A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 16, 2008
2. Supply –
Editorial
Paul H. Betancourt: Planning, more storage would have prevented this year's water shortages
The Sacramento
Editorial
Lloyd G. Carter: Much of California
The Sacramento
Unchecked growth a strain on water
The Bakersfield
Dry country: Water rationing forces Westlands growers to abandon crops and lay off workers.
The
California Needs to Remember History of the Last Major Drought in This Year’s Water Transfers and Our Response
Water district may set rules on conservation
The
Westside farmers say drought declaration unlikely to help situation
The Sentinel- 6/13/08
Editorial
Clock's ticking on a state water deal: Crisis is real; only a careful compromise will work.
The
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Editorial
Paul H. Betancourt: Planning, more storage would have prevented this year's water shortages
The Sacramento
By Paul H. Betancourt - Special to The Bee
The governor's drought declaration this month is official acknowledgment of what we have known out here in farm country since at least last fall. It is dry out here.
You could see it out there first in the rolling hills of the
I farm with my in-laws, who have been in the area since about 1916. At VF Farms, we farm 765 acres of almonds and row crops in the
We have a good team of men who work well together. They know our fields and our equipment. There isn't going to be much overtime and probably no bonuses this year, but they will keep their jobs this season.
Our farm should make it this year, if the well and our groundwater supply hold out. We have a well that can pump enough water, if we get 25 percent of our allotment from the federal Central Valley Project, and if we are very careful.
We have never had any water to waste. I time irrigations with a tool that measures actual plant moisture so we know what the plant needs, not just what the soil moisture is, so we water when the plants need it. We water every other row, on short runs in 12-hour sets most of the time, to be as efficient as possible with the water we do have.
But, there is an important disclaimer here – wells and ground- water are only a temporary solution. Even in good years we pump more water from the ground than is naturally replenished – and that is not sustainable. We need to have surface water – water from snowpack and rivers.
The fact is, two-thirds of
In his 1952 novel "East of
We know in
The lesson from Hurricane Katrina is that we should have been better prepared. We don't have dramatic weather disasters like hurricanes in
Redefining conservation
There are those who think we can solve all of our water problems with conservation. Of course we should be careful with all the natural resources we utilize.
I have two responses for those who believe that if we conserve the water we have developed already we will get by. First, there are not enough low-flow toilets in
Here are the facts: In 2006,
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1012764.html
Editorial
Lloyd G. Carter: Much of California
The Sacramento
By Lloyd G. Carter - Special to The Bee
That dreaded word drought has again intruded into the
Because the governor's executive order failed to declare a state of emergency or impose rationing, it appears his real motive in declaring a drought was simply to drum up more support for the nearly $12 billion water bond infrastructure measure he wants to put on the November ballot.
That plan includes a peripheral canal to funnel
The gubernatorial declaration states that 2007 was a below-normal rainfall year and that this spring was the driest spring on record in
The technical definition of drought is a deficiency of "normal" precipitation over an extended period of time, usually more than one season, resulting in a shortage of water for some activity, group or environmental sector.
Drought is a temporary aberration. It differs from aridity, which is a permanent feature of low rainfall climates.
Aridity typifies the
Although the governor urges conservation, tying it to his pharaonic construction plan will further polarize Northern California and
At any rate, those massive public works projects, even if approved by overburdened taxpayers, are probably 15 to 20 years away from completion and of no immediate benefit.
It might be wiser for the deficit-plagued governor to focus on policy before plumbing and sort out a raft of statewide water problems, which have festered for decades and don't require billions in cash to fix.
I suggest he take the following actions:
• Demand an explanation from the State Water Resources Control Board about why current water- rights permits and contract allocations exceed available supplies by several times. This phantom supply, known as "paper water," is being used to justify more urban sprawl throughout the state. The State Water Project promises contractors 4.2 million acre-feet annually (an acre-foot is 325,851 gallons) but can safely deliver only 1.2 million acre-feet.
