Conservation
From: Todd Fichette, Western
Farm Press
Conservation. It's been a big
buzzword over the years, and for good reasons. Conserving energy in locations
where utility companies charge out the wazoo for power makes good economic
sense.
Conserving natural resources is
certainly good for wildlife and the host of agricultural uses that compete for
land space. Conserving water: well, that's just for farmers!
A University of California, Davis
professor said as much recently as growers gathered on California's Central
Coast to learn about new technologies available and in the pipeline the help
growers conserve water. While the professor was being somewhat sarcastic, what
he said still rings true: urban residents have not been asked to conserve water
as agriculture has been forced to conserve. Even more succinctly, urban water
users continue to waste more water than agriculture ever will.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Paul Granillo, San
Bernardino Sun
More than half of the water that
sustains the Inland Empire economy comes from somewhere else, traveling great
distances through tunnels and pipelines from the Colorado River and Northern
California's Sierra Nevada. Every drop of water in the region's largest
reservoir, Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County, comes from the Sierra.
Water is too often taken for
granted. But reliability does not just happen. It comes through making the
right investments at the right times. Today, the system of delivery is in
jeopardy.
Groundwater
From: Alex Breitler,
esanjoaquin
We learned last month that a
long-planned reservoir in east San Joaquin County may no longer be worth
building, in part because groundwater levels have stabilized, which raises
questions about the need for that half-a-billion-dollar project. (Actually, the
way the experts are describing it is that groundwater has reached
"equilibrium," which is basically the same thing as saying it's
"stable.")
From: Jono Kinkade, New Times
Agriculturalists representing
farmers who work above the stressed Paso Robles Groundwater Basin have
continued towing the boat they say will take overliers to safety amid concerns
over falling well levels.
The Paso Robles Agricultural
Alliance for Groundwater Solutions (PRAAGS) presented its goal to form a
California Water District to a crowd of roughly 300 people, who filled a large
ballroom at the Paso Robles Inn on Nov. 13. Board members of the group-all
involved in some aspect of the viticulture industry-presented the details and
the process for the district's formation.
From: J.N. Sbranti, Modesto
Bee
There's seems to be a run on
water-well permits in Stanislaus County.
About 60 well permits were
requested during the first four weeks of October. That's 3½ times normal.
"They're predominately for
agriculture and on the east side of the county," said Jami Aggers,
Stanislaus' director of environmental resources. Her office typically gets
about 17 well permit requests per month, she said, acknowledging the sudden
increase.
No comments:
Post a Comment