Water Supply
From: Staff, New York Times
California is in the third year
of its worst drought in decades. But you wouldn't know it by looking at how
much water the state's residents and businesses are using. According to a
recent state survey, Californians cut the amount of water they used in the
first five months of the year by just 5 percent, far short of the 20 percent
reduction Gov. Jerry Brown called for in January. In some parts of the state,
like the San Diego area, water use has actually increased from 2013.
Coalition response... A persistent myth repeated in this opinion is that 80% of California's
water is used to grow food and fiber. This is wrong. California's Department of
Water Resources reports that water use is quite different from this claim. The State
reports that, in fact only about 41% of water is used to grow food and fiber,
approximately 10% goes to drive commerce and be used in homes, while 49% goes
to the environment.
Despite the repeated claims of
the environmental interest groups Pacific Institute and NRDC, who have sought
for years to sell the public a false message of vast agricultural water waste,
their estimates of water that can be conserved were soundly dismissed by
leading university researchers in 2009 and 2011 as grossly overstated.
While the installation of
precision irrigation methods gives better control over when water is applied,
research shows that the volume of water used often increases with the use of
technologies such as drip. This increased use translates to greater productivity
per plant, better plant health, and higher quality food for us to enjoy. Flood
irrigation, often maligned, often proves a very efficient method of irrigating,
particularly when coupled with laser leveling of fields, and usually require
less energy to operate than drip systems.
Water Supply
From: Thomas Del Beccaro,
Forbes
California is in the midst of one
of its many droughts. To combat the current drought, the otherwise
do-nothings of the California Water Resources Board are proposing to fine
citizens they call "water hogs" $500 per day. Instead of fining
helpless consumers, California's government should do its job for once and
seriously increase water supplies.
It is well known that California
is the most populated state in the Union, with more than 38 million
people. Its population was just under 20 million in 1970, when the bulk
of its current water storage and delivery systems were already built. In
other words, the California governments have done very little to significantly
increase water supplies in over 40 years, even though its population has
doubled during that period of time.
From: Vicky Boyd, The Packer
Every now and then - and
particularly during a drought - some group issues a report that says if only
California agriculture would conserve a little more, all of the state's water
woes would be solved.
But Mike Wade, executive director
of the Sacramento-based California Farm Water Coalition, takes exception to
that. "Conservation and recycling are important, but we can't conserve our
way out of the existing situation with the current demands," he said.
Drought
From: Staff, San Jose Mercury
News
The California State Water
Resources Control Board will decide next week whether to impose mandatory
limits on urban water use and slap violators with fines of up to $500 a day.
This begs two questions:
1) What took it so long?
2) Why aren't agricultural water
users, who gulp 80 percent of California's usable supply, getting the same
attention?
From: Staff, Modesto Bee
We hope the State Water Resources
Control Board affirms all the staff recommendations for emergency urban water
cutbacks outlined Wednesday - restrictions and fines on excessive landscape
watering, running hoses and rinsing off sidewalks. Such rules are reasonable
and doable.
Delta
From: Alex Breitler, Stockton
Record
Stockton is fighting a new
wastewater permit that the city says could cost its ratepayers anywhere from
$195 million to $252 million and increase rates by perhaps 80 percent.
A formal appeal was filed this
week with the State Water Resources Control Board. A lower board approved the
permit last month, pushing aside the city's argument that in this case, the
benefits of stricter pollution standards did not justify the cost.
San Joaquin River
From: John Sutter, CNN
After three weeks and about 400
miles, I finished my kayaking (and walking) journey down the "most
endangered" river in America: California's San Joaquin. This page collects
the tweets from my adventure. The journey started way up in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and ended beneath the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on July 4.
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