Water
Management
From: Andrew Revkin, New York
Times
Forecasters predict heavy rains
will sweep in from the Pacific Ocean over much of California late next week.
The state's extreme drought will be far from over, but the shift from parched
days to downpours illustrates on a short time scale one factor explaining why
it's hard to change deeply ingrained and wasteful approaches to water policy.
Coalition response... Managing California's water resources responsibly has never been more
important than it is today, yet 48% of California's available water, that water
hich is dedicated to environmental purposes by specific laws, regulations and
court decisions, is insufficiently managed. Almost 41 million acre-feet of
environmental water is set aside by the people of California during a typical
year, but is often so poorly managed that we have a difficult time identifying
any specific environmental benefits. Urban and agricultural water users are
mandated by the State to submit water management plans that identify areas of
success and areas that need improvement. In today's era of water shortages it's
long past time for environmental water managers to do the same.
Water Policy
From: George Skelton, Los
Angeles Times
If a product doesn't sell, try
repackaging and renaming. That's a proven strategy, whatever you're peddling.
Good timing also helps.
Thus, when the governor's
California Water Action Plan sits on a shelf unnoticed for a while - and
outside it is very dry - reshape and rewrap the contents as Emergency Drought
Legislation.
From: Dan Walters, Sacramento
Bee
It's not that California
politicians haven't talked about the state's uncertain water supply.
They have - constantly, for
decades. It's that they haven't done much but talk.
California is beset by the worst
drought in its recorded history, and its politicians, from its governor and
U.S. senators down, are publicly wringing their hands about its effects and
doing what they can, which is precious little, to mitigate them.
From: Fenit Nirappil, AP
Drought and water issues will
play a prominent role in this year's legislative session as most of California
is dealing with the consequences of one of the driest periods on record.
Since the Legislature reconvened
in January, 1,929 bills were introduced in advance of Friday's deadline.
From: Dennis Taylor, Salinas
Californian
To butcher an old adage, if you
want to muck things up, form a committee - particularly one where the members
don't get along.
While farmers in the Salinas
Valley are increasingly worried about future irrigation water, the federal
Bureau of Reclamation told farmers in the Central Valley on Friday that they
will have a zero allocation of water from the Central Valley Water Project.
Drought
From: Bettina Boxall, Los
Angeles Times
The skinny rings of ancient giant
sequoias and foxtail pines hold a lesson that Californians are learning once
again this winter: It can get very dry, sometimes for a single parched year,
sometimes for withering decades.
Drought has settled over the
state like a dusty blanket, leaving much of the landscape a dreary brown.
Receding reservoirs have exposed the ruins of long-forgotten towns. Some cities
are rationing supplies and banning outdoor watering. Many growers are expecting
no irrigation deliveries from the big government water projects that turned the
state's belly into the nation's produce market.
From: John Roach, NBC News
As California and other western
states face what some scientists fear could be a prolonged drought amplified by
global warming, water experts say there's simply no way to predict how long the
dry spell will last.
The best thing to do, they said,
is to prepare for the worst and hope for rain. It wouldn't be the first time
California soil went parched for a long stretch. Tree growth rings in the
region show evidence of prolonged periods of aridity in the past.
From: Suzanne Phan, KXTV 10
The California drought is hitting
many people hard and its impact will be felt from farm to fork.
Federal officials said many
farmers caught in California's drought will receive no irrigation water this
year from a vast system of rivers, canals and reservoirs interlacing the state.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced Friday it will continue to monitor
rain and snowfall, but at this point there's not enough water in the Central
Valley Project to give water to farmers.
Water Supply
From: Staff, AP
Without a lot more rain and snow,
many farmers caught in California's drought can expect to receive no irrigation
water this year from a vast federally controlled system of rivers, canals and
reservoirs interlacing the state, federal officials say.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation
released its first outlook of the year on Friday, saying the agency would
continue to monitor rain and snowfall, but current levels confirmed that the
state was in one of its driest periods in recorded history. The state's snowpack
is at 29 percent of the average for this time of year, the report said."
From: Bettina Boxall, Los
Angeles Times
Central Valley growers Friday got
the grim news they have been expecting for months. Most of them will get no
water from the big federal irrigation project that supplies 3 million acres of
California farm land.
Citing the state's severe
drought, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced an initial water allocation
of zero for most contractors of the sprawling Central Valley Project.
That could change. There is a
month of winter left and storms on the Northern California horizon could boost
reservoir levels, allowing reclamation to deliver more water. But the agency
has never before predicted zero deliveries for such a sweeping set of
contractors in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.
From: Andrea Menniti, KOVR 13
Farmers relying on the Central
Valley Project will be getting no federal water this year in the latest blow to
agriculture from this year's drought. Cities will also feel the impact of the
lack of rainfall, getting 50 percent of their normal allowance while wildlife
areas will get 40 percent.
We caught up with a
fourth-generation farmer who is making drastic changes to cope with the loss of
water.
From: Paul Rogers, San Jose
Mercury News
In a crushing reminder of the
state's parched plight, federal officials announced Friday that the Central
Valley Project -- California's largest water delivery system -- will provide no
water this year to Central Valley farmers and only 50 percent of the contracted
amount to urban areas such as Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties.
Farmers had been bracing for the
bad news because California received less rain in 2013 than any year since it
became a state in 1850. Despite some storms this month, the state is still
grappling with low reservoirs and a Sierra Nevada snowpack that's 25 percent of
normal.
From: Scott Smith, AP
With California's agricultural
heartland entrenched in drought, almond farmers are letting orchards dry up and
in some cases making the tough call to have their trees torn out of the ground,
leaving behind empty fields.
In California's Central Valley,
Barry Baker is one of many who hired a crew that brought in large rumbling
equipment to perform the grim task in a cloud of dust.
From: John Holland, Modesto
Bee
Tuesday morning, boards meeting
14 miles apart will look to a common goal - keeping their Don Pedro Reservoir
supply from running out this year.
Directors of the Modesto and
Turlock irrigation districts will consider water allotments that are roughly
half of what farmers enjoy in years of adequate rain and snow.
Technology
From: Gene Haagenson, KFSN 30
With water in short supply,
Valley growers and cities are looking for ways to get the most of what they
have.
With the cutoff of state and
federal water supplies, growers who can are pumping well water to irrigate
their crops, or drilling new wells to get more water. But the deeper they go,
the saltier the water gets, and most crops can't take it.
Aaron Mandell thinks he has a
solution. It's a big, shiny contraption being built in western Fresno County.
Water Storage
From: Mike Dunbar, Modesto Bee
Have you wondered, during this
year of unprecedented statewide drought, why you haven't heard cries of thirsty
dismay rising from Southern California and cascading over the Tehachapis? Why
the people offering astronomical sums for water are mostly south-valley farmers
and not the gargantuan SoCal urban water districts that supply water to 22
million people?
That's because Southern
California is managing its water better than we are ours. Having gotten only
modest encouragement to conserve, many Southern Californians don't even know
we're in a drought. That's because they have enough water to get through this
dry year and most likely another.
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