California drought: As land sinks, farmers' brainstorm on water [San Francisco Chronicle]
Case
Vlot pulls up groundwater through deep wells to keep his corn and alfalfa crops
alive. Chase Hurley runs a water company nearby that sells river water to
farmers who can't depend on wells. Normally the two would rarely talk to each
other. But that was before the drought, and before the land began to sink
beneath their feet. Now they and every farmer for miles around are talking to
each other all the time, brainstorming in ways they've never had to
before….Foremost among the solutions being discussed by Vlot, Hurley and the
other farmers is storing more water from rain when it does fall. Since there
aren't enough reservoirs or ponds for that storage, the ad-hoc group plans to
pick several fields among themselves to lay fallow so they can absorb the water
and stow it underground….The main challenge is making sure that those who
voluntarily leave their fields fallow are compensated for their crop loss by
neighbors who benefit from the stored water….Other remedies being considered
include trying to capture more floodwaters in a really big rain, installing
stingier irrigation methods and pushing for new reservoirs - never an easy fight,
given environmental opposition.
State
could step in to manage Paso Robles groundwater basin [San Luis Obispo Tribune]
Like
someone warning of the Sword of Damocles hanging overhead, Supervisor Frank
Mecham has repeatedly told residents of the Paso Robles groundwater basin that
they need to find consensus on how to manage the basin before state water
officials lose patience and take control….That possibility — which Mecham has
repeated at every discussion of the Paso Robles basin — is rapidly becoming a
certainty. Two nearly identical bills are working their way through the state
Legislature that would dramatically overhaul how California manages its
groundwater….Snow and county Supervisors Mecham and Bruce Gibson expect the
reconciled bill to be signed into law….Gibson said he hopes the legislation and
the governor’s proclamations will provide the motivation necessary to get the
Board of Supervisors and the North County residents to agree on a strategy for
managing the groundwater basin that many agree is in crisis….The
Pavley-Dickinson bills also have their critics, including the California Farm
Bureau Federation, which said the bill will create a rush to meet an arbitrary
deadline. “This measure will have huge long-term economic impacts on farms, the
state and local economies and county tax roles, with a very real potential to
devalue land, impact farms’ and businesses’ viability and, in turn, impact
jobs,” the Farm Bureau said in a statement.
North
Coast growers take fight over frost rules to state high court [Santa Rosa Press
Democrat]
Local
grape growers and farmers are taking their fight over controversial rules
governing frost protection to the state’s highest court, escalating a legal
battle over regulations meant to protect endangered fish in the Russian River
and its tributaries. In the first of two planned appeals, Redwood Valley grape
grower Rudy Light on Friday asked the California Supreme Court to review an
appellate court decision in June that upheld the state regulations, dealing a
blow to opponents, who have described the rules as government overreach….Light
and another group of plaintiffs, the Russian River Water Users for the
Environment, who plan to file their appeal Monday, want that lower court ruling
to stand. They have assailed the June 16 decision by the state’s 1st District
Court of Appeal reversing Moorman’s ruling.
North
Coast farmers face new state, federal water rules [North Bay Business Journal]
Whether
water is gushing in North Coast waterways or not, farmers in the region are
facing proposed state and federal rules aimed at ensuring that there’s enough
water above and below ground during dry spells such as the current drought and
that runoff when the rains return doesn’t harm protected species….Board staff
released a 79-page initial study of proposed general WDRs for vineyard
operations on July 7 and held a scoping meeting in Napa on July 23….Of concern
in the initial study for Jim Lincoln, a southern Napa Valley manager for
Beckstoffer Vineayrds and chairman of Napa County Farm Bureau’s National
Resources Committee, are the size of vineyard properties needing to submit
plans for erosion management, duplication of documentation efforts and
erosion-control upgrades of of roads on the property….The EPA and Corps have
said the changes proposed to the WOTUS definition in the 1972 Clean Water Act
are meant to clarify where their jurisdiction starts and stops,…While that rule
applies to Section 404 permits for ag, it doesn’t seem to apply to low areas on
ag land adjacent to a tributary — runoff flows toward it — that is deemed
WOTUS, triggering the need for a Section 402 National Pollution Discharge
Elimination System permit, according to Kari Fisher, associate counsel for
California Farm Bureau Federation. “Our member farmers and ranchers potentially
need costly permits,” she said. “Jurisdictional surveys of land are
time-consuming and cost money, during which time they can’t use their fields or
put in crops.”
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/95674/north-coast-farmers-face-new-state-federal-water-rules/
Precision
flying [Stockton Record]
Back
and forth they soar and swoop, the acrobats of the agricultural world: Crop
dusters. We've all seen them, maybe while driving down Interstate 5 or Highway
99. It's a practice that dates back more than a century, and today continues to
support a $2.8 billion farm economy in San Joaquin County….Yet the
investigation still under way into a widely publicized pesticide drift in the
north Delta earlier this spring raises obvious questions: How often do planes
or helicopters miss their targets, and what are the consequences? A Record
analysis of state reports dating from the 1990s to 2011 shows that while
pesticide drifts still occur here, they are less common than they used to be -
or, perhaps, are less commonly reported. The number of people sickened by
pesticides has also generally decreased since the 1990s. The majority of
pesticide-related illnesses in San Joaquin County actually have nothing to do
with agriculture; and among those that do, a good share involve pesticides that
were applied on the ground - not from the air.
Editorial: A lot is riding on
finding culprit in honeybee deaths [Sacramento Bee]
…Over
the past two months, several scientific studies have pointed to a family of
pesticides – an insecticide widely used in agriculture but also found in
backyard products. While there is debate over the culprits, the threat to a
critical component of our food supply should be removed….In California, the
state Department of Pesticide Regulation began reevaluating neonics in 2009 but
doesn’t expect results until 2016. Seven years is a long wait. Farmers depend
on honeybees to pollinate more than 100 different crops in California each
season. Scientific research may take time to determine the cause, but there is
a prime suspect that could be taken out or our backyards, and our fields and
orchards.
Ag
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