California has been the nation’s
leading agricultural and dairy state for the past 50 years. The
state’s 80,500 farms and ranches produce more than 400 different
agricultural products. These products generated a record $44.7
billion in sales value in 2012, accounting for 11.3 percent of
the US total.
Breaking down the state’s agricultural role in the country,
California produces 21 percent of the nation’s milk supply, 23
percent of its cheese and 92 percent of all grapes. The state
also produces half of all domestically-grown fruits, nuts and
vegetables, including some products, such as almonds, walnuts,
artichokes, persimmons and pomegranates, of which 99 percent are
grown in California.
Overall, about 3 percent of employment in the state is directly
or indirectly related to agriculture.
A coalition of agricultural associations and the Northern
California Water Association have launched the CA Drought Grant
Website – a portal for information on the CA Small Ag Business
Drought Relief Grant Program. The site,
agdroughtrelief.org, provides key information about the
$75 million program, grant eligibility and the ability to sign
up to receive instant program updates as it becomes available
in the upcoming months. When applications are available, they
can be accessed from the site as well.
U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, and Mitt
Romney, a Utah Republican, led a bipartisan group of senators
in asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to give parity to
Western drought needs with existing programs and funding. In a
letter addressed to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack the
senators from across the Western states asked for continued
resources to support projects for ranchers and farmers to
conserve water, improve their infrastructure and efficiency,
and provide technical support. The senators want to see funds
for agriculture conservation equally allocated “to reflect the
contribution of every region, including the West.”
Despite opposition from an impressive who’s-who list of water
districts and agencies and the Kings County Farm Bureau, the
Kings County Board of Supervisors on a 3-2 vote adopted a
groundwater export ordinance that will require a permit to move
groundwater out of the county. Leading the charge was
Supervisor and farmer Doug Verboon, who says the passage came
after 12 years of battling to adopt an ordinance here to
protect local groundwater, an ordinance that most counties
already have. The county’s aim is to preserve groundwater for
local use, critical for both domestic, city, military and
agricultural users.
For almost four decades, water flowed faithfully from Fred and
Robin Imfeld’s private well here in rural Tehama County, a
region where thirsty orchards of walnuts, almonds, plums and
olives stretch across thousands of acres. But that
reliable supply of household water began to sputter last year,
and then ceased completely this summer amid
California’s driest three-year period on record.
… Across California, domestic wells are drying up in
record numbers due to severe drought and the overpumping
of underground aquifers. The crisis has hit rural farming
areas particularly hard and left some families to fend for
themselves or wait years for permanent solutions as nonprofits,
state water officials and well drillers struggle with a growing
backlog of assistance requests.
Arizona is preparing to enter for the first time into a Tier 2A
shortage for the lower Colorado River basin, with cuts
beginning at the start of the new year. For the state, this
means a reduction of 21% of Arizona’s Colorado river supply and
about 9% of the state’s total water use, according to the
Central Arizona Project. Cities that use the Colorado river
will see a 3% reduction while tribal supplies will be reduced
by 7%. And for the users of CAP water, there will no longer be
excess water and agriculture pools from the Colorado River.
According to the Agriculture & Water Council of Arizona, it
will have a big impact on farmers as they work out ways to
operate with less water.
When Sen. Dianne Feinstein weighed complex water policy
decisions that stood to impact the livelihood of farmers and
fish, she often dialed Tom Birmingham. On visits to Washington,
the longtime head of the state’s most influential farmland
water agency would meet in her office over glasses of chilled
California chardonnay. Cultivating relationships with power is
a hallmark of Birmingham’s 36-year career at the Westlands
Water District, the nation’s largest farm water utility that
serves a few hundred Central Valley families and corporations
growing nearly $2 billion in nuts, fruit, and vegetables a
year. Birmingham spearheaded the agency’s quest to keep
water flowing as its longest serving general manager, largely
through attempts to loosen environmental regulations.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) is leading a letter
signed by 14 other senators urging Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack to help Western states survive
what they are calling a “22-year mega-drought” that is
threatening farms and ranches across the West. … The
letter is the latest sign of growing economic pressure posed by
the changing climate and the competition for federal money to
help communities across the country cope with severe weather.
… The senators argue that many existing Department of
Agriculture programs “do not translate well to the needs of
Western agriculture” and want the department to promote
projects to help basins such as Colorado River Basin, the Rio
Grande Basin, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Basin and the
Columbia River Basin.
California’s water system uses energy to pump, convey, treat,
and heat water. Although agriculture uses roughly four times
more water than cities, cities account for most water-related
energy use. Water is also required for hydropower generation,
thermoelectric power plants, and oil and gas extraction.
Improving water use efficiency can reduce energy consumption;
conversely, improving energy efficiency can reduce impacts on
water supply and quality. … The water system
uses approximately 20% of the state’s electricity and 30%
of its natural gas for business and home use, according to data
from 2001—accounting for more than 5% of California’s
greenhouse gas emissions.
For the first time in almost three decades, the Bureau of Land
Management is preparing a new rule to guide its management of
cows and other livestock grazing on federal lands, a long
divisive issue that has only grown more contentious in the West
after two decades of drought. But advocates on both sides
expressed skepticism that BLM’s update, which is expected to be
released in draft form early next year, will include sweeping
changes to the current regulations in place since 1995. That
would be just fine with the livestock industry, ranchers and
some local government leaders who say BLM has begun reaching
out to them for input over the past several weeks.
Seems like most people are falling all over themselves
celebrating the “historic” deal between the Imperial Irrigation
District, Coachella Valley Water District, the U.S. Department
of Interior (Bureau of Reclamation), and the California Natural
Resources Agency that will supposedly bring up to a
quarter-billion dollars to the Salton Sea for restoration
projects. I certainly understand the need to conserve water and
help bolster the elevation at Lake Mead to try to restore some
kind of balance to the Colorado River, but at what cost to the
people of the Imperial Valley? The Imperial Valley is giving up
1 million acre-feet of water over four years for maybe $250
million and that just doesn’t seem like an even trade off; it
feels like a bad deal – like my friends over at Comite Civico
del Valle so aptly put it – “half-baked.” -Written by John Hernandez, a Brawley resident
and executive director of Our Roots Multicultural Center.
