The San Joaquin Valley stretches from across mid-California
between coastal ranges in west and the Sierras on the east. The
region includes large cities such as Fresno and Bakersfield,
national parks such as Yosemite and Kings and fertile farmland
and multi-billion dollar agriculture industry.
The federal Central Valley Project and State Water Project (about
30 percent of SWP water is used for irrigation) helped
deliver water to the valley. Today, San Joaquin Valley crops
include grapes, tomatoes, hay, sugar beets, nuts, cotton and a
multitude of other fruits and vegetables. At the same time, water
used to grow these crops has led to the need for agricultural
drainage.
Water transfers, trades and sales doubled this year as drought
left San Joaquin Valley farmers scrambling for supplies. …
[Sam Boland-Brien, program manager at the State Water Resources
Control Board’s Division of Water Rights] said he’s seen
about twice the amount of transfers this year compared to an
average water year.
More than 94 percent of the West is in drought this week,
according to the US Drought Monitor, with six states entirely
in drought status: California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and
Montana. Parts of the West saw record-setting rainfall that
brought some slight relief to the region, but most areas remain
dry. Against the backdrop of climate change-fueled drought,
wildfires have charred nearly 6 million acres of vegetation
across the region. Fire experts say that dry and windy
conditions create a prime environment for wildfires to spark
and spread.
The lawsuit Kern County filed this week against Gov. Gavin
Newsom is aimed at not only ending his de-facto ban on fracking
but also at easing state regulatory constraints on at least two
other oilfield techniques common locally. As part of its
larger argument that the Newsom administration has overstepped
its constitutional authority, Monday’s petition for a writ of
mandate in Kern County Superior Court asserts Newsom had no
right in 2019 to place a moratorium on high-pressure cyclic
steaming or require extensive “area of review” analyses prior
to approval of underground injections.
Currently every drop of water that comes out of faucets in
Ceres comes straight out of the ground. But come June 2023,
some of that water will be directly piped from the Tuolumne
River after it’s been treated. Construction is about 25 percent
completed and running $1 million under budget, a manager of the
project told the Ceres City Council on Monday evening.
… Ceres will ultimately receive up to 15 million gallons
of water per day while Turlock takes 30 million gallons. Two
additional phases will increase the plant’s capacity to produce
45 million gallons per day for the two cities.
The Valley’s best hope to renovate its water infrastructure has
been put on the shelf for now. Senate Bill (SB) 559, the State
Water Resiliency Act of 2021, was moved to the state Assembly’s
“inactive file” on Sept. 8. … As written SB 559 offered
a holisitic, statewide approach to help restore the conveyance
capacity by created a fund to provide up to $785 million to
repair key parts of the state’s water infrastructure.
Almonds in California are no longer sustainable at current
levels. That’s the consensus of recent headlines describing the
prolonged historic drought — and increasing restrictions on
water use — currently impacting the state’s $6 billion industry
and its efforts to produce 80 percent of the world’s
almonds. The U.S. Drought Monitor is showing California
to be slowly approaching 90% of the state categorized as being
in ‘extreme’ drought —especially in the Central Valley.
A month after the Visalia City Council threw out a policy
designed to prevent urban sprawl, the Sierra Club is
threatening to sue the city over the change … requesting
an injunction against implementation of the new policy, which
does not include an ag mitigation policy (AMP). … The
city attorney advised the General Plan could be “modified” due
to changes in case law since 2014, such as the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act which could affect the availability
of water to some farmland within the city’s growth boundaries.
A bill that would have created a program to help farmers find
new life for farmland idled by coming groundwater restrictions
had its own phoenix moment last week in the Legislature when it
was simultaneously killed and reborn — this time with
money. AB 252, authored by Assemblymembers Robert Rivas
(D-Salinas) and Rudy Salas (D-Bakersfield), died in the state
Senate last week but much of its content was reborn in a budget
bill with $50 million attached.
About 2,700 wells across the state are projected to go dry this
year. If the drought continues, 1,000 more will go dry next
year. In 2014, the California Legislature enacted a package of
new laws that aimed to stop groundwater over-pumping, but as
CalMatters’ Rachel Becker reports seven years later, little has
changed for Californians relying on drinking water wells.
Depletion of their groundwater continues. Pumping is largely
unrestricted, and there are few, if any, protections in place.
To fill the post of chief agricultural negotiator at the United
States Trade Representative’s office, the Biden administration
dipped into California’s hot, dusty, drought-plagued San
Joaquin Valley and plucked out an almond-industry lobbyist.
… Biden is favoring the $6 billion almond industry at a
particularly fraught time in its history. The ever-expanding
groves of California’s Central Valley churn out nearly 80
percent of the globe’s almonds. -Written by Mother Jones reporter Tom
Philpott.
On Aug. 3, the State Water Resources Control Board completely
eliminated 2021’s surface water supplies for farms in much of
the state. It has impacted farmers like John Moore III, who
grows pistachios at Moore Farms in Arvin. … While
California is prone to drought, the last reservoir in the state
was completed in the 1980s. The state’s population has grown
tremendously since then. Moore says the state wouldn’t be
in this situation if more infrastructure was built.
Unless you have a personal connection to the Central Valley or
work in agriculture, chances are you haven’t been able to speak
directly to a farmer about how they’re experiencing this year’s
historic drought. Recently on KQED Forum, three
farmers from the Central Valley, where roughly 40% of the
nation’s fruits, vegetables and nuts are grown, shared just how
little water they have to work with, how they’re adapting, and
what the drought means for their industry long term.
The longer it takes for two new wells to be dug in Cantua Creek
and El Porvenir in western Fresno County, the deeper in debt
the towns are mired. Now, with the drought, those well projects
are in a race against dropping groundwater levels as farmers,
cut off from surface water supplies, are leaning more heavily
on the aquifer. The well projects started in 2018 and
aren’t scheduled to be completed until sometime next year.
Central Valley water-quality regulators released a final report
Friday concluding oil field wastewater from central Kern
County, when blended with other water sources, can
safely be used to irrigate a variety of locally grown
crops. The report, based on five years’ work and
incomplete in some respects, found no evidence of risks to
human health from watering tree nuts, citrus, berries, tubers
and other ag products with the saline water that comes up from
the ground along with oil and which contains small
concentrations of toxic chemicals.
The California recall election is fast approaching, and
candidates are not wasting time. GOP frontrunner Larry Elder
made a second stop in the Central Valley this week, focusing on
crime and water shortages during a one-on-one with farmers. …
Jacobsen said farmers are hurting across the Valley and want
state leaders to take action and help solve the water crisis.
With the gubernatorial recall election looming, the Republican
contender Elder said he wants them to know he’s listening.
The major arteries of California’s water-delivery system are
crumbling, but a proposal in the state Legislature to spend
$785 million fixing them is dead for the year. The legislation,
SB 559 was pulled off the table this week by its chief author,
state Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger), after an Assembly
committee stripped the funding and made other changes to the
legislation. Hurtado’s decision turns SB 559 into a two-year
bill that could be revived next year.
California farmers and ranchers have no shortages of stress
this year. They face drought and water supply cuts, devastating
wildfires and pandemic impacts. There are also labor shortages
and financial pressures from fluctuating commodity prices or
trade disruptions. These impacts inspire serious discussions in
agricultural communities about looking after farmers’ mental
health.
The state’s curtailment of river diversions has drawn lawsuits
from eight irrigation districts in and near Stanislaus County,
along with San Francisco. The three filings claim that
the State Water Resources Control Board exceeded its authority
with the Aug. 20 orders. The plaintiffs also said they did not
get enough chance beforehand to make their cases for continued
diversions.
Some San Joaquin Valley farmers could someday have a new “crop”
to sell — their groundwater. In the face of looming
groundwater pumping restrictions, some groundwater agencies are
looking at internal markets to give growers a way to save water
and still earn a profit.
A bloom of toxic blue-green algae in a Central California
reservoir has reached the danger level, the state Department of
Water Resource said Tuesday. Lab results from this week’s
tests showed an increase in toxin levels at San Luis Reservoir
in Merced County, the department said. Boating is allowed
but people and pets should avoid physical contact with the
water and algal scum. Fish and shellfish from the lake should
also be avoided.
For much of California, the arrival of September has brought
extreme, scalding temperatures. Sunday was the hottest day in
Los Angeles in nearly 11 months, according to AccuWeather.
Temperatures in the Inland Empire and the Sacramento region
soared into the triple-digits over the long weekend. And in the
next few days, dangerous heat waves are projected for large
swaths of the state, weather officials warn.
For decades, farm labor has kept unincorporated communities
alive throughout the Central Valley. But the drought is making
it hard to stay. The dearth of essential resources — clean
water, adequate housing and fair employment wages — has
crippled towns that are easily overlooked and triggered a slow
exodus to bigger places.
First came the asparagus field. Then came the melons. And now
Joe Del Bosque is considering the unthinkable: tearing out a
sprawling almond orchard bursting with healthy, nut-producing
trees. … Two decades of almost unrelenting growth
vaulted almonds into the upper ranks of California agriculture.
Now, though, the state’s $6 billion-a-year industry is
being humbled by a devastating drought. Farmers have
slowed the pace of new orchard plantings and, in a few cases,
have plowed up trees still capable of bearing almonds.
