Drought
From: Mark Bittman, New York
Times
The San Joaquin Valley in
California can be stunningly beautiful: On a visit two weeks ago, I saw
billions of pink almond blossoms peaking, with the Sierra Nevada towering over
all. It can also be a hideous place, the air choked with microparticles of
unpleasant origins (dried cow dung, sprayed chemicals, blowing over-fertilized
soil), its cities like Fresno and Bakersfield sprawling incoherently and its
small towns suffering from poverty, populated by immigrants from places as near
as Baja, Mexico, and as far as Punjab, India.
This year, much of its land is a
dull, dusty brown rather than the bright green that's "normal" here,
even if "normal" is more desire than reality. With water, this is the
best agricultural land in the world. Without it, not so much.
Coalition response...
Mark Bittman's effort to paint
California agriculture as an arcane and antiquated business is simply wrong.
Farmers have invested almost $3 billion installing upgraded irrigation systems on
2.4 million acres over the last 10 years. The amount people pay for water isn't
some arbitrary structure either. In California ALL water, is a public resource
and is free. The cost everyone pays for water - farms or city users - is
tied to the cost of delivery. An older irrigation district without any debt and
gravity delivery can deliver water very inexpensively. By the same token water
provided for human consumption must be treated to meet drinking water
standards, stored, pressurized and delivered to every tap 24 hours a day.
Simply put, that costs more.
Suggesting that there be a way
for the government or conservation advocates to determine what crops farmers
grow didn't work for the Soviets and it won't work in the United States.
Farmers make crop choices based on what people buy at the store. If there is a
market for artichokes a farmer will grow them. If people are buying
strawberries or broccoli you can be sure they'll be planted to supply the
demand. And maintaining peak production requires farmers to grow sustainably.
Bittman's suggestion that farmers rotate crops comes about 100 years late. It's
a common practice because today's farmers understand and practice wise soil
management.
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
In yet another sign of the severe
drought facing California, state water officials are planning to temporarily
dam three channels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to control salinity
intrusion from San Francisco Bay.
The California Department of
Water Resources is working to place the barriers as soon as May 1, if the
drought persists. The agency is scrambling to obtain the necessary permits and
notify property owners who could be affected.
From: Staff, San Jose Mercury
News
Secretary of the Interior Sally
Jewell toured a federal water storage and pumping plant in Byron today to get a
firsthand look at a key piece of California's water infrastructure as the state
grapples with a historic drought.
Jewell was accompanied by
California Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird and U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation Acting Commissioner Lowell Pimley during the afternoon tour of the
C.W. "Bill" Jones Pumping Plant.
From: Alex Breitler, Stockton
Record
President Barack Obama's lead
adviser on water and wildlife toured the enormous south Delta export pumps
Tuesday, examining the roaring, 22,500-horsepower pumps before cautioning that
no one would receive all the water they need this year.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior
Sally Jewell told reporters that state and federal governments will have to be
flexible to make the best use of a limited amount of water.
From: Dana Hull, San Jose
Mercury News
With 2013 the driest year on
record and 2014 possibly worse, the devastation of California's drought is
trickling down to crops, fields, farmers markets, grocery stores -- and the
kitchen table.
While it's too early to tell
precisely how much the drought will push up household grocery bills, economists
say consumers can expect to pay more for food later this year because fewer
acres of land are being planted and crop yields are shrinking.
Large grocery chains have
distribution networks and can import produce from around the world to keep
customers in everything from cantaloupe to cauliflower, but experts say
California's smaller yields will inevitably lead to higher consumer prices here
and elsewhere. Some consumers already are plotting ways to keep their food
budgets under control if there is a big spike in prices.
From: Rich Matteis, CFBF AgAlert
In the middle of a potential
catastrophe, it's hard to know just how bad the outcome is going to be. It's
like falling out of a plane: If the parachute opens, you're OK. If not ...
Right now, many California
farmers and ranchers feel like they're falling out of that plane and the
parachute isn't going to open. The severe California drought and the draconian
water shortages that have followed may portend disaster for many farmers and
those whose jobs directly or indirectly depend on agricultural production.
Groundwater
From: Amy Quinton, Capital
Public Radio
The Legislative Analyst's Office
told lawmakers that without comprehensive statewide regulation of groundwater,
management of the state's water supply will be increasingly difficult. The LAO
suggests the state require local water districts to phase in groundwater
permitting and keep track of how much water is extracted from all groundwater
wells.
Hydrologist Jay Famiglietti with
UC Irvine says in some places water will disappear in a matter of decades.
From: Dan Walters, Sacramento
Bee
A legislative committee kicked
around California's water dilemma the other day - not only its current drought
but its longer-term demand/supply imbalance.
At one point, Sen. Fran Pavley,
who chairs the Senate's water committee, raised a point that she's attempted to
bring into the perennial debate before, with little success - whether
underground water extraction should be closely regulated to curb overdrafting
and stave off collapse of land above depleted aquifers.
From: Ron Nixon, New York
Times
Water rarely flows in one of the
streambeds - it really seems to be little more than a small ditch - that Dean
Lemeke points out to a visitor on his 800-acre farm in Dows, Iowa.
"I wouldn't even call it a
stream," he said. "There is only water flow in it when it
rains."
Mr. Lemeke is a former Iowa state
government official who supervised water quality programs. He is also a
fifth-generation farmer who grows corn and soybeans on his acreage, about 75
miles north of Des Moines, and he has never worried that the government would
be concerned about that small ditch.
Water Supply
From: Damon Arthur, Redding
Record-Searchlight
The Anderson-Cottonwood
Irrigation District is meeting Thursday to begin trying to figure out how to
serve its customers with 60 percent less water.
District Manager Stan Wangberg
said he expects a large crowd at the first meeting of the board of directors
since the district found out it is only getting 40 percent of its water
allocation from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Water Storage
From: Tom McClintock, Fresno
Bee
President Barack Obama visited
the drought-stricken Central Valley of California in February to announce his
solution: another billion dollars to study "climate change."
Here's a bulletin for those who
missed the Holocene Epoch: the planet has been warming - on and off - since the
last ice age, when glaciers covered much of North America. The climate has been
changing since the planet formed, often much more abruptly than it has in
recent centuries.
Until the Earth begins moving
into its next ice age, we can reasonably expect it will continue to gently
warm. That means less water can be stored in snowpacks and therefore more will
need to be stored behind dams.
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