Fortunes are made and lost on the weather. In 1588 Spain went
to attack England and a storm wiped out its armada. The loss
was so devastating even with its New World holdings Spain never
again arose to its former place of prominence as the greatest
European power. From 1930 to 1936 a drought centered in the
Texas and Oklahoma panhandles caused 2.5 million people to
leave the center of the country for other parts. And while
bad weather can lead to major problems, what about the good
weather? California is blessed with a Mediterranean climate.
Hot summers, cool but not frozen winters, plenty of sunshine
and good soil. And due to the foresight of others since gone,
California’s fickle water supply has been harnessed for the
beneficial use of us all.
In the early hours of a cold fall morning, thousands of birds
would sit in the puddles of water in the empty rice fields just
outside the Sacramento Valley. At many of those fields
this year, there isn’t a single bird that can be seen. It’s
because there’s no water. There are no plants. The fields are
empty and bone dry. They’ve become fallowed. The streams of
water that once flowed to allow the beavers and deer feed and
drink are gone. The ground looks like slabs of cracked
concrete. Economists and farmers warn that there could be
severe environmental and economic consequences that stretch
beyond these dry fields that farmers are challenged
with. California is now experiencing the driest
three-year period since late 1800s.
The state Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced Dec. 1
that it would provide 5% of contracted amounts across the board
for agricultural and municipal customers in 2023. That may
sound bad, but the initial allocation announced for 2022 was 0%
for ag and only enough water for municipal contractors to
protect health and safety. At this early stage of the water
year, it’s hard to get too excited one way or another about the
initial allocation, said Ted Page, Chair of the Kern County
Water Agency Board of Directors. … With a La Niña
winter predicted this year, the state is preparing for a fourth
dry year, according to the DWR announcement reprinted below.
Colorado River water was virtually free in the early 20th
Century when pioneers dug the valley’s first canals that would
later transform this desert landscape into a $2 billion
agricultural industry. Imperial Valley farmers now pay about
$20 an acre foot to transport Colorado River water to their
fields, a price unchanged since 2011. … Farmers next door in
San Diego County pay between $799 and $1,109 per acre foot.
Even the Coachella Valley Water District, just north of
Imperial Valley, charges farmers about $37 per acre foot,
nearly twice what the Imperial Irrigation District charges its
farmers…. Because water is so cheap, Imperial Irrigation
District doesn’t make enough selling it to cover expenses on
water revenues alone….
Last week, the federal government announced it will spend a
quarter of a billion dollars over four years to clean up what
remains of the Salton Sea, a lake in southern California that
has been shrinking due to climate change-driven drought.
For decades, communities living near the sea have been
afflicted by health problems caused by algae blooms and dust
storms spurred by wind kicking up drying sediment from the
sea’s ever-widening shores. The government’s new plan aims to
help remediate some of those health impacts while
simultaneously encouraging farms in the region to reduce their
reliance on water from the Colorado River.
When drought strikes, California farmers often pump water from
underground aquifers to water their crops. But increasingly dry
conditions are straining that resource. … [David
Freyberg of Stanford University] says many people are looking
at ways to replenish the state’s dwindling groundwater
supplies. In California, a lot of water typically comes
from winter snow that falls high in the mountains.
During warmer months, that snow melts and trickles down to
farmland. But as the climate warms, more precipitation is
falling as rain instead of snow. So it rushes into rivers and
runs past many areas where it’s needed.
As the nation learned that the midterm election led to a change
in the balance of power in the next U.S. Congress, a delegation
of California Farm Bureau leaders met with representatives
during an advocacy trip to Washington, D.C., to discuss
pressing issues affecting agriculture. … Farm Bureau
executives, the organization’s Leadership Farm Bureau class and
county leaders were joined by the organization’s federal policy
team and met face to face with lawmakers Nov. 14-17 in the
nation’s capital. Discussions focused on issues including
California’s ongoing drought, water, labor and trade, as well
as the next federal farm bill.
Savannah Barteau dropped out of college to become a rancher
nearly nine years ago. Now, the 26-year-old Flagstaff native
runs the beef business at Date Creek Ranch outside Wickenburg
with her husband. … Date Creek Ranch still uses
Knight’s grazing management techniques. It sells beef locally
instead of transporting cattle out of state. It uses water from
the creek instead of relying on groundwater or the Colorado
River. The ranch’s herd is only 120 head because the fewer
cattle on pastures, the better. In addition, Date Creek Ranch
recently installed solar panels that provide power to
structures on the property, irrigation and beef freezers.
Corn goes back to their very creation story. As the Hopi people
emerged into this world, the Creator gave them three things: a
gourd of water, a planting stick and a short ear of blue corn.
… Clark grows heirloom Hopi blue, gray, red and white
corn in the valley between First Mesa and Second Mesa in the
middle of the 2,532 square mile Hopi Reservation in northern
Arizona. The seeds that he plants have been cultivated over
countless generations to grow in this dry climate of the high
desert. He, like most Hopi farmers, uses traditional dryland
farming methods in which, rather than irrigating crops, he
relies solely on snowmelt and the rain that falls directly on
his fields. … But now, more than two decades into the
worst drought in the southwestern United States in a millennia,
making the desert bloom is harder than ever.
Things are popping in Baja’s emerging wine scene. Earlier this
century, there were only a dozen or so wineries. Now, there are
almost 200. By all indications, Valle de Guadalupe is ready to
take its place among the world-class gastronomic
destinations. But, under the surface, there’s something
larger lurking. “The big problem today is lack of water,”
says Camillo Magoni, the 82-year-old winemaker of Casa
Magoni, who’s worked 58 harvests in Baja. … San Diego
County’s own winegrowers are also facing a water crisis.
… With all the crises facing the world, some might
dismiss the issue of growing grapes for premium wine to be a
minor, bougie, first-world problem. But wine has always been a
window into much larger farming issues.
Policy researchers are hopeful the agricultural industry in
California will continue to thrive with continued adaptation.
But conditions are shaping up for another dry year and the
Colorado River shortage is creating challenges that will
require more changes for growers and landowners.
As California confronts another extended drought and its
impacts, it is more obvious than ever that the state has failed
to address its water supply and management challenges for far
too long. The immediate fallout of the unprecedented
situation we find ourselves in is frightening: local residents
with wells running dry; urban water rationing and critical
shortages; massive fallowing of some of the nation’s most
productive agricultural land and the resulting impacts on food
prices; and significant uncertainty about our ability to adapt
to the future. The long-term effects are even more
dire. The viability of California’s $3.4 trillion economy
is at stake. -Written by Tom Coleman, General Manager at Rowland
Water District; and Federico Barajas, Executive Director
of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
Climate change poses a significant threat for all of
agriculture, but it has particularly disruptive potential for
the wine industry. This is because wine quality is closely
linked to weather and quality is linked to value. … There are
many potential impacts to consider. Climate Change will
probably mean more frequent and severe droughts such as the one
that the California is currently experiencing. The
availability of ground or surface water varies greatly between
regions in the state, but it is possible that this issue will
inhibit any further planting and render some vineyards
inoperable. Severe temperature spikes can lead to sunburning
and yield/quality loss for the fruit and those events are
likely to become more common.