The Bureau of Reclamation selected 20 projects to share $3.1
million in applied science grants to develop tools and
information to support water management decisions. These
projects in 11 western states include improved water data,
modeling and forecasting capabilities.
Record dry conditions once again in the West have led the
federal and state governments to declare water supply
shortages. California’s governor has declared that 50 counties,
in which approximately 41% of the state’s population exists,
are now under a drought state of emergency. This prompted the
adoption of emergency regulations ordering water rights holders
to curtail their water diversions on numerous northern
California rivers.
The drought emergency in the Bay Area is not only affecting
humans, but also wildlife. From turkeys strolling along
streets, to wild pigs appearing on surveillance video digging
up yards, bone dry conditions in the hills has sent thirsty
wildlife into neighborhoods, particularly in the East Bay.
Other creatures spotted in neighborhoods recently include
mountain lions and even the occasional bear. Wildlife experts
say its the season for these visitors. Dry hillsides causing
wildlife to stroll to low lying areas to find food and precious
water.
Researchers have suspected for years that drought conditions
worsen groundwater quality, but a study published this week
provides strong evidence proving the long-held assumption.
While previous studies have focused on the risk of wells being
overdrawn and run dry during drought, the study from the United
States Geological Survey and the California State Water
Resources Control Board is the first to directly link drought
to deteriorating water quality on a regional scale. The study
looked at 30 years of data from California’s Central Valley.
The first phase of much-needed repairs of the Friant-Kern Canal
is set to begin late this fall. It was reported at Tuesday’s
Tulare County Board of Supervisors meeting construction on the
first phase of the project is set to begin in November. As part
the process to move the project along the board unanimously
approved a Memorandum of Understanding for the project to move
forward.
Leaders from a newly formed revitalization task force joined
California State Parks representatives last week in announcing
a partnership to honor a piece of California Black history in
the Central Valley. Randall Cooper, chief executive officer of
the Global Economic Impact Group, which will lead
revitalization effort, said the once-prosperous community
of Allensworth was devastated by a series of racist
decisions and policies and never was able to recover.
… Water access was another hindrance to the town’s
potential. … [W]hite farmers dammed the river and diverted
the water, leaving Allensworth’s Black farmers high and dry.
Lawmakers accused almond growers of over-planting and livestock
ranchers of unsustainable practices, while others sought policy
ideas to help small family farmers.
Last week, the State Water Board finally intervened in the
unincorporated area of Tooleville’s 20-year struggle to obtain
the basic human right to clean drinking water with a letter to
the city of Exeter and the Tooleville Mutual Nonprofit Water
Association, giving the two parties six months to hash out
terms for a voluntary consolidation of Tooleville to Exeter’s
water system or face a mandatory order with much less
cooperation.
Freshly cut off from their chief water supply, a group of
California water agencies in one of the state’s most fertile
farming areas sued on Wednesday to freeze the latest round of
emergency drought rules. In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento
County Superior Court, the suppliers argue they were denied due
process when state regulators ordered thousands of landowners
last month to cease diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin
River Delta due to drought conditions.
Life in Tooleville wasn’t easy before the latest
drought. Residents of this tiny, two-road farmworker
community, tucked into the edge of the Sierra Nevada foothills
in eastern Tulare County, have been living on bottled water
since 2014 because its two wells are contaminated with
hexavalent chromium. Then in July, one of those wells
started to dry up, thanks to plummeting groundwater levels.
State Water Resources Control Board officials agree
Tooleville’s other well will likely hit sand in a matter of
months.
There is hope that the unfortunate conditions of California’s
water supply this year will prompt decisive action on water
management and storage. President and CEO of Western Growers,
Dave Puglia noted that his conversations with growers have been
disheartening. There is significant concern that if California
gets another dry year, many farmers will not be able to
recover. The dire circumstances of the current water year
underscore the imperative need for an updated approach to water
management.
One farmer has single handedly ramped up the pace of a program
trying to save native salmon in the San Joaquin River by
donating a key sliver of land to the federal government.
Connley Clayton donated about eight acres of his Madera County
riverfront land to the government’s San Joaquin River
Restoration Program. The land will provide crucial space for
the government to build a passage that fish can use to swim
around the Sack Dam, a significant impediment to salmon
returning upriver from the sea.
Madera County is running out of time as groundwater levels
plummet to new depths. Wells are going dry everywhere. Drillers
have months-long waitlists. Residents are scrambling for water
tanks. And farmers will soon face a reckoning after
agriculture’s footprint, particularly nut trees, has more than
doubled in the past 50 years — far outpacing irrigation
supplies.
The San Joaquin Valley is quickly become home to another
ignominious superlative: greatest number of water outages per
community. The state’s ever-worsening drought conditions are
pushing Valley communities to the brink on the precipice of a
statewide recall election. As the Sept. 14 election nears,
former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer returned to the San
Joaquin Valley on Friday for a briefing with members of the
Latino Water Coalition, Fresno County Supervisors, and an
assemblage of some of the top water experts in the region.
Mandatory limits on water use are likely to be imposed in the
near future on California residents, businesses and farms. Get
ready. You can’t change the weather, which has deprived the
state of its necessary rain and snowfall. But you can change
your response. After examining the state’s shockingly low
reservoirs, Gov. Gavin Newsom told reporters recently that a
statewide limit on water use may be needed to head off a supply
crisis caused by California’s historic drought, which continues
to worsen.
This small town [Mendota] in California’s agriculture-rich
Central Valley advertises itself as the “Cantaloupe Center of
the World.” But as relentless drought punishes California and
the West, the land is drying up and the cantaloupes are
disappearing. Farmers have let large portions of their melon
fields lie fallow as they struggle to get by on dramatically
curtailed water supplies. Some are giving their vines barely
enough water to stay alive in an effort to conserve. In other
cases, fields that have already been planted will never get
harvested because there’s not enough water for the fruit to
survive.
After twenty years at or above the current level, the San
Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District Board of Directors
voted to lower its property tax rate. Valley District, a
wholesale water provider and State Water Contractor, is
required to set a property tax rate each fiscal year for the
debt service fund on its State Water Contract.
Maria Olivera’s house sits on a dirt road that dead-ends at the
Friant Kern Canal, the 152-mile aqueduct quenching the endless
thirst of the San Joaquin Valley crops that feed the country.
She’s called Tooleville home since 1974, where residents have
been fighting to attain the basic human right to clean drinking
water for the better part of two decades.
The state of California took the first step to order and
potentially pay for the city of Exeter in Tulare County to
extend water service to hundreds of homes in a nearby town
without safe and stable drinking water. For decades, the 340
residents of Tooleville have relied on contaminated groundwater
as their main source of tap water….
The Woodville Public Utilities District will receive a state
grant of more than $2.2 million to improve the quality of
drinking water for its community. The grant was recently
announced by the State Department of Water Resources as part of
a program to support communities facing water supply
challenges. The department announced the first round of funding
which will eventually total $200 million through the Small
Community Drought Relief Program. In the first round, 10 small
water systems in Tulare, Siskiyou, Shasta, Lake and Kern
Counties were chosen to receive $25 million.
As if I’m a thirsty person craving my next drink, I keep
thinking about water. I hear the stories. A 20-acre family farm
sits fallow. Down the road, another piece of land has the same
barren look. Is the problem reasonable crop values or access to
water? Likely, a bucket of both. Fresno averages 11.5
inches of rain per year. Total precipitation from Oct. 1, 2020
to date is 6.59 inches, or 60% of normal — a larger percentage
than most parts of the state. In the canal I floated down
as a kid, not a drop of water has flowed all season.
-Written by Danielle R. Shapazian, a nurse and writer who
lives in Fresno.
Resources are available to help San Joaquin Valley residents
affected by drought maintain access to drinking water. A
group of organizations in the San Joaquin Valley coordinated by
the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley Water
Workgroup have developed an outreach plan and a list of
resources available to private well owners or part of a small
community who have lost or are concerned about losing access to
drinking water due to groundwater level.
California’s water infrastructure is decades old and
drastically needs to be fixed. Valley Senator Melissa Hurtado
just got water repair money from the Governor but it’s far less
than what she wanted. Senator Hurtado got $100-million
from Governor Newsom in her water bill. But it’s $685-million
short of what she was seeking. The money will go to four
water projects, the San Joaquin and San Luis Divisions of the
California Aqueduct, Delta-Mendota Canal and the Friant-Kern
Canal.
California’s fifth largest reservoir — San Luis — is now at 16
percent of capacity. The nation’s largest off-stream reservoir
with the ability to hold 2,041,000 million acre feet exists to
divert excess winter and spring river flows headed for the
Pacific Ocean. As such it underscores the fact the entire
Central Valley, the southern Sierra, the North Bay, and the
East Bay are in exceptional drought — the worst designation of
the United States Department of Agriculture drought monitor.
Historically on Aug. 16 San Luis would be at 36 percent of
capacity.
As the drought crisis worsens throughout California, Fresno and
Clovis leaders, as well as residents, are answering the
challenge. Both cities are recycling water through “purple
pipe” systems to offset non-potable usages like landscape
irrigation, cooling towers, and agricultural irrigation.
In addition, they are beginning to investigate “toilet to tap”
systems already in use in Orange and San Diego counties.
