Groundwater
From: Lois Henry, Bakersfield
Californian
There's so much going on with
groundwater, it's a whirlwind! OK, a whirlwind you can't see and probably
haven't heard of, but a whirlwind nonetheless.
It's no secret that Californians
have been abusing our aquifers for more than a generation. Mother Nature has,
so far, bailed us out with a few wet years between droughts to refill the tank.
Not this year.
From: Amity Addrisi, KBAK
Water-well drillers are working
24 hours a day during the California drought. They're digging wells for
desperate farmers.
Matt Rottman of Rottman Drilling
in Lancaster said his company is booked for the next two years. In business
since the 1960s, Rottman said his company has never been this busy. As a result
of the drought crisis, farmers are now looking below their land to save what's
above.
Drought
From: Peter Gleick, National
Geographic - ScienceBlogs.com
In the past few weeks, I have had
been asked the same question by reporters, friends, strangers, and even a
colleague who posts regularly on this very ScienceBlogs site (the prolific and
thoughtful Greg Laden): why, if the California drought is so bad, has the
response been so tepid?
There is no single answer to this
question (and of course, it presumes (1) that the drought is bad; and (2) the
response has been tepid). In many ways, the response is as complicated as
California's water system itself, with widely and wildly diverse sources of
water, uses of water, prices and water rights, demands, institutions, and more.
But here are some overlapping and relevant answers.
Water Use
Efficiency
From: Antoine Abou-Diwan,
Imperial Valley Press
The Imperial Irrigation District
Board of Directors will consider a staff recommendation to make the IID's pilot
on-farm water conservation program permanent at today's public meeting.
The on-farm efficiency water
conservation program pays farmers to install and implement water-efficient
irrigation measures in their fields, like sprinklers and drip irrigation systems.
It's funded by the San Diego County Water Authority and the Coachella Valley
Water District under the terms of the water transfer.
Farming News
From: Alexandra Stevenson, New
York Times
His boots were caked with mud
when Thomas S. T. Gimbel, a longtime hedge fund executive, slipped in a
strawberry patch. It was the plumpness of a strawberry that had distracted him.
Mr. Gimbel, who once headed the hedge
fund division of Credit Suisse, now spends more time discussing crop yields
than stock or bond yields.
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