Big north-to-south California water sale dries up [Sacramento Bee]
When
the water supply is tight in California, the product often flows to where the
money is. Typically, that means north to south. In the record-breaking drought
of 2015, however, practically no one has a drop to spare. That means the buying
and selling of water can grind to a halt, even with jaw-dropping prices on the
table. That appears to be the case with a mammoth deal engineered by the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and a group of Sacramento
Valley rice farmers….Now the deal is largely falling apart. The reason: Many of
the farmers were told this week their own supplies are being curtailed because
of the drought. As a result, most of them are invoking opt-out clauses and
canceling the sales.
Drought
to hit county's farmers hard [U-T San Diego]
Valley
Center is classified as an urban water agency even though 70 percent of its
water is used for agriculture, said Gary Arant, general manager of the Valley
Center Municipal Water District. So the agency is being told to impose severe
cutbacks that make no sense for agricultural use, he said. Under regulations proposed
by the State Water Resources Control Board, Valley Center must cut its water
use by 35 percent….Dead avocado and citrus groves, already a common sight in
North County, will expand if the State Water Resources Control Board doesn't
modify its proposed regulations to take into account Valley Center's
agricultural nature, Arant said.
California
delta's water mysteriously missing amid drought [Associated Press]
As
California struggles with a devastating drought, huge amounts of water are
mysteriously vanishing from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — and the prime
suspects are farmers whose families have tilled fertile soil there for
generations. A state investigation was launched following complaints from two
large agencies that supply water to arid farmland in the Central Valley and to
millions of residents as far south as San Diego. Delta farmers don't deny using
as much water as they need. But they say they're not stealing it because their
history of living at the water's edge gives them that right. Still, they have
been asked to report how much water they're pumping and to prove their legal
rights to it. At issue is California's century-old water rights system that has
been based on self-reporting and little oversight, historically giving senior
water rights holders the ability to use as much water as they need, even in
drought. Gov. Jerry Brown has said that if drought continues this system built
into California's legal framework will probably need to be examined.
Despite
drought, water flowing freely in Imperial Valley [Los Angeles Times]
With
California in its fourth year of drought, Gov. Jerry Brown has avoided
targeting farmers and their water usage. But some are beginning to wonder
whether the clamor will soon build for redirecting farm water to more populous
areas. And when it comes to water-rich areas with relatively few people, there
is no place in California quite like the Imperial Valley….Imperial Valley
farmers watch vigilantly for attempts to chip away at their water rights.
"That's a lifelong thing for us in the valley," said Carson Kalin,
who farms 1,800 acres with his brother. "We have to be aware that everyone
is looking at our water and how we use it."
Off
the table so far: Water cuts for environmental uses [Salinas Californian]
Largely
absent from the debate over residential versus agricultural uses of water in
California is a third piece of the puzzle – environmental uses, advocates of
which are content to remain hunkered down away from the melee while the other
two are bloodying each other’s noses. But some growers are beginning to ask out
loud what environmental sacrifices will be made along the lines of what is
being asked of residents and farmers….Tricia Stever Blattler, executive
director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau, said Friday that in terms of the
greatest use, environmental releases for river recreation and habitat rank at
the top. While farmers use 40 percent of the state’s water and urban users
consume 10 percent, environmental releases consume 50 percent, as much as urban
and ag combined. “We haven’t heard anything about environmental uses for
habitat flow,” Stever Blattler said. “It’s a conversation we need to have.” At
least one Central Coast environmental nonprofit is willing to talk. Steve
Shimek, executive director of The Otter Project in Monterey, said water cuts to
environmental needs should be done surgically, not ham-fistedly.
Editorial: California’s
Farm-Water Scapegoat [Wall Street Journal]
Perhaps
the only issue on which Bay Area liberals and conservatives down California’s
coastline agree is that farmers use too much water and should be rationed. The
fortunate in Silicon Valley and Marin County need a tutorial in Golden State
water allocation….The reality is that farm water has already been rationed for
more than two decades by the ascendant green politics, starting with the 1992
federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act. Federal protections for the
delta smelt, salmon, steelhead and sturgeon (2008-2009) further restricted
water pumping at the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, so 76% of inflows,
mainly from the Sierra Nevada mountains, spill into San Francisco Bay. In 2009
Democrats in Congress mandated that a spring salmon run be restored along a
60-mile stretch of the San Joaquin River that’s been dry since the 1940s.
During the current drought, about 400,000 acre-feet of water—enough to sustain
100,000 acres and 400,000 families—were used for test-runs. Their conclusion?
The salmon aren’t ready for the river, or vice versa.
Ag
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