As the single largest water-consuming industry, agriculture has
become a focal point for efforts to promote water conservation.
The drive for water use efficiency has become institutionalized
in agriculture through numerous federal, state and local
programs. Since the 1980s, some water districts serving
agricultural areas have developed extensive water conservation
programs to help their customers (From Aquapedia).
Santa Barbara County’s most depleted water basin, the Cuyama
Valley, is fast becoming the latest battleground in the fight
over how — and whether — to address the negative impacts of the
lucrative cannabis industry on farming and residential
communities. The giant groundwater basin underlying this
sparsely populated, heavily farmed, economically depressed
valley is one of California’s 21 most critically over-drafted
basins and the only one outside the Central Valley.
Hundreds of farmers who rely on a massive irrigation project
that spans the Oregon-California border learned Wednesday they
will get a tiny fraction of the water they need amid the worst
drought in decades, as federal regulators attempt to balance
the needs of agriculture against federally threatened and
endangered fish species that are central to the heritage of
several tribes. Oregon’s governor said the prolonged drought in
the region has the “full attention of our offices,” and she is
working with congressional delegates, the White House and
federal agencies to find relief for those affected.
The San Joaquin Valley’s quest for groundwater sustainability
will result in large amounts of irrigated agricultural lands
being retired. A new book explores how some of these lands
could be restored to natural areas that bring multiple
benefits. We talked to Scott Butterfield, a senior scientist at
The Nature Conservancy and one of the book’s editors, about
this vision.
Imperial Irrigation District apparently has decided not to
sweat Michael Abatti’s decision to appeal his case against the
district to the nation’s highest court. IID announced Monday it
will not file a response to Abatti’s petition to the U.S.
Supreme Court over his ongoing legal dispute with the district
over water rights. The exception would be if the court requests
a response. IID General Counsel Frank Oswalt said in a press
release that a response is unnecessary.
It’s that time of year, when we find out it’s that kind of
year. We appear at the doorstep of a “critically dry
year,” and most reservoir levels are significantly below
average. Those conditions bring painfully to mind the awful
drought years of 2014 and 2015, and threaten water supplies for
California farms and cities, and for the protected fish species
that must also get by in these lean years. -Written by Danny Merkley, director of water resources, and
Chris Scheuring, senior counsel for the California Farm
Bureau.
Extreme drought conditions throughout the West are lowering
levels in the crucial water reservoir, Lake Mead. Scars of long
years of low precipitation are hard to go unnoticed at Lake
Mead, and the hot, dry summers have been felt for the last
several years in Arizona. 2020 was especially dry, with little
monsoon. Now, the West is in uncharted territory. Lake Mead is
projected to drop by several feet this year, from elevation
1,083 to about 1,068, according to officials with the Central
Arizona Project. The lake is hovering around 39 percent of its
full capacity.
Californians received a double dose of not so happy water news
last month; cutbacks were made to water allocations and a key
water price index surged higher. … The state’s Department of
Water Resources has wasted no time in sounding alarm bells;
officials have already announced 50 percent cutbacks from
December 2020’s projected water allotments to State Water
Project allocations for the 2021 water year. California
residents were warned “to plan for the impacts of limited water
supplies this summer for agriculture as well as urban and rural
water users.”
[S]ome scientists [are] saying the region is on the precipice
of permanent drought. That’s because in 2000, the
Western U.S. entered the beginning of what scientists call
a megadrought — the second worst in 1,200 years —
triggered by a combination of a natural dry cycle and
human-caused climate change. In the past 20 years,
the two worst stretches of drought came in 2003 and 2013 — but
what is happening right now appears to be the beginning stages
of something even more severe. And as we head into the summer
dry season, the stage is set for an escalation of extreme dry
conditions, with widespread water restrictions expected and yet
another dangerous fire season ahead.
Groundwater is a key resource for water users in California’s
Central Valley, a major agricultural hub with an economic
output of tens of billions of dollars annually. Surface
deformation in the Central Valley has long been linked to
changes in groundwater storage, but the timing and movement of
water flow beneath the surface has been poorly understood due
to a lack of reliable data. Now, for the first time,
scientists at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and School of Global Policy and
Strategy, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey are using
advanced satellite data to map the “pulse” of groundwater flow
through the San Joaquin Valley, the southern portion of the
Central Valley.
Chuang Cheng-deng’s modest rice farm is a stone’s throw from
the nerve center of Taiwan’s computer chip industry, whose
products power a huge share of the world’s iPhones and other
gadgets. This year, Mr. Chuang is paying the price for his
high-tech neighbors’ economic importance. Gripped by drought
and scrambling to save water for homes and factories, Taiwan
has shut off irrigation across tens of thousands of acres of
farmland. … Officials are calling the drought Taiwan’s worst
in more than half a century. And it is exposing the enormous
challenges involved in hosting the island’s semiconductor
industry, which is an increasingly indispensable node in the
global supply chains for smartphones, cars and other keystones
of modern life. Chip makers use lots of water to clean
their factories and wafers, the thin slices of silicon that
form the basis of the chips.
Despite market unknowns created by the pandemic and lower
commodity prices, California agricultural land values remained
largely stable, an indication buyers have confidence in the
long-term land market in the state: This was a key takeaway
from a virtual business conference held by the California
Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural
Appraisers. The conference also discussed impacts of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act on California land
values. Even though record supplies of the state’s
highest-value crops led to lower prices for farmers last year,
appraisers said the softer prices also helped move those
products.
California’s hottest commodity could become even more scarce as
state and federal officials announce water cutbacks on the
brink of another drought. Now, state legislators are banding
together to ask Governor Newsom to declare a state of emergency
amid what they call a water crisis. … [State Senator Andreas]
Borgeas authored a letter alongside the Assembly agriculture
committee chair and several other state lawmakers to send to
the governor. This comes after the California Department of
Water Resources announced a 5% allocation to farmers and
growers in late March.
Tractors are working ground in the Sacramento Valley, as the
2021 rice season is underway. Whether it’s farmers, those in
cities or for the environment, this year will pose challenges
due to less than ideal rain and snowfall during the fall and
winter. Jon Munger At Montna Farms near Yuba City, Vice
President of Operations Jon Munger said they expect to plant
about one-third less rice this year, based on water cutbacks.
As water is always a precious resource in this state, rice
growers work hard to be as efficient as they can. Fields are
precisely leveled and will be flooded with just five-inches of
water during the growing season. Rice is grown in heavy clay
soils, which act like a bathtub to hold water in place.
High-tech planting and harvest equipment also help California
rice farms and mills operate at peak efficiency.
California is at the edge of another protracted drought, just a
few years after one of the worst dry spells in state history
left poor and rural communities without well water, triggered
major water restrictions in cities, forced farmers to idle
their fields, killed millions of trees, and fueled devastating
megafires. … Just four years since the state’s last
drought emergency, experts and advocates say the state isn’t
ready to cope with what could be months and possibly years of
drought to come.
State officials are putting farmers in south-central Arizona on
notice that the continuing drought means a “substantial cut” in
deliveries of Colorado River water is expected next year. A
joint statement issued Friday by the state Department of Water
Resources and the Central Arizona Project said an expected
shortage declaration “will result in a substantial cut to
Arizona’s share of the river, with reductions falling largely
to central Arizona agricultural users.” The Central Arizona
Project is an aqueduct system that delivers Colorado River
water to users in central Arizona and southern Arizona,
including farmers, cities and tribes.
Water covers 71% of the earth’s surface, but only about 3%
percent of it is fresh water, making it the planet’s most
precious resource. But what do you do when water is in danger
of going dry? California’s Central Valley is no stranger
to drought, and because of that, farmers and scientists are
joining forces to figure out how to get by with less.
Water releases designed to benefit the critical outmigration of
juvenile salmon on the Stanislaus River as well as assist farms
and communities along the west side of the San Joaquin Valley
already starting to suffer the effects of two consecutive dry
years is languishing in the federal bureaucracy. Up to
100,000 acre feet is proposed to be released that belongs to
the South San Joaquin and Oakdale irrigation districts that
would provide a critical impulse flow from April 15 to May
15. That water based on measurements at Vernalis south of
Manteca where the Stanislaus River joins the San Joaquin River
would significantly improve the survivability of the threatened
salmon.
