Drought
From: Justin Gillis, New York
Times
In delivering aid to
drought-stricken California last week, President Obama and his aides cited the
state as an example of what could be in store for much of the rest of the country
as human-caused climate change intensifies.
But in doing so, they were
pushing at the boundaries of scientific knowledge about the relationship
between climate change and drought. While a trend of increasing drought that
may be linked to global warming has been documented in some regions, including
parts of the Mediterranean and in the Southwestern United States, there is no
scientific consensus yet that it is a worldwide phenomenon. Nor is there
definitive evidence that it is causing California's problems.
From: Staff, Modesto Bee
With more than three-quarters of
the state suffering extreme to exceptional drought, old, unhealthy disputes are
resurfacing.
House Republicans, led by members
from the southern San Joaquin Valley, passed a bill last week that amounts to a
water grab for farmers in the south Valley. Senators Dianne Feinstein and
Barbara Boxer have introduced a more reasonable bill that can be debated and
amended to meet the needs of the entire state.
From: Thaddeus Miller, Modesto
Bee
President Barack Obama's visit to
the Westside was met with both excitement and skepticism from officials and
residents here on Friday.
News had spread that the
president would visit the farm of Joe Del Bosque, which straddles Merced and
Fresno counties, on Friday afternoon. During his visit, the president also
trumpeted his administration's efforts to bring relief for the region's most
severe drought in 40 years.
From: Staff, The Food Journal
While the joint statement from
Secretaries Tom Vilsack (Agriculture), Sally Jewell (Interior) and Penny
Pritzker (Commerce) on Governor Jerry Brown's drought declaration in California
ensured Federal help for farmers in counties severely affected by the drought,
the broader message is "the long-term need to take a comprehensive
approach to tackling California's water problems."
From: Darlene Superville, AP
President Barack Obama drew a
link between climate change and California's drought, and said the U.S. must do
a better job of figuring out how to make sure everyone's water needs are
satisfied. On a tour of central California on Friday, Obama warned that weather-related
disasters will only get worse.
"We can't think of this
simply as a zero-sum game. It can't just be a matter of there's going to be
less and less water so I'm going to grab more and more of a shrinking share of
water," Obama said after touring part of a farm that is suffering under
the state's worst drought in more than 100 years.
From: John Ellis, Sacramento
Bee
President Barack Obama took a
tour of the central San Joaquin Valley's drought-damaged farm country Friday,
getting a look at fallowed dirt and hosting a round-table discussion with
farmers, industry representatives, environmentalists and politicians.
On his first trip to the Fresno
area, the president spent barely three hours in the region before flying to
Southern California, where he met with King Abdullah II of Jordan at the
Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage.
From: Cary Blake, Western Farm
Press
President Obama's visit to
California's Central Valley Feb. 14 gave the nation's chief executive a prime
opportunity to hear from a selected few in agriculture impacted by the state's
intensifying drought.
The president's visit, in itself,
brought the severity of the drought to the attention of the American people
which is a positive. As the president made his rounds, a news release from USDA
outlined the administration's new federal financial assistance package to
California agriculture and other sectors plagued by the worsening drought.
From: Gene Haagenson, KFSN 30
The drought brought
President Obama to Fresno for the first time and he called for a truce in the
political water war.
"It can't just be a matter
of there's going to be less and less water so I'm going to grab more and more
of a shrinking share of water. Instead we all have to come together,"
President Obama said.
But it's been a battle between democrats
and republicans from day one. On his visit to the Valley the president was
accompanied by California Governor Jerry Brown who's initial response to the
drought was, "Governors can't make it rain."
From: Dave Hanson, Sacramento
Bee
Re "Obama gets look at drought's toll" (Page A1,
Feb. 15): So President Barack Obama visits the Central Valley on his way to a
golf course and says global warming is cause for the lack of water for our
farmers.
He must have forgotten he vetoed
a water bill that would have diverted more water to the Central Valley farmers.