As if California’s drought situation could get no worse, water
agencies and poor communities in the southern San Joaquin
Valley are confronting a new reality. While they receive no
water from the State Water Project, they’re being hit with rate
hikes of up to 18 percent from last year by California water
officials. In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, state water users
in the old Tulare Lake bed – including water agencies
that serve some of the state’s poorest communities – called for
the Department of Water Resources to halt its planned hike on
water rates.
Fourteen years ago, Heriberto Sevilla came across a ranch on
the outskirts of Madera set among fields of stalk grass and
bright wildflowers. Pepper trees dotted the meadow, and
children played in the natural lakes created by heavy rains. It
was the perfect place to raise a big family. … But then
a darkness came over the little Eden the Sevillas had
created. Amid two years of relentless drought, the well’s
output slowly tapered off. The family was forced to buy gallons
of precious water from the grocery store to take showers, clean
dishes and cook.
Not only does the Turlock-native Congressman refrain from
partisan politics for the most part, although those who don’t
understand why a Democrat would vote for Nancy Pelosi as House
Speaker as opposed to Kevin McCarthy will argue that point, but
Harder knows a drought when he sees one. The second term 10th
District congressman in late July noted that California is in
dire straits. Harder pointed out the reservoirs we rely on are
at a lower point now than they were at the depth of the last
drought that ended in 2019. -Written by Turlock Journal columnist Dennis
Wyatt.
It’s very important to lead with your values. That’s exactly
what is happening at the California Water Quality Control Board
regarding racial equity and environmental justice. … Water is
life, and here in the Central Valley, water access is as big an
issue here as almost anywhere else on Earth. In California we
have a “human right to water” approach that was built into our
system when the Legislature passed the Human Right to Water
Act. -Written by Lourin Hubbard, operations manager for the
Central Valley Water Quality Control Board.
It was clear during the first hearing on the Kern River Tuesday
that the public has a seat at the table as never before.
Tuesday’s hearing was mostly procedural — setting out which
issues would be sorted first and how. Permeating the discussion
at nearly every turn, however, was the public trust doctrine,
which gives the public a right to natural resources, such as a
river with actual water in it.
Kelly O’Brien’s drinking water well had been in its death
throes for days before its pump finally gave out over Memorial
Day weekend. … Soon O’Brien learned that other wells
were failing around her. She heard about one neighbor to the
north, another to the east. The list kept growing: She started
a Facebook group for owners of dry wells to share their woes
and resources, and it grew to more than 665 members.
When Stuart Woolf was growing up on his dad’s ranch in Huron,
California, he never liked working the tomato harvest. “I
thought, ‘I am never going to do this.’ Everything was kind of
wet, hot and stinky,” Woolf said. These days, though, now
as president of the 20,000-acre ranch, Woolf is prioritizing
tomatoes over some of his other crops, like cotton and almonds,
since they’re relatively less water-intensive. With the drought
desiccating California’s Central Valley, farmers like Woolf are
having to reevaluate their business models based on how much
water they can afford.
Extreme weather events in recent headlines, including
wildfires, heat waves and flooding, could offer a preview of
what to expect in forecasts of the near future, experts
suggest. … Already, historic heat waves have ravaged the
Pacific Northwest, wildfires blaze across California and Oregon
and agencies are recording some of the hottest months on
record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
said last week that July was the hottest month ever
recorded.
Signs of drought proliferate across the American
West. California is rationing water for farmers in the state’s
Central Valley. Salmon are dying en masse in the
Pacific Northwest as river temperatures climb. Lake Mead,
on the border of Nevada and Arizona, is drying up. …
Groundwater is the source of drinking water for half of
Americans, and nearly all of the country’s rural communities.
… But groundwater has become dangerously depleted in places
where pumping has exceeded the rate at which aquifers are
naturally replenished.
It’s looking increasingly likely the U.S. will see La Niña
conditions this winter, something that could spell bad news for
an already parched Southern California. As of Thursday, NOAA’s
Climate Prediction Center says there’s a 70% chance that La
Niña returns for a second straight winter, this time between
the period of November 2021 and January 2022. As such, a La
Niña Watch has been issued by the agency. So what does that
mean for winter weather?
The well fixer and I were standing at the edge of an almond
orchard in the exhausted middle of California. It was late
July, and so many wells on the farms of Madera County were
coming up dry that he was running out of parts to fix them. In
this latest round of western drought, desperate voices were
calling him at six in the morning and again at midnight. They
were puzzled why their pumps were coughing up sand, the water’s
flow to their orchards now a trickle.
In California’s water world, long dominated almost exclusively
by men, women are blazing a path — sometimes straight to the
top. … Karla Nemeth [director of California’s Department
of Water Resources] … said law and engineering
backgrounds used to be strictly prioritized in water, but the
field is opening up to other disciplines and collaborative
skills. Nemeth, arguably one of the state’s most powerful water
leaders, helms DWR, which manages California’s water resources,
infrastructure and systems.
Pistachios have recently become perhaps the top choice for
institutional investors in Kern County agriculture, apparently
surpassing almonds. Farmland brokers say prices and demand for
local pistachio orchards — the few properties listed for sale,
anyway — have increased since about 2019 because of the
trees’ longevity, crop price stability and higher tolerance for
limited and lower-quality water supplies.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is urging the public to
avoid contact with water at San Luis Reservoir in Merced County
until further notice due to blue-green algae (cyanobacteria).
Boating is allowed, but swimming and other water-contact
recreation and sporting activities are not considered safe due
to potential adverse health effects. O’Neill Forebay remains at
caution advisory. For more information on caution and warning
level advisories, go to Harmful Algal Bloom website under
Advisory Signs.
The Town of Discovery Bay is seeking public comment on the
latest additions to its groundwater sustainability plan (GSP).
Comments are due by Aug. 16. Unlike other East County
communities which use a blend of water drawn from the Delta and
groundwater, Discovery Bay residents are completely reliant on
groundwater for all household and commercial uses.
Like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — arid nations
with limited water supplies — California should consider
banning or limiting the cultivation of water-intensive crops.
At a time of severe water shortages, it makes sense to end the
cultivation for export of crops like almonds and alfalfa, a
plant mostly used to feed cows. Where does the world get 80
percent of its almonds? The Golden State. Where does Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (and Japan and China) get
much of their alfalfa? You guessed it. California. -Written by San Diego U-T columnist Chris Reed.
Due to technical difficulties the Bureau of Reclamation
re-announced today ongoing congressionally mandated contract
conversions pursuant to the Water Infrastructure Improvements
for the Nation Act. Today’s release includes draft repayment
contracts from the Central Valley Project Delta and Friant
contractors for a 60-day public comment period. These represent
seven of over 80 repayment contract conversions requested by
federal CVP contractors.
If you’ve eaten sushi anywhere in the U.S., chances are the
rice came from California’s Sacramento Valley. Fritz
Durst, a sixth-generation farmer, has grown the grain and other
crops there for more than four decades. But this year, amid a
historic drought, Durst is planting only half as many acres of
rice as usual. … Farmers like Durst would be having an
even worse year if it weren’t for water siphoned from the
Sacramento River to irrigate fields. Those diversions, though,
have dire consequences for another part of the sushi supply
chain: The salmon industry.
Moving to provide immediate support to communities facing water
supply challenges, the Department of Water Resources (DWR)
Wednesday announced the first round of funding commitments
for $200 million available through the Small Community Drought
Relief Program. DWR, in coordination with the State Water
Resources Control Board, is directing $25 million to 10 small
water systems in Tulare, Siskiyou, Shasta, Lake and Kern
Counties.
A new player has entered the legal fray over the Kern River —
the public. Actually, it’s a consortium of Bakersfield and
other nonprofit, public interest groups that hope to sway the
state Water Resources Control Board to, ultimately, re-water
the mostly dry Kern River through town. The Flowing Kern
Coalition made its debut Tuesday when it filed a notice of
intent to appear at an upcoming proceeding on the Kern River.
California just closed the books on its hottest July on record,
a whopping 5.3 degrees above normal. It was the latest in a
rash of record-setting months over the past year, as the state
saw its hottest July, June, October, September and August in
history, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. NOAA data shows that the average monthly
temperature in July was 80 degrees, 5.3 degrees above normal,
or the average temperature from 1901 to 2000. June’s average
temperature was 75 degrees, 6.8 degrees above normal.
For the second time, State Oil and Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe
Ntuk has used his discretionary authority, as opposed to
technical standards, to reject a series of permit applications
to use the controversial oilfield technique known as fracking.
Ntuk sent a letter Monday to Bakersfield-based oil producer
Aera Energy LLC saying he has reviewed and denied applications
filed by the company to hydraulically fracture 14 wells in the
South Belridge oil field in western Kern County.
In the southern San Joaquin Valley town of Poplar, extreme heat
in the summer is the normal condition in which people live and
work. It is one of the poorest communities in the
state. Air conditioning in trailer homes or crowded
houses normally consists of old swamp coolers, which hardly
lower temperatures. At work people bundle up, using layers
of clothing to insulate against heat and dust.
An obscure farm-irrigation agency in the San Joaquin Valley,
the Panoche Water District has been struggling with a
monumental scandal the past three years, with top officials
under criminal indictment for embezzling public funds and
illegally dumping toxic waste. It turns out the district has
also been allegedly taking water from the federal government.
Earlier this year Panoche agreed to pay the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation nearly $7.5 million to compensate for “unauthorized
diversion of water” from two federal canals, according to a
settlement agreement obtained by The Bee.
