Bay Delta
Conservation Plan
From: Barbara
Barrigan-Parilla, Sacramento Bee
During the current drought, the
public will hear a lot about water management in California. Unfortunately,
Californians are being presented with a false dichotomy - that California's
water problems are about fish vs. people. It's what large corporate
agribusinesses from the Westlands Water District and Kern County Water Agency
have been pushing on the public since 2009. While we agree with these opposing
groups that we have a water management problem that is harming everyday people,
the facts show that the causes and solutions are different than what they
claim.
Coalition response... Pointing out unemployment statistics on the San Joaquin Valley's
Westside and then calling for more land retirement is illogical nonsense at its
worst. About 35,000 residents in the communities of Firebaugh, Huron, San
Joaquin and Mendota depend on farm jobs that reliable water supplies bring. Does
Restore the Delta have a plan for these displaced workers and are there a
legislators in Sacramento or Washington, D.C. that want their names associated
with it? I doubt it.
Water Supply
From: Eric Zamora, Fresno Bee
Federal water leaders Friday
painted a dire picture for California's water managers -- key reservoirs down
to 58% of average and Sierra watersheds with less than 15% of expected rain and
snow at this point.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
made a presentation at the annual regional water-users gathering in Reno. After
two below-average winters and a record-setting dry spell this winter,
conservation was the urgent message.
Drought
From: Michael Doyle, Sacramento Bee; Modesto Bee; Merced Sun-Star; Fresno Bee
The California drought will soon
expose the geographic, political, personal and institutional divisions that
complicate meaningful congressional action.
Forget farmers versus
environmentalists, that classic California plot. These divisions go deeper, and
could easily kill the legislative fixes House Republicans vowed to make at a
Bakersfield-area farm last week.
From: Staff, Fresno Bee
Citizens all over the United
States count on their lawmakers to pull together and come up with solutions in
times of crisis. Whether it's a devastating hurricane, earthquake or wildfire,
we look to these leaders to make the case for relief funding and to navigate
the bureaucratic mazes in our state capitols and Washington, D.C.
With California in the midst of a
drought, the responsibility for action rests largely on the shoulders of U.S.
Senator Dianne Feinstein as she has a record of working in bipartisan fashion
and has been highly involved in water issues since her election in 1992.
From: Norm Groot, Salinas
Californian
Salinas Valley growers have
created a unique situation here for a water supply solution: release water from
reservoirs on a year-round basis to allow for percolation to the groundwater
basin, thus causing recharge for the water pumped for irrigation purposes. This
is an effective and efficient solution to providing water to one of the best
farming regions in the world.
From: Reed Fujii, Stockton
Record
With 2013 San Joaquin County's
driest year on record, and January - typically one of the highest rain months -
coming to an end with no measurable rain, area farmers are increasingly
worried.
The drought has already taken a
heavy toll on those who depend on fall rains, mostly ranchers whose grazing
animals can't find feed on the dry, brown pastures. But even farmers with
sources of irrigation, whether well water or available surface water, are
facing higher costs and mineral buildup in the soil.
From: Dennis Taylor,
Salinas Californian
There's a waterless cloud hanging
over the Salinas Valley this winter - a likely harbinger of a hard, bleached
summer to come.
When it comes to drought in the
Salinas Valley, no one wants to be an alarmist. Words are chosen carefully.
Everyone seems stoic and reminds one other often that they've been through it
before and survived. And the most common refrain in the agricultural community
these days: "We still have two months left in the rainy season."
From: Paul Rogers, San Jose
Mercury News
California's current drought is
being billed as the driest period in the state's recorded rainfall history. But
scientists who study the West's long-term climate patterns say the state has
been parched for much longer stretches before that 163-year historical period
began.
And they worry that the
"megadroughts" typical of California's earlier history could come
again.
From: Jason Dearen, San
Francisco Chronicle
In January, business at the 101
Livestock Market's cattle auction on California's Central Coast is usually
slow. The busy season is normally in June or July, when ranchers have had time
to fatten their animals for weeks on spring grasses. This year, however,
business is bustling, with packed pens of moaning cattle and cowboys standing
on tip-toe to get a glance at their potential prizes.
Because of historically dry
conditions, California's soil moisture - a key ingredient for the forage that
cattle graze on - is low throughout the state. With feed costs high and weeks
of dry weather in the forecast, ranchers are already selling off parts of their
herds as normally green grazing pastures have turned brown.
From: Edward Ortiz, Sacramento
Bee
It's easy to see how harshly
drought has visited Stanley Van Vleck's 10,000-acre cattle ranch. In all
directions, across plain and foothill, the landscape is colored sickly brown.
Winter is normally the time that
California ranchers rely on the rain to turn the grass green, providing food
for cattle that roam the hillsides. This year, though, there is no green grass
to be found on Van Vleck's sprawling ranch south of Highway 16 near Rancho
Murieta.
Transfers
From: Jim Brobeck, Redding Record-Searchlight; Chico Enterprise-Record
California's climate is highly
variable. In the not-too-distant past, century-long droughts tested the
resilience of Central Valley ecosystems and native culture: 892-1112 AD and
1209-1350 AD.
However, the last 150 years have
been abnormally wet. Had 20th-century agencies and entrepreneurs been aware of
California's arid average, it is unlikely they would have invested so much
treasure in building dams and canals to develop desert agriculture and grassy
municipalities.
Groundwater
From: Staff, Desert Sun
Thanks to a record-breaking
drought, fire season never ended in California. January is usually a slow month
for firefighters, but that isn't the case this year. Cal Fire responded to
nearly 300 fires this month. Last January? Zero.
Gov. Jerry Brown's declaration of
a drought emergency sheds an even stronger light on the challenges in our
desert. The Coachella Valley may be used to dry weather, but we're affected by
the drought. As Coachella Valley Water District board President John Powell Jr.
puts it, we're in a perpetual state of drought. Palm Springs averages about 5.5
inches of rain a year, and it doesn't look like we'll come close to that this
year.
Fisheries
From: Peter Fimrite, San
Francisco Chronicle
The lack of rain this winter
could eventually be disastrous for thirsty California, but the drought may have
already ravaged some of the most storied salmon runs on the West Coast.
The coho salmon of Central
California, which swim up the rivers and creeks during the first winter rains,
are stranded in the ocean waiting for the surge of water that signals the
beginning of their annual migration, but it may never come.
