Delta
From: Bettina Boxall, Los
Angeles Times
A shallow inland sea spreads
across more than 160 square miles, speckled with egrets poking for crayfish
among jewel-green rice shoots. The flooded fields could be mistaken for the
rice paddies of Vietnam or southern China, but this is Northern California at
the onset of severe drought. The scene is a testament to the inequities of
California's system of water rights, a hierarchy of haves as old as the state.
Thanks to seniority, powerful
Central Valley irrigation districts that most Californians have never heard of
are at the head of the line for vast amounts of water, even at the expense of
the environment and the rest of the state.
Coalition response... Water use and water rights have come a long way since the 19th century
practice of nailing a post to a tree. The State Water Resources Control Board,
charged with overseeing the proper allocation and efficient use of water alone
is staffed by a bureaucracy of 1,500 regulators reporting to the Board. Permits
are challenging to acquire and take years to navigate through review and
challenges by environmental interest groups like NRDC.
It's no surprise that California
values protecting the environment, including the endangered species in the
Delta - it's such a high priority in fact, that we have proactively allocated
48% of our available water supply to environmental water uses without requiring
that environmental water uses demonstrate or quantify benefits to the
environment. We have, to date blindly hoped that increasing Delta flows would
produce beneficial outcomes for those threatened and endangered species.
Water use in California
agriculture has never been more efficient. California's farmers in the Central
Valley have invested more than $3 billion dollars on 2.4 million acres to
improve the efficiency of their irrigation systems. These improvements would be
the envy of many 20th century countries, to say nothing of 19th century
Californians. Between 1967 and 2007 California farmers have almost doubled
their productive yield, improving quality, while using 14% less water to do it.
Water Supply
From: Carolyn Lochhead, San
Francisco Chronicle
Even before the drought, the
southern San Joaquin Valley was in big trouble.
Decades of irrigation have
leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil that have nowhere to go,
threatening crops and wildlife. Aquifers are being drained at an alarming pace.
More than 95 percent of the area's native habitat has been destroyed by
cultivation or urban expansion, leaving more endangered bird, mammal and other
species in the southern San Joaquin than anywhere in the continental U.S.
Coalition response... This year's drought gives us a sample of what California can expect from
a land fallowing program the scale of the one being proposed. Agricultural
economists say this year's idling of 800,000 acres or more of farmland in
California will cost 20,000 jobs and roughly a $7.5 billion hit to the economy.
The environmental community never talks about the downside of wholesale land
retirement but it's there - and it's not good. What are the costs of 20,000
more unemployed, underemployed, or on the welfare roll? How will we pay those
costs when the tax base is eroded due to land that is no longer growing food?
The jobs California farms generate don't stop at the farm gate. They include
jobs in processing, trucking, wholesale and retail as well as high-paying jobs
at ports in the Bay Area and Southern California.
Alternatively, we can use today's
technology to resolve drainage issues and make the land better. Last week The
Chronicle ran a story on the success underway of using
solar energy to desalinate poor water and return it to irrigate productive cropland.
This year Panoche Water District says the project will deliver 45,000 acre feet
of reclaimed water to farmers in the area. In the long run it can produce much
more, keep valuable farmland in production, solve drainage issues and add to
the state's water supply. That sounds much better than unemployment and food
lines.
Water Bond
From: Jessica Calefati, San
Jose Mercury News
As California's drought drags on,
more farmers are being forced to fallow fields and a growing number of small
towns run out of water. So Republicans and Democrats here finally agree on
something: They need to spend billions of dollars to fix California's broken
water system.
But that doesn't mean getting a
water bond on November's ballot that voters will approve is a sure thing.
Gov. Jerry Brown hasn't even
decided whether he supports the idea, while the Legislature has come up with
seven different schemes aimed at making the next drought a lot less painful.
Coalition response... Unlike NRDC and the Sierra Club, the California Farm Water Coalition
does not engage in lobbying activity of any kind. The CFWC was formed to help
inform the public on agricultural water issues and seeks to keep a growing
urban population connected with California's farmers who grow the food and
fiber we all rely on. While we are not a lobbying group, we believe
people should understand that the Wolk bill does not provide sufficient funding
to meet the new demands for storage that provide water supply and in-Delta
water quality benefits.
Water Rights
From: Matt Weiser, Sacramento
Bee
It's amazingly easy to steal
water from a California stream. Even in this epic drought, the state has no way
of monitoring exactly who is tapping into its freshwater supplies and how much
they take. And those who do get caught taking water they have no right to often
are allowed to keep taking it for years just by promising to obtain a permit.