While recent commentary saddled the state with all the blame
for the lack of drinking water in Teviston, local jurisdictions
in the San Joaquin Valley must also accept responsibility.
Small water systems are caught between the historic legacy of
discriminatory policy, dropping groundwater levels caused by
overpumping, and chronically failing water systems. Local
governments have long resisted providing aid to these
communities or initiating processes that could require nearby
systems to provide water, particularly when those solutions may
impact wealthier neighbors.
[S]igns of this subsidence are nearly invisible to the human
eye. There are no cracks in the walls of the typical American
shops in the town’s center, nor crevices opening up in the
streets or fields: to measure subsidence, Californian
authorities had to turn to NASA, which used satellites to
analyze the geological change. And yet, over the past 100
years, Corcoran has sunken “the equivalent of a two-story
house,” Jeanine Jones, a manager with the California Department
of Water Resources, told AFP.
In the valleys of central California, the search for water has
turned into an all-out obsession as the region suffers
through a drought that could threaten the US’s food
supply. Residents have watched with dismay as verdant
fields turned into brown, dusty plains, leaving shrivelled
trees, dying plants and frustrated farmers. Much of
California, and of the broader US West, has suffered through
years of lighter-than-usual precipitation and a particularly
dry winter.
In early January 2016, Fresno city officials began picking up
on social media chatter among northeast Fresno residents who
were concerned about rusty, discolored water coming out of
their pipes. Starting Jan. 25, the city began testing the water
in five homes around an area bounded by Chestnut Avenue on the
west, Gettysburg Avenue on the south, Willow Avenue on the east
and Copper Avenue to the north. Test results showed everything
checked out fine, including pipes between the water main and
the homes. However, the tests did find iron, zinc, copper and
in a few of the homes, lead.
The West Nile virus was once associated with higher humidity
and moisture, conditions that help mosquitoes thrive. But a
growing body of research has found that drought conditions –
such as those being felt across the American west – could
amplify its effects. States are already on alert. California
reported its first death of the year in July. By the end of
that month, the state’s department of public health (CDPH) had
documented the virus in 4 people, 94 dead birds, 563 mosquito
samples, 10 chickens and 1 horse.
Another hurdle has been cleared in the pending and much needed
repairs of a 33-mile stretch of the Friant-Kern Canal. Known as
the Friant-Kern Canal Middle Reach Capacity Project, repairs
will be done on the 33-mile stretch of the canal form between
Lindsay and Strathmore to North Kern County. When the federal
government provided $206 million in funding for the project
last year that meant the project would finally become a
reality.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stressed innovation
and collaboration Thursday as he visited a Fresno County farm
dealing with California’s drought. … Vilsack’s visit
comes the same week the State Water Resources Control Board
imposed an “emergency curtailment” order covering the
rivers of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed —
essentially the entire Central Valley.
California regulators cut off thousands of farmers from their
main irrigation supplies Tuesday, banning them from pulling
water from the state’s main rivers and streams as the drought
worsens. The State Water Resources Control Board, following
hours of debate and comment, voted 5-0 to impose an “emergency
curtailment” order covering the rivers of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta watershed — essentially the entire Central
Valley. It’s the most dramatic step taken to date by state
regulators since the drought was officially declared in most of
California’s counties — and surpasses any of the moves made
during the previous drought.
As California grapples with the effects of an ongoing drought,
UC Berkeley researchers are studying changes in the magnitude
of streamflows and drought-induced tree mortality in order to
advise climate change policy.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the Friant Water Authority
announced today a 30-day public comment period for a repayment
contract related to costs of extraordinary operation and
maintenance work on the Friant-Kern Canal Middle Reach Capacity
Correction Project. This project will restore a 33-mile stretch
of the canal that has lost over half of its original capacity
to subsidence.
The waters of the Tuolumne River flow through Modesto two
ways. One is in the natural riverbed that cuts through the
city just south of downtown. The other is in the original
“Delta bypass tunnel” — the 46.7 mile pipeline across the San
Joaquin Valley beneath the Hetch Hetchy Trail that moves water
diverted from the reservoir the urban trail is named after. -Written by Dennis Wyatt, columnist for the Manteca
Bulletin.
At least 162 oil refineries and other petroleum-holding
facilities in California have likely stored or used materials
containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class
of synthetic chemicals that persist indefinitely in the
environment and are linked to severe illnesses, according to
state water regulators. The California State Water Resources
Control Board sent a letter to facility operators in March
ordering them to submit work plans evaluating the presence of
the toxic compounds at their facilities, including areas where
PFAS are stored or disposed of and the potential ways the
chemicals could have contaminated soil, surface water, storm
water and groundwater …
South San Joaquin County as well as the rest of California is
in severe drought. But one of the big worries of more than a
few people including rural South Manteca farmers and residents,
elected leaders in Manteca and Lathrop, and the handful of city
residents not oblivious to the fact they reside in one of the
most flood prone areas in California is too much water. On
Monday when the forecast calls for a high of 93 degrees with
absolutely no chance of rain, the San Joaquin Area Flood
Control Agency (SJAFCA) is updating the community on the
Manteca dryland levee project.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of
Water Resources (DWR) today released the next versions of two
computer models that simulate operations of the State Water
Project (SWP) and the Central Valley Project (CVP). Water
managers use the models – CalSim II and CalSim 3 – to examine
project operations under various assumptions for hydrologic
conditions, project facilities and regulatory
requirements.
The Bureau of Reclamation launched a new web portal today that
provides real-time drought-related information and details of
drought actions taken in collaboration with stakeholders and
partners. The science-based web portal is designed to increase
public and media understanding of drought conditions and the
all-of-government efforts to mitigate these conditions by the
Biden-Harris administration.
Conservative talk show host Larry Elder is currently leading
the pack of Republicans hoping to replace Gov. Gavin
Newsom in California’s recall election. A new poll
from the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies
found that among voters most likely to participate in the
recall, Elder has the most support, followed by San Diego
businessman John Cox, former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer
and Assemblymember Kevin Kiley.
A review of 170 years of water-related successes in California
suggests that most successes can be traced directly to past
mistakes. California’s highly variable climate has made
it a crucible for innovations in water technology and
policy. Similar water imperatives have led to advances in
water management in other parts of the world. A close
look at California’s water model suggests that “far-sighted
incrementalism” is a path to progress.
With a new $20 million federal grant, UC Merced becomes part of
a multi-institutional research collaborative to develop
artificial intelligence — or AI — solutions to tackle some of
agriculture’s biggest challenges related to water management,
climate change and integration of new technology into farming.
The new institute is one of 11 launched this year by the
National Science Foundation (NSF) and among two funded by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and
Agriculture.
Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer made a stop in Fresno on
Wednesday to plead his case on why he’s a key candidate in the
potential recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Faulconer’s
talking points during the visit consisted almost entirely of
the state’s water woes as he stood outside the Department of
Water Resources office in central Fresno, where he was
accompanied by Fresno County Supervisor Buddy
Mendes.
Not a drop of new “moon shoot” water storage has been created
in California for more than 40 years. It’s a point that isn’t
lost on Congressman Josh Harder. Nor is the fact water issues
facing the heart of the Northern San Joaquin Valley are
interconnected with communities often hundreds of miles away
from the 10th District that he represents in Congress. It
is why the Turlock Democrat has pursued do-able water projects
— including those outside of his district that would reduce
efforts to try and commandeer water from the Stanislaus and
Tuolumne watersheds to address fish flow, urban, and irrigation
needs elsewhere — since taking office in 2019.
As drought conditions worsen in the western U.S., it is there
that water is becoming more and more scarce. As for that which
is at the surface and below, you know, the subsurface supply,
is everything being done that can be done to get the most out
of this extremely valuable resource? In California’s San
Joaquin Valley, according to information imparted on the Jul.
20, 2021 edition of the PBS “News Hour,” agriculture drinks up
half of the groundwater supply. In some Valley locations, water
availability is extremely limited.
No other region in the country is warming faster than the
western United States when it comes to increasing daytime
highs, a trend that became apparent with the unprecedented and
record-shattering heat wave that took over the Pacific
Northwest earlier this summer. Heat has been building all
across the west this year. In June, Idaho, Utah, Arizona,
Nevada and California all had record heat statewide. Salt Lake
City had its warmest June in 74 years of records with an
average temperature of 80.2 F, which is 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit
above normal.
A study tracking regulatory compliance costs in California was
recently released, with striking findings. Researchers looked
at data from 22 different farms of various sizes in the San
Joaquin Valley between 2012 and 2018. During that timeframe,
regulatory costs increased by 265 percent. Professor of
Agribusiness at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and co-author
of the report, Lynn Hamilton said several factors
contributed to the significant increase.
The drought in California isn’t quite fathomable to all. In
efforts to showcase the harsh reality producers are
experiencing, Western Growers has a new campaign called “No
water= No Crops.” In a series of videos, the campaign focuses
on a few California producers who are struggling with the water
shortages. Joe Del Bosque of Del Bosque Farms is one of the
farmers in the campaign. He started out his planting year
thinking he’d have enough water but that quickly changed as the
dry water year encroached.
