Groundwater
From: J.N. Sbranti, Modesto
Bee
After two dry winters and
increased demand for groundwater, a smattering of residential wells have come
up empty this year in the Turlock Groundwater Basin.
And now that new pumps are
irrigating literally millions of Stanislaus County almond trees with groundwater,
concerns are rising about whether there's enough water to go around.
Michael Cooke, Turlock's
municipal services director, outlined the groundwater situation last month in a
presentation before the Agricultural Advisory Committee to the Stanislaus
County Board of Supervisors.
Coalition response...One element of the equation that was left out of this article is the
changing priority in California over environmental water. More than 3 million
acre-feet of water that once served farms, homes and businesses have been
"re-prioritized" each year for environmental purposes. Unfortunately,
unlike urban and agricultural public water agencies, environmental uses are not
required to meet any sort of efficiency standards. Taxpayers should be concerned
that public funds and water resources used for environmental restoration
activities may not return the value to the state that they expect. Absent
efficiency standards, even the most rudimentary ones, a tremendous amount of
water and money can be wasted with no accountability.
As the State Water Resources
Control Board considers new flow standards on the Tuolumne River, farmers in
the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation districts, and others, stand to lose almost
one-third of the surface water that they currently depend on to irrigate their
crops. Any benefits that water will have for the environment are undetermined.
Environmental water use efficiency standards are long overdue.
From: Garth Stapley, Modesto
Bee
Five friends calling themselves
the Eastside Groundwater Coalition will stage an open meeting Monday in Oakdale
to discuss dwindling underground water.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: John Laird, Desert Sun
After snowmelt cascades out of
the mountains in the northern part of California, it enters the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta, where part of the water is then redirected to 25 million
people and millions of acres of farmland across the state.
The Coachella Valley lies nearly
500 miles south of the Delta, yet it is this water supply that is relied upon
to replenish the region's natural underground water storage, or aquifer. As
mentioned in a recent editorial ("Our Voice: Valley aquifer disaster is
under our feet") that Delta water is "traded" for Colorado River
water because there is no cost-effective way to move water from the Delta all
the way to your community.
Rivers
From: Bettina Boxall, LA
Times
Stocks of spring-run Chinook
salmon would be raised just below the San Joaquin River dam that wiped out
their ancestors as part of an ambitious restoration program.
Fisheries
From: Andrew Creasey,
Marysville Appeal-Democrat
Whether heading to the ocean to
start their lives, or returning to their spawning pools to end them, fish
swimming past Yuba City are now a little safer.
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