Water
debate in Sacramento draws valley growers [Modesto Bee]
Champions
of competing fish and farming interests gave state water leaders plenty to
think about Wednesday in a long and colorful hearing attended by hundreds of
worried people from Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties. Most attendees
from the region argued stridently against the concept of restoring fish runs at
the expense of agriculture, the valley's strongest economic engine. Modesto and
Turlock irrigation customers could lose a third of their water in dry years
under a proposal to be voted on later this year. "I would see this as
cataclysmic," said Vito Chiesa, a farmer and chairman of the Stanislaus
County Board of Supervisors, which on Tuesday formally opposed the proposal. It
tries to balance wildly different needs, leaving people on various sides upset.
Controversial
rural fire fee bills will be delayed [Associated Press]
Collection
of a fee rural California homeowners were supposed to pay for fire prevention
service is being delayed as California Department of Forestry and Fire
Protection officials say they're sorting through thousands of complaints
challenging its billing data. The $150 annual fee was approved by the
legislature in 2011 to offset the costs of providing fire service to people who
live far from services. It affects more than 825,000 homeowners who were billed
for the first time between August and December of last year. A spokesman for
the department says that after the bills went out the state received 87,000
petitions for reconsideration from homeowners who said they were billed
erroneously.
Coalition
challenges strawberry fumigant [Salinas Californian]
Roughly
10,000 petitions will be handed to state environmental officials today calling
for firm benchmarks and deadlines to phase out the controversial strawberry
fumigant methyl bromide that is widely used in the Salinas Valley and Pajaro
Valley strawberry industry. Environmental groups, labor leaders and health care
providers say the ongoing exemptions being granted for the fumigant’s use are
not keeping with the spirit or the law of the 1987 Montreal Protocol that
banned methyl bromide and that was signed off on by all 197 United Nations member
states and legislated in the U.S. Clean Air Act….But farmers say they would be
happy to stop using the fumigant if there were a viable alternative. In 2010 a
candidate emerged called methyl iodide, but after a flurry of objections by
scientists and environmental groups, and consequently a January 2011 lawsuit
because of its high toxicity, Arysta LifeScience, which manufactured methyl
iodide under the brand name MIDAS, pulled it from the market one year ago. The
federal EPA indicates on its website eight alternatives, including one called
1,3 dichloropropene/chloropicrin. But in a letter written late last year to the
EPA by Karen Ross, the secretary of the California Department of Food &
Agriculture, and Matthew Rodriquez, the secretary of the CalEPA, the use of
this alternative was reportedly shown to be ineffective against common
strawberry pathogens.
Trouble
on the US farm: crops rot, growers seek workers [AFP]
…Creating
a program for temporary farm workers from Mexico and other countries to work
the land, sow seeds or reap harvests is one of the touchiest aspects of the
immigration reform that Congress is working on. Some 61 percent of growers in
California report shortages of laborers, especially in labor intensive crops
like grapes and vegetables, said Rayne Pegg of the California Farm Bureau
Federation….For all these reasons, American growers want a visa program that
will allow foreigners to come in and work the land, then go back home, Pegg
said. A similar plan does exist. But it is so expensive and so thick with red
tape that growers prefer to cut corners and opt to contract undocumented
workers. Transferring this visa into an efficient program seems to be the ideal
solution for growers and for ensuring food supplies in the US.
Justices
back loggers in water runoff case [New York Times]
The
Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that logging companies and forestry officials
in Oregon were not required to obtain permits from the Environmental Protection
Agency for storm-water runoff from logging roads. The decision was a blow to
conservationists who had used the permit process to block the silty runoff from
logging, which they said choked forest streams. The ruling also suggested that
at least some members of the court may be open to a fundamental re-examination
of how federal courts approach determinations by administrative agencies.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the 7-to-1 decision,
said the agency’s conclusion that no permits were required was entitled to
deference. “It is well established,” he wrote, “that an agency’s interpretation
need not be the only possible reading of a regulation — or even the best one —
to prevail.”
Supreme
Court chews over case pitting raisin farmers against USDA [Fresno Bee]
Nearly
a dozen burly raisin growers watched intently Wednesday as Supreme Court
justices struggled to figure out how their industry works. During an hourlong
oral argument, the justices peppered lawyers with questions that increasingly
suggested some sympathy for the growers, who are protesting a big Agriculture
Department penalty. The federal government fined Kerman grower Marvin Horne and
others hundreds of thousands of dollars for refusing to turn over raisins as
part of a New Deal-era supply control program.
Ag
Today is distributed to county Farm Bureaus, CFBF directors and CFBF staff, for
information purposes, by the CFBF Communications/News Division, 916-561-5550; news@cfbf.com.
Some story links may require site registration. To be removed
from this mailing list, reply to this message and please provide your
name and e-mail address.
No comments:
Post a Comment