The fight between Imperial Valley farmer Michael Abatti and the
Imperial Irrigation District over control of the
district’s massive allotment of Colorado River water could
be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court if Abatti gets his way. He
and his lawyers have announced that they have petitioned the
nation’s highest court to take up the litigation that has
dragged on since 2013….Abatti is seeking to have the
country’s apex court hand control of IID’s water over to
landowners, a move that would leave most of the valley’s water
with a few larger agricultural operations.
Seven agencies that have been working together to sustain the
groundwater in the Cosumnes Subbasin, which includes the
communities of Galt, Herald, Wilton and Rancho Murieta South,
held a workshop March 24. The presentation was intended to help
residents understand how groundwater will be used in the next
two decades in the Cosumnes Subbasin. The group has until Jan.
31, 2022 to submit its plan to the state on how it intends to
meet its target of replacing 20,000-acre feet per year (AFY) in
underground basins called aquifers to sustain the groundwater.
One of the takeaways from meeting is the plan will cost $2.25
million in the early years.
A groundwater market, which caps total pumping within one or
more basins, allocates portions of the total to individual
users and allows users to buy and sell groundwater under the
total cap, is a promising tool for basins implementing
California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA). … [G]roundwater markets can be a useful tool for
achieving basin sustainability, but they are not a good fit for
every basin or groundwater sustainability agency (GSA). … The
Fox Canyon groundwater market benefitted from the four enabling
conditions (water scarcity, fixed allocations, agricultural
stakeholder support, and capacity and funding) described below.
California agricultural land values that are rising and falling
the most are doing so under the perception of water
availability – no surprise there. This is putting farmland in
the Fresno Irrigation District (FID) in a positive light as
that agency has done a good job over the years managing
conjunctive use of irrigation water.
Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act established pumping
regulations in the state’s most populous areas but set no such
limits on rural parts of the state. In recent years, some rural
areas have come under increased pressure from agricultural
pumping that has dropped groundwater levels dramatically. …
Lawmakers introduced several bills in the current legislative
session to regulate or provide more options for managing the
state’s groundwater. One would have banned most new wells in
the Upper San Pedro and Verde Valley river basins. Another
would have set spacing limits for new wells in areas that are
overdrawn. Another, introduced by Rep. Regina Cobb of Kingman,
would have given county supervisors the power to establish
groundwater limits or regulations in their area.
Imperial Valley grower, landowner, and former elected official
Michael Abatti has filed a petition for “writ of certiorari”
with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the California
Court of Appeal, Fourth Appellate District’s decision in Abatti
v. Imperial Irrigation District, according to a press release
from Abatti and his legal team. Michael Abatti, Imperial County
farmer Abatti is seeking to overturn a previous appellate court
ruling that asserts Imperial Irrigation District is the “sole
owner” of water rights in the Valley, and farmers do “not
(have) an appurtenant water right” but rather are entitled
merely to “water service” that is subject to modification by
the district at its discretion, the press release states.
Another advantage to “feeding” the soil in a region plagued
with persistent drought involves the tremendous water savings.
… With below-average precipitation in California,
its reservoirs are showing the impacts of a second dry year.
Lake Oroville stands at 55% of average and Lake Shasta,
California’s largest, now stands at 68%. Most
eco-conscious activists agree that, with the climate’s changing
patterns that lead to decreasing water supplies and die-offs of
pollinators, a lot more needs to be done to help keep our water
and food supplies plentiful.
Last week, the Court of Appeal for the Fifth Appellate District
of California issued a long-awaited decision in the Antelope
Valley Groundwater Cases, resolving a dispute more than two
decades in the making. The case adjudicated groundwater rights
in the Antelope Valley Adjudication Area (AVAA) in northern Los
Angeles County and southeast Kern County. The adjudication,
which commenced in 1999, involved private water suppliers,
public agencies, the federal government, and overlying
landowners who pump water for agricultural, industrial,
commercial, and domestic uses. Although currently unpublished,
the court’s opinion illustrates several important developments
in California groundwater law.
When the first European explorers arrived in California’s
Central Valley, they found a vast mosaic of seasonal and
permanent wetlands, as well as oak woodlands and riparian
forests. What remains of those wetlands are still the backbone
of the Pacific Flyway; along with flooded agricultural fields,
they support millions of migrating waterbirds each
year. According to a just-released study from Audubon,
tens of millions of land birds rely on the Central Valley as
well… But today, the situation is dire. More than 90% of
wetlands in the Central Valley – and throughout California –
have disappeared beneath tractors and bulldozers.
-Written by Samantha Arthur, the Working Lands Program
Director at Audubon California and a member of the
California Water Commission.
The lack of rain and snow during what is usually California’s
wet season has shrunk the state’s water supply. The Sierra
Nevada snowpack, a crucial source of water as it melts over the
spring and summer, is currently at 65 percent of normal. Major
reservoirs are also low. Two state agencies warned last week
that the dry winter is very likely to lead to cuts in the
supply of water to homes, businesses and farmers. The federal
Bureau of Reclamation also told its agricultural water
customers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to
expect no water this year.
A water project that would generate revenue, make wise use of
reclaimed water and preserve large tracts of open space in the
city of San Luis Obispo was first made public over 10 years
ago. Since then, the city has made no progress on the proposal
to allow Edna Valley landowners to reuse some of the city’s
treated wastewater to irrigate vineyards and other agricultural
crops. Surplus water already could be assisting growers in Edna
Valley, which is an important part of the city’s
greenbelt.
– Written by Neil Havlik, who served as San Luis
Obispo’s natural resources manager from 1996 to 2012.
An extra dry summer with potential for water shortages – that’s
what state and federal officials are telling Californians to
prepare for. Predictions for 2021 are bleak. Lake levels
are low and the Sacramento region is not getting the spring
showers many hoped for. According to the US drought monitor,
most of the Central Valley is experiencing severe to extreme
drought conditions. This week the Department of Water
Resources lowered its expected forecast of water deliveries
made to cities and farms by half. But any conservation
restrictions would be up to local authorities.
With World Water Day this week and the dry year emerging
throughout the Sacramento Valley, we take this moment to
reflect on the value of water as we cultivate a shared vision
in the region for a vibrant way of life. We encourage you to
watch and read the following vignettes that all showcase the
value of water.
California’s water use varies dramatically across regions and
sectors, and between wet and dry years. With the possibility of
another drought looming, knowing how water is allocated across
the state can make it easier to understand the difficult
tradeoffs the state’s water managers must make in times of
scarcity. The good news is that we’ve been using less over
time, both in cities and on farms. While there are still ways
to cut use further to manage droughts, it won’t always be easy
or cheap to do so. California’s freshwater ecosystems are at
particular risk of drought, when environmental water use often
sees large cuts. Watch the video to learn how Californians use
water.
California farmers relying on State Water Project water were
warned Monday to prepare for potential shortages by reducing
water use and adopting practical conservation measures.
Installing solar panels over California’s network of water
canals could save the state an estimated 63 billion gallons of
water and produce 13 gigawatts of renewable power every year,
according to a feasibility study published in Nature
Sustainability. California moves more water than any other
system in the world, with 75% of the state’s available water in
its northern third and the southern two-thirds accounting for
80% of the state’s demand. Covering the canals with solar
panels would reduce evaporation by shading the canals from the
sun (along with the co-benefit of reducing canal-choking plant
growth) and the cooling effects of the water could boost solar
panel efficiency.
Much of the U.S. West is facing the driest spring in seven
years, setting up a climate disaster that could strangle
agriculture, fuel deadly wildfires and even hurt power
production. Across 11 western states, drought has captured
about 75% of the land, and covers more than 44% of the
contiguous U.S., the U.S. Drought Monitor said. While
drought isn’t new to the West, where millions of people live,
grow crops and raise livestock in desert conditions that
require massive amounts of water, global warming is
exacerbating the problem — shrinking snowpack in the Rocky
Mountains and extending the fire season on the West Coast.
[A] study has ascertained that indiscriminate exploitation
of groundwater is resulting in sinking of land worldwide. …
According to a report by The Guardian, countries like India,
China and Mexico are rapidly draining groundwater to meet their
food demands. Agriculture is at the forefront of excessive
exploitation of groundwater. … In California, USA, where
80% of pure water is used for irrigation of cultivated crops,
about one million acres of agricultural land is used for
growing alfalfa as a fodder crop, which is exported to China.
