Drought
From: Nick Bertell, Eureka
Times-Standard
If you've been down south lately,
I'm sure you've seen the electronic road signs telling you California is in an
extreme drought. We're three years into it, and University of California
professors are saying that this could be the driest year in the last 500.
Precipitation in Humboldt County is at 50 percent of normal, and we should feel
lucky. The state average is 20 percent. I can't imagine we'll get by without
some rationing, which millions of people already are. But even if we have
enough water to get by, life may get more expensive.
The Wall Street Journal ran a
lead article recently decrying surging prices for food staples from meat to
coffee to vegetables. Forecasts are for food prices to rise 3.5 percent in 2014
as the western U.S. and other major food producers such as Brazil and Australia
are deep in drought.
Coalition response... Investment advisor Nick Bertell talks about the importance of
California agriculture and food production for the world. Some of his facts,
however, miss the mark when it comes to water use and subsidies. According to
the recently released California Water Plan by the State Department of Water
Resources, agricultural water use in California accounts for 41 percent of the
state's dedicated water supply, not the 80 percent Bertell contends. And
agricultural water users are not subsidized either, with the exception of the
forgiveness of interest on the construction of the federal Central Valley
Project by Congress in 1935. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, which
manages the CVP, "This multi-purpose project plays a key role in
California`s powerful economy, providing water for 6 of the top 10 agricultural
counties in the nation`s leading farm state. It has been estimated that the value
of crops and related service industries has returned 100 times Congress`s $3
billion investment in the CVP." That's a great investment in
anyone's book.
From: Kathleen Stricklin,
Sacramento Bee
Re "California water plan unveils hardships to come as drought
persists" (Our Region, April 10): In 2007 Ford began the
process of retooling their plants to make smaller cars. Better late than never,
they were thinking ahead to the future.
Good company planning is what
makes or breaks an industry. The same can be said about our current water
crisis. As complicated as the state delivery system is, an even more
complicated system was busy preparing for the worst. In the last two years, I
have noticed the native plants in the creeks nearby are taller than in years
past. They sent their roots deeper in an effort to find more water. Farmers in
California have been gulping water from every mud puddle and creek they could
find for hundreds of years, and the current drought is leaving them high and
dry.
Coalition response... Kathleen Stricklin is right when she says we should have been planning
for the next drought. But she misses the point when she calls for farmers to be
installing drip irrigation systems as the solution. They have already been
doing that and in great numbers. In the last 10 years California farmers have
invested almost $3 billion upgrading irrigation systems on more than 2.4
million acres. Preparing for a drought takes broader actions. As a state we
should have also been investing in additional storage projects to provide a "bank
account" of water that would have helped supply our needs when Mother
Nature takes a break. "Saving for a rainy (or rather dry) day" is a
time tested solution of resource management.
From: Robert Dugan, Sacramento
Bee
Re "California water plan unveils hardships to come as drought
persists" (Our Region, April 10): As California continues to
face a drought, state and federal water and fisheries managers should be
commended for working to get our state back onto a firm foundation of reliable
water supplies for people, the environment and the economy with their proposed
Drought Operations Plan.
For too long, we risked disaster
from a drought we all knew would come. We've yielded to drain northern
reservoirs to dangerously low levels in order to increase exports and provide
marginally higher environmental benefits.
Coalition response... Managing California's water supply is a statewide challenge because
water is a public resource for all Californians, not the supply of one region
over another. Public water agencies from the Oregon border to the Imperial
Valley have invested in infrastructure that serves the farms, homes and
businesses of California's 38 million people. The current drought has helped
identify weaknesses in the system, such as inadequate storage and a conveyance
system that needs upgrading. In the future we have to be able to protect our
environmental resources while still being able to deliver water to people who
have a legal right to use it.
Groundwater
From: Scott Smith, San Diego
Union-Tribune
The scarcity of irrigation water
in drought-stricken California has created such a demand for well drilling
services that Central Valley farmer Bob Smittcamp is taking matters into his
own hands.
He's buying a drilling rig for $1
million to make certain he has enough water this summer for thousands of acres
of fruit and vegetable crops. "It's like an insurance policy," said
Smittcamp, who knows two other farmers doing the same thing. "You have to
do something to protect your investment.
