Drought
From: Mark Grossi, Fresno
Bee
Mendota Mayor Robert Silva Friday
said food lines already have begun in his west Fresno County city -- where he
predicts the jobless rate will hit 50% among the largely Latino farmworker
residents.
"The line was a block long
today," Silva said. "This is going to be tragic this summer. This is
going to be ugly. We need water released from the dams for farming now."
From: Collin Bettles, Farm
Weekly (Australia)
California is suffering one of
its worst ever droughts and if it continues, social and economic dislocation is
set to increase for rural communities. The US's biggest agricultural-production
State is enduring its third consecutive drought year, with expectations
farm-related income will be cut significantly.
The California Farm Water
Coalition recently estimated that 800,000 acres (324,000 hectares) of the
State's farm land would be idle in 2014, sparking about $2.7 billion in crop
losses.
From: Staff, Porterville
Recorder
No water diversions from Tule.
Surveyors up and down the Sierra mountains, including those in Sequoia National
Forest, found little or no snow on Thursday.
Joshua Courter, hydrologist with
Sequoia National Forest, said for the second consecutive year, no snow was
found at Quaking Aspen at 7,000 feet elevation above Springville. No, or little
snow was the theme across the Sierra. State water managers said California's
snowpack is at 18 percent of average for the date, adding surveyors fund more
bare ground than snow Thursday.
From: Laith Agha, Marin
Independent Journal
The impacts of California's worst
drought in recorded history are hard to avoid. Water bills go up, lawns go
brown, and gray water goes trendy.
The squeeze on water use in times
like this can be especially tight for Marin County's most prevalent employers.
Water Supply
From: John Lindt, VIsalia
Times Delta
Instead of water from Millerton
Lake flowing south down the Friant Kern Canal to irrigate farms in Tulare
County, water from the dam may be released down the river to wet fields in the
Los Banos area as soon as next week.
With no word out of the federal
Bureau of Reclamation on increasing the water allotment to the San Joaquin
River Exchange Contractors, that group's executive director Steve Chedester
says they are poised to "make a call" on river water to be released
from Friant Dam next week. The Exchange Contractors have priority on San
Joaquin River water unless the bureau supplies them with an alternative as they
always have until this year's drought. The contractors are guaranteed 75 percent
of their contract supply, even in a dry year.
From: Jonathan Hoff, Modesto
Bee
Why is it that The Bee has not
run an article that discusses the massive amounts of water being released
through our rivers over the last two weeks? Instead, The Bee focuses on
pressure placed on groundwater supplies by growers of permanent crops
(almonds). When surface water is released from reservoirs to the ocean, and not
transferred onto farms, farmers have no choice but to rely on water pumped from
the ground.
Levees
From: Andrew Creasey,
Marysville Appeal-Democrat
The weakest link of the south
Sutter County levee system will be getting some much-needed repairs. Property
owners in Reclamation District 1001 voted in favor of a tax assessment that
will generate about $300,000 for the district, which has been in dire financial
straits.
The funds will help the district
repair three sections of its levees that the Department of Water Resources
labeled as "critical." The revenue will also allow the district to
take advantage of a Flood System Repair program from the DWR that offers an 85
percent match on capital projects.
Sacramento River
From: John Coleman & Andy
Katz, Contra Costa Times
Our state is in the midst of a
relentless drought. But after a winter of dismal precipitation, the water
supply prospects of the 1.3 million East Bay Municipal Utility District
customers are in far better shape than during the last drought.
That's thanks to the Freeport
Regional Water Facility, the crucial investment our generation of ratepayers
has made in water supply reliability.
Colorado River
From: Henry Brean, Las Vegas
Review-Journal
Farmers, cities and power plant
operators could soon be paid to cut their use of the Colorado River under a new
interstate program aimed at keeping more water in Lake Mead and Lake Powell.
The four largest communities fed
by the Colorado plan to pour millions of dollars into a fund to help farmers
and industrial operations pay for efficiency improvements and conservation
measures to cut their river water use.
Farming News
From: J.N. Sbranti, Modesto
Bee
Stanislaus, Merced and San
Joaquin counties rank near the top in agricultural sales for the United States,
but the just-released 2012 Census of Agriculture shows this region's crops have
shifted dramatically.
It's nuts. Literally.
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