Drought
From: Staff, San Jose Mercury
News
The California State Water
Resources Control Board will decide next week whether to impose mandatory
limits on urban water use and slap violators with fines of up to $500 a day.
This begs two questions:
1) What took it so long?
2) Why aren't agricultural water
users, who gulp 80 percent of California's usable supply, getting the same
attention?
Coalition response...According to the State's Department of Water Resources, only 41% of the
state's water supply goes to growing food and fiber. 49% goes to environmental
uses, while the rest goes to our state's cities and industry. While the food
and fiber we enjoy is definitely thirsty this year - it certainly doesn't gulp
80% of the water in the state.
Not only are farmers already
implementing conservation measures, they were the first to bear the brunt of
surface water shortages. The consequences of these shortages cascade through
the rural communities that have grown up to work some of the rarest, most
valuable soils in the world, and into the cities that enjoy their produce. While
the hardships of the shortages will be felt most severely in the rural
communities as surging unemployment, strained civic services, and business
downturns - our urban centers will also be reminded at the checkout stand when
buying locally grown produce.
It's worth repeating that farmers
were encouraged to plant a lot of high value permanent crops prior to the
destabilization of surface water supplies. Farmers remember well the criticisms
leveled against them only a few short decades ago for raising annual crops on
the same land they are now being criticized for growing trees and vines on...
Water Supply
From: P. Gleick, K. Poole, R.
Wilkinson, Sacramento Bee
As a solution for California's
complex water challenges, conserving water to get more from every drop stands
out for its great potential and the misconceptions around it.
A recent op-ed column, "Putting two myths about the state's drought to rest"
(Viewpoints, July 6), repeated three misstatements about conservation that are
often used to delay implementing strategies for more efficient water use. Until
these misunderstandings are corrected, common-sense improvements will continue
to be underfunded and inadequately pursued. The failure to use proven and
cost-effective efficiency programs can be seen in the limited attention to
conservation in the state water bond proposals and only modest efforts of some
water agencies.
From: Tom Philpott, Mother
Jones
California farmers will reap a
record 2.1 billion pounds of almonds this year, the USDA estimates-about three
times as much as they did in 2000. That's great news for the world's growing
horde of almond eaters, because the state's groves supply 80 percent of the
global harvest.
San Joaquin River
From: Tim Palmer, Sacramento
Bee
Since 2009, the San Joaquin River
has been celebrated as a path-breaking example of restoration. But this year,
Central California's largest river has the dubious distinction of being on the
conservation group American Rivers' "most endangered" list because
it's so overtapped.
A panicked response to the
drought could worsen the situation.
Transfers
From: Staff, Modesto Bee
The board of the Turlock
Irrigation District will talk Tuesday evening about supplying some of its
Tuolumne River water to a treatment plant proposed for three cities.
The board will consider
"certain proposed terms and conditions" that would be attached to any
agreement to provide the water to Turlock, Ceres and south Modesto, according
to the agenda. The project, which has been discussed off and on since the
1980s, could reduce their reliance on wells.
From: Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee
A federal judge in Fresno on
Friday rejected a motion for a preliminary injunction against irrigation water
transfers from Northern California to the San Joaquin Valley.
A fishing group and a Northern
California environmental advocacy group in June asked the court to stop water
transfers, saying federal leaders are jeopardizing the protected delta smelt.
The plaintiffs are AquAlliance and the California Sportfishing Protection
Alliance, both nonprofit groups.
Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: M. Grossi, R. Rodriguez,
Fresno Bee
In drought-scarred farm country,
coffee shop talk turns obsessively to water and its cost - which several months
ago hit a shocking $1,000 per acre-foot and then climbed to more than $2,000.
But it's far too simple to say
drought-buster deals in the San Joaquin Valley are all about making a pile of
money. A sale in the last week featured a compassionate offer of San Joaquin
River water at only $250 per acre-foot.
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