Court reverses ag labor ruling [Salinas Californian]
A
lawsuit filed against the United Farm Workers by Salinas producer D’Arrigo
Bros. was reversed last week by the Sixth District Court of Appeals in San
Jose, a ruling that could affect labor actions throughout the Salinas Valley.
The case, D’Arrigo Brothers California v. United Farmworkers of America, has a
byzantine history that began four years ago in D’Arrigo produce fields and
ended in the second highest court in the state. In 2010, the UFW filed two
charges against D’Arrigo with the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board
alleging unfair labor practices. The UFW alleged the company, one of the
biggest in Salinas, launched an effort to boot the UFW out with an illegal
decertification campaign. Jeffrey Demain, an attorney with Altshuler Berzon LLP
in San Francisco who argued on behalf of the UFW in the appellate court, said
that D’Arrigo and the UFW settled one of the claims, but the farmworkers union
began voluntarily providing assistance to the Labor Relations Board during its
investigation of the remaining claim.
Modesto Irrigation
District farmers promised more water [Modesto Bee]
Modesto-area
farmers were buoyed Tuesday to learn that they should receive 24 inches of
irrigation water per acre this summer, a welcome jump from the dismal
prediction a few weeks ago of only 18 inches. That’s getting close to the
amount needed by many to produce crops or keep trees alive, reckoned by some at
27 to 30 inches. “That’s going to help a lot of people,” said Modesto farmer
Bruce Oosterkamp, reflecting the thanks of many to the Modesto Irrigation
District board during a lengthy debate over ways to increase water deliveries
even more.
NASA measures
snowpack in California, Colorado [Associated Press]
The
snowpack atop mountain peaks in California and Colorado has a new set of eyes
watching from high above to better gauge the amount of water that will rumble
down rivers and streams each spring as runoff. In a new mission, NASA fixed a
lumbering twin-engine plane with high-tech equipment to make regular snow
surveys, starting last weekend in drought-stricken California before the
weather front expected to bring snow to the Sierra this week. At an altitude of
up to 20,000 feet, the so-called Airborne Snow Observatory measures snowpack's
depth and water content with precision. Improving on the old method of taking
snow samples from the ground, scientists said that from the lofty heights they
can calculate snow depth to within 4 inches and water content to within 5
percent.
IID Board of
Directors approves new fallowing program [Imperial Valley Press]
The
Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors approved a new fallowing
program Tuesday that compensates landowners and tenants for water that is not
used when agricultural land is taken out of production. The new “farm-unit”
fallowing program allows farmers to group partial and multiple fields into a
larger farm unit, much the same way as the district’s water apportionment plan.
The present fallowing program pays $125 per acre-foot of water that is saved,
and landowners get 100 percent of the proceeds.
Crafting a 2014 water
bond will be tough slog [Sacramento Bee]
Anthony
Rendon, a first-term Democrat from Southern California who chairs the
Assembly’s water committee, is proud of a water bond issue that he wrote after
eight public hearings around the state, calling it “an open and transparent
process” in contrast to the backroom deals that had marked previous water
bonds. On Monday, his office touted it as “the only current bond proposal that
has made it out of its house of origin …” and declared that Tuesday’s hearing
in the Senate’s water committee was the “perhaps final” airing before it
reached the Senate floor. Fat chance. As soon as Rendon took his seat in the
hearing room, he found his handiwork on the receiving end of sharp criticism
from the Senate water committee’s chairwoman, Sen. Fran Pavley, other senators
and representatives of stakeholders in the notoriously fractious issue.
Opinion: California flies the constitutional coop [Wall Street
Journal]
Six
states—Missouri, Alabama, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Nebraska—sued California
in federal court last month. If they are successful, the U.S. Constitution will
be vindicated, and Californians may be spared having to pay through the nose
for an omelet. The controversy is all about eggs. A California ballot
initiative, Proposition 2, passed in 2008 and mandated that by 2015 all
California egg producers must shift to larger cages or "cage-free"
housing for its chickens. The Humane Society of the U.S. funded the initiative
to the tune of $4.1 million. Anne Wojcicki, wife of Google co-founder Sergey
Brin, shelled out $100,000 for the initiative. Hedge-fund billionaire Tom
Steyer gave $25,000. The costs would be deadly. One 2008 analysis by
researchers at the University of California-Davis determined that the changes
would bankrupt the state's then $337 million egg industry. The researchers
expected the initiative to raise production costs for California producers by
20%. If the proposal were adopted nationwide, consumers would pay 25% more for
eggs "and perhaps much more," according to the report.
Ag
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