Water Supply
From: Tom McClintock, Wall
Street Journal
One of the worst droughts in
California's history has devastated more than a half-million acres of the most
fertile farmland in America. In communities like Sacramento, "water police"
go from door to door to enforce conservation measures. There's even a mobile
"app" to report neighbors to city authorities so they can be fined
for wasting water.
From: Carolyn Lochhead, San
Francisco Chronicle
Wielding two decades of Senate
experience and sheer force of will, Sen. Dianne Feinstein overcame
environmentalists' objections and Republicans' skepticism in pushing through a
drought-relief bill that could ship more water to farms and cities and weaken
protections for fish.
Now comes the hard part - cutting
a deal with House Republicans who have far more ambitious plans for getting
water to the Central Valley.
From: Kimery Wiltshire, Contra
Costa Times
The news that 100 percent of our
state is in drought has created another flurry of stories that unfortunately
focus on the old California water bugaboos: it's all about north vs. south, and
it's all about farmers vs. fish. But these old battle lines are a divisive
construct.
Water players go to their
respective corners, yelling at each other across the ring, and leaving the rest
of us worried and frustrated -- can't someone get something done for once? For
a state as blessed as California with innovation, technology and riches of all
kinds, there are climate-smart solutions to address our shared water challenges.
Water Rights
Note: The following
three articles on California water rights issues by AP's Jason Dearen were
released this weekend.
From: Jason Dearen, Associated
Press
Call them the fortunate ones:
Nearly 4,000 California companies, farms and others are allowed to use free
water with little oversight when the state is so bone dry that deliveries to
nearly everyone else have been severely slashed.
Their special status dates back
to claims made more than a century ago when water was plentiful. But in the
third year of a drought that has ravaged California, these "senior rights
holders" dominated by corporations and agricultural concerns are not
obliged to conserve water.
From: Jason Dearen, Associated
Press
Nearly 4,000 corporations, farms
and others hold senior water rights in California, exempting them from
government-mandated cuts in water use during the third year of drought. Here is
a look at five of them, along with how they obtained the right to draw water
from waterways and how they use it:
In a Sierra Nevada hamlet of
Moccasin near Yosemite National Park, San Francisco's official seal adorns Art
Deco-style buildings facing a hydroelectric plant and reservoir. Though located
140 miles east of the city, the plant is run by its employees.
From: Jason Dearen, Associated
Press
California's drought-ravaged
reservoirs are running so low that state water deliveries to metropolitan areas
have all but stopped, and cutbacks are forcing growers to fallow fields. But
19th century laws allow almost 4,000 companies, farms and others to use an
unmonitored amount of water for free -- and, in some cases, sell what they
don't need.
With grandfathered legal rights,
this group, dominated by big corporations and agricultural concerns, reports
using trillions of gallons of water each year, according to a review by The
Associated Press. Together, they have more than half of all claims on waterways
in California.
Water Transfers
From: J.N. Sbranti, Modesto
Bee
Like that old saying about
"one man's trash being another man's treasure," wastewater is
becoming a coveted commodity. It's called recycled water now, and Modesto and
Turlock need to get rid of it. West Side farmers in the Del Puerto Water
District, meanwhile, are desperate to use it to irrigate their crops. And
apparently they're willing to bankroll the $100 million cost to pipe the
treated water over to their side of Stanislaus County.
The drought is only partly to
blame for the ramped-up interest in reusing wastewater, which previously had
been flushed from toilets and drained down sinks.
From: Mariel Garza, Modesto
Bee
If you want to put a human face
on California's epic drought, Ken Tucker's will do. The Central Valley farmer
has 400 acres of thirsty almond trees that are in real danger of dying. Tucker
stood before the Merced County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday pleading with
the five officials and his fellow farmers not to try to stop a controversial
water transfer deal that will ship groundwater from Merced County across the
county line north to farmers in Stanislaus County's Del Puerto Water District.
Groundwater
From: Staff, Modesto Bee
For the 75 people who showed up
in Oakdale on Wednesday night to hear about groundwater, there was plenty of
information but no real answers. They learned from Stanislaus County water
resources manager Walt Ward that roughly 62,000 acres of eastern Stanislaus
County land is being farmed using groundwater. Almost half of that is in
almonds.
From: Alex Breitler, Stockton
Record
Nothing screams
"drought" like the sight of a near-empty reservoir. But it's the
invisible, ancient reservoir beneath our feet that is bubbling to the surface
of policy discussions across the state this spring. The drought has created new
momentum to accomplish something that has been discussed, off and on, for 40
years: Regulate groundwater.
California is the only state in
the West that does not regulate groundwater at the state level, despite the
fact that 40 percent of the state's water supply comes from below ground - a
number that may climb as high as 65 percent during this drought year.
From: Dennis Taylor, Salinas
Californian
As the drought continues to
punish the Central Coast, and cities to the north are introducing restrictions
on excess water use, the Salinas Valley for the most part is doing business as
usual.
The oft heard reason for
unfettered pumping, "We have plenty of groundwater," is true, but
conditional. Yes, we do have plenty of groundwater in the Salinas Valley basin,
right now, if we are OK with letting increasing salinity tarnish wells,
allowing concentrations of nitrites and other unhealthy compounds build up in
higher concentrations as water levels decline, and drawing down the two
reservoirs supplying the Salinas River to levels that should all have us
praying we get an abundance of rainfall this winter.
Press Releases
From: Staff, CDFA
The California State Board of Food
and Agriculture will focus on issues related to agricultural groundwater use at
its meeting on Tuesday, June 3rd in Sacramento. This meeting will be held from
10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the California Department of Food and Agriculture,
1220 'N' Street - Main Auditorium, Sacramento, CA 95814.
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