Through fierce reporting and captivating prose, journalist Mark
Arax paints a vivid and complex portrait of California and its
water. Born into a family of farmers in Fresno, Arax has
witnessed firsthand the cyclical nature of droughts and floods
in the state. He delves into the history and future of
agriculture and water in his 2019 book “The Dreamt Land.” Arax
joins Evan Kleiman to talk about the lessons gleaned from the
state’s fraught water history, and what they might mean for its
present and future.
The small, rural community of Tooleville is on the brink of
going dry after one of its two wells went down Friday morning.
It’s the second community in Tulare County to suffer water
problems in the last two months as California struggles through
the grip of a devastating drought. The only well in the town of
Teviston, also in rural Tulare County, broke down June 9
leaving residents there dry until the pump was fixed July 16.
After some negotiation, the Friant Water Authority Board of
Directors will vote on a repayment contract with the Bureau of
Reclamation regarding the repair of a portion of the
Friant-Kern Canal. The Friant Water Authority and the
Bureau of Reclamation held its second round of negotiations
Thursday morning, which was a two-hour process hammering out
contract language in the repayment deal. … At the center
of the issue is a 33-mile stretch of the Friant-Kern Canal that
has lost over half of its original capacity to
subsidence.
Forced to reckon with a worsening drought, California’s water
regulators are preparing to forbid thousands of farmers from
tapping into the state’s major rivers and streams. It’s an
extraordinary step — and one that regulators didn’t take during
the last drought, which was considered one of the worst on
record. The State Water Resources Control Board on Friday
released an “emergency curtailment” order that would cut
thousands off from rivers and streams in the Sacramento and San
Joaquin river watersheds.
The State Water Resources Control Board on Friday released an
“emergency curtailment” order that would cut thousands off from
rivers and streams in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river
watersheds. The five-person board still has to vote on the
order Aug. 3, and it would take effect about two weeks later.
A lot of the fruits, vegetables and nuts that you see in
grocery stores come from California. Growing them takes a huge
amount of water, which is a huge problem when the state is in
the middle of a drought. California’s farmers are pumping most
of that water from underground aquifers. They can’t keep doing
that, though, especially as the climate changes. NPR’s Dan
Charles has the story.
Join us as we guide you on a virtual journey 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 city of Lemoore said Wednesday afternoon that a water tank
explosion that killed one worker and injured another last month
was “preventable.” Officials have said the tank lifted
approximately 70 feet off the ground in the explosion, which
occurred when methane gas ignited as welding was being done as
part of a city project.
When it comes to the water year this summer, it could be
referred to as a season on the brink. Tule River Water Master
David De Groot announced on Monday water from the Tule River
began to be run off over this past weekend. … De Groot said
the water runoff will last 30 days through mid-August. He added
the Tule River’s flow was just at 15.6 percent of
normal … the lowest level the lake will be at
since the dire drought of 2014-2015.
One day last month, water in the community of Teviston, about
66 miles south of Fresno, suddenly stopped flowing. The
town’s services office fielded calls from residents who said
their taps ran dry, and when city leaders opened their own
faucets, nothing came out. Soon, officials realized that
the town’s main well had stopped working. … [T]he water
level below the community has been dropping for the last 14
years, and two different wells had already failed.
California may only be one year into the drought, but its toll
feels much bigger to San Joaquin Valley livestock operators.
… Andrée Soares, president of Star Creek Land Stewards,
Inc [is] based in Los Banos on the west side of the valley but
her animals are often spread up and down the state doing
targeted grazing for fire prevention. Soares doesn’t know where
her animals will be in the next few months or how they will
eat.
A new futures contract based on the Nasdaq Veles California
Water Index provides longer-term visibility into the price of
water, according to Roland Fumasi of RaboResearch. California
is facing another dry summer in 2021, and for agricultural
producers, that means a difficult growing season. … The
situation has put a strain on the state’s traditionally fragile
water resources, resulting in water price spikes for producers
looking to sustain their crops.
After over a month of transporting water from nearby towns and
delivering bottled water to residents, the rural Tulare County
community of Teviston had running water again Monday.
Teviston’s only well broke down in early June, leaving hundreds
of residents without running water. Teviston Community Services
District board member, Frank Galaviz, said that the well is
“back online” in an interview on Monday with The Bee. … In
total, Teviston residents went without running water for two to
three weeks, said board President Martin Correa.
Whether the Kern River truly has spare water and, if so, how
much, has been left up in the air for more than a decade. Now,
11 years after the State Water Resources Control Board ruled
the Kern River was not fully appropriated, it will finally
start the process of getting at those two key questions: Is
water available? How much? A status conference hearing has been
scheduled by the board’s Administrative Hearing Office for Aug.
17 at 9 a.m., the board announced on Monday.
The Bureau of Reclamation and the Friant Water Authority
scheduled a teleconference contract repayment negotiation
session for costs of extraordinary operation and maintenance
work on the Friant-Kern Canal Middle Reach Capacity Correction
Project. The date and time of
the teleconference-only negotiation session are: July
22, 2021, from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. PDT Call
1-202-640-1187 and, when prompted, type in participant
passcode 523 487 550# The public is welcome to listen during
the session and comment after the negotiations close.
After two consecutive dry winters and a series of early summer
heat waves, the vast majority of California is gripped by
drought. Water levels in reservoirs like Lake Oroville, Shasta
Lake and Lake Mendocino are dangerously low. Wells in parts of
the San Joaquin Valley and along the Russian River are drying
up, and local water officials have mandated water restrictions
up to 40% in some areas. Already, more
than 85% of California is experiencing extreme
drought conditions … and experts forewarn a third year
of drought could be on the horizon if the state doesn’t see
significant winter rain storms.
Several of the state’s key canals will get a sprinkle of state
money this year and next toward fixing more than $2 billion in
damage caused by sinking land from excessive groundwater
pumping. On July 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a massive budget
“trailer” bill, which authorizes actual funding for programs
and services outlined in the state budget that was passed June
15. The trailer bill included $200 million for the Department
of Water Resources to spend over the next two years on the
California Aqueduct, Delta-Mendota Canal and Friant-Kern Canal.
Together, repairs for those canals are estimated at $2.35
billion.
Alex Padilla made his first official visit to the Central
Valley as U.S. Senator, holding several discussions about
water. Padilla, along with other elected officials, held a
media availability at his only public event of the day — a tour
of the Dos Palos water treatment plant. There, he spoke about
the need to upgrade infrastructure for drinking water, as well
as water for farmers. Padilla says the infrastructure bill
being debated in the Senate will help with water, especially in
underserved areas.
As he set goals last Thursday for the Bay Area to conserve
water, Gov. Gavin Newsom acknowledged the lack of metering
provides no sense of how much water is used by California
agriculture. Growers in the Watsonville area in Santa Cruz
County, however, are metered, and the meters have resulted in
significant water conservation.
Southern San Joaquin Valley Rivers are running at near historic
lows — again. In fact, the Bakersfield City Council passed a
resolution Wednesday officially declaring the Kern River as
running at only 17% of normal, it’s second driest year since
record keeping began in 1893. The driest year on record was
2015, the worst year of the 2012-2016 drought. The resolution
notes the river is so low this year, the city won’t have any
“excess” water to sell to local agricultural irrigation
districts. This is the first time the City Water Resources
Department has made such a resolution.
Kings River Conservation District (KRCD) Board announced on
July 13, 2021, the appointment of David M. Merritt as KRCD’s
new general manager. … Mr. Merritt started his tenure with
KRCD in 2010 as the Deputy General Manager of Power Resources.
Through his leadership, KRCD successfully divested its gas
turbine power generation facility, the Malaga Peaking Plant, in
2015. Mr. Merritt has further improved the long-term
reliability of its Jeff L. Taylor Pine Flat Power Plant, which
is a key KRCD asset.
A prominent oil and gas lobbying group seeks to strip
environmental protections from groundwater sources designated
by the state for agricultural use and which may grow
increasingly important to California’s water-scarce future,
according to a memo obtained through a records request. The
proposal, which hasn’t been publicly announced, suggests
removing protections for groundwater reserves underneath 1,500
square surface miles in western Kern County, where the
upper groundwater zone alone can extend down thousands of feet.
The worsening drought forced a 13% cut in the projected almond
crop in California. The U.S. Department of Agriculture now
expects about 2.8 billion pounds from the August-October
harvest. The initial estimate in May was for a record 3.2
billion pounds. Some growers have opted to strip nuts from
branches so their trees can get by with less irrigation this
summer, Monday’s report said. Water is especially short in
parts of the western and southern San Joaquin Valley.
[A] developer hopes to submit [an application] by
the end of the year [to] utilize excess solar and wind energy
to power their pumped storage technology … By using
renewable energy to transfer water back and forth between two
reservoirs, the project would be a non-consumptive means of
using water to generate power. In the case of the Mokelumne
Pumped Storage Water Battery Project, the Salt Springs
Reservoir has been identified as the lower reservoir, as it
already has a small hydro-facility on it that generates about
44 megawatts of energy.
A key message emerged when California water leaders gathered in
Modesto: Stop grumbling about drought, and get cracking on real
fixes. Rep. Josh Harder, R-Turlock, convened the Thursday
afternoon summit at the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau.
Several speakers called for new reservoirs and groundwater
recharge to hold wet-year surpluses for use in dry times
like 2021. The manager of a West Side irrigation district
invited others to follow her lead in using water recycled from
city sewage plants.