Kings County Supervisors took a crack at a long-promised push
to restrict the ability of swashbuckling Kings County farming
giants to sell their groundwater to far-flung southern
California locales. Tuesday, the Kings County Board of
Supervisors approved the Groundwater Export Ordinance, which
was initially conceived to reign-in major water players in the
area, including water maven John Vidovich. Instead, based
on lingering commentary from local farmers, it may only create
additional red tape with the lack of teeth necessary to stop
outsiders from buying up water rights for the express purpose
of selling the resources to Southern California water agencies.
Vintner Ted Hall’s wish that steelhead trout could more easily
go from the Napa River on the Napa Valley floor to the Bear
Creek spawning grounds in the Mayacamas Mountains is getting a
boost. Bale Slough is a key. … Bale Slough over the
decades has been channelized and straightened. Next summer, the
Napa County Flood Control and Water Conservation District will
launch a Bale Slough restoration that ultimately could total
$6.6 million. The multi-year project at 14 sites over 1.6
miles will create floodplains and seasonal wetlands — in short,
a more natural habitat for steelhead and other wildlife.
After three years of virtual events, the PPIC Water Policy
Center’s annual fall conference made a welcome return to an
in-person format in Sacramento on Friday, November 18. The
half-day event began with a welcome from PPIC Water Policy
Center assistant director Caity Peterson and a presentation by
senior fellow Jeffrey Mount. “The elephant in the room is that
conditions have changed,” said Mount. “We’re no longer talking
about some future existential threat….we have now moved into
the era of the hot drought.” Hotter droughts, he said, coupled
with a thirstier atmosphere, are testing California’s water
system as never before.
The federal government said Monday it will spend $250 million
over four years on environmental cleanup and restoration work
around a drying Southern California lake that’s fed by the
depleted Colorado River. The future of the Salton Sea — and who
is financially responsible for it — has been a key issue in
discussions over how to stave off a crisis in the Colorado
River. The lake was formed in 1905 when the river overflowed,
creating a resort destination that slowly morphed into an
environmental disaster as water levels receded, exposing
residents to harmful dust and reducing wildlife habitat. The
lake is largely fed by runoff from farms in California’s
Imperial Valley, who use Colorado River water to grow many of
the nation’s winter vegetables as well as feed crops such as
alfalfa.
The West uses too much water. For such a simple problem, the
obvious solution — use less — lies frustratingly out of reach.
That inability to change may seem hard to understand, but the
root of the problem becomes clearer if we consider the role of
the West in the historical development of the United States:
The purpose of our system of “free water” — heavily subsidized
water for irrigation — was to provide opportunities to
settlers. … With the New Deal, the Bureau of Reclamation
came into its own: Hoover Dam, completed in 1935 as the world’s
largest dam, served as a symbol for the country’s ability to
conquer nature. Progressives championed desert reclamation at
the turn of the century, but the federal government’s
willingness to build infrastructure and give water away on
extravagantly lenient terms was just as appealing for
conservatives after World War II. -Written by Revelator contributor Nate Housley.
Looking down at the coast from a hill above the historic L
Ranch at Point Reyes National Seashore, rolling swells appear
on the ocean surface like blue corduroy. The peninsula that
stretches south toward the horizon is almost entirely taken up
by ranchland and weathered buildings. Among them, coyotes stalk
gophers on the dun hillsides, red-tailed hawks perch on fence
posts and a skunk waddles along the road’s asphalt margin.
Those beef and dairy ranches are the focus of a recent water
quality report showing high levels of fecal bacteria downstream
from the cattle, and their manure, in lagoons and beaches
popular with park visitors. The report, which was commissioned
by an environmental group and is disputed by the ranching
industry, is the latest flareup in a decades-long debate over
the ranching that occupies more than one-third of the national
seashore.
The San Joaquin River is a vital source of water for
agriculture and the environment and it is also home to a unique
program that hopes to restore native fish runs. It is a complex
program and SJV Water was fortunate to take advantage of a tour
offered through the Water Education Foundation Nov. 2-3 that
helps break down the various aspects of restoration efforts.
The restoration program is a nearly one billion dollar endeavor
to restore spring-run Chinook salmon to the river which went
extinct there after Friant Dam and other obstructions were
built.
Drought, human-caused climate change, invasive species and a
“legacy” of environmental issues are permanently altering
California’s landscape and placing some communities and
ecosystems at increasing risk, a panel of experts told water
officials recently. Invasive species and decades of disruptions
from massive land and water developments are partly responsible
for a continuous decline in native California species, experts
told the California Water Commission on Nov. 16. Also, rural
communities, many of whom are lower income and rely on
privately owned wells, are disproportionately contending with
water contamination and scarcity amid recurring cycles of
drought, experts said.
As California prepares for a fourth consecutive year of drought
and farmland across the Golden State increasingly goes idle,
growers continue to face mounting economic challenges. In a new
report about the financial toll of the state’s extreme drought
conditions, researchers estimated that the state’s irrigated
farmland dropped by 752,000 acres, or nearly 10%, from 2019 to
2022. Fields meant to harvest rice, almonds and other crops are
instead going unplanted, causing the level of fallowed land
across California to surpass the prior peak seen during the
state’s last drought that ran from 2012 to 2016. As a result,
the researchers found, California crop revenues fell by $1.7
billion, or 4.6%, during that time …
Thomas Birmingham, general manager of the massive Westlands
Water District since 2000, Wednesday announced plans to step
down at the end of 2022. His announcement follows the election
of four new members to the Westlands Board of Directors on Nov.
8 who would give a so-called “change coalition” a solid
majority of six seats on the nine-member board. The top
priority for the coalition is “a change in leadership,”
according to Sarah Woolf, who along with Jon Reiter helped
coordinate a group of increasingly frustrated Westlands farmers
to run the slate of change candidates, SJV Water
reported.
