Feds face backlash trying to regulate wetlands that often aren’t wet [McClatchy News Service]
When
is a ditch just a ditch? And when is a plot of woodland without a stitch of
visible water actually a “water of the U.S.”? For federal officials working on
contentious regulations to clarify what the 42-year-old Clean Water Act really
means, the debate is more than a simple is-the-ditch-half-full-or-half-empty
exercise. It’s become a flash point in the debate between environmental
regulators and property owners, with farmers particularly aiming to get the
federal government to pull the so-called “Waters of the U.S.” rule….The EPA
projects that the new rule would result in a 3 percent increase in
jurisdiction, a projection Shinn calls laughable; the American Farm Bureau says
the methods the EPA used to analyze the issue were too limiting, seriously
undercounting the number of waters that could become covered….The Farm Bureau
is pushing hard against the rule.
A
modern-day Dust Bowl [Yahoo News]
Bob
Taylor was barely 2 years old when his parents packed as many belongings as
they could into their rickety old car and headed west from New Mexico toward
California….But the most important testimony of that era may rest with Taylor
and other children of the Dust Bowl, the last generation of Americans who
understand in a way many never will the quiet danger of a sustained drought and
how devastating it can be to the land, its industry and people. It’s those
stories he heard as a child that Taylor has been thinking about lately as he’s
driven the back roads of Kern County, the heart of California’s central farming
valley, where his family resettled and he’s spent his entire life working in
agriculture…But the drought’s biggest victim could be California’s Central
Valley, the source of fully half the nation’s fruits and vegetables, where panicked
farmers are taking extraordinary steps to survive a drought that could drive
them out of business.
Stockton-based
water agency wins damage suit against feds [Fresno Bee]
A
federal appeals court has delivered a big victory to a small San Joaquin Valley
water district….Judges concluded that the government owes additional damages
for the Bureau of Reclamation’s failure to deliver enough water to the
Stockton-based Central San Joaquin Water Conservation District….The ruling
issued Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a
trial judge, who had rejected the water district’s claims for “expectancy”
damages. In this case, these cover things like damages to farmers and the local
groundwater aquifer resulting from the shortfalls in surface water
deliveries….The ruling resonates among other California irrigation districts,
which between drought and enhanced environmental protections have been facing
dry spells of their own.
Opinion: Drought ramps up
pressure on Legislature to write water bond [Sacramento Bee]
The
water squeeze is on….Having procrastinated for years, politicians now may have
no more than a week to fashion a new water bond for the Nov. 4 ballot to
replace one that many fear is doomed because of its size – $11.1 billion – and
obviously gratuitous pork. Very soon, officials must begin printing ballots and
other election material so they can be distributed to overseas voters,
including troops in Afghanistan….The issue’s politics are complex.
Editorial: California needs to
get a grip on its groundwater [Los Angeles Times]
…The
fight over groundwater is so contentious that competing interests have for
decades resisted any attempt to regulate it. Gov. Jerry Brown first recommended
that lawmakers pass measures managing groundwater back in the 1970s, but to no
avail….State Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and Assemblyman Roger Dickinson
(D-Sacramento) each have authored bills that would take modest but crucial
steps toward providing a framework for local management of groundwater
supplies. Lawmakers should consider their work — which may emerge this week in
a unified bill — a priority for California. The need for groundwater management
extends to all parts of the state, but not equally….Legislation should take
these differences into account.
2G
Roses closes as Pajaro Valley industry withers [Santa Cruz Sentinel]
A
1995 flood that inundated its San Juan Road greenhouses and caused $1 million
in damage didn't kill 2G Roses. Nor did a 1991 free trade pact that brought
tough competition, tightened margins and drove many other growers out of
business. But Eugene Tsuji and sister Arlene, who ran the company started 41
years ago by their parents, struggled to recover from the recession. A lawsuit
filed by an employee alleging sexual harassment by another worker was the last
straw….The closing makes California Pajarosa, across the Pajaro River in Santa
Cruz County, the lone survivor of a once flourishing Pajaro Valley rose
industry….Statewide, the number of cut rose producers dropped from more than
150 in 1991 to 25 in 2013, according to Kasey Cronquist, chief executive
officer of the California Cut Flower Commission. Ninety-eight percent of roses
sold in the United States are imported.
Ag
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