• Ask the state water board to declare irrigation of hundreds of thousands of acres of high-selenium soils in the western
• Demand a halt to urban waste. While some cities have excellent conservation records, others are dragging their feet.
• Be honest in educating the public that drought conditions do not exist everywhere in agriculture. Thousands of
• Insist on reducing or halting the use of rivers and Delta drinking supplies as sewers for agricultural, municipal and industrial wastewater. Future generations will wonder why we allowed the Delta, drenched in urine-based ammonia, to literally be used as a toilet.
• Remember that agriculture still uses 80 percent of the state's river water supplies and a lot is wasted through flood irrigation and evaporation. Virtually all of
• Recognize that the federal Central Valley Project has a priority system for delivering irrigation water, and Westlands has always been at the end of the bucket line. When the senior federal water districts have all received their allotments, the junior contractors, including Westlands, get what is left. Westlands growers knew this when they signed their water-delivery contracts decades ago. It's a risk they willingly assumed.
Now, Westlands is negotiating with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein for a guaranteed supply of 1 million acre-feet a year, enough for a city of 10 million. This deal would be terrible news for the Delta ecosystem.
In her 2007 book "Managing Water, Avoiding Crisis in
Let us hope that when the current drought fades, Green's advice doesn't.#
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1012762.html
Unchecked growth a strain on water
The Bakersfield
Water is all over the news these days and if you’ve been paying attention at all, you know it isn’t good.
It hasn’t been good for a long, long time but, mostly for political reasons, you’re gonna hear about it BIG TIME now.
Amid all the clamor and clang, however, you will never hear these words — building moratorium.
I’ll say them because, well, it’s time to tell the truth about water.
There isn’t enough.
We absolutely must stop or drastically slow development in this state so we can get a handle on our true water supplies, how to make the most of them and how to develop more, if possible.
Otherwise, we’re going to race to the end of our finite water string and then what? Armed conflict?
Hey, thirsty people are angry people.
I’ve been told that no, no, no, we don’t have a supply problem, we have a regulatory and distribution problem.
Maybe so. But that still adds up to a supply problem.
In fact, our surface water has been quantified by the state board that oversees
The State Water Resources Control Board found that “current permitted water appropriations, amount to about five times
That means we are beyond maxed out.
So far, the only options being batted around the Legislature, including the governor’s latest attempt to get a bond ($11 billion this time) onto the November ballot, have looked at some conservation methods, new dams and the politically radioactive peripheral canal, which would skirt water around the ailing San Joaquin/Sacramento delta.
Some believe the governor’s official drought announcement recently and his emergency water declaration for nine valley counties, including Kern, are ploys to boost support for his bond measure.
Probably. But I’m more interested in what his, and others’, list of solutions leave out.
What about development?
Apparently, that’s even more politically radioactive than the ol’ p-canal.
I actually don’t have a lot of faith that a gigantic state fix is in our future. But we can work at the city and county level with local officials reigning development in to match our supply, even if it means delaying or denying some projects. In other parts of
Once those houses are built, you can’t shut off the water when things get tight. They can’t be plowed under, as 45,000 acres has been so far in Kern this year because the state only delivered 35 percent of our anticipated water allotment.
State law does require developers prove their water supplies for a 20-year period. That law increased water responsibility. But why just 20 years? Do the houses go away after that? In
In eastern
“We have enough to sustain our growth for the next 30 to 50 years,”
But we seem to be the exception even in our own county.
Outlying areas are struggling. Consider
The County Planning Department is taking a stricter look at proposed developments in outlying areas, even refusing to allow developers to cite the State Water Project as a source. After a judge last year curtailed pumping from the delta to protect the threatened smelt, the state project is too unreliable to base a housing development on, I’m told.
The county will also be taking a hard look at how much growth can be accommodated given our water issues as part of the General Plan update.