An article in the New York Times has expressed concern that the
US exports one billion gallons of water to China as alfalfa per
year.
Witnessing the devastating effects of drought in rural
California and India at the age of 11 spurred Shreya
Ramachandran to action. She devoted years to researching the
reuse of grey water—lightly used water from sinks, showers, and
laundry—and painstakingly tested the environmental safety of
organic detergents. The nonprofit Ramachandran founded, the
Grey Water Project, has inspired thousands of people to build
their own “laundry to lawn” grey water systems. Now a high
school senior, she’s collaborated with several California water
agencies and the United Nations Global Wastewater Initiative,
and created a grey water curriculum for elementary students to
show them that small actions can make a big difference.
A new analysis finds that covering water canals in California
with solar panels could save a lot of water and money while
generating renewable energy. Doing so would generate between
20% and 50% higher return on investment than would be achieved
by building those panels on the ground. The paper, published
Thursday in Nature Sustainability, performs what its authors
call a techno-economic analysis, calculating the impacts and
weighing the costs and benefits of potentially covering the
thousands of miles of California’s open irrigation system.
An Oregon judge has agreed to hear further legal arguments over
his ruling that tribal water rights in the Klamath basin must
be re-quantified. Because the judge’s legal opinion from last
month hasn’t yet been reduced to an order, that means the
Klamath tribes can enforce their water rights to shut off
irrigation in the meantime.
The Bureau of Reclamation is awarding $42.4 million in grants
to 55 projects throughout 13 states. These projects will
improve the water reliability for these communities by using
water more efficiently and power efficiency improvements that
water supply reliability and generate more hydropower…. In
California, near the Arizona border, the Bard Water District
will receive $1.1 million to complete a canal lining and piping
project. The project is expected to result in annual water
savings of 701 acre-feet, which will remain in the Colorado
River system for other uses.
California has recently established a water futures market that
has brought with it some criticism as well as confusion. As the
first of its kind in the country, it will function similarly to
futures markets for other commodities. The market will allow
water users to lock in a particular price they are willing to
pay for water. This new futures market is entirely different
from water markets that allow the purchasing of water
allocations.
Longtime family farmer Laura Cattani was appointed to the board
of the powerful Kern County Water Agency during a special
meeting on Monday. She is the second woman to serve on the
board of directors in the 60-year history of the agency.
Cattani will bring much needed diversity to the board, several
directors said during Monday’s meeting, not only because she’s
a woman, but also for her age. Cattani is 39.
Longtime family farmer Laura Cattani was appointed to the board
of the powerful Kern County Water Agency during a special
meeting on Monday. She is the second woman to serve on the
board of directors in the 60-year history of the agency, which
is the second largest contractor on the State Water Project.
Cattani will bring much needed diversity to the board, several
directors said during Monday’s meeting, not only because she’s
a woman, but also for her age. Cattani is 39.
A unique deal between ranchers and wildlife advocates may at
long last bring a reliable water supply to Lower Klamath
National Wildlife Refuge — and the wetlands and birds that
depend on it. Since it was largely drained in the early 20th
Century, the mosaic of wetlands formerly known as Lower Klamath
Lake has relied on water from the Klamath Irrigation Project to
grow food and provide suitable habitat for millions of
migrating birds along the Pacific Flyway each year. Wetlands in
the Klamath Basin support nearly 80% of the Pacific Flyway’s
migratory waterfowl during the spring and fall.
A judge has ordered the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power to continue providing historic quantities of irrigation
water to lessees of its pasturelands east of Yosemite, despite
the agency’s assertion that climate change is making water
resources in the Sierra Nevada watershed increasingly
unreliable.
Dwindling Chinook salmon runs have forced the Pacific Fishery
Management Council to shorten the commercial salmon fishing
season. The Sacramento Valley fall-run Chinook salmon runs are
projected to be half as abundant as the 2020 season while the
Klamath River fall Chinook abundance forecast is slightly
higher than the 2020 but is still significantly lower than the
long-term average. During a press briefing on Friday morning,
John McManus President of the Golden State Salmon Association
said the added restrictions will deal a blow to commercial
fishermen.
In the Capital Region, water determines destinies. The
10-county area is both plagued by drought and one of the
country’s most at-risk regions for catastrophic flooding. The
physical existence of Sacramento and surrounding cities and the
viability of the region’s heavily irrigated agriculture depend
on water resources engineers like Mary Paasch.
As we celebrate National Groundwater Awareness Week, the
Northern California Water Association (NCWA) convened its
groundwater management task force this week to help coordinate
the various Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) in the
Sacramento Valley and to advance groundwater sustainability
throughout the region.
Cannon Michael has been reelected as chairman of the San Luis
and Delta-Mendota Water Authority Board and Keith Murfield has
announced his retirement as CEO of the United Dairymen of
Arizona.
On the tail end of the second dry winter in a row, with water
almost certain to be in short supply this summer, California
water officials are apparently planning to largely drain the
equivalent of the state’s two largest reservoirs to satisfy the
thirst of water-wasting farmers. Gov. Gavin Newsom must stop
this irresponsible plan, which threatens the environmental
health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the water supply
for about one-third of the Bay Area residents. We should be
saving water, not wasting it.
The effort to return [California red-legged] frogs to
Southern California, which had been ongoing by Robert
Fisher from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Amphibian
Research and Monitoring Initiative Program for more than 20
years, began to move the needle in San Diego County when
Winchell started working with private ranchers Judy and Chuck
Wheatley who had just restored a pond on their property for the
reintroduction of the Western pond turtle. … The species was
decimated by disease and invasives, and disappeared from San
Diego County in 1974 and western Riverside County in
2001.
Those of us in the water industry are always looking for new
ways to ask our customers to save, conserve, and never waste
water. And we do that for good reason. We live in a region
prone to regular periods of drought, punctuated by sudden and
catastrophic floods. Last year we had a very dry year, and this
water year is off to a very dry start as well. Sonoma Water,
which supplies drinking water to 600,000 residents in Sonoma
and Marin counties, relies on rainfall to fill our reservoirs
and consecutive years of below-average rainfall are always
cause for concern. Will this be a two-year dry spell, or the
beginning of a multi-year drought? Written by Barry Dugan, Senior Programs Specialist in
the Community and Government Affairs Division at Sonoma
Water.
If 2020 was a difficult water year for the Klamath Basin, then
2021 is likely to be even more challenging. With record-low
inflows coming into Upper Klamath Lake, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation anticipates it will not have anywhere near enough
water this summer to meet minimum requirements for endangered
fish — let alone enough water to meet irrigation demands for
farmers and ranchers. Jeff Payne, deputy regional director for
the bureau, said the basin in Southern Oregon and Northern
California appears to be entering a second consecutive year of
extreme drought, exacerbating what was already a critical
situation.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced the selection of Semitropic
Water Storage District and Bard Water District as the two
recipients of the Agricultural Water Use Efficiency Grant
Program for fiscal year 2020. Combined with Natural Resources
Conservation Service support and local cost-share
contributions, approximately $5 million in water efficiency
improvement projects will be implemented during the next two
years. The AWUE program works with NRCS to promote
district-level improvements to increase on-farm water use
efficiency and conservation projects. Reclamation is funding
the two projects with NRCS support.
Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said the Delta flows
issue has been decades in the making and “it’s going to
take some time to figure this out.”
[A] new 18-chapter book, written by agricultural economists at
UC Davis, UC Berkeley and UC Riverside, addresses issues such
as labor, water, climate and trade that affect all of
California agriculture. … Water, climate and trade pose
challenges and opportunities for California agriculture. In the
last decade, water scarcity and decreased water quality, along
with regulations to address these issues like the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, have prompted farmers to use scarce
water to irrigate more valuable crops, as with the switch from
cotton to almonds.
A disappointingly dry February is fanning fears of another
severe drought in California, and cities and farms are bracing
for problems. In many places, including parts of the Bay Area,
water users are already being asked to cut back. The
state’s monthly snow survey on Tuesday will show only about 60%
of average snowpack for this point in the year, the latest
indication that water supplies are tightening. With the end of
the stormy season approaching, forecasters don’t expect much
more buildup of snow, a key component of the statewide supply
that provides up to a third of California’s water.
