Delta
From: George Skelton,
L.A.Times
Forget farmers vs. fishermen - or
south state vs. north state. California's current water war is being waged most
intensely by farmers against fellow farmers. It's a Central Valley civil war.
And within that vast food-producing region - Bakersfield to Redding - it's the
San Joaquin Valley vs. the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Southern California is a paying
participant, siding with the San Joaquin, but in a less combative role. Its
goal is to ensure a more reliable flow of delta water over the Tehachapi. Still
unanswered, however, is how much more that would cost Southland ratepayers.
Coalition response... George Skelton's article reflects how complex the relationship is
between farmers, consumers, the environment and the water necessary for all to
thrive. Missing, however is the significantly important element of time.
The State and federal projects
move water from upstream storage, like Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, through
the Delta far into the summer and fall when Delta users would historically have
been sucking salt water, especially in a dry year like this. That benefits
farmers like Wendy Buckley-Stokes who is concerned that exporters (who are
paying for the system) will use the fresh water she uses on her farm. A project
like the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is designed to safely move sufficient
quantities of water in the winter and spring when its wet and then put it into
storage south of the Delta for use later in the year by the farmers and
consumers who paid for it. Delta water quality rules would protect
Buckley-Stokes by continuing to keep sufficient fresh water in the Delta later
in the year as the projects do now.
Re-operating the Delta, restoring
habitat and reducing the decimation from predatory fish will finally help
struggling salmon, a species that we have failed to adequately protect. Twenty
years of misguided water supply cuts have hurt water users, including almost
4,000 farms and 25 million Californians, and done nothing to restore salmon to
sustainable levels. Is it really farmer against farmer? No. It's about
long-term investment in our water supply and overcoming the constraints in the
system that hurt everyone.
Drought
From: Carolyn Lochhead, sfgate.com
Shawn Coburn farms land that holds
senior water rights to the giant Central Valley Project, rights that usually
assure him water.
Not this year. He already has
decided to let his pomegranates die, abandon alfalfa and cut his tomato crop by
half. He may not plant any row crops if the state water board follows through
on its intention to slash deliveries to "protect human health and
safety" from the effects of drought.
Coburn, 45, says his ranch near
Dos Palos (Merced County) is no water-guzzler. He uses buried irrigation.
Computers tell him how much moisture his plants lose each day.
Coalition response... Peter Gleick's opinion of California agriculture operating in a 19th
Century economy is laughably distorted and out of touch with reality. Precision
irrigation, laser leveling, ecologically sensitive pest and weed management
practices, the list goes on and on... California is a leading innovator in
irrigation technology and techniques. Between 1967 and 2007 California farmers
have almost doubled their production on 14 percent LESS water. An investment of
almost $3 billion upgrading irrigation systems to high efficiency drip and
micro sprinklers helps keep California farms competitive in a world market.
California-grown products are cheaper, fresher and safer for local consumers
than they are anywhere else and that means more of our money can do other
things in the economy than just go to put food on the table.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Tom Barnridge, Contra
Costa Times
These are strange times for Gov.
Jerry Brown. In an era of term limits, he's favored to win his fourth election
to the state's highest office. In a time of disdain for politicians, he enjoys
58 percent job approval, according to a Public Policy Institute of California
survey.
The most notable paradox, though,
as he rides this crest of popularity, is the palpable outrage at one of his pet
projects -- the $67 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
More than 300 residents packed a
meeting room at the Lone Tree Golf & Event Center in Antioch on Thursday night
for the sole purpose of hearing all that's wrong with his proposal to export
Sacramento River water south through two 40-foot-diameter tunnels capable of
moving 75,000 gallons per second.
Drought
From: Alex Breitler, Stockton
Record
A water district official in
south San Joaquin County is sounding the alarm that the county's namesake river
could run dry this summer all the way to the edge of the Delta. Not everyone
believes such a dire prediction, but the fact that it is being discussed shows
the seriousness of the drought.
The San Joaquin River is famous
for being dry farther upstream, south of the Merced River. Most of its flow
there has historically been diverted to farmers.