Whoa! Linking growth to water supply!
Hopefully, it will be a concept that catches on.#
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/471662.html
Dry country: Water rationing forces Westlands growers to abandon crops and lay off workers.
The
By Dennis Pollock
In 47 years of farming, 65-year-old Jim Diedrich has battled it all -- hail that savaged his tomatoes, insects that ate his cotton, sagging prices and searing heat.
But now he faces something new.
He and his son, Todd, must abandon more than a full square mile of tomatoes in the Firebaugh area -- their blooms yellow, leaves still green, drooping a little from the lack of water but otherwise standing firm and stretching in endless rows.
"Being a farmer, it's tough to let this go," Todd Diedrich says.
The Diedrichs are letting 725 acres of tomatoes die so they can keep 550 acres of almond trees alive. "If we lose the trees, a 35-year investment is gone," Diedrich says.
Unprecedented water rationing, resulting from a drought and court-ordered environmental restrictions on pumping, have forced the move, which will mean millions of dollars in lost revenue this year. Thursday's emergency declaration by the governor won't help, Diedrich says.
Many growers in the massive Westlands Water District face the same Sophie's choice -- which crops to save and which to abandon.
A court ruling to protect threatened fish and a dry spring prompted the district's ration plan, which delivers less than 6 inches of water per acre during the three hottest months of the year -- less than a fourth of what some crops need.
Westlands, which covers 600,000 acres, accounts for $1 billion in farm production, 20% of the total for the No. 1 farm county in the nation,
The district will receive just 40% of its federally contracted allotment. In addition, the district must restrict use of water from the San Luis Reservoir, which did not receive 700,000 acre-feet of state and federal water because of restrictions on pumping out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
At least 100 farmworker jobs already have been lost in the Westlands district.
The Diedrichs alone have laid off 25 workers.
"We kept the guys with families and home payments," Todd Diedrich says. "Some of the ones we had to let go have been with us for 20, 25 years."
Particularly frustrating to the Diedrichs is that they thought they had prepared for drought conditions. In recent years, they spent more than $1 million to put in underground drip irrigation to save water. They added solar sensing equipment to detect moisture levels.
And they purchased water outside the district, water they won't be able to obtain in the three-month period because of the restricted pumping and the rationing program aimed at making sure the San Luis Reservoir is not drawn so low that deliveries will come to a halt.
The Diedrichs say they don't expect to be able to collect on crop insurance, though they're seeking to do so.
"Crop insurance is for a crop failure," Jim Diedrich says. "No insurance man is going to pay you because you didn't water your tomatoes."
Avtar Gill, a partner in Gill Insurance Agency in Caruthers, says Diedrich is right. "It's not a covered loss," he says.
Some farmers hold out hope that a disaster declaration could bring direct payments or low-interest loans.
Other farmers also are making tough choices.
Not far from the Diedrichs' tomatoes, Larry Enos has abandoned 1,600 acres of cotton so he can keep his own tomatoes alive. He says he made the choice in part because he is a partner in a tomato processing plant, Ingomar Packing in Los Banos.
As you pass by the cotton, you can see -- by the varying shades of green -- just where in the field the irrigation stopped on the day the word went out on May 28 that rationing was to begin.
"There's nowhere near enough water to keep it alive," Enos says. "We're still short on water for the tomatoes. We're giving them water less frequently."
Enos has laid off 16 workers.
"Across the Valley, a lot of workers will be laid off," he says. "Trucking companies won't have stuff to haul. Commodity brokers won't have things to sell. There's a cotton broker in
Permanent crops -- which have taken an increasing share of acreage in Westlands in recent years -- could suffer an especially high toll. If they die, farmers lose far more than one season's investment.
Shawn Coburn, another Westlands grower, worries his almond trees may become firewood.
Brothers Mike and Doug Wood, who farm in the Mendota area, are concerned about effects of salty well water they may have to use on their trees to replace what they'd otherwise get by canal from Westlands.
