Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 9, 2008
1. Top Items -
Assembly bill could impact farms
Lawmakers hear Valley's plea on water: Residents tell legislators that a shortage would be disastrous, plan caravan to
The
Glaciers on California
Associated Press- 7/8/08
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Assembly bill could impact farms
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With a statewide drought ongoing and predicted to get worse, a proposed Assembly bill is stirring up the Imperial Irrigation District’s water concerns.
Assembly Bill 2175, proposed by Assemblymen John Laira, D-Santa Cruz, and Mike Feuer, D-
But the bill also would cut 500,000 acre-feet of water from agricultural use in the state by the end of 2009.
“This is another in a series of wasted pieces of legislation,” said Brad Luckey, governmental and regulatory affairs manager for IID. “This is a one-sided attempt to take water from agriculture.”
Luckey said the district has already had talks with the authors of the bill about the proposal, which has left the Assembly and is now on the Senate floor.
The statewide drought declared by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been compounded by ongoing wildfires in
As the California Farm Bureau’s director of water resources, Danny Merkley said the organization has been working with the Assembly members to promote increased efficiency without a numerical target.
The bill proposes urban water use to be reduced by at least 5 percent per capita by 2012 and increasing to meet a 20 percent reduction in use by 2020.
For agriculture, the legislation would require the Department of Water Resources to establish a target of reduced water usage.
That target has amounted to 500,000 acre-feet to be conserved by 2015.
“Over the last 30 years agriculture water use has remained virtually stagnant,” Merkley said. “Production has increased about 89 percent.”
Merkley noted that 500,000 acre-feet a year is a significant amount to be conserved throughout the state.
Sprawling urban areas are increasingly looking to the agriculture industry to provide more water, said IID General Manager Brian Brady.
“We are far outnumbered by urban districts and they’re running out of options,” he said.
Brady said the district is already part of the largest agriculture-to-urban water transfer in history with the Quantification Settle-ment Agreement, a 75-year water pact designed to prevent future water wars.
“This would be inequitable,” Brady said of the proposed legislation.
Luckey said with IID implementing conservation measures to live within the guidelines of the QSA, to add additional measures would be too much for the local industry.
“Why would they pass legislation that would jeopardize that agreement?” Luckey said. “What the Legislature forgets is that means crops that are not planted, job losses, a decrease in food production.”
The California Farm Bureau has already opposed the bill as it is written, and Merkley said a coalition continues to work to amend the bill to include efficiency without a set number of acre-feet.
“We’re helping to educate them,” Merkley said. “There’s a lack of understanding on how things affect agriculture.”#
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2008/07/09/local_news/news04.txt
Lawmakers hear Valley's plea on water: Residents tell legislators that a shortage would be disastrous, plan caravan to
The
By Dennis Pollock
Four hundred farmers and farmworkers from the Valley's west side will travel in a bus caravan to
That promise -- along with talk of a need for a comprehensive solution to water needs -- was among testimony given Tuesday at
The hearing, which drew about 100 people including officials from several cities outside the Westlands Water District, was led by Assembly Member Juan Arambula, D-Fresno.
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Other Assembly members included Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada-Flintridge; Jose Solorio, D-Santa Ana; and Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View. They said the issue cannot be ignored.
"Each of us came from several hours away," Lieber said. "Juan is a good convincer."
The Assembly panel heard Riverdale farm labor contractor Piedad Ayala talk of plans for the caravan to the capital with "four or five buses." Ayala headed a similar action in 1990 because of a drought and consequent job losses.
"This problem is not affecting just farmers or farmworkers but also the consumer," Ayala said. "We're seeing ground turned into desert, seeing food in the supermarkets that is imported."
He said eliminating locally grown food is a dangerous trend -- that "the farmers here have to keep records" on pesticides and fertilizers they use.
Farmworker Jesus Borba with J&J Farms said he is concerned about the food he buys at the supermarket -- and for the future of the region.
"Help us maintain our family," he said through a translator.
Another J&J employee, Jose Luis Hernandez, lamented the condition of the fruits and vegetables he sees. "It's not as beautiful as before.
