Water Supply
From: Staff, Sacramento Bee
Last week's rain notwithstanding,
the drought should act to concentrate Californians on water and how to create a
reliable water system.
Instead, it is spawning isolated
proposals with little attention to cost and who would pay.
In one direction, Gov. Jerry
Brown favors a new "conveyance" with his proposed twin tunnels
project. The capital cost of the two 40-foot-diameter, 30-mile-long tunnels
around or under the Delta is estimated to total $19.9 billion in 2012 dollars.
Borne by whom? People benefiting from the project, the water contractors south
of the Delta? The comment period on this proposal ends on April 14.
Coalition response... It's important to keeps the facts on the table regarding California
water supply planning and cost allocation.
Funding for new water supply
projects is based on a "beneficiary pays" principle. Water users are
willing and in fact have been paying for all of the planning costs so far for
BDCP. When it comes time for construction, water users will pay for the parts
that are associated with water supply. The public part of the project,
including ecosystem activities, etc., would be funded by a publicly-approved
water bond.
Sites reservoir, while not part
of the BDCP planning process, is nonetheless an important facility to help
California meet water quality and water supply needs into the future. It's
encouraging to see Congressmen LaMalfa and Garamendi working together to help
push this project forward. California has big challenges and it is going to
take multiple, independent efforts like this and others to restore water supply
and reliability to our state. Conservation and recycling are important but
they're not enough to provide for California's water needs far into the future.
From: Staff, BloombergView
California's northern rivers are
so low that young Chinook salmon have to be trucked on their journey to the
Pacific Ocean. Yet to listen to some farmers and their political allies, you
would think the fish, shielded by environmental law, are doing fine, while the
state's $45 billion agricultural economy is being sucked dry by the epic
drought.
Their solution: build huge
tunnels, expand big dams (federally subsidized, of course) and pipe more water
from the relatively wet north to the dry south. But Mother Nature is sending a
different message: California can't count on having bounties of water to meet
all the claims on it.
Coalition response... Far from minor, the upheaval proposed by this editorial is massive in
scale, based on faulty, biased research, and would result in continued
destabilization of agricultural production in California. Farmers recognize and
appreciate the sacrifices being made by our cities and rural communities to
help get through this drought together.
California agricultural water use
is not 80% of the state's water claimed, it's not even 80% of the water humans
are managing. California allocates 50% of available water (water humans
actively manage) to environmental purposes. Agriculture uses 41% to grow food
and fiber, and has improved the productivity of the water used by nearly
doubling production between 1967 and 2007 while reducing water use by 14%.
These are only the readily quantifiable benefits of agricultural water use, and
exclude the ecosystem benefits of crops such as rice whose flood irrigation
help to sustain migrating birds on the Pacific Flyway.
Claims that California
agriculture can conserve 15% of the water it uses have been widely scorned by
professional researchers at California's leading public irrigation research
organizations. The Center for Irrigation Technology at CSU Fresno reports the
actual conservation potential from California agriculture is about 300,000 acre
feet, or about 1 percent of typical applied water.
Past public investments in
irrigation infrastructure have brought substantial economic benefit to the
people of our state and our nation but changing environmental laws have allowed
enough water for 3.5 million people to flow to the ocean this year. That water
could have been stored for future use. The preparation of past generations has
given us the tools needed to become the ninth largest economy in the world -
preparing California for future generations is the challenge we face today.
Water Supply
From: Michael Doyle, McClatchy
DC
Seasonal storms have exposed once
more some perennial political divisions over California water.
Citing the latest rainfall, seven
of the state's lawmakers are urging the Obama administration to free up more
irrigation deliveries for San Joaquin Valley farms. The muscular Capitol Hill
lineup is noticeable both for who's on it and who's not.
In a telling alliance, Democratic
Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined with House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy of
Bakersfield and four other House Republicans, as well as one House Democrat, in
calling for increased deliveries.