Nearly 30,000 entities in the
state hold valid water diversion permits, including individual property owners,
farmers and water utilities. Some have meters or gauges to measure their
diversions, but the state has no ability of its own to monitor those gauges in
real-time.
Transfers
From: Steve Knell, Modesto Bee
The tone of the article was less
than positive and fully avoids the broader issues of resource management.
Water transfers and pumping
groundwater are but two of a very complex set of resource activities available
to irrigation districts. For Oakdale Irrigation District, how all these
activities relate to our water business is fully covered in OID's Water Resources
Plan, which was adopted in 2006 after a 21/2-year environmental review process.
OID is on target with that document and our accomplishments speak for
themselves in this drought.
From: Garth Stapley, Modesto
Bee
A debate over farmers selling
each other water will resurface at Tuesday's Modesto Irrigation District board
meeting.
A month ago, the board took
unprecedented action by embracing an open-market approach to water transfers,
agreeing on a 3-2 vote to let growers negotiate transfers at any price. But
both board members on the short end of that vote have said it's not a done
deal.
"I will make an argument to
rescind it on Tuesday," said board vice chairman Larry Byrd. Opponents of
the open-market approach think the water rightfully belongs to everyone and
don't like the idea of wealthy farmers outmuscling small growers with less to
spend.
Water Storage
From: Staff, Redding
Record-Searchlight
If luck - and political will -
holds, Sites Reservoir might just be the overnight success that was a lifetime
in the making.
It's easy to grow discouraged at
the slow machinations of government, and indeed the path to this point has been
awfully circular for a project that makes sense on its merits, respects the
environment and gains a fast-growing state about 1.9 million acre feet in new
water storage capacity.
From: Mariana Jacob, KFSN 30
People all over the state headed
outside to enjoy the warm weather on Sunday, but the dry conditions across
California are also affecting water levels at local lakes and reservoirs.
At Millerton Lake, miles and
miles of parched soil remain where there was once water. According to the State
Department of Water Resources, the lake is currently at 32 percent of total
capacity.
From: Kevin Freking, AP
California's drought has sparked
a new push by federal lawmakers to create or expand a handful of reservoirs
around the state, ramping up a political battle that former Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger once referred to as a "holy war in some ways."
Government agencies have been
studying five major water storage projects for nearly two decades, with nothing
to show for the effort so far.
Groundwater
From: David Mas Masumoto,
Sacramento Bee
In this drought year, it's my
only hope. Yet I can't see it, hear it or feel it. It lies hidden deep beneath
my farm. Without it, my farm and my neighbors go thirsty. All my senses focus
on groundwater.
With a depleted snowpack in the
Sierra and record low reservoirs, thousands of Central Valley farms will depend
on water extracted from wells to keep their plants alive and to grow food.
Hundreds of pumps in Valley cities and towns also supply water to tens of
thousands of thirsty households. Farmers and city folks will pray our machines
will continue to suck water from aquifers below our lands.
From: Peter Fimrite, San
Francisco Chronicle
A huge shift away from annual
crops to nut trees has transformed the California farm belt over the past two
decades and left farmers perilously vulnerable to the severe drought that is
currently gripping the state.
California farmers have spent
past years busily ripping out lettuce, tomatoes and other annual crops in an
attempt to sate the nation's growing appetite for almonds, pistachios and other
nuts.
From: Dana Hull & Megan
Hansen, Marin Independent Journal
With 2013 the driest year on
record and 2014 possibly worse, the devastation of California's drought is
trickling down to crops, fields, farmers markets, grocery stores - and Marin
residents' kitchen tables.
While it's too early to tell
precisely how much the drought will push up household grocery bills, economists
say consumers can expect to pay more for food later this year because fewer
acres of land are being planted and crop yields are shrinking.
From: Christien Kafton, KYVU 2
California farmers are saying the
drought means they're paying more for water, and have no choice but to pass
those costs on to consumers.
Miguel Cuevas works for Cipponeri
Farms in Turlock. He says one of the major canals that brings water to Central
Valley farms is bone dry, and that his farm and others will have to pay more
for water in the months to come.
Meetings
From: Amanda Carvajal, Merced
Sun-Star
California is in the midst of the
worst drought on record. Even when the region was blessed with a little
precipitation, much of the water was forced out to the ocean instead of stored
because of federal protections of the Delta smelt. Farmers who have been making
every effort to conserve, while still managing to produce large quantities, are
left scratching their heads in frustration. When the State Water Resources
Control Board declared it would make one of the most significant water grabs in
history, the contracted landowners' frustrations peaked.