Drought conditions and the implementation of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) are putting a squeeze on
California growers. Principal Analyst with the Almond Board of
California, Jesse Roseman said efforts to improve statewide
water storage and conveyance are underway. However, those are
more long-term solutions to current water constraints.
Implementing groundwater recharge projects in almond orchards
presents a more immediate option for helping to address water
issues in California. … Implementing groundwater
recharge projects in orchards can require frequent
communication with local irrigation districts and Groundwater
Sustainability Agencies. Roseman explained that projects can
often require new water rights, permits, and new conveyance.
However, the efforts can prove exceptionally beneficial when
surplus water is available.
In the fall, rice fields in the Sacramento Valley usually shine
golden brown as they await harvesting. This year, however, many
fields were left covered with bare dirt. “It’s a disaster,”
said rice farmer Don Bransford. “This has never happened.
Never. And I’ve been farming since 1980.” … California
has just gone through the state’s driest three-year period on
record, and this year the drought has pushed the fallowing of
farmland to a new high. In a new report on the
drought’s economic effects, researchers estimated that
California’s irrigated farmland shrank by 752,000 acres, or
nearly 10%, in 2022 compared with 2019 — the year prior to the
drought. That was up from an estimated 563,000 acres of
fallowed farmland last year.
Federal wildlife officials have declared the boom-or-bust
lesser prairie chicken a threatened species in Colorado, and
endangered in states to the south, a goal of a long
environmental campaign but a disappointment to farmers who fear
new restrictions. … Wildlife scientists and advocates
say the bird is a leading indicator of healthy continuous
grassland and prairies, and the species once ranged across
nearly 100 million acres in the Southwest with a population
possibly in the millions. It’s now limited to a range of a few
million acres broken up by row crops, overgrazing and oil and
gas development, with aerial surveys putting the population at
32,000 across five states. … With a threatened
designation, farmers and ranchers are able to continue most
land uses but face new reviews on significant changes.
Noemi Barrera has spent four months without running water for
herself and her four children, and is among many people in
California living without it as wells across the state run
dry. … Tooleville sits on a well that is now
nearly unusable due to contamination from groundwater
overdrilling. The state stepped in last year after the
neighboring town Exeter refused to connect municipal water to
the community’s residents. … Barrera grew up in the
citrus-covered community but never faced this lack of running
water until she brought Ruby home from the hospital and could
not take a shower. And she is aware that many communities
across the state’s vital Central Valley are staring down the
same daily life, as their basins are depleted by
unprecedented drought and ongoing groundwater pumping.
100 years ago, Wyoming signed onto a deal to divide the water
that flows through the Colorado River basin among seven
states. It’s based on a formula — one likely based on
mistaken beliefs about the river itself — that did not award
extra credit for living in the mountains where the snow piles
up. Instead, the states signed a compact allocating the
water where it would readily be put to work. It meant the
more populated states of California, Colorado and
Arizona would get the biggest shares.
… But more than two decades into a punishing
drought that climate scientists say will likely intensify with
more warming, the system can no longer supply everything
that some 40 million people in a warming and drying region
desire from it, or that grocers nationwide sell from its
verdant fields.
Could San Luis Obispo’s wastewater help save Edna Valley
agriculture? That was the question of the night on Nov. 15 for
the SLO City Council, which took a deep dive into the future of
its recycled water program—including whether it wants to sell
any “extra” water to Edna Valley to help neighboring farmers
reduce their draw on groundwater. By a 4-1 consensus (with
Councilmember Jan Marx dissenting), the City Council agreed
that it’d be a good use of city resources to explore short-term
sales of recycled water to the Edna Valley region.
Some residents in Planada are calling on county officials to
block a proposed expansion of a dairy. Merced County is
currently in the process of deciding whether to allow the
Hillcrest Dairy just north of the town to expand its herd from
8,050 cows to 9,750 cows. Some residents are saying that the
expansion would make current problems with bad smells and flies
worse, as well as threaten the community’s supply of
groundwater. … The matter is still in the process of review,
and has yet to come before the Board of Supervisors. But it
will ultimately be their call as to whether or not the
expansion with the dairy moves forward.
It’s an October morning at Point Reyes National Seashore and
I’m scooting under barbed wire fences, wary of sliding into cow
pies. My guide on this safari is Jocelyn Knight, wildlife
photographer. We’re stalking a toxic waste dump hidden from
public view behind a hill at “Historic E Ranch, established
circa 1859” land lorded by the National Park Service. Park
regulations require Seashore pastures to remain open to the
public, but the dump is inside the E Ranch “core” of barns and
dwellings, and the public is disallowed. … According to
EHS investigators, a septic tank was installed without the
required permit; its sewage level exceeded the operational
limit; they could not locate a leach field. The ranch land
drains into the Pacific.
With drought conditions continuing to blanket the Western U.S.,
and farmers struggling to find adequate water supplies,
competing interests are pressuring the federal government to
cut the water supply farmers are using to grow our food,
including alfalfa, which is a foundational food chain crop. In
response, the Family Farm Alliance and California Farm Water
Coalition have produced a White Paper titled, “Our Food Supply
at Risk; The Importance of Alfalfa Production in the American
West,” detailing the valuable role alfalfa plays as a principal
feed source for the nation’s livestock and diary industries,
its environmental benefits, and contribution to effective
drought management.
John Wesley Powell offered a poignant message for Western U.S.
communities when he was the featured speaker in a room full of
developers and government leaders at a major irrigation
conference held in Los Angeles in October 1893. Powell, then
director of the U.S. Geological Survey, started off strong,
receiving applause from those listening to him, noted Greg
Smoak, a professor of history and director of the American West
Center at the University of Utah. … “There is not enough
water to irrigate all the lands … There is but a small portion
of the irrigable land which can be irrigated when all the
water, every drop of water, is utilized,” Powell warned the
crowd, adding that he foresaw a future filled with battles over
water rights.
Alfalfa is often the target of critics of irrigated agriculture
who frequently rely upon simplistic explanations to heap scorn
upon growing a forage crop in the West during times of drought.
Two Democratic congressmen from Arizona — Ruben Gallego and
Raúl Grijalva — last month introduced the “Domestic Water
Protection Act of 2022” (H.R. 9194), which would impose an
excise tax on the sale of a “water-intensive” crop. The tax is
300% of the price for which the crop is sold and is paid by the
manufacturer, producer, or importer of the crop. The bill
defines water-intensive crop as a crop grown in an area
experiencing prolonged drought at the time such crop is grown,
and by a manufacturer, producer, or importer that is a foreign
corporation or foreign government. -Written by Dan Keppen, executive director of Family
Farm Alliance.