On a Saturday in late October, Carolyn Phinney is hip-deep in a
half-acre of vegetables, at the nucleus of what will one day be
15 acres of productive farmland. … The patch is a wealth of
herbs, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, kale, winter squash, and
zucchini. So much zucchini—fruits the size of bowling pins
hidden under leaves as big as umbrellas. “Zucchini plants are
supposed to be 30 inches across. Ours are 8 feet,” she says.
“Everything looks like it’s on steroids.” Phinney is the farmer
behind CoCo San Sustainable Farm of Martinez,
California, a farm built on reclaimed land, using reclaimed
water, and started with a simple mission: to get kids to eat
more vegetables.
While the county’s Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA) has
been monitoring groundwater through residential and commercial
wells volunteered for the program since 2017, four new wells
specifically designed to capture a broad range of information
will soon be expanding the available data. The Sonoma Valley
Fire District approved the installation of the first of four
new groundwater monitoring wells on a small piece of their
property on Felder Road, just off Arnold Drive. It is expected
to be producing results by this year.
For centuries, farmers have found ingenious ways of making the
best of the water available, but access to fresh water is
becoming more and more unpredictable. Extreme weather events
and drought is as much of a threat, as flash flooding in farms
and food producers. … In California’s Central
Valley, a region that produces a quarter of the USA’s food and
relies mostly on water pumped from underground, to irrigate the
crops, is fast running out of its water supply.
New Frontier Data, the premier data, analytics and technology
firm specializing in the global cannabis industry, in
partnership with Resource Innovation Institute and the Berkeley
Cannabis Research Center, releases Cannabis H2O: Water Use and
Sustainability in Cultivation. The report provides an in-depth
look at water usage in the regulated cannabis cultivation
market and how its use compares to the illicit market and
traditional agricultural sectors. … The report reveals that
the cannabis industry uses significantly less water than other
major agricultural crops in California.
Conservation groups said 80 species were known to have gone
extinct, 16 in the last year alone. Millions of people rely on
freshwater fish for food and as a source of income through
angling and the pet trade. But numbers have plummeted due to
pressures including pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the
damming and draining of rivers and wetlands. The report said
populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in
the last 50 years. Over the same time period, populations of
larger species, known as “megafish”, have crashed by 94%.
Vanderbilt paleoclimatologists using pioneering research
have uncovered evidence of ancient climate “whiplash” in
California that exceeded even the extremes the state has
weathered in the past decade. Their findings present a
long-term picture of what regional climate change may look like
in the state that supplies the U.S. with more than a third
of its vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts.
Crops are now blooming here in the San Joaquin Valley, which
marks the beginning of harvest season for farmers. As a
drier-than-usual wet season continues to unfold, many are
worried about how current drought conditions will impact this
year’s crop.
The largest dam removal in United States history is set to take
place along the Klamath River by 2023, but getting to this
point was neither easy nor quick. Water management, especially
in densely populated and water-scarce places like California,
is a challenge from practically every aspect: ownership and
operations of water infrastructure, local politics, maintenance
costs, and sustainability concerns.
On a bright February morning, Kulwant Singh Johl, a
third-generation Punjabi American farmer, checked the rain
gauge in front of his neat stucco home in Northern California’s
Yuba-Sutter area. Gusts and drizzles had battered his peach
orchard nonstop for a week, but it still wasn’t enough to
quench the recent drought. … And indeed, the
intensifying drought could devastate livelihoods of many
multigeneration Punjabi American farmers in California. This
year, many may have to sell their hard-earned farm plots and
leave an industry that they hold in high esteem.
Less water for the Central Arizona Project — but not zero
water. Even more competition between farms and cities for
dwindling Colorado River supplies than there is now. More
urgency to cut water use rather than wait for seven river basin
states to approve new guidelines in 2025 for operating the
river’s reservoirs. That’s where Arizona and the Southwest are
heading with water, say experts and environmental advocates
following publication of a dire new academic study on the
Colorado River’s future. The study warned that the river’s
Upper and Lower basin states must sustain severe cuts in river
water use to keep its reservoir system from collapsing due to
lack of water. That’s due to continued warming weather and
other symptoms of human-caused climate change, the study said.
California’s $86 million date industry produces more than half
of the nation’s dates. Most of the fruit is grown in the arid
Coachella Valley. Despite efforts by growers to conserve water,
data was lacking on date palms’ actual water use to refine the
best irrigation management for the crop until a recent research
project led by Ali Montazar, UC Cooperative Extension
irrigation and water management advisor for Imperial and
Riverside counties.
Much like COVID-19 is changing our election practices and
day-to-day business operations, climate change could change
your water rights, according to the State Water Resources
Control Board. In the past, I have eluded to the shift from
historical facts used for analysis and forecasting to a
fear-based guessing game that allows an unelected bureaucracy
backed by a one-party-rule elected body to usurp your property
rights. -Written by Wayne Western, Jr. the Sun’s Agriculture
Pulse contributor, writing on the San Joaquin Valley’s
agricultural community and water issues.
A western water conference that draws national speakers each
year — and normally draws Basin irrigators to Reno for the
weekend — is being held virtually this Thursday and Friday due
to COVID precautions. The Family Farm Alliance conference,
organized in part by Klamath Falls-based executive director Dan
Keppen, is themed “A Bridge over Troubled Water” this year. The
alliance advocates for irrigated agriculture in 17 western
states, including in Oregon.
Growers all over the U.S. are concerned about labor, and those
in the Golden State are no exception. The California Fresh
Fruit Association (CFFA) announced the results of their “Top
Issues Survey” for 2021, and labor- and water-related issues
were prominently featured. CFFA members were recently surveyed
to rank the top issues for the association to focus its efforts
on this year.
The Kern County Farm Bureau issued a “call to action” this week
asking local growers and ranchers to participate in a series of
upcoming meetings that will influence the role California’s
agricultural lands will be expected to play, or continue to
play, in fighting climate change.
On sunbaked farmlands where alfalfa and corn grow alongside
pistachio orchards and grapevines, pumps hum as wells draw
water from underground and send it flowing to fields. The
agriculture business around Willcox depends entirely on
groundwater. And groundwater here, like most other rural areas
across Arizona, remains entirely unregulated.
Tools such a SWIIM–which stands for Sustainable Water and
Innovative Irrigation Management–provides a new standard in
water measurement that allows growers to receive an accurate
accounting of the water both delivered and consumed by their
orchards. … And, of course we are talking about SGMA, the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
California is in the early stages of a severe multi-decadal
drought, exacerbated by the climate crisis. As Dan Walters
pointed out in his recent commentary, we must move quickly to
prepare for water shortages and wildfires. A potent strategy to
improve the state’s water storage capacity involves an ancient
technology so ubiquitous that it is often overlooked: soil. The
urgency of California’s drought and wildfire risks require that
we invest in soil health now. -Written by Ellie Cohen, CEO of The Climate
Center, and Torri Estrada, executive director of
the Carbon Cycle Institute.
Bracing for potentially a second consecutive year of dry
conditions, California water officials, farmers and researchers
participating in an irrigation conference discussed recharging
aquifers with stormwater and increased water efficiency among
ways to diversify the state’s water supply.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday released the
final rule for its Agricultural Conservation Easement Program,
or ACEP, which enables agricultural producers and private
landowners to protect farmlands, grasslands, and wetlands with
conservation easements. The rule updates ACEP as directed by
the 2018 Farm Bill and incorporates public comments made on an
interim rule.
Reclamation maintains and operates over 8,000 miles of water
distribution systems that use, among other means, reservoirs
and canals to store and deliver water. Water lost to seepage
reduces the efficiency of the water delivery to the users and
can cause undermining/erosion, subgrade soil migration, adverse
vegetation growth, and even canal failure….This prize
competition seeks innovative solutions that can reduce the
costs and burdens associated with installation and maintenance
of seepage reduction methods, and improve durability in a range
of climatic conditions.
