Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Dennis Wyatt, Manteca
Bulletin
(A subscription may be required
to read the following article.)
Los Angeles, in its present form,
should not exist.
Neither should much of the Bay
Area or most of the San Joaquin Valley.
The planet's most productive farm
region and arguably two of the world's top metro areas exist because of a bunch
of concrete and piled up dirt.
The Delta left in its natural
state would go from massive floodplain to trickles of water flowing to the sea
with the change of the seasons. It's transformation by the compacting of dirt
as levees helped create fertile farmland that made the state wealthier beyond
any gold mined from the Sierra.
Coalition response...The State and federal water supply projects significantly aided in the
advancements to California's economy and a way of life sought by many, as
indicated in the opening paragraphs by the author. Decades after these projects
became operational, the Endangered Species Act was approved by the federal
government and has threatened what had once been a reliable water supply.
ESA regulations have taken water
away from farmers and 25 million Californians for the protection of endangered
fish in the Delta. Federal officials have failed to provide proof that these
actions are helping the fish. Combined with drought conditions, these
regulations have forced hundreds of thousands of acres to be unplanted and
thousands of workers to lose their jobs. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan and
its tunnels provide a solution to reduce the ESA effects on California's water supply
by sending the allowed amount of water through the tunnels instead of pushing
fish toward the pumps.
The author's suggestions that
include south Delta tunnels, levee improvements and new south of Delta
reservoirs are good ideas but they do not resolve the threat to endangered
fish.
Years of study by scientists,
biologists and researchers have gone into the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. It
is the best option to provide a secure water future for California.
Groundwater
From: J.N. Sbranti, Modesto
Bee
(A subscription may be required
to read the following article.)
San Joaquin Valley's groundwater
is being depleted at an alarming rate and something needs to be done before
it's too late, state officials were warned last week.
Here's a scary statistic:
Groundwater reserves are shrinking by 800billion gallons per year in the
Central Valley.
Coalition response...San Joaquin Valley farmers and water officials recognized the amount of
water being pumped from aquifers in the early 1900s as land subsidence was
occurring. One of the benefits of the federal and State water projects was to
provide a surface supply of water that would curtail the need to pump
groundwater at unsustainable levels. Today's surface supply has been negatively
impacted by Environmental Species Act regulations and drought conditions.
Consequently, farmers have been forced to increase pumping from the aquifer to
maintain farm production and associated jobs and local economic benefits.
One avenue of reducing the
reliance on groundwater would be to restore the water lost due to unproven
regulations.
Water Supply
From: Hentges/Kahn/Strauss,
LLC and The Lempert Report, The Food Journal
Farmers in California are
struggling with the impact of water costs on their land. The only farmers not
affected are north of Sacramento due to long standing riparian rights with
access to free water from the biggest river in the state and the biggest
precipitation area. While breaking down the cause of the rise of the price of
water is a complex task, it can be universally agreed that water insecurity
leads to higher costs.
From: Vicky Boyd, The Grower
Faced with increasingly dry
conditions, California growers are having to make tough decisions about
upcoming planting plans and irrigation management.
Those are the results of a survey
of pest control advisers attending the recent California Association of Pest
Control Advisers annual conference in Reno, Nev. The survey was sponsored by
DuPont Crop Protection.
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
(A subscription may be required
to read the following article.)
As California concludes a second
drought year and water managers hope eagerly to avoid a third, utilities across
the state are poised for that first mass of pillowy gray clouds to drift ashore
from the Pacific Ocean.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Terry Erlewine,
Sacramento Bee
(A subscription may be required
to read the following article.)
Yes, Peter Gleick is confused.
But in an op-ed, with the online headline "Why I'm still confused about
the proposed tunnels in the Delta" (Viewpoints, Nov. 6), whether he meant
to or not, he misled readers about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan - the
state's proposed solution to the ongoing water system/ecosystem crisis in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
From: Richard Stapler,
Sacramento Bee
(A subscription may be required
to read the following article.)
Re "Delta project has many
answered questions" (Viewpoints, Nov. 6): We want to clarify that the
state will release draft -- not final -- Bay Delta Conservation Plan
environmental documents on Dec. 13, showing a project that meets mandated
co-equal goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem restoration and that
addresses the threat of sea level rise caused by climate change.
Delta
From: Lois Kazakoff, SF
Chronicle
(A subscription may be required
to read the following article.)
The California delta is a major
water source for 25 million Californians and agriculture, a rich farmland and a
political battleground. It's also unknown territory to most Californians.
A poll conducted early last year
by a water education group found that 78 percent of Californians "did not
know what the delta is or hadn't heard of it." Yet its future is tied with
California's.
California Water
Action Plan
From: Andrew Creasey,
Marysville Appeal-Democrat
Potential water conservation
requirements on agriculture would be a "non-starter" to implement the
draft California Water Action Plan, one Sutter County official said on Friday.
The plan, which outlines goals to
curb California water woes, may call for reductions in water use in
agricultural areas to slake the thirst of Southern California and provide
stability for environmental concerns in the Delta, said Sutter County
Supervisor James Gallagher.
From: Editorial Staff,
Marysville Appeal-Democrat
We admit right up front we don't
yet know enough about the specifics of the draft California Water Action Plan.
In fact, we know just enough to be worried.
Water of course is a big issue
everywhere, and nowhere more than here ... unless you talk to members of
California's majority demographic - those living in metropolitan areas. The
issues of water availability for rural areas and specifically for agriculture
probably aren't going to rise to the top of most Californians' consciousness.
Reservoirs
From: Amy Quinton, Valley Public Radio
From: Amy Quinton, Capital Public Radio
Six key reservoirs of the federal
Central Valley Project are at the lowest levels since 2009, when the state was
officially in a drought. As Amy Quinton reports from Sacramento, some farmers
are expecting zero-percent water allocations in 2014.
Gayle Holman with the Westlands
Water District says it's telling farmers to be prepared for zero-percent
allocations in 2014.
"We are looking at over
200,000 to 250,000 acres probably going unplanted, which means a huge loss of
economic value, revenue that would come into not only the region but the
state," says Holman.
From: Sabrina Ambler, MyMotherLode.com
The Bureau of Reclamation's
Central Valley Project released new numbers for area Reservoirs. They note that
California's historically low precipitation in 2013, meant minimal reservoir
inflows and early reservoir releases to manage the Delta's salinity. The
Central Valley Project (CVP) states, "January through May 2013 were
California's driest in about 90 years of recordkeeping."
San Joaquin River
From: Editorial Staff,
Stockton Record
The San Joaquin River has been troubled
in many ways over the past couple of decades, particularly as it meanders
toward Stockton.
A purchase last week should help
matters.
Meetings
From: Antoine Abou-Diwan,
Imperial Valley Press
The Imperial Valley Economic
Development Corporation is hosting a forum on local and regional water issues
Thursday at the Barbara Worth Resort & Country Club.
Many regional water issues boil
down to water reliability. Colorado River water users are grappling with the
effects of 14 consecutive years of drought.
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