Already grappling with drought, lower commodity prices and
higher production costs, more farmers are feeling the added
pinch of groundwater regulations as local agencies implement
plans that include pumping limits and new fees to balance
long-term groundwater resources as required by the
state. … Regulations and fees by local agencies as
part of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA,
affect farmers more directly this year, including farmers in
Madera County. Madera County farmer Jay Mahil said
groundwater sustainability agency fees that are part of his
county property tax bill are “coming at a time when growers are
receiving all-time low returns on commodity prices, and farm
input costs have doubled.”
Modesto Irrigation District, Turlock Irrigation District and
the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have signed a
memorandum of understanding with the state to advance a
voluntary agreement for the Tuolumne River. MID and TID, which
jointly operate the Don Pedro Reservoir on the Tuolumne River,
joined dozens of other California water agencies in committing
to collaborate with the state to finalize agreements that will
provide water supply reliability to communities, while
enhancing river ecosystems. Contra Costa Water District signed
onto the agreement in September. … The action by the
districts signals momentum towards an alternative to
regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board
in 2018, as part of the first phase of the state’s Bay-Delta
water quality control plan.
A slate of candidates aiming to reform the powerful Westlands
Water District swept into victory on Monday night, cementing a
new board majority and likely spelling the end of the line for
the district’s general manager. The four candidates –
Justin Diener, Ernie Costamagna, Jeremy Hughes, and Ross
Franson – captured the four available seats in preliminary
results. In the process, they are primed to boot the lone
incumbent running for re-election from his seat – current
Westlands board president Ryan Ferguson.
To the Ute Mountain Ute, grappling with its water supply is an
ongoing challenge. Despite having senior water rights dating
back to 1868, when the Kit Carson Treaty created the
reservation, the tribe received none of its rightful water for
decades as non-Native settlers dammed rivers and diverted
flows. And like many tribes across the Southwest, it still
struggles to properly quantify and settle some of the water
claims already validated by a long stream of court decisions.
Even when tribes have been able to secure their water rights,
they have often lacked the expensive infrastructure for getting
it to their reservations, which means their water gets used,
without payment, by non-native groups.
Expansion of sustainable irrigation (i.e., using sustainable
water resources to irrigate water-limited croplands) can
increase food production, while neither depleting water stocks
nor encroaching upon nature. Yet, there is a mismatch in timing
of water availability and of irrigation needs in many
geographies, necessitating temporary water storage. We quantify
global volumes of water that requires temporary storage to be
leveraged for an expansion of sustainable irrigation and
discuss options to provide that storage. While dammed
reservoirs are crucial for today’s irrigation, dams alone will
not suffice to fully leverage sustainable water resources in
the future and while creating major impacts on nature and
people. This highlights the urgent need for alternative
solutions to water storage and demand side approaches to food
security.
Gov. Spencer Cox announced this month that all new water rights
in the Great Salt Lake Basin are on pause, given the lake’s
crisis situation. The move sounds big, sweeping and dramatic —
it applies to the lake’s main tributaries that drain nearly
10,000 square miles in Utah. Still, it’s hard to say how much
of a difference it will make for the Great Salt Lake, which has
continued to shrink after hitting another record low over the
summer, almost entirely due to Utah’s water diversions. The
governor’s current suspension only applies to new water right
applications and does not interfere with existing ones. New
water rights would be the most junior with the lowest priority
anyway. And in periods of drought, junior water right holders
sometimes don’t get to divert any water at all.
When the government declared an official “shortage” on the
river last year, an unprecedented step, it triggered major
water cuts in the central Arizona county. And those cuts have
caused some farmers in Pinal County to look for more
water-efficient crops, including Will Thelander, a third
generation farmer in Arizona, who is testing a crop called
guayule. Guayule, a desert-adapted shrub pronounced
“wy-oo-lee,” could be used for several products, most notably
as a natural rubber for tires. And it requires only about half
the water of cotton, alfalfa, and corn—the more water-intensive
crops Thelander typically grows. … Native to the
Chihuahuan Desert, it requires less water than many other
crops, for one. And after it’s established, it doesn’t require
any insecticides or tilling, limiting use of the chemicals and
supporting carbon storage.
Three of California’s biggest water suppliers, including the
city of San Francisco, have reached a deal with the state that
calls for reducing their immense consumption of river water but
not as much as the state had initially demanded. The
compromise, announced Thursday, is the latest breakthrough in a
years-long effort by state regulators to protect flows in
California’s once-grand but increasingly overdrawn rivers. The
toll on the waterways, where as much as 90% of the water is
pumped to cities and farms, has been exacerbated by drought,
leaving fabled runs of salmon and other plants and animals at
risk of perishing. … But whether Thursday’s deal, known
as “voluntary agreements,” will meaningfully increase river
flows — and protect fish and wildlife — remains uncertain.
As a society, what do we do when too little water has been
promised to too many people? What should we be doing
differently? In the United States, there is perhaps no
better to place to turn for answers to these questions than the
Klamath Basin. The Klamath Basin watershed is considered one of
the most complicated areas for water governance in the United
States owing to its transboundary location (the basin crosses
the Oregon-California border), its history of complex
litigation and persistent inter-institutional (and
interpersonal) conflict, and more than 60 different groups of
people who have an interest in the basin’s water
allocation.
Farmers and other ratepayers in Fallbrook and Rainbow could see
an average savings on their water bills of more than $20 a
month by joining the Eastern Municipal Water District in
Riverside County, according to a new report. However, the move
may increase the cost of water for other San Diegans by more
than $2 a month on average, according to the findings from the
Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO. The San Diego
County Water Authority has been hostile to the idea of losing
two of its 24 member agencies. The wholesaler has seen its
water sales plummet by more than 40 percent since 2007, largely
as a result of unanticipated drought conservation.
The bladed, Stegosaurus-looking plants that produce tequila
might be associated with the deserts of Mexico, but researchers
at UC Davis announced a $100,000 project in early September to
study their viability in the state. Over the last eight years,
Reynolds and several farmers have demonstrated that the crop
can thrive on acres traditionally known for fruit, nuts and
wine grapes. In an increasingly warm landscape, where severe
droughts are predicted to be the norm and political battles
over water are intensifying, agave could represent a
game-changing possibility for the state. It’s generally
dry-farmed in Mexico, meaning its water comes naturally from
the sky for a few months, the rest of the year enduring the
sun’s fiercest heatrays.
