Water Supply
Already struggling
with short water supplies in 2013, farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley have been warned that next year could be worse.
That's the
assessment of Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Fresno-based Westlands
Water District, which buys water from the federal Central Valley Project.
Growers this year are receiving a 20 percent allocation and, unless there is a
very wet winter ahead, Birmingham said the initial CVP allocation next spring
could be zero.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Mark
Grossi, Modesto Bee
(This article
previously appeared in the Fresno Bee.)
After hearing the
state's top water leader talk about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan last week,
I went online to check some of his facts.
I crashed my
computer trying to download a lot of files. So let's just go straight to the
talk last week at The Fresno Bee editorial board meeting, which broke little
news.
Transfers
From: Garth
Stapley, Modesto Bee
It's nice to make
some money while helping a close relative, Modesto Irrigation District leaders
said Tuesday as they put final touches on a short-term deal to sell water to
the Turlock Irrigation District.
It would be even
nicer to have in place formal water-sale guidelines, some said, that might ease
the rancor that accompanied a previous proposal to shop water to San Francisco.
Salton Sea
From: Alejandro
Davila, Imperial Valley Press
Concerns over Imperial
Irrigation District procurement practices were raised Tuesday as two public
relations firms were hired by the Board of Directors to work on matters related
to the Quantification Settlement Agreement and the Salton Sea.
Colorado River
From: Sandra
Postel, National Geographic
The history of
water, especially in the western United States, is largely one of reaching
further out to distant water sources as population grows and local supplies get
tight.
But five southern
California cities that today rely heavily on water transferred hundreds of
miles from the Colorado River and the San Francisco Bay-Delta are reversing
this trend: they aim to cut their dependence on long-distance water imports by
ramping up conservation, recycling and reliance on local supplies.
From: Bob
Berwyn, Summit County Citizens Voice
Projections of
future flows in the Colorado River have been all over the map, ranging from a 6
percent reduction in flows all the way up to a 45 percent drop.
Getting a better
handle on that number is critical for water managers from Colorado to
California, but fine-tuning models to address global warming impacts on the
scale of a single river basin is a big challenge.
Farming
From: Laura van
der Meer, Marysville Appeal-Democrat
The PVC pipes and
drip lines have arrived, and prune farmer Raghbir Atwal is looking forward to
having 40 more acres of his Yuba City orchards converted to a micro-irrigation
system.
"I have not
seen any drawbacks on this system," said Atwal, who has been farming since
1971. "I'm very happy."
Political Campaign
From: Andy
Vidak, Bakersfield Californian
Water is the
lifeblood of our Central Valley, and whoever wins this election will be
representing over 900,000 people in Kern, Kings, Fresno and Tulare counties on
this vital issue.
The economy in our
Valley is driven by agriculture and that means we must have water. You don't
need to drive a tractor to depend on agriculture for your livelihood. People
who work in banks, stores, restaurants and other types of businesses rely on
farming to buy their goods and services. Governments depend on the sales taxes
from these transactions as well as the income and property taxes of farmers for
a significant part of their revenue as well.
From: Leticia
Perez, Bakersfield Californian
No region in
California has been impacted more by our state's broken water system than the
Central Valley. The lack of water has left thousands of acres of farmland
fallow and people unemployed, causing economic hardship and putting futures at
risk.
Fortunately, Gov.
Jerry Brown's Bay Delta Conservation Plan and the 2014 Water Bond provide
immediate and viable solutions to keep the breadbasket to the world going and
growing.
