Groundwater
From: Alison Vekshin,
Bloomberg
Rod Cardella, a Mendota,
California, grower of wine grapes, onions and almonds, had to wait a year to
have a fourth water well dug on his property as the record drought gripping the
most populous U.S. state increased demand for groundwater.
Cardella, 66, who founded
Cardella Ranch with his father in 1970 and produces grapes for E&J Gallo
Winery, the largest exporter of California wines, paid $500,000 to add the well
in June after the federal government said it wouldn't supply his area with its
usual water allocation. The drought forced Cardella to leave half his ranch,
including onion and cotton fields, unplanted this year.
From: Staff, Modesto Bee
Who owns the water? That's the
essential issue in a controversial plan to pump 26,000 acre-feet of groundwater
over two years and sell it to a water district that runs from western Merced
County into San Joaquin County.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
approved using the Delta-Mendota Canal to transfer water pumped from beneath
4-S Ranch Partners LLC and SHS Family LP to the Del Puerto Water District.
Valued conservatively at $600 an acre-foot, the transaction could net ranch
owners Steve Sloan and Stephen Smith and their partners $15 million or more.
From: Staff, Sacramento
Bee
Groundwater is a key component to
California's complicated water system, and the Legislature needs to act to
manage and protect this vital resource.
In the quest for water during a
drought of historic proportions, water districts and farmers are drilling more
wells and pumping record amounts of groundwater.
From: Robert Weimer, Merced
Sun-Star
We have a defined aquifer in
eastern Merced County, which the majority of the population in the county
utilizes for its water source. Agriculture uses this same aquifer for
irrigation. Irrigators in the Merced Irrigation District have spent millions of
dollars in recent years on incentive programs to help growers develop highly
efficient irrigation systems. Local land owners paid for this through annual
stand-by fees.
Water Bond
From: Jeremy White, Sacramento
Bee
Looking ahead to the crush of
down-to-the-wire bills that will consume their August, California lawmakers
have a unified message: It's all about the water bond.
Legislators return from summer
recess today to a mountain of unfinished business. They have until the end of
the month to decide whether to pass bills and send them to Gov. Jerry Brown.
Water Supply
From: Mark Grossi, Fresno Bee
People in pickups cruise through
the quiet flatlands around here almost oblivious to a $22 million roadside
experiment that turns dirty water into a chance for survival for west San
Joaquin Valley farming.
Inside a buzzing complex, Jeff
Moore talks of membranes and clarifiers as he explains the process of
scavenging salt, boron and the infamous natural trace element called selenium.
Drought
From: Staff, NPR: On Point
with Tom Ashbrook
A NASA study says the water
problem in the American is deeper than we thought. We'll look at the West's
deep water challenge.
If you've been to Lake Mead
you've seen it. Prolonged drought in the West has driven the country's largest
reservoir to its lowest level in memory. But the true crisis lies below the
Colorado Basin bedrock. More than 75% of the water lost in the last nine years
came from groundwater supplies. And it may never come back. That's water for 40
million Americans. Water for 4 million acres of farmland. Without drastic
action, the water crisis may permanently change the Western way of life.
From: Kevin Freking, KERO 23
Prospects for a drought relief
bill to help California farmers appear as likely as the state being deluged by
three straight days of rain. Key federal lawmakers and staff are working behind
the scenes to settle differences in two bills that separately passed the House
and Senate earlier this year.
The lawmakers won't say where
progress has occurred or what roadblocks remain, but time is running out for
the current congressional session. Congress will be out for the rest of August
and for virtually all of October. In all, House members are scheduled to be in
Washington for votes for only about 25 more days this year.
From: Elaine Corn, Sacramento
Bee
Who are you going to believe, a
recent wonk report that says the third straight year of California drought
won't have much impact on food prices? Or your own grocery bill?
Make that two droughts, one here
and another in the Midwest affecting the price of beef. Throughout the Plains
states, ranchers have been slaughtering their starving cattle. Add to that a
virus that so far has killed 7 million baby pigs, causing the price of bacon to
spike 32 percent since 2008 with more than half that occurring in a surge the
last two years.
From: Staff, KCBS
The current drought is covering
all of California in extreme ways. It's the third driest year in 106 years of
record keeping according to Jay Lund of the UC Davis Center for Watershed
Sciences.
Lund stressed that the demand for
environmental, agricultural and urban water use have never come at a greater
time. At the recent UC Drought Summit in Sacramento, the general consensus was
that we cannot treat this historic drought as a one-off event since there are
sure to be more.
Regulations
From: Tom Campbell, Orange
County Register
The 1972 Clean Water Act requires
anyone putting anything into a navigable or interstate watercourse or wetland
to get a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of
Engineers. Tributaries to such watercourses are covered, but the word
"tributary" was not defined. Now, for the first time, in pending
regulations, the EPA proposes to do so.
A ditch can be a tributary. They
are mentioned explicitly in the rule. They are excluded only if they "do
not contribute flow, either directly or through another water, to" a
watercourse already reached by the EPA's jurisdiction. They don't have to carry
water continuously. "Intermittently" or "ephemerally" is sufficient.