You’ve probably heard by now, but the Great Salt Lake is drying
up. The lake reached record lows this summer, dropping to
4,190.1 feet in July. To put this in perspective, the lake was
flexing about 3,000 square miles in the 90s. Now, it’s withered
to less than 1,000. There are some obvious things we can
do about this, mostly on the agricultural side of things. But
now we’re hearing of all kinds of less obvious ways we could
save it, like amplifying snow storms or piping in water from
California, among other ideas. … One of those ideas is
called cloud seeding. The Utah Division of Water
Resources explains it this way: “Ground-based seeders
shoot silver iodide into winter clouds where it helps form ice
crystals.
For eight straight days this summer, farmers in far Northern
California drained almost all of the water out of a river in
defiance of the state’s drought regulations. The move
infuriated environmentalists and salmon-dependent Native
American tribes downstream. California now knows the cost of
the farmers’ blatant defiance: Less than $50 per farmer. It’s
the latest example of California’s lax water-use enforcement
process — problems that were first exposed in a sweeping
Sacramento Bee investigation published online last week.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland
may come out of irrigated production in the coming decades to
help balance overdrafted groundwater basins under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. At the same time,
California needs to ramp up clean energy development to meet
the goals of SB 100—and the valley has high solar potential. At
a virtual event last week, PPIC Water Policy Center research
fellow Andrew Ayres moderated a panel of experts and local
stakeholders; they explored how solar development could help
California meet multiple objectives while overcoming some
challenges and delivering lasting benefits to the region.
Productive agriculture is essential to civilization, but water
privateering – the seizure of public trust water for exorbitant
private profit – is not. California’s water privateers often
present themselves as farmers. But while they may use the water
they’ve commandeered from state and federal water conveyance
projects for industrial-scale agribusiness initiatives, they’re
not farmers. They’re water brokers. If there’s money to be made
in irrigating almonds or pistachios, they’ll do that. If
there’s more money to be made by selling their allocated water
to cities or other agribusiness operations, they’ll choose that
option instead. It’s not about a devotion to agriculture – and
certainly not about food security or land stewardship.
Carbon sequestration garners a lot of attention from those
interested in climate change and sustainable agriculture. The
piece that should be added to much of the conversation,
however, is the relationship of water and carbon. “We
should be considering that carbon sequestration and plant
growth doesn’t happen without water,” says Nick Goeser,
Principal and co-founder of Carbon A List … Goeser,
who co-founded Carbon A List with Christophe Jospe, adds that
raising public awareness that carbon sequestration and
sustainability don’t happen without water is important.
Successfully coping with severe droughts in California and the
Southwest requires tough choices, all of them expensive and
none of them perfect. But taking millions of acres out of
cultivation and replacing them with solar farms is not the
answer. California produces over one-third of America’s
vegetables and three quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts
– more than half of which is grown in the San Joaquin Valley.
According to the California Farmland Trust, the San Joaquin
Basin contains the world’s largest patch of Class 1 soil, which
is the best there is. -Written by Edward Ring, co-founder of the California
Policy Center and author of the book “The Abundance
Choice – Our Fight for More Water in
California.”
Steve Deverel gazes out over a levee on the San Joaquin River
to a buoy where half a dozen sea lions are barking. It’s a loud
reminder that even here, 50 miles inland, some of California’s
most productive farmland lies perilously close to the Pacific
Ocean. At any moment, a weak spot in the more than 1,000 miles
of earthen levees protecting islands in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta could unleash a salty deluge, threatening
not just crops, but the drinking water for as many as 27
million Californians. Deverel, a Davis-based hydrologist,
refers to this threat as “The Big Gulp,” a breach that would
suck in tens of billions of gallons of river water, drawing
ocean water in its wake.
As the Great Salt Lake continues to shrink to unprecedented
levels, a key component of its landscape and food web is
missing. The lake is known for thick, black clusters of brine
flies by the billions, which pupate in its salty water then
gather in dense mats to reproduce on shore. The insectile
masses occasionally gross out beachgoers, but the bugs are
harmless to humans. Crucially, they provide a nutrient-rich
feast for millions of migrating birds. This year, however, the
fly swarms are gone. And something’s off about the few bugs
that remain. Scientists say it’s a sign the lake’s ecological
demise is here.
Over and over again, drought launches California into a
familiar scramble to provide enough water. Cities and towns
call for conservation and brace for shortages. Growers fallow
fields and ranchers sell cows. And thousands of people discover
that they can’t squeeze another drop from their wells. So where
can California get enough water to survive the latest dry
stretch — and the next one, and the next? Can it pump more
water from the salty Pacific Ocean? Treat waste flushed down
toilets and washed down drains? Capture runoff that flows off
streets into storm drains? Tow Antarctic icebergs to Los
Angeles? The Newsom administration unveiled a roadmap
for bolstering the state water supply.
The latest drought in California has been costly to
agriculture. Twelve-thousand people have lost their jobs and
economic losses total three billion dollars. Josue
Medellin-Azuara is one of four educators from U.C. Merced who
sized up California’s drought on agriculture for the past two
years. … California agriculture generates 50-billion
dollars in revenue and employs more than 420,000
people. The 2020-21 water years account for the second
driest two year period since records began in 1895. Little
or no water cost growers $1.3 billion in 2021 and $1.7 billion
in 2022. 752-thousand acres of farmland was fallowed and 12,000
people lost their jobs.
Jim Scala needed the water. So he took it. As the third
devastating summer of drought dragged on, the Siskiyou County
rancher knew his irrigation district could be fined up to
$10,000 a day if he and his neighbors defied a state cutback
order and pumped water from the Shasta River onto their lands
east of Yreka. … While the Shasta River rebellion might have
been the most brazen, a Sacramento Bee investigation reveals
that farmers and other water users frequently ignore state
drought regulations…. The Bee’s findings reveal a state
regulatory system dramatically unprepared to address chronic
water shortages and an ecosystem collapse.
A controversial water quality regulation is levying a
disproportionate burden on California’s smallest growers, who
are often low-income and non-English speakers, according to
advocates. Yet, others push for an even faster adoption
timeline.
