Valley cities, counties hopeful but unsure about high-speed rail economic effects [Fresno Bee]
A
new economic report prepared by a former Kings County supervisor outlines
lingering uncertainty among Valley city and county leaders over how
California’s high-speed rail project could benefit their communities. Tony
Oliveira, a farmer and economist from the Lemoore area, summarized his report
Tuesday to the California High-Speed Rail Authority board in Sacramento. His
findings represented the culmination of a yearlong effort that involved combing
through city and county general plans and economic development programs,
followed by round-table meetings in each of six Valley counties — Fresno,
Kings, Madera, Merced, Tulare and Kern — and one-on-one follow-up interviews
with community leaders and community development professionals….The study
suggests that while agriculture is and will remain the backbone of the Valley
economy, some community and economic leaders in the region believe high-speed
rail could be a catalyst for improving the situation.
Work
at West Coast ports to scale back for 4 days [Los Angeles Times]
West
Coast ports — including the nation's busiest in Los Angeles and Long Beach —
will partially shut down for four days as shipping companies plan to
dramatically slash dock work amid an increasingly contentious labor dispute.
Terminal operators and shipping lines said that they would stop the unloading of
ships Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, because they don't want to pay
overtime to workers who, they allege, have deliberately slowed operations to
the point of causing a massive bottleneck. Thursday is Lincoln's Birthday and
Monday is Presidents Day, which are holidays for the workers. Slowing down work
"amounts to a strike with pay, and we will reduce the extent to which we
pay premium rates for such a strike," said Wade Gates, spokesman for the
Pacific Maritime Assn., the employer group representing the shipping companies.
The local union in Los Angeles and Long Beach has denied using slowdown
tactics.
Detectives
share tips on preventing rural farm crime [Visalia Times Delta]
Mike
McDougal thought he had started his horse ranch in a quite, safe community, in
the Elerwood area of northern Tulare County. That changed last week when his
ranch's workshop was burglarized, the thief or thieves making off with about
$5,000 worth of his tools. But McDougal's concern about the daytime burglary is
less than his worry of what could have happened if his pregnant wife had been
at the ranch while he was away and encountered the thieves…."I realize I'm
not safe like I thought I was," said McDougal, who on Wednesday was at the
World Ag Expo in Tulare to find out what to do to deter anyone from trying to
steal anything from his property again.
He
was among a group of nearly two dozen farmers who attended the Expo's seminar
on rural crime prevention strategies.
Caltrans
admits to state water code violations [Eureka Times-Standard]
Caltrans
has drilled thousands of undocumented wells during the past 20 years that could
be contributing to groundwater contamination throughout California. Caltrans
now states its operations failed to follow key provisions of the California
Water Code aimed at protecting groundwater. This leaves a legacy of more than
10,000 wells scattered across the state, each with the potential to introduce
contagions or contamination into drinking water sources….The California Water
Code sets the minimum standards for operations that can contaminate the
groundwater within the state. Caltrans spokesman Matt Rocco said the agency has
drilled between 450 to 650 geotechnical boreholes annually during the past five
years throughout the state. The agency now says these borings were subject to
the water code and that it failed to alert county agencies. The section of the
water code in question was last updated in 1990. This leaves about 10,000 wells
scattered throughout California, which in some cases were drilled without
county permits, without checking with county agencies knowledgeable about
potential sources of contamination and which may not have been properly sealed
to prevent groundwater contamination.
California
dairy farmers are mooving to other states [Breitbart California]
Water-starved,
regulation-burdened California dairy farmers are taking their cows to other
states in hopes of getting cheaper land, more water, and better tax incentives
for their businesses. The World Ag Expo in Tulare, California features booths
set up by no fewer than seven states–Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota,
South Dakota, Texas, and Nevada–in an attempt to lure wary California dairy
farmers to a more advantageous business climate, according to NBC News.
“Increasingly every year, there are more states showing up at the World Ag Expo
to entice California dairies to move to their states, and they’re finding a
receptive audience,” Western Milling market analyst and commodity manager Joel
Karlin told NBC….“In the absence of some of the personal issues, I would move
in a heartbeat, because this is just not a fun place to do business anymore,”
Tulare dairy farmer Mark Watte told NBC. “All of the California dairymen that
want to expand are moving into other states. There has not been a new dairy
built in California in probably 10 years, and I don’t think there ever will be
another one built.”
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2015/02/11/california-dairy-farmers-are-mooving-to-other-states/
Merced
County farmers say it’s ‘crunch time’ for rain [Merced Sun-Star]
The
Merced area got more than an inch of rain last weekend, but don’t expect any
more precipitation for at least a week….Bob Giampaoli of Le Grand, president of
the Merced County Farm Bureau, said it’s getting to be “crunch time” for
receiving normal amounts of rainfall in this area. He said he was grateful for
the weekend rain, which will keep farmers from irrigating in the short term,
but is worried about future prospects as the fourth year of drought continues
to unfold….Giampaoli said local farmers are looking back to the “Miracle March”
of 1991, when late rainfall came to the rescue.
Ag
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