Since the 1960s, California has had the infrastructure to store water to
alleviate drought, but thanks to a federal judge we have been forced to flush
water to the ocean.
From: Staff, Santa Cruz
Sentinel
We get that farmers, and
Republicans, want more than what President Barack Obama is offering to help
California cope with the drought. And we also get that recent rains
notwithstanding, providing water for people and crops takes precedence.
But the president rightfully
wasn't about to wreak long-term environmental havoc on the San Joaquin River
Delta to provide short term water for farmers.
Water Supply
The board of the Turlock
Irrigation District on Tuesday will talk about a possible purchase of highly
treated wastewater from the city of Turlock.
Directors will consider
appointing General Manager Casey Hashimoto as the district's negotiator with
the city.
Last month, the City Council
considered selling wastewater to the Del Puerto Water District, based in
Patterson, to help it through the drought. The council delayed a vote after TID
officials said they had been led to believe that they could buy the same
water."
Water Pricing
From: Staff, Modesto Bee
Farmers could face higher water
bills and receive less water, according to an agenda for Tuesday's Oakdale
Irrigation District board meeting.
OID leaders also will consider
drought-related restrictions, when to start the irrigation season and the
always contentious issue of transferring water outside the district.
Recent board meetings have been
lively, with public pressure forcing leaders three weeks ago to abandon the
idea of selling water for $400 an acre-foot to the Fresno-based Westlands Water
District.
Farming
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
The sight is not uncommon in
California: water moving slowly across farm fields, in broad sheets or through
a grid of ditches, propelled only by the pull of gravity.
Flood irrigation is a tried and
true method of watering crops in California, promising thorough coverage with
minimal investment. According to data from the state Department of Water
Resources, 43 percent of California farmland in 2010 used some form of gravity
irrigation, an imprecise method that uses relatively large amounts of fresh
water and represents a big opportunity for water conservation.
Levees
From: Andrew Creasey,
Marysville Appeal-Democrat
The 2014 levee construction
season is shaping up to be like nothing the region has ever seen. And the main
event of the summer will be the Feather River West Levee Project. By year's
end, 37 miles of levee will have had installed a slurry wall designed to
protect parts of Sutter and Butte counties, and the billions of dollars' worth
of property they contain, from 200-year floods similar to the 1955 disaster
that sliced through the Feather River levees and killed 38 people.
Fisheries
From: Gosia Wozniacka, San Diego Union Tribune; Modesto Bee; Redding Record-Searchlight
People on the West Coast have
counted on fish hatcheries for more than a century to help rebuild populations
of salmon and steelhead decimated by overfishing, logging, mining, agriculture
and hydroelectric dams, and bring them to a level where government would no
longer need to regulate fisheries.
But hatcheries have thus far
failed to resurrect wild fish runs. Evidence showing artificial breeding makes
for weaker fish has mounted. And despite billions spent on significant habitat
improvements for wild fish in recent decades, hatchery fish have come to
dominate rivers.
Groundwater
From: Paul Rogers, Contra Costa Times; San Jose Mercury News; Monterey Herald
Fourteen months into a historic
drought, with reservoirs running low and the Sierra snowpack 27 percent of
normal, a growing number of Californians are wondering: Why isn't everyone
being forced to ration?
So far, Gov. Jerry Brown and most
major water providers, from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, are calling for
voluntary cuts -- not mandatory rationing with fines for excessive use.
Technology
From: Todd Woody, New York
Times
The giant solar receiver
installed on a wheat field here in California's agricultural heartland slowly
rotates to track the sun and capture its energy. The 377-foot array, however,
does not generate electricity but instead creates heat used to desalinate
water.
It is part of a project developed
by a San Francisco area start-up called WaterFX that is tapping an abundant, if
contaminated, resource in this parched region: the billions of gallons of water
that lie just below the surface.
No comments:
Post a Comment