,000
acre-feet to just 20,000 acre-feet. It was evident that the scientific
arguments they had put forth for the higher amount were not justified.
In his ruling, Judge O'Neill
wrote that "all parties have prevailed in a significant, responsible
way."
All parties must now work
together in reaching a long-term approach to managing requests for supplemental
water that is balanced and scientifically supportable.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Editorial Staff, Redding
Record Searchlight
The question of the day was
simple enough: When it comes to the state's multibillion-dollar proposal to
build tunnels diverting Sacramento River water around the Delta to points
south, "How will Sacramento Valley interests be addressed?"
Coalition response...Those who claim that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will simply
"preserve the status quo" refuse to acknowledge the benefits
contained in the Plan. BDCP is an effort to obtain a 50-year endangered
species permit that will improve the Delta through habitat restoration and
protection of species. In doing so it is expected that water supply
reliability will improve for users who have a legal right to use existing water
supplies.
The BDCP does not increase the
average amount of water that has been delivered through the Delta over the past
20 years. This permit should improve water
supply reliability for almost 4,000 farms and 25 million
Californians. The importance of a dependable supply of water to farmers
means California consumers can depend on a variety of safe, healthy and
affordable food products from local sources.
Restoring thousands of acres of
habitat for fish and providing a reliable supply of water so farmers can grow
crops are benefits that do not exist today.
Water Supply
From: Valerie Gibbons, Visalia
Times-Delta
The ditches of the Tulare
Irrigation District haven't been dry at this time of year since 1990 - and
district managers don't think water will flow any time soon.
The water that usually flows out
to growers as far west as Corcoran and as far south as Delano was sold in
January to go to other irrigation districts throughout the Valley.
From: Eric Vodden, Marysville
Appeal-Democrat
Curt Aikens: The National Marine
Fisheries Service has been focused on fish passage and has included the idea of
removing or modifying Englebright Dam. That could have a substantial,
socio-economic, environmental impact in our area. How can you help us work
with the fisheries service to do
a science-based collaborative process to improve fishery habitat in the Yuba
River?
Garamendi: National Marine
Fisheries was pushed by a court order to issue a biological opinion "far
faster than was appropriate.
"The result was a bad
opinion."
Farming
From: Todd Fitchette, Western
Farm Press
For the Maddox family, early
innovation has been something of a trademark for their farming operation.
Whether it has been the innovations in the dairy breeding program for Holstein
cows to those which support the dairy, new programs and efficiencies remain a
vital part of the business.
Last October Maddox began the
move away from the typical and into a practice of utilizing subsurface drip
irrigation (SSDI) in the alfalfa and Maddox is happy. The yields speak for
themself.
From: Antoine Abou-Diwan,
Imperial Valley Press
There is no shortage of Imperial
Valley farmers who oppose the Quantification Settlement Agreement, the nation's
largest agriculture to urban-area water transfer.
Many have challenged its validity
in court over the last 10 years. Brawley farmer Mark Osterkamp is one.
And while the court recently
upheld the validity of the agreement after 10 years of lawsuits, accusations
and bitter rhetoric, Osterkamp came to realize some time before that the water
conservation measures at the heart of the transfer are an opportunity for
farmers like him.
Water Bond
From: Ellen Hanak, Sacramento
Bee
In recent weeks, work has begun
in earnest in the Capitol to revamp the water bond that will go before
California voters in November 2014. Everyone seems to agree that the new bond
needs to be smaller than the $11 billion bond currently slated for that ballot,
which polling suggests is more than the voters are likely to approve. But
agreeing on what the new bond should include is proving harder. Our advice?
This is an opportunity to put California on a more sustainable water funding
diet - with a balanced portfolio that relies less on periodic injections of
general-fund-backed debt.
Delta
From: Alex Breitler, Stockton
Record
In the age of Google Earth and
GPS, century-old hand-drawn maps of the Delta would seem irrelevant.
Not so.
In fact, recent state actions in
the Delta had so many lawyers and engineers rifling through documents at the
San Joaquin County Historical Society and Museum that now officials there have
put some of that material online.
From: Alex Breitler, Stockton
Record
Legislation that would have
forced water agencies to reduce their reliance on the fragile Delta - or risk
losing out on state funding - has been significantly weakened.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Susan Meeker, Glenn
County Transcript
Water wars are expensive and most
often fruitless, but U.S. Rep. John Garamendi said he is willing to throw down
the gauntlet to stop the governor's plan to build two underground tunnels that
have the potential to suck the Sacramento River dry.
Salton Sea
From: Kim Delfino, Desert Sun
Right now, the California
Legislature is discussing the next statewide water bond. Key issues are being
decided: How much money should California spend to provide safe and reliable
drinking water for people and healthy aquatic ecosystems for fish and wildlife?
Toward what activities should the state direct the bond funding?
Fracking
From: Editorial Staff,
Bakersfield Californian
Three out of four Californians
surveyed in "key legislative districts" said they fear hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, a technique used to extract oil from hard-to-reach
areas, such as the Monterey Shale, could pollute the state's ground water.
The polling data released last
week by the Natural Resources Defense Council might have some meaning if
popularity contests were used to set public policy. But we are talking about
regulating an industry with the potential of creating thousands of jobs and
bolstering the state's economy.
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