In Cantua, a small town deep within California’s farming
heartland, the heat had always been a part of life. “We can do
nothing against it,” said Julia Mendoza, who’s lived in this
town for 27 years. But lately, she says, the searing
temperatures are almost unlivable. … Global heating is
driving stronger, longer heatwaves in the region, said Jose
Pablo Ortiz Partida, a climate scientist for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, a non-profit advocacy
group. Researchers have been warning of such extreme
heatwaves for decades, he said, but the barrage of heat surges
that California and the western US have been alarming, he said.
California denied 21 oil drilling permits this week in the
latest move toward ending fracking in a state that makes
millions from the petroleum industry but is seeing widespread
drought and more dangerous fire seasons linked to climate
change. … Fracking involves injecting high-pressure
water deep underground to extract oil or gas from rock. Critics
say it can pollute groundwater and contributes to climate
change.
To the extent most Californians are thinking about energy right
now, they’re probably wondering whether the lights will stay on
during the next heat wave. It’s a reasonable fear, especially
after the state’s power grid operator issued an urgent call for
electricity supplies last week and warned of possible
shortfalls this summer. The California Independent System
Operator is seeking bids from power plants that can fire up
after sundown, when solar panels stop generating but air
conditioners keep humming. -Written by Sammy Roth, LA Times columnist.
Job alert: The Shafter-Wasco Irrigation District, which serves
nearly 30,000 acres of farms in Kern County, is hiring a new
general manager. But what exactly does the general manager of
an irrigation district do? It’s a question that isn’t easily
answered, even by water executives themselves…. [Dale] Brogan
managed the Delano-Earlimart Irrigation District in Tulare and
Kern counties for 28 years. He’s helping to fill the role at
Shafter-Wasco until someone is hired on permanently.
[A]s a result of this year’s harsh drought conditions, we
expect hydroelectric generation in California to be lower in
2021 than it has been in recent years. In the first four months
of 2021, hydroelectric generation in California was 37% less
than in the same four months in 2020 and 71% less than during
those months in 2019. According to our Short-Term Energy
Outlook, hydroelectric generation in California this year will
be 19% less than last year, decreasing from 16.8 million
megawatthours (MWh) in 2020 to 13.6 million MWh in 2021.
Now, California is eyeing the benefits derived from several
successful canal installations in India. With the world’s
largest irrigation canal network, and 290 days of average
sunshine, California is uniquely positioned to ease its own
severe water shortages with this emerging innovation of
canal-covering solar farms. UC Santa Cruz has investigated
this method for use in California and estimates that—on top of
generating green energy—it would save 63.5 billion gallons of
water from evaporation annually, a massive windfall for a state
that sometimes rations water and which regularly suffers from
droughts.
As the western United States continues to face a months-long
bout with extreme drought, American farmers are feeling
catastrophic effects to their livelihoods. … John Moore,
a fourth-generation crop farmer from Kern County, California,
highlighted the misunderstanding lawmakers have toward the
agricultural community. In his mind, heeding to some Trump-era
water policies would’ve changed the entire landscape of how
farmers face droughts like these.
Lake Mead, which provides water for 25 million people in
the American West, has shrunk to 36 percent of its capacity.
One rural California community has run out of water entirely
after its well broke in early June. Fields are sitting fallow,
as farmers sell their water allotments instead of growing
crops, putting the nation’s food supply in peril. As the West
withers under extreme drought, legislators in the US House of
Representatives have introduced HR 4099, a bill that would
direct the Secretary of the Interior to create a program to
fund $750 million worth of water recycling projects in the 17
western states through the year 2027.
If you’re a Sacramento homeowner, the city is now offering
twice as much money for you to conserve water. According
to a press release, the city’s Department of Utilities
announced it is doubling its River Friendly Landscape
rebates while funding is available. The program
includes: Turf conversion, which doubled from $1.50 to $3
per square foot of grass replaced. Irrigation upgrades of up to
$800 for new sprinklers or smart irrigation
controllers. Installing a smart controller in the
home.
The drought is here, and agriculture is scrambling. Water
regulators have cut the amount that can be taken from lakes,
rivers and streams. Farmers who ordinarily get that water
either have to forgo planting some of their fields, or pump
water from the ground, or a combination of the two. Farmers
dependent on wells are also affected… Neither the state nor
the federal water projects are delivering water for agriculture
from Northern California to south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta.
The water spigots on California farms will soon be twisted
tighter. As the state faces a growing threat from drought, an
increasing number of water agencies are planning to require
flow meters on agricultural wells, part of a landmark effort to
measure and constrain pumping that used to be free and
unlimited. It’s a controversial step aimed at protecting water
supplies that could change cultivation practices in the Golden
State’s thirsty fields.
The powerful interests who vie for shares of the state’s
ever-changing water supply — dubbed “water buffaloes” — are
adept at fending off political and legal assaults by their
rivals and the outcomes of their clashes are often stalemates.
That’s why it was surprising in June to see two game-changing
decrees out of Washington, one from the new Biden
administration and another from the Supreme Court, affecting
two of the state’s most prominent water interests, Southern
California’s Imperial Irrigation District and the San Joaquin
Valley’s Westlands Water District. -Written by CalMatters columnist Dan Walters.
Richard L. Schafer left an “indelible” imprint on water systems
— and the people who run them — in the southern San Joaquin
Valley over his extensive career. The longtime Tule River Water
Master, who had worked with just about every agricultural water
district in the area, died Thursday. He was 95. Aside from his
work on Tulare County water systems, Mr. Schafer, as he was
called even by longtime associates, was also a mentor to those
coming up in the water world behind him.
The epicenter of dry wells during California’s last devastating
drought was undoubtedly Porterville. The small Tulare County
town saw wells go dry en masse in its unincorporated east side.
It became a national headline as the media descended. Amid the
glare of tv cameras, the state pledged to help and agreed to
build three new wells. Five years have gone by, the state is in
the grip of another drought and Porterville is walking a
tightrope as the state connected more than 755 new homes to the
city’s water system but only built one new well.
A coalition of Delta-based groups has sent a
formal Petition for Reconsideration to the State
Water Board opposing the Board’s June 1 order to relax water
quality standards for Delta operations of the Central Valley
Project and the State Water Project. The Temporary Urgency
Change Order (TUCO) was issued by the Water Board on June 1,
2021 … The coalition’s petition shows that 4.5
million acre-feet of water will be delivered to state and
federal water contractors (including about 10 percent for
Central Valley wildlife refuges), based on Water Board
information.
Interest from California growers in the possibility of growing
almonds commercially in Idaho has not waned. In fact, it’s
increasing. University of Idaho fruit researchers have been
conducting a major almond trial at the university’s
agricultural research and extension station in Parma since
2014. … California is the global leader in almond
production but growers there are increasingly concerned about
burdensome regulations, an uncertain water supply and expensive
land prices, Fallahi says.
As drought settles over the San Joaquin Valley, a new report
warns of other circumstances that could result in entire
communities losing drinking water. More than a million Valley
residents could lose their public water in coming decades under
the sweeping groundwater legislation known as the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), according to the paper
published earlier this month by the non-profit Pacific
Institute. Signed into law in 2014, SGMA aims over the next two
decades to reduce California’s groundwater deficit by balancing
water pumped out of the ground with the amount replenished.
California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), a
landmark piece of legislation in the quest for comprehensive
management of California’s groundwater, required the creation
of Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs), and authorized
local governments either to form GSAs separately or join with
other local governments in the same groundwater basin. This was
the genesis of 74 interorganizational agreements now examined
in a new report, which focuses on whether, given the high
stakes and history of conflict in water resources management in
California, participants were prepared for disagreements with
dispute resolution clauses in their planning.
In America’s fruit and nut basket, water is now the most
precious crop of all. It explains why, amid a historic
drought parching much of the American West, a grower of premium
sushi rice has concluded that it makes better business sense to
sell the water he would have used to grow rice than to actually
grow rice. Or why a melon farmer has left a third of his fields
fallow. Or why a large landholder farther south is thinking of
planting a solar array on his fields rather than the thirsty
almonds that delivered steady profit for years.
This is how California’s water crisis is going these days: The
only functioning well in the rural community of Teviston broke
in early June, leaving more than 700 residents without running
water as temperatures in the Central Valley soared to
triple-digits in a drought. … Teviston residents are relying
on limited bottled water for necessities such as staying
hydrated, cooking, bathing and flushing toilets. Some
residents, like Galaviz, are traveling to neighboring towns to
stay with family or friends to shower and wash clothes.
When California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to ban
hydraulic fracturing, a highly controversial method of oil and
gas production more widely known as fracking, he focused
primarily on climate change impacts. He may have a water
conservation argument to make as well. … The practice of
fracking entails injecting large amounts of water, sand and
chemicals deep underground at high pressures in an attempt to
crack open rock layers and release oil or gas trapped
inside.
The drought is intensifying efforts to conserve all of Sonoma
County’s water resources, including a supply that has eluded
oversight until recently: groundwater. But even as plans for
groundwater monitoring and sustainable use proceed, tensions
are building over its management. The authority to evaluate and
regulate groundwater comes from a 2014 law crafted in the
middle of the state’s last drought.