Damage from insufficient watering could hurt next year's almond crop, Mike Wood says.
The Wood brothers, who farm in the Westlands, Panoche and San Luis water districts, have idled 150 acres of cotton to keep their almonds and other permanent crops alive.
"It used to be that there was water there if you were willing to write the check," Mike Wood says. "Now, you could be Howard Hughes and you couldn't buy water."
Juan Calderon, office manager for Baker Farming southwest of Mendota, says he hopes to save the operation's almonds, pomegranates, wine grapes and pistachios -- all permanent crops.
"Within the next couple days, we will probably sit down and see what crops we may decide to abandon or cut back to the point of just keeping them alive," he says.
Tom Ramirez, who grows cantaloupes and honeydew melons south of Mendota, will not plant 300 acres of the melons as planned. He says he'll probably have to lay off five or six people.
"This thing is going to trickle out to the parts dealers, to chemical dealers," he says. "They may have to downsize their employees, too."
Back at the Diedrichs', Coburn shares a joke: "You know the difference between a puppy and a farmer, right?"
Jim Diedrich shakes his head.
"A puppy quits whining when it grows up," Coburn says.
The growers chuckle. There's always something a farmer can complain about.
But Coburn says this crisis is different. While growers in west side water districts have often faced low allocations of federal water, they've not had to walk away from crops after investing millions of dollars to grow them.
"It's as if somebody did this beautiful Etch-A-Sketch of all this crop land, picked it up, shook it and said, 'Back at you,' " Coburn says.
Todd Diedrich tallies potential losses: Just more than $1 million was put into tomatoes that won't be harvested, and the Diedrichs expect to lose about $2.75 million in gross sales for fruit that can't be sold.
If there had been enough water, he says, "it would have been a profitable year." But it's too early to know what the bottom line will be this year, he says.
"If we can't get any money from the insurance," he says, "we'll be in the red."
Jim Diedrich leans on a hoe that has become as much his cane as a tool for chopping weeds from his crops.
He says he's had two hip replacements, has "arthritis real bad" and is "just wore out."
As to how things will fare for the family's farming enterprise, he says, "We'll squeeze by. We'll survive. But what's going to happen next year?"
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/v-printerfriendly/story/668645.html
California Needs to Remember History of the Last Major Drought in This Year’s Water Transfers and Our Response
By Traci Sheehan, Executive Director Planning and Conservation League
Last Wednesday Governor Schwarzenegger announced that California is officially in a two-year drought and issued an Executive Order directing the Department of Water Resources (DWR) and other agencies to implement an eight point drought response plan, including heightened water efficiency, more water transfers, and updated drought planning. He also called for an $11.9 billion bond that would fund new dams.
Four of the eight points in the drought plan focus on water efficiency. Yet while it reinforces the vital role of efficiency in
While the plan remains vague on water efficiency actions, it clearly instructs DWR to facilitate water transfers in 2008 and 2009. A similar dry year water transfer program was implemented during
DWR has the opportunity to avoid such unintended consequences as they develop the next set of dry year water transfers.
The Governor also revived calls for a multi-billion dollar water bond for the November 2008 ballot which would direct billions of dollars to expensive new dams. Despite millions of dollars in studies, DWR has failed to show that these dams are feasible under existing environmental conditions, let alone
We commend the Governor for making water a top priority this year. PCL is calling on the Governor to provide more details and support policies to achieve the increased efficiency outlined in his plan. In addition, PCL is asking the Governor to support a sustainable strategy to meet California's water needs based on innovative tools such as water recycling and groundwater protection and clean up rather than wasteful and outdated dams.
