Water Rights
From: Dale Yurong, ABC30
The Friant Water Authority filed
suit against the US Bureau of Reclamation to halt the flow of water out of
Friant Dam to some growers on the Valley's west side. But its bid for a
temporary restraining order was rejected in US District Court in Fresno.
Many Valley farmers face zero
allocation but thousands of people with historic water rights don't have to cut
back at all. Water users staked their claim on the water flowing through the
San Joaquin and other rivers generations ago.
San Joaquin River
From: Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee
The U.S. District Court in Fresno
Tuesday refused to stop Millerton Lake water from being sent to wildlife
refuges and farmers with historic rights on the Valley's west side.
East San Joaquin Valley farmers,
facing a zero allocation of Millerton water, asked the court last week to stop
the flow. Federal officials this month began releasing water, and about 200,000
acre-feet is expected to be released to the west side by late August.
From: Staff, Porterville
Recorder
Water that could have saved East
Side growers will continue flowing west down the San Joaquin River. On Monday,
U.S. District Judge Lawrence O'Neill denied a request for a temporary
restraining order requested by the Friant Water User Authority and its member
districts to halt the delivery of water from Friant to West Side growers.
"The Friant Water Authority
(FWA) is disappointed by the federal court's denial of FWA's request for a temporary
restraining order. However, this is an interim ruling by the court and not a
final decision on the merits, so FWA will still have a chance to prove its case
when it gets its day in court," said the Friant Water User Authority.
Water Management
From: Katharine Mieszkowski,
San Francisco Chronicle
The last time California endured
a drought, legislators set their sights on the state's biggest water users:
farmers.
The state designed laws to push
agricultural water districts to track their water flow and make the largest
districts charge farmers based on how much they use. The economic theory was
simple: If you aren't paying for how much you actually use, you have little
incentive to consume less.
Groundwater
From: Peter Sugia, Modesto Bee
In the context of our current
drought and efforts to address decreasing groundwater levels, I am disappointed
that some landowners are reluctant to embrace a crucial paradigm shift. In the
interest of maintaining current usage, some don't want their pumps monitored. From
a short-term perspective, based on minimizing cost and maximizing withdrawal,
that is understandable. However, research suggests water levels are dropping;
public records indicate a significant number of new well permits have been
issued, and it is clear the current policy is not sustainable.
Overdrafting increases pumping
costs to others when wells go dry. Subsidence decreases the future capacity of
aquifers; surface water is depleted when there is a shortage of groundwater,
and the cost of treating groundwater near the bottom of an aquifer is
expensive. We need comprehensive groundwater reform that is based on long-term
costs, benefits and sustainability.
From: Jay Lund, UC Davis
Center for Watershed Sciences Blog
Without access to groundwater,
this year's drought would be truly devastating to farms and cities throughout
California. Groundwater is California's largest source of water storage for
drought. However, reduced recharge and growing groundwater use in wetter years
threatens to diminish its availability in droughts. This can become a serious
threat to California's agriculture and rural residents. The current drought
highlights how much California's agricultural prosperity depends on groundwater
- and agriculture's growing need for managing it.
From: Juliet Williams, San
Francisco Chronicle
The state Senate approved
legislation Tuesday asking local agencies to develop plans to manage
groundwater, a supply that is largely unregulated throughout the state even
amid a statewide drought. "We shouldn't waste the opportunity to act this
year," said the bill's author, Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills.
Careful reporting and monitoring
of groundwater levels is critical to ensuring the supply is not totally
diminished, said Pavley, who added that the intent of her bill, SB1168, is to
allow local agencies to manage their own water.
Water Transfers
From: Lois Henry, Bakersfield
Californian
Back in November when we learned
that Tejon Ranch had purchased a chunk of what I call "the Nickel
water" for its proposed Grapevine village, I said with all the water the
ranch had been buying in recent years, it was positioning itself as a private
water seller. Yup. I was right.Tejon Ranch made $3 million, net, ($7.4 million
gross) from selling most of that Nickel water in the first three months of this
year, according to its quarterly earnings report.
It sold 6,250 acre-feet of water
starting in February to several western Kern County water districts, including
Belridge Water Storage District, Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District,
Berrenda Mesa Water District and Lost Hills Water District.
Fisheries
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
Nearly 1 million juvenile Chinook
salmon this week will get a truck ride from Red Bluff to San Pablo Bay as a
detour around harmful Sacramento River conditions caused by drought.
The fish are the last of 12
million fall-run Chinook salmon produced this year at Coleman National Hatchery
near Red Bluff. Normally, all those fish are released into Battle Creek, a
tributary of the Sacramento, to journey downstream to the Pacific Ocean on
their own.
From: Heather Hacking, Chico
Enterprise-Record
When fish are swimming they are
difficult to count. From Allen Harthorn's vantage point on an elevated deck
above Butte Creek, he believes there may be 10,000 spring-run chinook salmon in
the creek. A Vaki River Watcher video system lower in the creek has counted
only 4,000 fish moving over a fish ladder.
The discrepancy in fish numbers
can be expected. The Vaki cameras are placed on a fish ladder. During high
storm flow in March and April, fish didn't need the fish ladders to move
upstream, thus they avoided the cameras, explained Clint Garman, a fish
biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. By any count, the
spring-run chinook numbers look good.
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