When discussing the drought, the question of which crops use
the most water comes up a lot. A Pacific Institute analysis of
California Department of Water Resources data sheds light on
the state’s top 10 water-intensive crops in 2015, the most
recent year for which the department has published water-use
estimates. … The analysis ranked pasture first among
California’s top 10 most water-intensive crops …, followed by
nuts and alfalfa…
East Orosi is one step closer to achieving clean drinking
water, a basic human right that is denied to many of
California’s disadvantaged communities, particularly in the
rural San Joaquin Valley. Last Tuesday, the Tulare County
Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to take steps to become
the manager of the small agricultural community’s water board.
That means the town of about 500 will soon have the financial
resources and technical know-how to gain clean water.
As farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley struggle
to irrigate crops and weather an ever-worsening historic
drought, a bit of relief could be on the horizon courtesy of
farmers in the north Valley. But it could be all for naught if
Federal water managers don’t sign-off. What’s at stake? A
proposed transfer of 100,000 acre-feet of water from the
Southern San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID) and Oakdale
Irrigation District to farmers utilizing water from the San
Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.
Help may be on the horizon for the about 700 residents of East
Orosi dependent on bottled water. The Tulare County Board of
Supervisors has directed county staff to begin negotiating the
scope of work and a budget … to take control of the East
Orosi Community Services District public water system.
… East Orosi’s water has been plagued with nitrates from
fertilizers and coliform bacteria since at least 2003, for
which their water system has been cited for violating the
Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) both contaminants dozens of
times.
Drought may be the sneakiest of natural disasters. Although
human history teems with people engulfed by abrupt aridity —
the Akkadians of four millenniums ago, the Maya in the ninth
and 10th centuries A.D., the Great Plains farmers of the 1930s
— even today drought is a poorly appreciated phenomenon. …
The American West is once again facing drought, one of the
worst on record. Across a vast region encompassing nine states
and home to nearly 60 million people, the earth is being wrung
dry. -Written by Farhad Manjoo, NY Times opinion columnist.
State water officials should approve a plan to sell up to
100,000 acre-feet of Stanislaus River water to thirsty buyers
on the Valley’s west side and south of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta. The $40 million deal could fall apart if the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation succeeds in blocking it. The
California State Water Resources Control Board should reject
the Bureau’s interference for several solid reasons.
Riverbank is looking at upgrading its sewage plant to produce
water clean enough for crops. The city would join three others
in Stanislaus County that recycle water from kitchen and
bathroom drains for use on farms. Modesto, Ceres and Turlock
send their highly treated effluent to the Del Puerto Water
District on the West Side. Riverbank would sell its water to
farmers just to the north, possibly including some in the South
San Joaquin Irrigation District.
Growers are dealing with severe cutbacks in the surface water
deliveries they normally receive from reservoirs. The lack of
steady irrigation has already impacted spring cropping
decisions made by farmers. … A bill introduced by
Republican Congressman David Valadao would allow more water to
be moved south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta while
keeping protections in place for fish such as the delta smelt
and salmon.
Forty two percent of shallow wells supplying water to community
water systems in California’s San Joaquin Valley are vulnerable
to going partially or fully dry under the state’s minimum
thresholds, finds a new report from the Pacific Institute. Most
impacted wells are shallower, and tend to be in disadvantaged
communities.
California, like the rest of the world, must wrestle with a
hard truth: Our climate has changed. As we face another
water-shortage crisis, we must acknowledge a sobering reality:
We’re not in a drought. This is our new normal. And we need to
adapt. It’s becoming increasingly clear that we can’t solve our
drought, or the myriad other environmental crises, without
protecting our ecosystems. And we can’t protect our ecosystems
without acknowledging that this work is globally connected. -Written by Assembly Member Laura Friedman,
D-Glendale; LA-based environmental and social policy
advisor Rosalind Helfand; and Mike Young, political and
organizing director of the California League of Conservation
Voters.
On Sunday evening, a well motor failed in a Madera Ranchos
community water system that serves around 1,000
homes. Last week, another well pump stopped working in
Parksdale, southeast of Madera. Neither community has lost
water service. Both are experiencing low pressure. Madera
County Public Works runs both water systems. From Madera
Acres to the Bonadelle Ranchos, private wells are running
dry at an alarming rate. Self-Help Enterprises, an
organization that supports communities with water challenges,
has been tracking the problem.
It might be tempting to shrug at the scorching weather across
large swaths of the West. This just in: It gets hot in the
summer. But this record-setting heat wave’s remarkable power,
size and unusually early appearance is giving meteorologists
and climate experts yet more cause for concern about the
routinization of extreme weather in an era of climate change.
These sprawling, persistent high-pressure zones popularly
called “heat domes” are relatively common in later summer
months. This current system is different.
As much as 100,000 acre-feet of water — enough to meet the
annual demand of more than 40,000 Tuolumne County residents for
at least five years — that’s currently stored in New Melones
Reservoir could soon be sent south to aid drought-stricken
farmers under an agreement between the Oakdale and South San
Joaquin irrigation districts.
Water in a key California reservoir will fall so low this
summer that its hydroelectric power plant will be forced to
shut down for the first time, officials said Thursday,
straining the state’s already-taxed electric
grid. An unrelenting drought and record
heat, both worsened by the changing climate, have pushed the
water supply at Northern California’s Lake Oroville to deplete
rapidly. As a result of the “alarming levels,” officials will
likely be forced to close the Edward Hyatt Power Plant for the
first time since it opened in 1967…
In this blistering year in California, drinking water wells are
going dry in increasing numbers, rekindling memories of the
historic drought of 2012 to 2016, when more than 2,600 wells
across the state stopped producing water. So many wells went
dry in 2014 in the town of East Porterville that Tulare County
supplied portable public showers. California is not yet to that
level of emergency…. But because the trend lines do not look
promising, government agencies and nonprofit groups are
preparing for a difficult summer in which thousands of wells
could fail.
Kou Her’s family has run the 12-acre Herr Family Farms in
Sanger, just east of Fresno, for the last 20 years, raising a
variety of vegetables for Bay Area produce and farmer’s
markets. In those 20 years, Kou and his parents haven’t seen
anything like the heat wave gripping the Central Valley this
week. “I am terrified,” Her said by phone Wednesday evening.
“I’ve never experienced three days of 110 before. I hope we
don’t have significant damage by the end of the weekend.”
Central Valley cattle ranchers are gearing up for a fight
against what they see as groundwater rustling. Their fear is
that newly formed groundwater agencies in some areas could
devalue their land by not giving them a fair share of their own
groundwater. Ranchers believe those fears were realized on June
8 when the Madera County Board of Supervisors approved a
groundwater allocation that will partially exclude rangeland.
Ranchers who own rangeland that has never been irrigated won’t
receive a share of the county’s “transitional water” allotment.
Legislation from Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, that would help
hundreds of thousands of Californians who have fallen behind on
their water bills and are at risk of being disconnected from
water service cleared a key committee on Wednesday.
… Sen. Dodd’s legislation comes as the State Water
Resources Control Board heard results of a survey that found
water debt in California climbed to about $1 billion. The
survey estimated 12% of California households are behind on
their water bills with an average debt of $500 per
household.
A heat dome is baking Arizona and Nevada, … At Lake Mead,
which supplies water for 25 million people in three
southwestern states and Mexico, water levels have plunged to
their lowest point since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s.
In California, farmers are abandoning their thirstiest crops to
save others, and communities are debating whether to ration tap
water….And it’s not even summer yet.
As California suffers from a major drought and enters a climate
change fueled wildfire season, oil and gas operators continue
to use hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater for
drilling operations annually. It’s a vicious symbiotic cycle:
fracking and drilling contribute to climate change and suck up
finite water resources, then drought and wildfires worsen from
climate change.
Severe drought highlights the need for greater investment to
improve aging California water facilities, and increases calls
for allocation of federal and state resources to tackle the
problem. A national coalition that includes the California Farm
Bureau urged U.S. Senate leaders last week to take action to
address the shortcomings of aging water infrastructure, and to
include “a broad range of water uses” in any federal
infrastructure legislation.
In the 1960s, Tulare County Supervisor Dennis Townsend was
working for the water master of the Tule River when the dam at
Success Lake got its first big test. … Starting in early
2024, a similar deluge would be contained because the spillway
is being raised by 10 feet, increasing reservoir storage by a
third. The federally funded project will boost flood
protection for Porterville and the downstream lands from a
50-year flood event to a 100-year flood event, according to the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The seriousness of California’s drought is being driven home to
thousands of farmers in the Central Valley. State regulators
warned 6,600 farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
watershed on Tuesday that they’re about to lose the right to
pull water from the estuary’s rivers at some point this summer.
The watershed covers a major swath of the Central Valley.
While most public water agencies are still mulling whether to
keep an online option for their meetings, some have already
clicked off Zoom and marched straight back to early 2020. The
Westlands Water District, which covers a huge swath of western
Fresno County, will no longer have a public online option for
the public to access its meetings starting June 15.
As California plunges into another “historic” drought, people
across the state are worried about water shortages. But the
last drought never really ended for some Californians, like
residents of East Porterville that still have emergency water
storage tanks in their front yards. With the state’s current
financial surplus, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity
to fund drought preparedness and water safety in communities
that have lived for decades with shallow and contaminated
drinking water wells, inadequate water treatment, and other
infrastructure failures… -Written by Carolina Garcia, a resident of Tombstone
Territory, and Sandra Chavez, a member of the
Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER)
Advisory Group.
