From: Staff, San Jose Mercury
News
California Sen. Dianne
Feinstein's willingness to do Big Ag's bidding at the expense of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is increasingly alarming. Last week she
released a revised drought bill that has environmentalists up and down the
state fuming -- with good reason.
Feinstein stripped out the best
part of her original legislation: $300 million for conservation and efficiency
measures and aid to low-income farmworkers hurt by the drought. She admits she
did it to attract Republican support. It raises the question of how far she is
willing to go to maximize the amount of water sent from the Delta to Central
Valley farmers, even if it causes catastrophic harm to the estuary.
Coalition response... One thing should be clear, this bill is intended to help real people
who struggle to make their home payments, worry about their children's futures
and try to make ends meet through agriculture in California.
It is about the almost 4,000
family farms that receive water that flows through the Delta to sustain one of
California's most important food-growing regions. It is also about trucking,
processing, wholesale, retail and port jobs that all depend on the food
produced by hardworking California farmers. It is about the millions of
consumers who benefit from the low food costs that investments in efficient
agricultural production brings.
California's almond production
supports many thousands of jobs in transportation, processing, retail,
wholesale and high-paying port jobs. Years ago people complained that crops
like cotton and alfalfa used too much water and that farmers should grow higher
value crops. The value of California farm production has risen enormously while
applied water on our farms has declined by 14 percent, according to the
Department of Water Resources. It is mystifying how anyone can refer to that as
a "dirty little secret." The fact is, farmers grow crops that they
can sell. It makes little sense to plant a crop to supply a market that doesn't
exist. And we still provide roughly half of the nation's fresh fruits and
vegetables, much of it from high-producing farms in the San Joaquin Valley.
The Santa Clara Valley's efforts
to restore groundwater are to be commended. But the recovery wouldn't have
been, or continue to be, possible without imported water supplies from
the Delta to fill the gap in local supplies versus demands. Like
Silicon Valley, much of California relies on imported water to provide a
quality of life and vibrant economy that is the envy of the Nation, but when
it's not serving those in its backyard, the Mercury calls it a water grab.
Let's stick to the facts, and not
promote baseless regional conflict. This is too important to have a
"Beat L.A." bumper sticker mentality. The Mercury needs to recognize
that the state is facing many challenges in having to repurpose a system that
reallocated water for environmental uses that were simply not part of its
original design. Senator Feinstein should be applauded for her leadership
on behalf of the entire state and its environment, rather than being falsely
and cynically accused of "pandering".
Drought
From: Kirk Siegler, NPR
On a recent afternoon on the main
drag of Orange Grove, Calif., about a dozen farm workers gathered on the
sidewalk in front of a mini-mart.
One man sits on a milk crate
sipping a beer. A few others scratch some lotto tickets. Salvador Perez paces
back and forth with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.
If there is no water, there's no
work, he says in Spanish.
From: Antoine Abou-Diwan,
Imperial Valley Press
On a recent afternoon on the main
drag of Orange Grove, Calif., about a dozen farm workers gathered on the
sidewalk in front of a mini-mart.
One man sits on a milk crate sipping
a beer. A few others scratch some lotto tickets. Salvador Perez paces back and
forth with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.
If there is no water, there's no
work, he says in Spanish.
Water Supply
From: Thomas Elias, Salinas
Californian
The next front in California's
long-running water wars has already opened, and the reasons for it will
sometimes be hard to see - but not always.
That next fight is over ground
water, source of about 35 percent of the state's fresh water in normal years and
a much higher percentage in dry ones like 2014. This battle has the potential
to become far more bitter than even the quarrels over how to distribute water
from the Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems.
From: Lisa Lien-Mager, ACWA
The Sierra snowpack is now just
18% of average, down from a seasonal high of 35% on April 7. According to
snowpack data tracked by the California Data Exchange Center, some areas -
including the Northern Sierra - lost half of the snow water content in a single
week, largely due to unusually high temperatures in the West. In California,
temperatures were 9-12 degrees above normal, according to the U.S. Drought
Monitor.
From: David Keller, New York
Times
"Swim to Sea? These Salmon Are Catching a Lift"
(front page, April 19) is one facet of an incredibly sad story.
Over the past 166 years, since
California's Gold Rush first destroyed rivers en masse in the quest for gold
and silver, we have continued to decimate our rivers and groundwater for our
growing population and agriculture, including all the Public Trust resources
that had thrived with them.
We have altered our geography,
hydrology and geology, frequently depleting our water, soils, air and local
economies.
Fisheries
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
Water flows in the American River
are scheduled to increase through the Sacramento region starting tonight to
help salmon and steelhead.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation,
which operates Folsom and Nimbus dams on the river, will maintain the increased
flow for three days to help juvenile steelhead and Chinook salmon migrate
downstream, and to help improve in-river conditions for young steelhead.
Groundwater
From: Craig Miller, KQED
We hear a great deal about
California's reliance on its "frozen reservoir," a reference to the
(currently anemic) Sierra snowpack. We hear a lot less about the Golden State's
invisible reservoir, the water that resides in underground aquifers beneath our
feet.
That's about to change. Today,
state Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) rolls out a trio of water conservation
bills, the centerpiece of which (SB 1168) is a frontal assault on the
management of California's groundwater, which, compared to other western
states, is almost unregulated.
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