From: Jim O'Banion, Sacramento
Bee
The negative impacts of the dry
water year will be multiplied many times over if a proposal by a state agency
becomes reality. It would overturn water rights held by water districts for
more than 100 years.
In this water-short year, the
state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
petitioned the State Water Resources Control Board for operational flexibility
to move water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect fish and the
Delta's environment.
San Joaquin River
From: Staff, Fresno Bee
Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist
who writes about weather and climate for the website Slate, had this to say
about the California drought on Friday:
"The present-day Southwest
was born from a pendulum swing in climatic fortunes that has no equal in U.S.
history. Research at the University of California, Berkeley shows that the 20th
century was an abnormally wet era in the West and that a new mega-drought may
be starting. With the added pressure of climate change, there's simply no way
to count on continued supplies of water at current usage rates."
Water Storage
From: Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee
Federal leaders again are talking
about enlarging the San Joaquin River's biggest reservoir, a conversation that
has officially happened five times in the last 60 years.
Long stalled in political,
technical and financial bogs, this is an idea most farmers still like and most
environmentalists don't. So what's different now?
This time, an unprecedented
drought crisis haunts California, and a multibillion-dollar water bond awaits
on the November ballot.
From: James McWilliams, New
York Times
California is experiencing one of
its worst droughts on record. Just two and a half years ago, Folsom Lake, a major
reservoir outside Sacramento, was at 83 percent capacity. Today it's down to 36
percent. In January, there was no measurable rain in downtown Los Angeles. Gov.
Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency. President Obama has pledged $183
million in emergency funding. The situation, despite last week's deluge in
Southern California, is dire.
With California producing nearly
half of the fruit and vegetables grown in the United States, attention has
naturally focused on the water required to grow popular foods such as walnuts,
broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, almonds and grapes. These crops are
the ones that a recent report in the magazine Mother Jones highlighted as being
unexpectedly water intensive. Who knew, for example, that it took 5.4 gallons
to produce a head of broccoli, or 3.3 gallons to grow a single tomato? This
information about the water footprint of food products - that is, the amount of
water required to produce them - is important to understand, especially for a
state that dedicates about 80 percent of its water to agriculture.
Groundwater
From: Staff, California Farm
Water Coalition
The California Farm Water
Coalition is hosting a regional meeting on groundwater. Presentations
include:
Future of Groundwater Management
in the Sacramento Valley - What changes are ahead for groundwater use in
California?
David Guy, Executive Director,
Northern California Water Association
What to Expect from Coming
Groundwater Regulations
Bob Reeb, Reeb Governmental
Affairs
When: Thursday March 20, 2014 from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM PDT
Where: Fresno Irrigation District
2907 S. Maple Avenue
Fresno, CA 93725
Register to attend by clicking here.
From: Dorothy Doll, Modesto
Bee
Your editorial "Some ideas for regulations on groundwater"
(Opinions, March 5) was timely and logical. I wish the county's Groundwater
Advisory Committee Godspeed on their urgent mission. To a layperson, the
massive planting of new orchards in unirrigated grasslands seems ill-judged, to
put it kindly. As has been reported, depleted aquifers sink in upon themselves
and cannot refill.
There is another consideration
here. I have read the comment that a continuing drought will make the Valley a
"Dust Bowl." The cautionary history "The Worst Hard Time,"
by Timothy Egan, shows that the actual Dust Bowl was not initiated by drought.
The harsh and windblown high plains were covered with a strong thatch of native
grasses, evolved over many thousands of years. A perfectly adapted animal, the
buffalo, lived there.
Levees
From: Staff, Marysville
Appeal-Democrat
We're getting there, but there
should still be extra consideration for farms and agriculture infrastructure in
floodplains. The 2012 Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Act was supposed to be
about making federal flood insurance rates comparable to the commercial market
... so that the Federal Emergency Management Agency wouldn't go bankrupt with
the next big disaster. The devastation of the New Orleans area and some East
Coast destruction brings FEMA dangerously close to the edge.
The problem we all have is that
Biggert-Waters, in fine federal fashion, treated everything about the same ...
low-elevation urban areas and low-elevation agricultural plains.
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