From: Cannon Michael, Merced
Sun-Star
It's no secret that our water
system is severely broken, but denying water rights and reallocating water is
not the answer. And though our voices have been heard by the state Water
Resources Control Board, continued action and pressure is still needed to
ensure water deliveries to our Central Valley farmers.
Water is the Central Valley's
lifeblood. The state water board must understand that withholding water would
cause catastrophic consequences, including fallowed farmland, skyrocketing
unemployment and an increasingly unstable and costly food supply in our Central
Valley, our state and beyond.
Eliminating our water deliveries
is not only foolish, it's dangerous.
From: Peter Jensen, Riverside
Press-Enterprise
On Tuesday March 25, I was amazed
at how poorly informed ex-representative Tom Campbell's recent op-ed regarding
California's water problems was. He acts as if the only reason
heavily-discounted water is not supplied to Central Valley farmers is because of
the little Delta Smelt. The reasons that cheap water is no longer being pumped
to these farmers are myriad. We have all been asked to conserve due to a
drought.
From: Fred Hogan, Redding
Record-Searchlight
PRIORITIES: What is the common
sense approach to California's water problems? Should we spend billions on the
train to nowhere, or better yet maybe on some much needed water storage? If we
put this to a vote which one do you think wins? Remember common sense!
Groundwater
From: Lisa Krieger, San Jose
Mercury News
So wet was the San Joaquin Valley
of Steve Arthur's childhood that a single 240-foot-deep well could quench the
thirst of an arid farm.
Now his massive rig, bucking and
belching, must drill 1,200 feet deep in search of ever-more-elusive water to
sustain this wheat farm north of Bakersfield. As he drills, his phone rings
with three new appeals for help.
"Everybody is starting to
panic," said Arthur, whose Fresno-based well-drilling company just bought
its ninth rig, off the Wyoming oil fields. "Without water, this valley
can't survive."
From: Paul Rogers, San Jose
Mercury News
For nearly 50 years, California
has passed sweeping environmental laws that limit private property for the
common good -- from the nation's toughest automobile pollution standards to
curbs on clear-cutting forests to rules requiring that developers keep beaches
open to the public.
However, when it comes to
preserving one of the state's most critical and politically divisive resources
-- billions of gallons of groundwater that are vital to farms and cities --
California lawmakers and voters have done almost nothing.
Drought
From: Dennis Wyatt, Manteca
Bulletin
Sticker shock, courtesy of the
drought, is coming to a supermarket near you. Seedless watermelon was selling
Monday at SaveMart stores in Manteca for $9.99. It is a full $2 over prices
from the same time period in 2013.
And while the price reflects the
scarcity of watermelon that are now coming out of a specific region in Mexico,
it is an indicator of higher food prices that are in store for California and
American consumers as a whole thanks to the drought. The assumption by some
that fruit and vegetables from elsewhere will replace California crops with
minimum impact on prices fails to take into account production issues in other
regions of the globe plus worldwide consumer demand.
From: Tom Nassif, Los Angeles
Times
It's deceptive to say that
agriculture uses 75% of "the water used in the state" without adding
"for human use."
According to the California State
Water Plan, urban use accounts for 11% and agriculture 41%; environmental use
accounts for 48%. This is the developed water supply that can be managed and
controlled.
Water Quality
From: John Holland, Modesto
Bee
Farmers are filling out a
four-page survey that will help assess how well they are keeping pesticides and
fertilizers out of waterways.
The East San Joaquin Water
Quality Coalition has set a May 1 deadline for completion of the surveys, which
involve most of the irrigated land east of the San Joaquin River in Stanislaus,
Merced and Madera counties.
Delta
From: Staff, Stockton Record
Skeptical Delta landowners heard
details Thursday night of a state plan to install four rock barriers in the
estuary, an effort to block salinity from San Francisco Bay and allow officials
to hold back more water in reservoirs this summer.
Without the barriers, three major
reservoirs would sink to "dead pool" levels before the coming dry
season ends, the Department of Water Resources' Paul Marshall said at a meeting
of the Delta Protection Commission in Stockton.
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