River ruling could boost regulation of groundwater [Associated Press]
An
attorney said Thursday he expects to appeal a potentially precedent-setting
court finding that could make local governments responsible for controlling the
largely unregulated pumping of groundwater in the state….Sacramento Superior
Court Judge Allen Sumner ruled Tuesday that Siskiyou County had to evaluate the
impact of groundwater pumping on the Scott River…."The court ... has
fundamentally changed some basic principles of California water law," said
Rod Walston, Siskiyou County's attorney in the case. Walston said he expects
the county to ask a state appeals court to overturn Sumner's decision….A ruling
by the state appeals court on the issue would apply to all counties, the
Environmental Law Foundation's James Wheaton, a lead attorney in the case,
said.
Farmers
fight drought-inspired regulation of groundwater pumping [Sacramento Business
Journal]
A
report this week from UC Davis researchers highlighted again the threat that
drought poses to California's groundwater supply. But farmers and others are at
odds about how the state should monitor and regulate use of water pumped from
wells. Legislation circulating the Capitol would make California the last of
the Western states to impose a regulatory structure around groundwater
pumping….Assemblyman Roger Dickinson — author of one such bill — believes
recent data on drought-driven economic losses “underscores the immediate
necessity of taking legislative action.” But California’s farmers feel that
jamming through a regulatory bill could create even greater problems. “This has
a potential to impact the agriculture community more than anything we’ve seen
in last 30 or 40 years,” said Danny Merkley, director of water resources for
the California Farm Bureau Federation.
Lower
flows in Russian River sought to protect supply in Lake Mendocino [Santa Rosa
Press Democrat]
Desperate
to save plummeting water reserves in Lake Mendocino, a Mendocino County water
agency is lobbying the state to dramatically reduce the amount that must be
released downstream into the Russian River for fish and people. Without a
change to the current release schedule, and barring a wet fall, the reservoir
is set to be nearly dry by the end of the year, Mendocino County water
officials said….Officials with the state Water Resources Control Board said
Thursday they are considering the request. It comes as Lake Mendocino — the
largest reservoir on the upper Russian River and a major summer source of water
for fish, residents and farmers along the section of river north of Healdsburg
— is at less than 38 percent of capacity, or 42,000 acre-feet. Mandated
releases, largely for fish, are causing the lake to lose about 200 acre-feet a
day.
PG&E
considers options for new high-voltage power lines in Fresno County [Fresno
Bee]
Pacific
Gas & Electric Co. is asking the public to weigh in on a proposal to build
a new high-voltage transmission line across western Fresno County….The utility
will hold workshops next week in Fresno, Huron and Mendota to let property
owners and residents see where the corridors are, and to field questions and
concerns about how the different routes might affect their homes, businesses or
farms. The Central Valley Power Connect project -- anticipated to be built in
2018 and 2019 -- is needed to provide enough transmission capacity to meet the
region's growing demand for electricity, said Lynsey Paulo, a PG&E
spokeswoman….Each of the broad corridors -- determined through evaluating
factors like avoiding facilities such as Lemoore Naval Air Station and
environmental or wildlife preserves and skewing toward farmland that has been
fallowed -- is intended to give PG&E engineers some flexibility to plan a
power-line route that is the least disruptive to farms, cities, school
districts or other property owners.
When
ag and neighborhoods collide [Salinas Californian]
It’s
not exactly like living next to a turkey farm, but neighbors in a bulge of
south Salinas that abuts fields voiced unease and even anger this week during a
forum that highlighted problems with living across the street from major
commercial agricultural enterprises. Members of the Los Olivos Riker
Neighborhood Association sponsored Monday’s forum with the goal of connecting
residents with their very close farming neighbors….Nicole Capps, the president
of the association, invited Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm
Groot to update residents on “what’s going on in ag.” Roughly two dozen
residents attended to get a better understanding of one of their main concerns:
pesticide applications, Capps said. Other concerns included labor, noise, fertilizer
application and dust generated from farming operations.
Commentary: Legislature must
protect public health on antibiotics and livestock [Sacramento Bee]
…California should be
at the forefront of protecting public health by ending the use of antibiotics
on animals that are not sick. We applaud the Legislature for tackling the issue
this year, but we’re troubled that it is pushing through a bill that will bring
little change instead of a measure that would have a real impact….Instead,
currently on the table is Senate Bill 835, by Sen. Jerry Hill, that would
simply put into law weaker Food and Drug Administration guidelines that were
announced last year. Yes, SB 835 would ban the use of antibiotics for growth
promotion, but it would leave open a glaring loophole. Many of the antibiotics
used for growth promotion are also used for disease prevention, making the bill
simply a label change for the pharmaceutical industry. If the Legislature is
serious about tackling this problem, it must pass a bill that limits the use of
the antibiotics to only treating sick animals.
Ag
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