*Traci Sheehan is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/06/california_need_10.html
Water district may set rules on conservation
By Hans Laetz
Washing off driveways with hoses along with other water-wasting practices could become things of the past in the eastern
Las Virgenes Municipal Water District's board will meet June 24 to consider a first wave of water conservation rules as the state grapples with a drought that could lead to a permanent change in the
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought emergency June 4, after final measurements showed just 61 percent of average snowfall accumulated this year in the
If allocations are imposed at the wholesale level, the local district will have to consider allocating individual businesses' and homes' share of water, said Jimmie Choo, director of resource conservation and public outreach for Las Virgenes district. The district provides water and sewage service to 65,000 residents in the eastern
"We really believe that the greatest opportunity for new water for tomorrow is conservation now," Choo said. "A lot of the homes in this area are relatively new with high-efficiency appliances and toilets, so we are going to stress outdoor conservation."
The new regulations would go into effect July 1 and would include such common conservation practices as ending the placement of glasses of water at restaurant tables and the supplying of freshly laundered linen in hotel rooms that are occupied for more than one day by the same guests.
Can't afford to waste a drop'
Hosing down sidewalks and driveways would become illegal unless water brooms were used. The district would set up a phone number for residents to report wasteful water use. District employees would visit offenders to explain the water conservation rules.
Free water audits are being offered to show homeowners how their landscaping can thrive with less water. Rebates on water-conserving appliances are also available from the district.
"We want to give people a choice, but we need to let people know that we cannot afford to waste a drop," Choo said.
As part of a major effort to decrease water pollution in Malibu Creek, the district has been seeking customers who let water run into the street. The district has street-by-street maps showing how much water is used by each house in most of the district's subdivisions. Houses with very high water consumption have been visited by outreach workers who volunteer to install water-saving fixtures, measure how much water is wasted on lawns and gardens and help homeowners avoid water runoff.
Further west in
Relying on groundwater
Although Calleguas gets state water, general manager Don Kendall said cutbacks by the Metropolitan Water District won't have an immediate effect on his customers because his agency has been banking water underground for years.
"We have a large amount of groundwater storage, and in the event the drought gets worse we have some reserves that we can draw on," he said.
The City of
Casitas General Manager Steve Wickstrum said wells in the
No water restrictions are planned in those areas, he said.
In agricultural areas of
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jun/14/water-district-may-set-rules-on-conservation/
The
By John Holland and E.J. Schultz
PATTERSON -- Out here where the drought is especially bad, farmers wait to see if the governor really can move water.
The Del Puerto Water District, serving 45,000 acres along Interstate 5, could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Gov. Schwarzenegger's emergency orders this week.
The district relies entirely on water from the federal Central Valley Project, but only 40 percent of the contracted amount is available this year. The governor's orders could result in water from elsewhere boosting the supply for Del Puerto's 170 farms, stretching from Vernalis to Santa Nella.
"We're hopeful it will provide us with some modicum of relief for our situation here, which has become very dire," General Manager Bill Harrison said Friday.
The details, including the sources of the water, the means of conveyance and the price charged by the sellers, are not known, but Harrison said he hopes to learn more next week.
Other West Side districts are in somewhat better shape because of their rights to tap the
To the east, the
Still, there's concern in this dry year, as shown in the cap the TID has placed on water deliveries to farmers. Although not nearly as draconian as the federal cuts, the TID cap is expected to affect about a quarter of its customers, including dairy farmers trying to grow a second feed crop this year.
The drought has hit hard at the Central Valley Project because it pumps water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Even in wet years, the supply is restricted to protect salmon and other fish.
Schwarzenegger ordered water officials to look for ways to move more water from the relatively wetter northern part of the state to farms in need, mainly in the western part of the
"If we don't get water to them immediately, the results will be devastating," he said.
Environmentalists promptly found fault with the plan. It is "simply a rush to do something without the procedural safeguards to ensure environmental and public health," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
The plan includes increased groundwater pumping but requires that the water be of "appropriate quality."