Moving from competition to cooperation can help solve water
problems facing farms in the San Joaquin Valley and cities in
Southern California, and better prepare both for a changing
climate. At a virtual event last week, PPIC research fellow
Alvar Escriva-Bou summarized a new PPIC report showing how
cooperative investments in new supplies and water-sharing
agreements can help address both regions’ needs.
Shortly after taking office two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom
promised to deliver a massive compromise deal on the water
rushing through California’s major rivers and the
critically-important Delta — and bring lasting peace to the
incessant water war between farmers, cities, anglers and
environmentalists. … [C]oming to an agreement as promised
will require Newsom’s most artful negotiating skills. He’ll
have to get past decades of fighting and maneuvering, at the
same time California is continuing to recover from the worst
wildfire season in modern state history and a pandemic that has
since killed more than 42,000 state residents.
During the summer of 2020, American Rivers and partners
completed the restoration of three small meadows in the Upper
West Walker River Watershed. The meadows – Upper Sardine, Lower
Sardine, and Cloudburst – are located at around 8,500 feet in
elevation on the east side of Sonora Pass in the Eastern
Sierra. Historic land use, especially unregulated
grazing, resulted in degradation in these three
meadows. Heavy grazing can result in soil compaction and
erosion that can be self-perpetuating. When meadows
are degraded, they are less resilient and
therefore more prone to further damage.
California almond farmers enjoyed record-breaking harvests over
the last five years, after production dipped in the wake of
2014’s historic drought. That year a chorus of headlines
vilified almonds for sucking up a gallon of water per nut,
though irrigation efficiency has been improving. Now, as
global temperatures rise, a caterpillar barely the size of a
paper clip may threaten California’s position as the world’s
leading producer of almonds, walnuts and pistachios.
A detailed analysis released by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
could change its approach in operating the Klamath Project in
compliance with the Endangered Species Act.
U.S. Representative David G. Valadao introduced the
Responsible, No-Cost Extension of Western Water Infrastructure
Improvements, or RENEW WIIN, Act, a no-cost, clean extension of
operations and storage provisions of the WIIN Act (P.L.
114-322).
Experts agree the amount of water in the Colorado River basin
has declined because of drought and climate change, and that
population growth is fueling demand for water higher and
higher. One result is the level of Lake Powell in Arizona,
behind Glen Canyon Dam, has steadily declined and is now at 43%
of capacity. Further, just last week, the U.S. Dept of Interior
sounded an alarm that they may have to start draining other
reservoirs in Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming to try and
“save” Lake Powell. -Written by Daniel P. Beard, former commissioner of the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and Gary Wockner, director of Save
The Colorado.
Farm groups say a proposed regulatory permit known as the
Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program for Central Coast
agriculture, which regulates waste discharge from irrigated
lands throughout the Central Coast, would make it more
difficult for farmers to achieve the desired results, while
harming the region’s agricultural economy.
According to the U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment
of Global Water Security, by 2030 humanity’s “annual
global water requirements” will exceed “current sustainable
water supplies” by 40%, highlighting the importance of building
a water resilient future.
Since the early 1920s, the Long Valley plains east of Yosemite
have inspired comparison to a rustic Western paradise
… Much of this great, green expansiveness, however, owes
to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which
aggressively purchased land and water rights here more than a
century ago. The department’s routine annual deliveries of free
surplus water to its tenants have helped sustain ranching
operations and habitat for many decades. But that relationship
is now at risk of ending, and could carry dire consequences for
one of California’s most striking and violently formed
landscapes.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug
against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes,
pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay
of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these
orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a
multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But
that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has
depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded
ecosystems. The land is literally sinking…
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Nearly half of food grown in the United States gets thrown out.
More food is tossed once it reaches a household fridge than at
any other point in the supply chain. With every strawberry that
doesn’t get eaten comes the wasted water to grow it, the wasted
gas to transport it, the methane it emits while it rots, and
crowded landfills.
The calls came in shortly after the story in The New York Times
announced Wall Street was on the prowl for “billions in the
Colorado’s water.” … The national story raised hackles
across Colorado. It defined agriculture as a “wrong” use of
Colorado River water and detailed a growing swarm of investors
eager to inject Wall Street’s strategies into the West’s
century-old water laws. The idea of private investment in
public water has galvanized the state’s factious water
guardians.
As California farmers weigh decisions on what to plant and how
much, lack of rainfall so far this winter has further clouded a
2021 crop outlook already complicated by market uncertainties
created by the pandemic. With current precipitation levels
looking even drier than the 2014-15 drought years, Kings County
farmer Brian Medeiros said he’s already making decisions about
what ground to fallow.
Governor Newsom’s proposed budget includes funds for
agricultural programs designed to build climate resilience and
support farmers’ financial resilience and water security. We
talked to Karen Ross, secretary of the California
Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) about progress on
such programs, and what’s on the horizon.
Pascua Yaqui Council members called it “a blessing” Tuesday.
They were talking about $900,000 in federal funds that will be
used to bring water to the tribe’s lands for irrigation, the
first fruits of a successful effort last year by members of the
state’s congressional delegation to win $150 million in federal
funding for water projects around the state. … The money
comes from an Army Corps of Engineers fund dedicated to water
infrastructure projects in Arizona. Under the bill, local
governments can enter into agreements with the corps for water,
wastewater treatment, environmental restoration and other
projects.
Ongoing drought in parts of the West could trigger water
conservation measures across seven states this year. It would
mark the first time that cutbacks outlined in drought
contingency plans drafted two years ago have been put in place.
Everything from hydroelectric power generation to agricultural
production to the bubbling fountains at Las Vegas casinos could
be impacted. Impacts on hydro generation could have ripple
effects across the Southwest, including solar and energy
storage.
The Colusa and Glenn Groundwater Authorities will host an
online workshop about a Well Monitoring Pilot Program the
agencies are implementing. The voluntary, non-regulatory
program will gather information about groundwater use in the
Colusa Subbasin while also providing participants with
near-real time access to information on well production and
groundwater levels at their wells, according to a press
release.
Describing federal investment in Western water management as
“essential,” a coalition of more than 200 organizations has
urged the incoming Biden administration and the new Congress to
include water facilities in any future infrastructure or
economic-recovery package. The coalition, including a number of
national and regional organizations plus farm groups and water
districts from 15 states, sent separate letters last week to
President-elect Biden and the Democratic and Republican leaders
of the House and Senate. The letter included specific
recommendations for the types of water investments the
coalition said could have the greatest impact.
A study published Monday found billions more could face food
insecurity as Earth’s tropical rain belt shifts in response to
climate change, causing increased drought stress and
intensified flooding. … Researchers at the University of
California, Irvine and other institutions analyzed how the
tropical rain belt would respond to a future where greenhouse
gas emission continued to rise through 2100, UCI News reported.
Their findings, published in Nature Climate Change, revealed
the rain belt will shift northward over the Eastern Hemisphere,
impacting countries in southeastern Africa.
On Jan. 15, State Assemblymembers Robert Rivas and Rudy Salas
introduced Assembly Bill 252, which if approved would help
alleviate the impacts of the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act (SGMA) on farmers and ensure that farmland taken out of
production due to SGMA is reused to provide conservation,
recreation, or other benefits to local communities.
California’s Central Valley produces much of the nation’s food,
including about 40% of the country’s fruits and nuts and has
the nation’s second most pumped aquifer system. Its drier
southern portion, the San Joaquin Valley, has decreasing
surface water supply reliability due to frequent and prolonged
droughts, stricter environmental regulations, and growing
competition among water users. Many farmers pump groundwater to
provide their unsupplied water demand. The resulting
groundwater overdraft has numerous impacts on the Valley’s
agriculture and residents.
Throughout his research, Simon Ferrigno has seen the statistic
range from 2,000 to 20,000 liters of water needed to make a
T-shirt. Instead of numbers, Ferrigno said the focus
should be on whether or not the water that’s used in the
process can be cleaned and repurposed for other needs.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture and more than
twenty partners are hosting Healthy Soils Week 2020 to
highlight the importance and multiple benefits of soil
health on the farm to the ecosystem. The leaders in the
Sacramento Valley have fully embraced nature-based solutions as
called for by Governor Newsom in his October 7 Executive Order
and healthy soils are important for population health and
multi-benefit water management.