Laura Díaz Muñoz, winemaker and general manager at Ehlers
Estate in Napa Valley, is passionate about worms. They factor
deeply into the notable focus on sustainability at Ehlers, a
130-year-old, certified-organic, family-owned property. It all
begins with water. … Spread across five acres at the
sprawling Parlier, California, facility of O’Neill
Vineyards, what appear to be 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools
are in fact sunken beds filled with worms. BioFiltro’s largest
winery system to date, unveiled in September 2020, it’s capable
of processing more than a million gallons of wastewater a day,
and up to 80 million gallons a year.
Stewart and Lynda Resnick donated $50 million to fund a new
center for sustainable agriculture practices at UC Davis, but
environmentalists reacted with suspicion to the school’s
mid-October announcement of their gift. … $10 million of the
Resnicks’ gift is earmarked for research grants that are
focused on identifying value-added properties in pistachio,
almond and pomegranate byproducts. These crops are all part of
the billionaire couple’s portfolio. … As California
faces a continuing record drought, the Resnicks’ companies are
the state’s biggest single water users — an estimated 150
billion gallons a year for their crops, Forbes Magazine
estimated in 2021. The annual amount of water they use to grow
more than 120,000 thousand acres of their produce in the
southern San Joaquin Valley …
California’s San Joaquin Valley will become increasingly
difficult to farm as climate change intensifies. But with the
right regulations and policies, the state’s multi-billion
dollar agricultural belt could become something else — a clean
energy powerhouse that the state desperately needs. At a panel
event on Tuesday, energy professionals and community leaders
gave a glimpse of the valley’s potential future — one where
alfalfa fields give way to solar farms and carbon is
sequestered beneath fallowed orchards. They also acknowledged
how daunting an economic transition it would be.
Just three crops – rice, wheat and corn – provide nearly half
of the world’s calories. And this year rice had a particularly
tough growing season. In California, rice farmers sowed the
lowest number of seeds since the 1950s. According to the
California Rice Commission, only 250,000 acres of rice will be
harvested this year, about half of a typical season.
… In August, the USDA forecasted that California would
only grow 10.5m tons of tomatoes, down 10% from its estimates
at the beginning of the year, as drought causes them to dry up
on the vine. California usually produces about 30% of the
world’s processing tomatoes – the tomatoes used in paste, sauce
and ketchup. But researchers predict that the global
supply of processing tomatoes could fall by 6% in the next 30
years due to climate change.
We are living through the driest 22-year period in at least
1,200 years across the western states. Many can see the effects
simply by looking at their front yard and the results of water
restrictions in place, which are especially tough on grass not
meant for desert climates. … UC Riverside has bred grass
to better adapt to California’s climate for decades, but
Baird’s team has hit on a new strain that might be the best
yet. Known by their field names, 17-8 and 6-3, the two
patches among hundreds require 50% less water than most lawns
to stay green and healthy.
For centuries people from across the region have observed
Camarguaise bull festivities in the Rhone delta, where the
Rhone river and the Mediterranean Sea meet. But now the
tradition is under threat by rising sea levels, heat waves and
droughts which are making water sources salty and lands
infertile. At the same time, there are efforts by authorities
to preserve more land, leaving less for bulls to graze.
… During summers plagued by high temperatures and
diminished rainfall, the sea water can reach up to 20
kilometers (12 miles) into the Rhone river. During a heat wave
in August this year, the Raynaud family’s water pump in the
Petite Rhone, an offshoot of the main river, began pumping salt
water.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority wants other western water
districts to conserve resources in the face of the region’s
20-year drought, saying it’s wasteful to grow certain
water-intensive crops in parched desert landscapes. But records
show the agency is not heeding its own advice. … The
Imperial Irrigation District gets more Colorado River water
than the entirety of Nevada and Arizona combined. This is why
Nevada water officials have urged changes in how water from the
troubled river is used. … The Great Basin Ranch, as it’s
known, is owned and operated by a public agency — the Southern
Nevada Water Authority. And the only crop that is grown on that
land? Alfalfa. 8,600 tons of it last year alone.
An Oregon ranch is seeking $1.5 million from the state
government, claiming water regulators have effectively seized
its irrigation water supply without paying just compensation.
The Sprague River Cattle Co. in Klamath County has filed a
lawsuit arguing that its water rights would normally be worth
$1.5 million but the “value has been entirely destroyed” by
flow restrictions that render them “no longer marketable.”
According to the complaint against the State of Oregon, the
ranch property was originally part of the Klamath Indian
Reservation, which was established in 1864, setting the
priority date for the water rights.
Local agricultural groups continue to speak out against a new
proposed county ordinance regulating water use from the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin, which will go before the SLO County
Planning Commission on Oct. 28. The new ordinance, championed
by a majority of the Board of Supervisors, would lift a
basinwide moratorium on groundwater pumping by giving all
property owners up to 25 acre-feet per year of exempted water
use. The current exemption is 5 acre-feet per year. After
months of negotiating with county officials and dissecting its
environmental impact report, SLO County farming groups remain
adamantly opposed to the ordinance, claiming that it will
exacerbate the basin’s overdraft and add “cumbersome” new
layers of regulation on agriculture.
The makeup of the Westlands Water District board will change
this election – shifting power to a coalition of growers with a
list of new actions, at the top of which appears to be ousting
longtime General Manager Tom Birmingham. “There needs to be a
change of leadership, that’s a foundational issue,” said Sarah
Woolf, a member of a Westlands farming family, who helped
organize the coalition. … Woolf applauded the district’s
recharge efforts, but noted the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, which requires subbasins to bring aquifers into
balance by 2040, was passed eight years ago and recharge
efforts at Westlands have languished behind other
districts.
Footprints, human and animal, dot stretches of the Mississippi
River that have been underwater for as long as people remember,
and eight barges have run aground this year. Rain has been
scarce, with little prospect for more. Drought’s deadly fingers
have moved east, from the dried-up wells of California’s
Central Valley and into the American Midwest, where much of
America’s food is grown, and even farther, into the Southeast.
Its tentacles have parched parts of America’s most important
river and now threaten a majority of the country — 52.7% by the
U.S. Drought Monitor’s count, and 146 million people, 12
million more than a mere week ago. It’s the deepest national
drought since 2012, and if nothing changes it’ll outpace that
benchmark soon.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues
associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour guided participants on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
This tour guided participants on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Groundwater replenishment happens
through direct recharge and in-lieu recharge. Water used for
direct recharge most often comes from flood flows, water
conservation, recycled water, desalination and water
transfers.