"I don't know how many of those wells will qualify," said Sarah Woolf, spokeswoman for the Westlands Water District, west of
The low federal allotment could mean a sharp reduction in annual field crops on the
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/328652.html
Westside farmers say drought declaration unlikely to help situation
The Sentinel- 6/13/08
A bandage over a lethal wound. That's the metaphor
Low snow runoff, one of the driest springs on record and pumping cutbacks to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have left 400 of Taylor's approximately 2,000 acres of crops in the Five Points area out to dry -- literally.
Four hundred acres of planted cotton sit dying in the sun, and Schwarzenegger's emergency declaration probably won't save them,
"It's kind of like we're bleeding to death and he's going to give us a little bandage. ... I think eventually we're going to die,"
Thursday's emergency declaration does allow farmers like Taylor who are within the sprawling Westlands Water District -- 600,000 acres in western Kings and Fresno counties -- to pump groundwater into the California Aqueduct and move it to parts of the district that are suffering the most critical need.
Trouble is, according to
"We already do that," said Joseph Freitas, who farms about 3,500 acres west of Lemoore Naval Air Station.
Freitas said he'd heard that some environmental groups might be opposing the transfers because groundwater supplies are typically less clean than aqueduct water, which is pumped straight out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Other scenarios that could be triggered by the emergency declaration are the City of Fresno giving part of its water allocation to farmers for the summer and then having them pay it back after the irrigation season is over or moving State Water Project water into the federal system that feeds Westlands, according to Ted Thomas, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources.
But there was no indication as of press time that such measures will be taken.
Freitas said that if everything goes perfectly, he might be able to save all his planted crops this year.
"You don't know ... what's actually going to happen," he said.#
http://www.coalingarecord.com/articles/2008/06/13/news/doc4852c3686a050002951533.txt
Editorial
Clock's ticking on a state water deal: Crisis is real; only a careful compromise will work.
The
It's an old pattern in
That's because we now face an alignment of perfectly evil stars in the water firmament, the likes of which we've never seen before.
The governor has officially declared that we are in a drought.
Climate change is reducing the size of the state's best natural reservoir -- the Sierra snowpack -- meaning less water is stored for months as snow before melting and percolating through the watershed and man-made water systems.
Aquifers are being badly overdrafted, causing water levels to drop and the cost of new wells to soar.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta -- key to California's water supplies -- is desperately ill, and water experts and policy makers can't reach a clear consensus on the diagnosis, much less a cure. The courts, citing environmental concerns, have ordered reduced pumping of water from the Delta, exacerbating the crisis.
A comprehensive approach -- new surface storage (dams), increased underground storage (waterbanking and aquifer recharge) and more effective conservation efforts -- still seems a long way off. Democrats who control the Legislature and their environmentalist allies have been dead set against new dams. The governor, the Republican caucus in the Legislature and their allies in business and agriculture insist that surface storage must be part of the solution.
Against such a litany of pessimism, it's hard to find any encouraging words. Yet there may be a few.
For one thing, it's no longer possible for anyone to deny there's a crisis. That builds public pressure on the governor and the Legislature for solutions. In many communities up and down the state, water rationing is either in place or being contemplated. That gets attention.
Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, asked recently about the issue of dams, offered this: "What's absolutely true is I'm open," Bass told the Sacramento Press Club. "I don't come into this issue with rigid positions around dams."
That's not something we've been accustomed to hearing from Democrats in the Legislature for some time. Bass' predecessor, Fabian Núñez, was interested in water issues only insofar as they could be used to advance his other interests, such as health care reform.
And state Sen. Darrell Steinberg of
That may not be much to hang an optimistic hat on, but we'll take it.
We have always favored the comprehensive approach to the state's water problems -- new storage (including a dam at Temperance Flat above
It's likely that voters will be offered a water bond of some sort in November. The details of that measure are still to be determined, but the pieces of the puzzle are there. They must be carefully assembled into a coherent picture, one that inspires consensus. Otherwise the
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/667718.html
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