Agriculture uses more of Earth’s freshwater than any other
sector, primarily for crop irrigation. In places where water is
scarce, policymakers are eager to regulate water
usage and incentivize more conscientious practices. Key to
advancing these goals, however, is accurately measuring how
much water farmers are using.
Five Tulare County water districts received a portion of $1.6
million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture this month
to help farmers better conserve water resources.
With its Séka Hills olive oil, the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation [in
Northern California’s Capay Valley] is reclaiming its ancestral
land with a crop for the future. … Wherever possible, the
tribe uses sustainable farming practices, and has received
several grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
Natural Resource Conservation Service for water and rangeland
conservation…
Now based in California, 39-year-old engineer and entrepreneur
Meena Sankaran is working to make water cleaner and more
reliable — by making it smarter. Using sensors and analytic
tools, Sankaran’s startup KETOS provides real-time monitoring
of both water usage and quality, alerting, say, a farmer to a
leak, or a municipality to a contaminant.
All of these wineries focus on energy efficiency, water use
efficiency, soil and nutrient management, pest management,
biodiversity and wildlife conservation. They participate in
sustainable certification programs such as the Certified
California Sustainable Winegrowing program. For each,
sustainability involves an ongoing process of evaluation and
improvement.
As the Colorado River District looks to quickly put newly
approved tax revenues to work on Western Slope projects, an
implementation plan offers some examples of the kind of work it
expects to pursue… The district plans to use 14 percent of
the new revenues to shore up its finances… The rest is to be
used to partner with others on projects focused on agriculture,
infrastructure, healthy rivers, watershed health and water
quality, and conservation and efficiency.
The public can finally get a look at how Madera officials plan
to correct severe groundwater over pumping and replenish
aquifers in that area. For some farmers, that correction will
mean pumping limits of up to 50 percent from what’s allowed
today.
There’s a concept called “demand management” in the news in
Colorado, and here’s a simple definition: Landowners get paid
to temporarily stop irrigating, and that water gets sent
downstream to hang out in Lake Powell. It’s an idea long talked
about because of increasing drought and the very real danger of
both Lake Mead and Lake Powell dropping into “dead pool” where
no hydropower can be generated.
The San Joaquin Valley and urban Southern California are worlds
apart in many ways. Yet each face growing water challenges and
a shared interest in ensuring reliable, affordable water
supplies to safeguard their people and economies. Both regions’
water futures could be more secure if they take advantage of
shared water infrastructure to jointly develop and manage some
water supplies.
Determining how much water each section of a field needs is a
cumbersome process that requires people to hand-pluck
individual leaves from plants, put them in pressure chambers
and apply air pressure to see when water begins to leak from
the leaf stems. … UC scientists are developing a robotic
pressure chamber that can harvest its own sample leaves and
test them on site, immediately, to provide the freshest data.
Two lawsuits against a Kern County groundwater sustainability
agency show the potential implications for agriculture and
other businesses with historic, overlying water rights….”It’s
one of the first groundwater sustainability plans we’re seeing
that could wholly restrict agriculture in a water-poor area,
while ignoring overlying rights and preferring other,
non-agricultural users in the basin,” [the California Farm
Bureau Federation's Chris] Scheuring said.
In the world of groundwater recharge, not all dirt is created
equal. Where, when, how much and how fast water can best be
recharged into the Central Valley’s severely depleted aquifers
has become a critical question. A new tool aims to help answer
those questions at the field-by-field level or up to an entire
county.
A new California Biodiversity Collaborative will help determine
how to carry out an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom
aimed at conserving 30% of California’s land and marine areas
by 2030—and agricultural organizations said they would
participate to assure the collaborative recognizes stewardship
efforts carried out on the state’s farms and ranches.
Protecting intact peatlands [such as those in California] and
restoring degraded ones are crucial steps if the world is to
counter climate change, European researchers said Friday. In a
study, they said peat bogs, wetlands that contain large amounts
of carbon in the form of decaying vegetation that has built up
over centuries, could help the world achieve climate goals like
the limit of 2 degrees Celsius of postindustrial warming that
is part of the 2015 Paris agreement.
If certain hay species retain more nutrients than others when
on low-water diets, then ranchers know their cattle will
continue to eat well as they evaluate whether they can operate
their ranches on less H20…. Any water saved could be left in
the Colorado River, allowing it to become more sustainable,
even as the West’s population grows and drought becomes more
intense.
Newsom, who made the announcement in a walnut orchard 25 miles
outside of Sacramento, said innovative farming practices,
restoring wetlands, better managing forests, planting more
trees and increasing the number of parks are all potential
tools. The goal is to conserve 30% of the state’s lands and
coastal waters in the next decade as part of a larger global
effort.
In the western United States, crops and natural landscapes
consume the greatest portion of water supplies. However,
tracking that consumption is surprisingly complex and
expensive… A recently announced web application called OpenET
aims to fill this gap for farmers and water managers to build
more resilient water supplies…
Despite little precipitation and a small snowpack in the 2020
water year, which ended Sept. 30, California weathered the year
on water stored in reservoirs during previous years’ storms.
Going into 2021, farmers note that weather officials predict a
La Niña climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which has brought
drought conditions in the past.
New technologies intend to help farmers translate a mountain of
detailed soil moisture and weather data into informed
irrigation decisions to use water most efficiently, while
maintaining detailed information to satisfy regulators.
Eyes in the sky and clouds on the ground—of the computing
kind—may soon help farmers, ranchers and water managers gain a
handle on something they can’t see: water vapor.
In 2012 a team of salmon researchers tried a wild idea: putting
pinky-sized Chinook on a rice field in the Yolo Bypass, a vast
engineered floodplain designed to protect the city of
Sacramento from inundation. … Now, after nearly a decade of
testing fish in fields, a new paper in San Francisco Estuary
and Watershed Science outlines lessons learned as well as next
steps in managing floodplains for salmon.
Floodplains were the historic rearing areas for juvenile
salmon, and the remaining floodplains in California are an
important food-rich habitat as present-day salmon grow and
attempt to survive their trip out to the ocean. We sat down
with Hailey Wright, a Department of Water Resources
environmental scientist, to discuss the salmon lifecycle and
her work designing and implementing projects in the Yolo
Bypass…
The Guidebook is designed to assist urban water suppliers with
preparing UWMPs that are due to DWR on July 1. DWR also
released its draft 2020 Agricultural Water Management Plan
Guidebook related to long-term water supply and demand
strategies for agricultural water planning.
I visited in late August with Matt Angell about California San
Joaquin Valley water issues. Angell is a chairman of San
Joaquin Resource Conservation District 9, is a managing partner
at Pacific Farming Co., and also is managing director of Madera
Pumps. The conversation included discussion of California’s
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and what that will
require of growers in the years ahead.
In 2018, the legislature passed AB 1668 and SB 606, which
establish guidelines and standards for urban and agricultural
water use efficiency and conservation… At the August meeting
of the Delta Stewardship Council, council members received an
update on the State Water Board’s ongoing efforts to implement
the legislation from Charlotte Ely, a Supervising Senior
Environmental Scientist at the Water Board…
The study looked at how much water conservation can readily and
affordably be achieved in each region and industry of the
United States by looking at what conservation measures were
already working and considering how much water is being used in
every industry and throughout the country. Then the researchers
ran statistics on that information, looking for areas that
offer greater efficiency.
Over the next 20 years, San Joaquin Valley farmers may need to
temporarily fallow or permanently retire over half a million
acres of cropland as California pushes towards sustainable
groundwater use. … Below, the paper’s lead authors, Benjamin
Bryant and Rodd Kelsey, discuss their research examining how
conservation planning can guide the land use change being
driven by SGMA to achieve multiple benefits…
It hasn’t always been easy, and there have been plenty of bumps
along the way, but we’ve learned a lot in those five years, and
we are happy to share some of what we learned. We are pleased
to present our top 10 SGMA lessons learned:
The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority last week voted
unanimously to adopt a transient pool and fallowing program and
also approve findings that the programs are exempt from
California Environmental Quality Act review — meaning the
programs are not considered to have a significant impact on the
environment.