There is less," he said.
Several told the panel that a long-term solution to water needs must be sought, and they backed Gov. Schwarzenegger's call for additional storage and an improved delivery system.
"We have to act to salvage the Delta. If it goes bad, 22 million Californians will be without water," said Mario Santoyo, assistant general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents east Valley growers.
"The time to study and study and study is over," he said. "It's time to take action."
Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez said Mendota "can kiss the title of Cantaloupe Capital of the World goodbye" unless a solution is found.
Fighting back tears, family advocate Rocio Madrigal said, "Bring the water back; it hurts the children most of all. If you had a good lunch, think of those families and those fathers."
Miguel Arias, president of the board for
"It's hard for the children to learn when their stomachs growl with hunger," Arias said. "And the stomachs of their family members growl with hunger as well."
Arias said his farmworker parents ask him, "Why must people go hungry before the government acts?"
"It is a question I can not answer," Arias said.
Diener added that cutting back on irrigation for permanent crops -- such as grapes, pistachios and almonds -- will probably have long-term effects that won't be visible immediately.
"I know that the state already has budget problems," Diener said.
"But what will happen when we take the water away and there is less volume of business and less of a tax base?"
Diener is president of the Mendota Beet Growers Cooperative that is trying to keep open the Spreckels plant in Mendota where 240 jobs are at stake.
Last month, Arambula introduced Assembly Bill 1107, which would extend unemployment benefits to agricultural workers who have lost their jobs due to the water shortage and drought in the
The proposed bill would extend unemployment benefits through the end of the year.
Before the 90-minute hearing, Arambula visited Vaquero Farms, where some cotton has been abandoned, to see first-hand the toll the drought is taking.
He also talked with grower George Pappas, who described cutbacks he has made in planting of cotton and melons.
Mendota Mayor Robert Silva accompanied Arambula on the tour.
At the hearing, Silva talked of a rise in shoplifting and theft of medicine.
"It's a tragic situation out there," he said. "We have discussed this issue over and over. The lesson to you folks in
Amarpreet "Ruby" Dhaliwal, mayor of
"We live in a nation of abundance," he said, "and it's incomprehensible that people can actually starve. But it's possible on the west side." #
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/story/718267.html
Glaciers on California
Associated Press- 7/8/08
By SAMANTHA YOUNG
MOUNT SHASTA,
While it's not
With global warming causing the retreat of glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere in the Cascades,
"When people look at glaciers around the world, the majority of them are shrinking," said Slawek Tulaczyk, an assistant professor of earth sciences at the
Warmer temperatures have cut the number of glaciers at
It's a different story at
Scientists say a warming Pacific Ocean means more moist air sweeping over far
"It's a bit of an anomaly that they are growing, but it's not to be unexpected," said Ed Josberger, a glaciologist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Tacoma, Wash., who is currently studying retreating glaciers in Alaska and the northern Cascades of Washington.
Historical weather records show
The additional snowfall has been enough to overcome a 1.8 degree Fahrenheit rise in temperature in the last century, according to a 2003 analysis by Tulaczyk, who led a team studying Shasta's glaciers.
By comparison, the glaciers in the Sierra Nevada, which are about 560 miles south of
The Sierra's 498 ice formations - glaciers and ice fields - have shrunk by about half their size over the past 100 years, with those exposed to direct sunlight shrinking fastest, said Andrew Fountain, a geology professor at
He said Shasta's seven glaciers are the only ones scientists have identified as getting larger, with the exception of a small glacier in the shaded crater of
Glaciologists say most glaciers in
Four glaciers at
But Shasta's glaciers have been advancing since the end of a drought in the early 20th century. The mountain's smallest glaciers - named Konwakiton, Watkins and Mud Creek - have more than doubled in length since 1950.
Shasta's largest glacier, the Hotlum, grew more than 600 yards between 1944 and 2003 and covers nearly 2 square miles of the mountain's northeastern face. The Whitney glacier grows up to 4 inches a day in winter and is about 2.4 miles long.#
http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/1068459.html
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