Dangerously hot temperatures across the US south-west will
continue to climb this week, reaching higher than 120F (49C) in
some areas, exacerbating the region’s already-dire drought
conditions and increasing the risk of new fire
ignitions. Extreme heat will be felt across much of Utah,
along with southern and central California, Nevada and
Arizona. More than 48 million people across the west are
now under heat advisory watches or warnings …
Severe drought is gripping most of California, but its misery
isn’t spread equally. While most of the state compares today’s
extreme conditions to previous droughts, people in Tulare
County speak of drought — in the singular, as in a continuous
state of being. … Tulare County’s never-ending drought
brings dried up wells and plenty of misery The entire West is
suffering from extreme dryness, heat and fire risk, and the
small, rural towns of northern Tulare County, outside of
Visalia, are caught in its vortex.
The California water board has approved a plan for water
releases into the Sacramento River that could kill off an
entire run of endangered chinook salmon and put at risk another
population that is part of the commercial salmon fishery. …
Because the [Bureau of Reclamation’s] plan involves releasing
water to irrigation districts earlier in the season, the river
will be lower and warmer during salmon spawning season and
could result in killing as many as 88% of endangered winter-run
chinook eggs and young fish.
California never has enough water to meet all demands and even
when supplies are relatively robust there’s a triangular
competition over their allocation. Farmers, municipal users and
environmental advocates vie for shares of water that has been
captured by California’s extensive network of dams and
reservoirs. … When California experiences one of its
periodic droughts and reservoirs shrink from scant rain and
snowfall, its perpetual conflict becomes even sharper. -Written by Dan Walters, a CalMatters columnist
A large oilfield wastewater disposal pond near Buttonwillow
will likely close this summer, and its operator and last
remaining customer will together pay $645,000 in penalties and
fees, under a recent court settlement that further restricts a
decades-old practice that has become a focus of regional water
quality regulators. The accord concludes a 2019 lawsuit that
accused facility owner Valley Water Management Co. and
Colorado-based oil producer Sentinel Peak Resources of dumping
fluid containing harmful chemicals above a reservoir that
provides local drinking and irrigation water.
Farmers are concerned for their crops as dry conditions has
worsen throughout the Central Coast. Earlier this year, it
started off a major storm. Ever since, farmers have not seen
much rainfall. According to the National Weather Service, the
‘extreme drought’ conditions has expanded throughout Santa
Barbara and San Luis Obispo County.
Excessive groundwater pumping has collapsed the land beneath
several key canals, crimping their ability to move water.
Fixing them will be expensive. There are two bills moving
through the state Legislature and Congress that could provide
some funding. This is the second try for the state bill, Senate
Bill 559 by Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger). …
Representative Jim Costa (D-Hanford) and Senator Diane
Feinstein (D-Ca.) introduced S. 1179, the Canal Conveyance
Capacity Restoration Act, on April 15.
A Central Valley pistachio processing plant whose wastewater
ponds triggered numerous odor complaints from nearby residents
will pay a $221,440 fine, a portion of which will fund improved
ventilation at two public schools in the area. The Central
Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Central Valley
Water Board) fined Setton Pistachio after determining the
company had violated the terms of an August 2020 cease and
desist order (CDO) directing it to immediately eliminate
objectionable odors coming from ponds at its plant in Terra
Bella in Tulare County.
California’s drought highlights the importance of an
appointment sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk – filling the
final seat on the State Water Resources Control
Board. This is a critical agency appointment at a
critical time. The drought highlights many inequities in
California water policy. Disadvantaged communities in Stockton
face the prospect of a drought summer plagued by harmful algae
blooms in Delta rivers. Those algae outbreaks, which can
harm children and kill pets, are caused by excessive nutrients
and inadequate freshwater flow. -Written by Belinda Faustina, a strategic advisor
with Los Angeles Waterkeeper, and Barbara
Barrigan-Parilla, the executive director of Restore the
Delta.
At the Kern County Water Summit held last week, hosted by the
Water Association of Kern County, Acting Deputy Director of the
Department of Water Resources Statewide Groundwater Management
Program Steven Springhorn provided an update on the
Department’s progress on SGMA implementation, including the
Department’s review of the submitted Groundwater Sustainability
Plans and the existing and proposed SGMA-related assistance.
Against the backdrop of what’s shaping up as a devastating
drought year, the California Department of Water Resources has
released its first assessments of groundwater sustainability
plans developed by local agencies to meet the requirements of
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The department
released reviews of four local plans, approving two but sending
the other two back to local groundwater sustainability
agencies, saying the plans need more work.
[During the last drought], small rural communities reliant on
shallow wells — many of them communities of color — were among
the most affected. More than 2,600 households reported losing
access to water because their wells went dry between 2012–16.
(That number is likely an undercount as reporting was
voluntary.) Much has changed however since the 2012–16 drought.
Drought reporting systems such as MyDryWaterSupply are
available today, and better data on domestic well depths and
locations, as well as groundwater levels, aid our understanding
of drought risk. -Written by Rich Pauloo, co-founder of the Water Data
Lab; and Alvar Escriva-Bou, a research fellow at the
Public Policy Institute of California Water.
Not all farmland in the San Joaquin Valley will survive in a
post-SGMA world. Estimates are that the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act will force between 500,000 to one million acres
of land that’s currently farmed to be taken out of production
to save groundwater. Which lands and what will become of those
lands are major question marks at this point. If Gov. Newsom’s
revised budget is approved as is, those questions could have an
extra $500 million to help find answers.
When the Palo Alto City Council publicly backed the Bay-Delta
Plan in 2018, it was swimming against the political tide. The
plan, formally known as the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta Estuary plan, sets limits on how much water
agencies can siphon from the three tributaries of the San
Joaquin River. While it aims to protect salmon, steelhead and
other river species, it has also attracted intense opposition
and litigation from water districts that claim that the new
restrictions will undermine the reliability of their water
supply.
The wait is over for some Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
(GSAs). The California Department of Water Resources (DWR)
released the first Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP)
assessments for four basins yesterday, June 3, 2021. DWR
approved the 180/400 Foot Aquifer Subbasin in Salinas Valley
and the Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin. DWR determined both GSPs
“satisf[y] the objectives of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) and substantially compl[y] with the GSP
Regulations.”
During droughts organizations and stakeholders look for ways of
getting the most from every water drop. This is not an
exception in California where roughly 40 percent of all water
use (on average) is agricultural, 10 percent to cities and the
rest is uncaptured or environmental uses (mostly on the North
Coast). … Yet the notion that applied water in agriculture is
often wasteful is common in media drought coverage.
Drought conditions in California remain at record highs, with
most of the state now classified in “extreme” or “exceptional”
drought, reflecting conditions across the Southwest, according
to a new report from climate scientists. Much of the Bay
Area and the northern Central Valley have been included in the
most severe “exceptional drought” zone, along with much of
southeast California, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported.
A water war is under way in Sacramento right now that could
have far-reaching impacts on families in the Central Valley.
… Hearings got under way Wednesday, as Semitropic Water
Storage District in Kern County makes its administrative appeal
to the State Water Resources Control Board for water rights to
the Kings River. It filed its first petition in 2017, asking
for access to 1.6 million acre feet of floodwater from the
Kings River.
On Thursday, Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger) issued the
following statement regarding a
bi-partisan letter she sent that urges the California
Water Commission to prioritize water storage projects in the
Central Valley when assessing how to reallocate funds from
Proposition 1: … California is currently in a state of
emergency due to drought. As a result, the amount of water
allocated to Central Valley farmers has been greatly
reduced.
Earlier this year, the State Water Resources Control Board
released a report, Recommendations for an Effective Water
Rights Response to Climate Change, that considered how the
State Wate Board could include climate change when considering
new water right applications. Since the report’s release,
it has been the subject of much discussion and has sparked
concerns amongst existing water right holders. At the
Kern County Water Summit, hosted by the Water Association of
Kern County, a panel addressed the topic.
The state Senate today approved legislation from Sen. Bill
Dodd, D-Napa, to help hundreds of thousands of Californians who
have fallen behind on their water bills and are at risk of
being disconnected from water service. … Sen. Dodd’s
legislation comes as the State Water Resources Control Board
heard results of a survey that found water debt in California
climbed to about $1 billion. The survey estimated 12% of
California households are behind on their water bills with an
average debt of $500 per household.
Groundwater is one of the hottest ticket items in California’s
water world these days. But much about it is a mystery. Where
is it? How does it move? Which are the best spots to percolate
water into the ground for storage? At least two technologies
hope to answer some of those questions: airborne
electromagnetic surveys and interferometric synthetic aperture
radar. That’s AEM and InSAR for short.
California farmers and ranchers are preparing for a difficult
growing season as the state faces drought conditions. The
California Board of Food and Agriculture met on Tuesday to
discuss ways to help farmers and ranchers, as well as to
discuss the proposed $5.1 billion included in the governor’s
budget to address drought challenges and water infrastructure.
After back-to-back dry years, the state’s water supply is
strained, forcing farmers like Joe Martinez in Solano County to
figure out ways to get the most out of their water.
Free bottled water has begun to arrive at homes
with nitrate-tainted wells in parts of Stanislaus and
Merced counties. The ambitious effort, funded by farmers
and other parties, launched the week of May 10 with free
testing of residential wells. Those that exceeded the nitrate
threshold can start getting the 5-gallon jugs about 17 to 21
days later.