Groundwater is California’s water savings bank account that can
be tapped during dry years when water in lakes and rivers are
low. Conserving water helps preserve groundwater, which is
important for plants, animals and people.
The veteran food writer’s new book warns that the current
trajectory of farming in California’s Central Valley and the
Corn Belt could be setting us up for collapse.
The ‘Irrigation Water Management’ episode of NRCS’s
Conservation at Work video series details some of the benefits
that can be gained by refining water management in an
agricultural operation.
The dredging is taking place in a vast sewage treatment pond.
And the material being removed is biosolids, which is another
way of saying sewage sludge. About 3,500 tons of biosolids will
be piped from the pond this summer to be dewatered. It is
ultimately trucked a short distance and spread over a NapaSan
field where a farmer grows sorghum.
Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will again receive less water from
the Colorado River next year under a set of agreements intended
to help boost the level of Lake Mead… The federal Bureau of
Reclamation released projections Friday showing that Lake Mead,
the nation’s largest reservoir, will be at levels next year
that continue to trigger moderate cutbacks in the two U.S.
states and Mexico.
Water-efficient succulents and nitrogen-fixing tree legumes may
take five to 12 years to produce their first nutritional
harvests. Nevertheless, they can produce more edible biomass
over a decade with far less water than that used by
conventional annual crops, while sequestering carbon into the
soil to mitigate climate change…
A new report by the Pacific Institute suggests Californians
have learned to conserve so well that water forecasters need to
rethink their approach to estimating future water demand.
Although only five of 41 groundwater sustainability plans
submitted to the Department of Water Resources for review in
January mention the human right to water, and only one of those
affirmed it as a consideration in their plan, these two
policies are closely related.
The study, conducted by the University of California, Berkeley,
examined 306,718 acres of California Rangeland Trust’s
conservation easements across the state to explore both the
environmental and monetary value of preserving California’s
open spaces.
Failure to account for the long-term trend of declining per
capita water demand has led to routine overestimation of future
water demand. This can lead to unnecessary and costly
investment in unneeded infrastructure and new sources of
supply, higher costs, and adverse environmental impacts.
Now that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has released a
final California Water Resilience Portfolio, farm organizations
say they will monitor progress on implementing the plan’s
proposals—and on resolution of ongoing state-federal conflicts
that complicate achieving some of its goals.
Senators met yesterday to consider a suite of legislation to
address water problems in the American West, though little was
revealed about what comes next for the bills.
The grim report by the Water Foundation, a charitable
organization based in California that is focused on clean,
reliable water for people and nature, predicts the groundwater
sustainability plans written by the various districts in the
San Joaquin Valley will not achieve what SGMA purports to do –
that is, sustainably manage groundwater resources.
Editors Note: The Water Foundation is not affiliated
with the Water Education Foundation.
According to a release issued by the Nature Conservancy, the
program provides an opportunity for growers to receive
financial compensation for recharging groundwater during the
course of normal farming operations on a variety of crops while
also providing critical wetland habitat for waterbirds
migrating along the Pacific Flyway.
Ceres Imaging, an Oakland-based startup company, is one of
several high-tech aerial monitoring companies helping
California farmers, including those in Kern County, increase
their production, while decreasing their demand for water. It
is a logical marriage between agriculture and innovators in
California’s Silicon Valley.
On a hot June evening, UC Merced Professor Josh Viers joined
farm advocate and small farmer Tom Willey on his front porch
near Fresno to talk about California’s water, disadvantaged
communities, agricultural production and the future as part of
the new “Down on the Farm” podcast that’s now available for all
to hear.
Tapan Pathak, University of California Cooperative Extension
specialist based at UC Merced, is doing applied research that
farmers and ranchers can use to adapt to new conditions created
by a variable and changing climate. “You don’t have to shift
your practice tomorrow, but if you are thinking of making a
30-year investment, it’s important to know what risks there are
for planting different crops,” said Pathak…
At the Groundwater Resources Association Third Annual
Groundwater Sustainability Agency Summit held online in June, a
panel of managers from four of the critically overdrafted
basins reflected on the hard work of developing and adopting a
groundwater sustainability plan.
A recent analysis published in Nature found cattle to be one of
the major drivers of water shortages. Notably, it is because of
water used to grow crops that are fed to cows such as alfalfa
and hay. Across the US, cattle-feed crops, which end up as beef
and dairy products, account for 23% of all water consumption,
according to the report. In the Colorado River Basin, it is
over half.
With the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act closing in on
growers throughout California, there are many questions. One
big one: should growers go ahead and put a meter on their
pumps?
For more than a decade, California’s governors have pushed for
“voluntary agreements” to establish rules for water diversions
by major urban and agricultural water districts, and to redress
their environmental impacts. Voluntary agreements crumbled
recently, after the state’s largest water districts walked away
from the table.
After several years of experimentation, scientists have
engineered thale cress, or Arabidopsis thaliana, to
behave like a succulent, improving water-use efficiency,
salinity tolerance and reducing the effects of drought. The
tissue succulence engineering method devised for this small
flowering plant can be used in other plants to improve drought
and salinity tolerance with the goal of moving this approach
into food and bioenergy crops.
As the Salton Sea retreats, leaving the dry playa exposed, dust
particles become airborne and mobilize lung-damaging toxins
from agricultural runoff. Red Hill Bay, located near the
southeastern corner of the sea, would restore habitat by
flooding the area, but it’s one of several mitigation projects
that have taken flack for progressing so slowly.
A recent paper on climate change in California and the West has
been in the news and raising concerns. Based on extensive
analysis of tree ring data—a good measure of summer soil
moisture—the authors postulate that most of the region is in an
unfolding “megadrought” that began in 2000 and is the second
worst in the past 1,200 years. … If the state is in a
megadrought, it means a great deal. We should plan accordingly.
California’s groundwater – a critical resource in times of
drought – is disappearing faster than we’re replenishing it.
Our underground savings accounts are tapped, and we face a host
of challenges like land subsidence, storage capacity loss and,
most importantly, a dwindling water supply for California’s dry
times.
Standard tillage practices have been used throughout the San
Joaquin Valley for nearly 90 years. Using similar inputs and
amounts and pest management, UC Cooperative Extension cropping
systems specialist Jeff Mitchell’s team showed that a garbanzo
and sorghum rotation in no-till yielded at least as well as in
standard tillage. Sorghum yields were similar in no-till and
standard tillage systems while garbanzo yields matched or
exceeded no-till…
States have grappled in the last two decades with declining
water levels in the basin’s main reservoirs — Mead and Powell —
while reckoning with clear scientific evidence that climate
change is already constricting the iconic river… For water
managers, the steady drop in water consumption in recent years
is a signal that conservation efforts are working and that they
are not helpless in the face of daunting environmental changes.
The passage of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA) in 2014, granted the state official oversight authority
of groundwater. … A new paper published in Society and
Natural Resources, examines how the state’s ongoing involvement
helped shape current policies by looking at the 120-year
history of California’s role in groundwater management…
This practice entails on-site grinding of whole, removed trees
and the incorporation of the wood chips back into the almond
fields before the next replanting. … In terms of soil health,
the [University of California] researchers found a 58% increase
in soil carbon as well as a 32% increase in water holding
capacity compared to conventional burning practices. Overall
productivity of the trees increased by 20% as well.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service is working with
American Farmland Trust to help enhance San Joaquin Valley
water efficiency. The San Joaquin Valley Land and Water
Conservation Collaboration is being made possible through the
Regional Conservation Partnership Program from NRCS, in
coordination with state and local partners.
The governor’s administration in January pitched ambitious
proposals to help fund implementation of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) and cushion its impacts on
farmers and local communities. In the May Revision of the
budget, however, all but one funding allocation from an earlier
proposition have been withdrawn.
The gravity-fed Friant-Kern Canal that is key to survival for
15,000 east side San Joaquin Valley farms continues to be
impacted by subsidence. Land near Porterville appears to be
most worrisome where the land has sunk so much due to adjacent
water pumping that the canal has lost 60% of its capacity. As
of July 2018, it was estimated the canal is approximately 12
feet below the original constructed elevation.
The gene-editing technology CRISPR has been used for a variety
of agricultural and public health purposes — from growing
disease-resistant crops to, more recently, a diagnostic test
for the virus that causes COVID-19. Now a study involving fish
that look nearly identical to the endangered Delta smelt finds
that CRISPR can be a conservation and resource management tool,
as well.