Water is expensive – and securing enough money to ensure
reliability and efficiency of the state’s water systems and
ecosystems is a constant challenge.
In 2014, California voters approved Proposition 1, authorizing a
$7.5 billion bond to fund water projects throughout the state.
This included investments in water storage, watershed protection
and restoration, groundwater sustainability and drinking water
protection.
California agriculture is going to have to learn to live with the
impacts of climate change and work toward reducing its
contributions of greenhouse gas emissions, a Yolo County walnut
grower said at the Jan. 26 California Climate Change Symposium in
Sacramento.
“I don’t believe we are going to be able to adapt our way out of
climate change,” said Russ Lester, co-owner of Dixon Ridge Farms
in Winters. “We need to mitigate for it. It won’t solve the
problem but it can slow it down.”
From the Greek “xeros” and Middle Dutch “scap,”
xeriscape was coined
in 1978 and literally translates to “dry scene.”
Xeriscaping, by extension, is making an environment which can
tolerate dryness. This involves installing drought-resistant and
slow-growing plants to reduce water use.
Irrigation is the artificial supply
of water to grow crops or plants. Obtained from either surface or groundwater, it optimizes
agricultural production when the amount of rain and where it
falls is insufficient. Different irrigation
systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in
practical use are often combined. Much of the agriculture in
California and the West relies on irrigation.
Excess salinity poses a growing
threat to food production, drinking water quality and public
health. Salts increase the cost of urban drinking water and
wastewater treatment, which are paid for by residents and
businesses. Increasing salinity is likely the largest long-term
chronic water quality impairment to surface and groundwater in California’s Central
Valley.
California’s severe drought has put its water rights system under
scrutiny, raising the question whether a complete overhaul is
necessary to better allocate water use.
(Read the excerpt below from the July/August 2015 issue along
with the editor’s note. Click here
to subscribe to Western Water and get full access.)
Introduction
California’s severe drought has put its water rights system under
scrutiny, raising the question whether a complete overhaul is
necessary to better allocate water use.
This issue looks at remote sensing applications and how satellite
information enables analysts to get a better understanding of
snowpack, how much water a plant actually uses, groundwater
levels, levee stability and more.
This 3-day, 2-night tour, which we do every spring,
travels the length of the San Joaquin Valley, giving participants
a clear understanding of the State Water Project and Central
Valley Project.
Located just north of Fresno, the
Friant Dam helps deliver water as it runs towards the Merced River, though its
environmental impacts have caused controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
agricultural water use – its successes, the planned state
regulation to quantify its efficiency and the potential for
greater savings.
This Western Water looks at proposed new measures to deal with
the century-old problem of salinity with a special focus on San
Joaquin Valley farms and cities.
The Reclamation Act of 1902, which could arguably be described as
a progression of the credo, Manifest Destiny, transformed the
West. This issue of Western Water provides a glimpse of the past
100 years of the Reclamation Act, from the early visionaries who
sought to turn the arid West into productive farmland, to the
modern day task of providing a limited amount of water to homes,
farms and the environment. Included are discussions of various
Bureau projects and what the next century may bring in terms of
challenges and success.
30-minute DVD that traces the history of the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and its role in the development of the West. Includes
extensive historic footage of farming and the construction of
dams and other water projects, and discusses historic and modern
day issues.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, features
a map of the San Joaquin River. The map text focuses on the San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to restore flows
and populations of Chinook salmon to the river below Friant Dam
to its confluence with the Merced River. The text discusses the
history of the program, its goals and ongoing challenges with
implementation.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Truckee River Basin, including
the Newlands Project, Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe. Map text
explains the issues surrounding the use of the Truckee-Carson
rivers, Lake Tahoe water quality improvement efforts, fishery
restoration and the effort to reach compromise solutions to many
of these issues.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, illustrates the
water resources available for Nevada cities, agriculture and the
environment. It features natural and manmade water resources
throughout the state, including the Truckee and Carson rivers,
Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake and the course of the Colorado River
that forms the state’s eastern boundary.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
With irrigation projects that import water, farmers have
transformed millions of acres of land into highly productive
fields and orchards. But the dry climate that provides an almost
year-round farming season can hasten salt build up in soils. The
build-up of salts in poorly drained soils can decrease crop
productivity, and there are links between drainage water from
irrigated fields and harmful impacts on fish and wildlife.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Central Valley Project
explores the history and development of the federal Central
Valley Project (CVP), California’s largest surface water delivery
system. In addition to the project’s history, the guide describes
the various CVP facilities, CVP operations, the benefits the CVP
brought to the state and the CVP Improvement Act (CVPIA).
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth,
easy-to-understand publication that provides background and
perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater
is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the
history of its use in California.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to
Water Rights Law, recognized as the most thorough explanation of
California water rights law available to non-lawyers, traces the
authority for water flowing in a stream or reservoir, from a
faucet or into an irrigation ditch through the complex web of
California water rights.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
There are two constants regarding agricultural water use –
growers will continue to come up with ever more efficient and
innovative ways to use water and they will always be pressed to
do more.
It’s safe to say the matter will not be settled anytime soon,
given all the complexities that are a part of the water use
picture today. While officials and stakeholders grapple to find a
lasting solution to California’s water problems that balances
environmental and economic needs, those who grow food and fiber
for a living do so amid a host of challenges.
Land retirement is a practice that takes agricultural lands out
of production due to poor drainage and soils containing high
levels of salt and selenium (a mineral found in soil).
Typically, landowners are paid to retire land. The purchaser,
often a local water district, then places a deed restriction on
the land to prevent growing crops with irrigation water (a source
of salt). Growers in some cases may continue to farm using rain
water, a method known as dry farming.
Evaporation ponds contain agricultural drainage water and are
used when agricultural growers do not have access to rivers for
drainage disposal.
Drainage water is the only source of water in many of these
ponds, resulting in extremely high concentrations of salts.
Concentrations of other trace elements such as selenium are also
elevated in evaporation basins, with a wide degree of variability
among basins.
Such ponds resemble wetland areas that birds use for nesting and
feeding grounds and may pose risks to waterfowl and shorebirds.
The Coachella Valley in Southern California’s Inland Empire is
one of several valleys throughout the state with a water district
established to support agriculture.
Like the others, the Coachella Valley Water District in Riverside
County delivers water to arid agricultural lands and constructs,
operates and maintains a regional agricultural drainage system.
These systems collect drainage water from individual farm drain
outlets and convey the water to a point of reuse, disposal or
dilution.