From: Staff, Sacramento Bee
California's century-old
groundwater problem no longer is underground and invisible. Last Sunday's
report by The Bee's Tom Knudson was an eye-opener.
Taking more water out of
groundwater basins than goes in pits neighbor against neighbor in the San
Joaquin Valley and in some coastal and Southern California areas. Farmers and
residents see their wells going dry and, with land subsidence, some canals
running backwards."
From: J.N. Sbranti, Modesto
Bee
Turlock resident Dorene "DeeDee"
D'Adamo, one of five members of the State Water Resources Control Board, will
participate in Tuesday's "Groundwater Challenges" forum at California
State University, Stanislaus.
D'Adamo has lived in the San
Joaquin Valley for more than 20 years. Gov. Jerry Brown appointed her to the
water board last year, after she had served 14 years on the California Air
Resources Board.
Drought
From: Todd Fitchette, Western
Farm Press
California's drought: if you live
and farm in the state there's little else you could be told to illustrate just
how bad it is for the state's agriculture industry. One of those impacts
stretches off the farm and onto the test plots of the state's Land Grant
institution, which this year celebrates its centennial of cooperative work with
California agriculture.
The University of California
Cooperative Extension is not an unlikely victim of the drought, though theirs
is not an impact that will cause them to lose the farm. Still, they see and
feel it. Many growers in California will receive no surface water allocation
this year because of the drought. Neither will the University of California's
Westside Research and Extension Center (WSREC) near Five Points, which gets its
surface water from Westlands Water District.
From: Jessica Peres, KFSN 30
In the South Valley, the lack of
water from the current drought is forcing some growers to abandon their citrus
trees. Farmers in Terra Bella have been dealt a 1-2-3 punch. Right now, they're
really seeing the effects from the freeze all while dealing with zero water
allocation.
Young citrus trees that sit on
the foothills of Terra Bella have shriveled up and turned brown. They're a sad
sight for growers there. The trees were hit hard during this past winter's
freeze and now it's clear there's nothing left to salvage.
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
Q: What are the authorities
asking and/or requiring farmers and agricultural interests to do immediately to
reduce their water use, and by how much? Will there be significant penalties
for non-compliance? - Jim Purvis, Gold River
A: Farms represent a very
different regulatory environment than urban areas. In short, farms are not
officially required to do anything to conserve water.
"Farmers, as far as required
conservation, I'm not aware of anything in particular," said Mike Henry,
assistant executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition. When
former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a major water conservation bill in
2009, it required urban areas to reduce water use 20 percent by 2020 or risk
losing access to state grants for water projects. No similar requirement was
imposed on farms or irrigation districts. This year, additional
drought-specific conservation orders have been imposed on urban residents, but
not farmers.
Water Supply
From: Rob Parsons, Merced
Sun-Star
Irrigation officials will
consider a potential deal with state water officials that could give Merced
growers a little more water for their crops this year and help the irrigation
district partially close a projected $10 million budget gap.
The Merced Irrigation District
has been negotiating to lower the so-called minimum pool requirement at Lake
McClure, which would give farmers more water - about 15,000 to 25,000
acre-feet, depending on runoff - for the drought-plagued growing season. An
acre-foot is the amount of water it would take to cover an acre of land a foot
deep, or about 325,900 gallons.
From: Heather Hacking, Chico
Enterprise-Record
Where water will flow this spring
and summer is still up in the air, but it is looking likely that "senior
water rights" holders in the Sacramento Valley will have their contracts
honored.
More certainty will be worked out
in the next few weeks. Agencies with junior water rights will still be
scrambling, and some water users are still scheduled to receive zero.
Food News
From: David Karp, Los Angeles
Times
Bagged rice may look like a
mundane commodity, a bit incongruous at a local farmers market. But one taste
of the variety grown by Koda Farms - with attractive, uniform kernels, alluring
fragrance, soft texture and a rich, sweet flavor - makes clear that rice can be
a delicacy well worth pursuing.
"Their brown rice is
different from what is produced in Japan, but has its own unique, nutty
flavor," said Sonoko Sakai, a locally based cooking teacher who frequently
travels to Japan and represents traditional Japanese rice growers in the United
States.
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