The interest is based on the versatility of hemp, which can be
made into different products — biodiesel, fiber, textiles,
clothing, food and nutritional supplements. It’s also because
cotton is no longer grown in the Imperial Valley, and hemp
could be a potential replacement crop that consumes a lot less
water than cotton.
With droughts inevitable, more farmers are switching from
almonds to pistachios, but not everyone is happy about
it. Around the Central Valley, as far north as Colusa but
mostly south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, pistachio
production is rapidly accelerating.
Where, when, how much and how fast water can best be recharged
into the Central Valley’s severely depleted aquifers has become
a critical question. A new tool aims to help answer those
questions at the field-by-field level or up to an entire
county.
My colleagues and I worked with Assemblymember Rudy Salas
(D-Bakersfield), to craft AB 2642, which will create the
Multibenefit Land Conversion Incentive Program… This new
program will provide incentive payments to farmers and
landowners who voluntarily repurpose their agricultural land to
other less water-intensive uses for a minimum of 10 years.
There is a better, more equitable pathway for reducing the
deficit without forcing arbitrary cuts. It involves 3 million
acres of irrigated agriculture, mostly alfalfa and forage
crops, which consume more than 80% of total water use in the
basin. By retiring less than 10% of this irrigated acreage from
production, we could eliminate the existing million acre-foot
overdraft on the Colorado River..
Dr. Aliashgar ‘Ali’ Montazar, a University of California,
Riverside researcher, heads up irrigation and water management
in Imperial and Riverside counties for the University of
California Cooperative Extension system. … He’s kicking the
tires for growers so they can decide if drip is the way to go
even in crops that traditionally haven’t had drip. And he’s
finding it has benefits beyond conserving water.
A strange thing happens during particularly wet winters in
California: farmers flood their fields. … Aquifers are the
last line of defense against drought conditions. By flooding
their fields in January, farmers hope to fill these underground
reservoirs with water they can use in August. If a trio of
recent studies prove accurate, one can expect to see this
method deployed more regularly.
In mid-April of 2020, Restore the Delta hosted a webinar where
they discussed the history of water planning and the voluntary
agreements, including their numerous concerns. … Before
addressing the main topic of the webinar, Executive Director
Barbara Barrigan-Parilla noted that there are many in the Delta
who aren’t on the webinar due to lack of reliable internet
service in rural communities, affordability issues, and/or lack
of access to devices.
Fairness – or at least the perception of fairness – could play
a determining role in the future of California’s groundwater,
according to new research. The study, published in Society and
Natural Resources, evaluated 137 surveys of Yolo County farmers
to gauge their perceptions of fairness for groundwater
allocation strategies and dispute resolution options.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved $10 million to
help pay for water projects in the farmlands of central
Arizona, where growers are bracing for their supply of Colorado
River water to be shut off. But those funds, conditionally
awarded this month by the Natural Resources Conservation
Service, are still subject to negotiations between federal and
state officials.
The Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency has been working
toward sustainable management of the Pajaro Valley’s water
resources. At the 2019 Western Groundwater Congress, General
Manager Brian Lockwood discussed the projects and programs the
Agency is implementing as they work towards achieving
groundwater sustainability.
Samantha Ying and Michael Schaefer, both from the Department of
Environmental Sciences at University of California (UC)
Riverside, are part of a team set on untangling the mystery of
a practice upon which farmers have relied for centuries to
reduce water use—cover crops.
Under the drought contingency plan hammered out by Colorado
River Basin states last year, Arizona agreed to voluntarily
reduce its water use by 192,000 acre-feet, or about 7%, leaving
that water in Lake Mead to help reduce the likelihood of
greater cutbacks down the road. Tom Buschatzke, director of the
Arizona Department of Water Resources, says data from a new
Bureau of Reclamation report show that plan is working.
Voluntary agreements in California have been touted as an
innovative and flexible way to improve environmental conditions
in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the rivers that feed
it. … Yet, no one said it would be easy getting interest
groups with sometimes sharply different views – and some, such
as farmers, with livelihoods heavily dependent on water — to
reach consensus on how to address the water quality and habitat
needs of the Delta watershed.
Yolo Basin Foundation’s Board of Directors announced this week
that Chelsea Martinez has been named the Foundation’s new
executive director. … Martinez joined the Foundation in 2017
as the Community Outreach & Volunteer Coordinator and has grown
and sustained the Foundation’s volunteer base to over 200
volunteers as well as helped to increase community involvement
in its programs.
Kristin Sicke is Assistant General Manager for Yolo County
Flood Control and Water Conservation District, which manages
water supplies for 200,000 acres in western Yolo County, which
encompasses Woodland, Davis, and the surrounding area. In this
presentation from the 2019 Western Groundwater Congress, Ms.
Sicke describes the district’s efforts to use winter stormwater
flows for groundwater recharge in the Yolo subbasin.
Eric Averett is General Manager with the Rosedale-Rio Bravo
Water Storage District, which is one of several water districts
within Kern County. … In this presentation from the Western
Groundwater Congress, Mr. Averett discusses how his district
and Kern County have been grappling with how to establish
groundwater pumping allocations.
Against the terrible news of a national emergency, it’s perhaps
difficult to focus on our water situation. Recall that January
and February were bone-dry; March and April bore us a couple of
storms, but it was too little, too late. It was a very dry
winter, overall. … That puts us in the position of another
“do or die” year for precipitation next winter, an altogether
familiar proposition in California. We all know: It rains a
bunch all at once in some years, and then we go dry for a
number of years after that.
In January, water users in 21 critically overdrafted basins
delivered groundwater sustainability plans to the state
Department of Water Resources. In this series, we examine
the 36 plans submitted for 11 critically overdrafted basins in
the San Joaquin Valley—California’s largest farming region. …
This post examines how the plans propose to end overdraft.
Registered voters who live in Mendocino have the opportunity
and responsibility to decide the direction of groundwater
management in Mendocino at two upcoming Mendocino City
Community Services District Public Hearings scheduled for April
16 and 27.
Evapotranspiration data has historically been limited in scope
and expensive to access. A new project seeks to change that.
Researchers from NASA, the Desert Research Institute and the
Environmental Defense Fund, with support from Google Earth
Engine technology, are working to create an online platform
with free, accessible, satellite-based water data open to
anyone.
Winter-flooded rice fields already provide essential habitat
for migratory birds, but could they also provide benefits to
help the state’s salmon populations? Scientists at the
University of California, Davis, are finalizing their fieldwork
on an experiment to find out what management practices farmers
might adopt in their fields to maximize fish survival.
“Water management is one of the most important farming
practices you or your clients should be practicing, full stop,”
wrote Phoebe Gordon, UC Cooperative Extension orchard systems
advisor in Madera and Merced counties. Born and raised in
California, Gordon is excited to share her knowledge with
growers to improve orchard production and sustainability in the
San Joaquin Valley and beyond.
The Pajaro Valley enjoys a temperate microclimate, in part
because it is situated at the hip of Monterey Bay. … But the
Pajaro Valley is different from the rest of the big ag regions
in California. The loamy soil isn’t irrigated with massive
surface water infrastructure like in the Central Valley.
David Orth is the principal of New Current Water and Land,
which offers strategic planning, program implementation, and
water resource development services. At the California
Irrigation Institute’s 2020 Annual Conference, he gave his
observations having watched Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
(GSAs) form and develop their Groundwater Sustainability Plans
(GSPs) since the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) in 2014.
Likely just in time for the real thing, a “Mock Frost” event
was held this week to test the capacity of the city of Ukiah’s
recycled Water System, also called the Purple Pipe. … “It
went well,” Ukiah grape grower David Koball said of the test.
“There was lots of water pressure and we had no issues.”
When county Board of Supervisor member Peggy Judd asked former
Gov. Bruce Babbitt to share his thoughts on rural counties
taking on responsibilities relating to groundwater management,
he responded, “I couldn’t say no.”
Researchers with the University of Nevada, Reno, have been
working to evaluate and commercialize crops that use less
water. Professor John Cushman and his team think they’ve found
an alternative. It’s called teff.
