Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
August 11, 2009
1. Top Items–
Water officials to discuss drought
Stockton Record
A food fight over water
San Diego Union-Tribune
Farmers like water program
Marysville Appeal-Democrat
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Water officials to discuss drought
Stockton Record-8/11/09
President Barack Obama's point man on the California water crisis will meet with state officials Wednesday, and Delta advocates are urging the public to attend.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes will meet with Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources, at 1 p.m. at the Capitol Plaza Holiday Inn, 300 J. St. in downtown Sacramento.
The meeting, which is open to the public, will focus on the Delta and California's water challenges, state officials said in a news release.
In June, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited Fresno to meet with farmers and others about the drought and restrictions on pumping from the Delta to protect endangered fish.
Restore the Delta, a Stockton-based advocacy group that opposes plans for a peripheral canal, called Wednesday's meeting a chance for Northern California to tell its side of the story and urged its members to attend.#
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090811/A_NEWS/908109986
A food fight over water
Such a big problem, so little time
San Diego Union-Tribune-8/11/09
Editorial
The California Legislature is about to take on the state’s water problems again. This news is both good, and scary.
It’s good because no issue is more important than water to the economic health of the state and to our environmentally oriented quality of life. With leadership and balance, the Legislature could do much to assure a plentiful and reliable supply of water while also encouraging conservation and protecting the environment.
It’s scary because probably no issue is more complex than water, with so many potential consequences, and because the Legislature is, well, the Legislature. Which is to say it is prone to enacting major legislation on big, complicated problems in in the last days of a session, with only a handful of leaders involved in the drafting of bills.
Early this year, legislative leaders directed the key policy committees that deal with water issues to conduct hearings on recommendations made by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision Blue-Ribbon Task Force.
Specific legislative proposals were supposed to have been ready in May. Democratic lawmakers finally unveiled a package of five bills last week.
The legislative recess doesn’t end until Monday, leaving four weeks before the scheduled Sept. 11 end of the session in which to bring together constituencies that have battled each other for decades — agricultural interests vs. environmentalists, urban interests vs. rural, Northern California vs. Southern California.
If we sound skeptical, we are. Democratic leaders say the water bills won’t even be the top priority. First will come an effort to restore cuts to health and human service programs vetoed by the governor in the most recent last-minute budget crisis.
The water bills are intended to fix the environmentally threatened Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its rickety system of levees and pumps that provide water for some 25 million Californians and for the agricultural marvel that is the great Central Valley.
A key provision would create the Delta Stewardship Council, a politically appointed body with the power to pursue massive projects such as a highly controversial canal around, through or under the delta to direct water to the south.
Schwarzenegger said in a statement following the legislators’ release of the bills that he favors “a comprehensive plan.” He said the state’s water system is “broken” and fixing it must be done in this session of the Legislature.
The goal is certainly worthy. But time is short, major political battles lie ahead and the stakes, particularly for those of us in San Diego County at the end of the state’s water pipeline, are huge.
Expect a food fight. And perhaps, in the end, nothing to show for it.#
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/11/food-fight-water/?uniontrib
Farmers like water program
Federal project funds will help them increase quality of Gilsizer Slough
Marysville Appeal-Democrat-8/11/09
By Howard Yune
For some Sutter County farmers, a pot of federal money to improve water quality will stay open until this weekend.
Shares in a $1.15 million fund await the winning applicants in a program to protect the waters of the Gilsizer Slough, a Feather River tributary west of Yuba City under threat from pesticide runoff. The deadline to apply for grants is Friday.
"I think it's a good thing — it helps us out and it helps out the environment too," Brad Foster, a prune and walnut grower who applied to join the water quality program, said Monday.
The federal money is the county's share in the Agricultural Water Enhancement Program, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched earlier this year.
Sixty-three water protection plans will share in the federal program's $58 million budget, with the USDA's Yuba City branch of the Natural Resources Conservation Service reviewing local applications.
Insecticides — particularly diazinon — are the main water-quality concern in the 25,000-acre slough area, according to Ryan Bonea, executive director of the Sutter County Resource Conservation District.
The Environmental Protection Agency has labeled Gilsizer an "impaired" waterway because of high levels of diazinon, which remains legal for agriculture but which the EPA outlawed for household sales five years ago.
Irrigation and planting experiments funded through the program aim to limit leakage of contaminants into the slough — whether by reducing water flow in the area's prune and nut orchards or by creating buffers of plants to soak up runoff before it can escape the fields.
Farm owners in other projects will create filter strips at the edge of orchards or adopt pest-management plans to limit pesticide and fertilizer use, especially before rainstorms.
So-called microjet irrigation systems will be a major focus of the program. The networks of pipes and sprinklers are designed to sustain orchards using far less water than the traditional method of flooding groves, cutting evaporation losses as well as runoff.
"We're still learning, but it's already cut out a lot of work," said Foster, who hopes to win funds for piped irrigation after a relative made the change last year on another orchard near Gilsizer Slough. "Now we go once a week, push a button and do it on cheaper off-peak power, and we can water 50 acres in six or seven hours. It's really cut back on manpower and we're using quite a bit less water."
Sharing the expense of such improvements may overcome the cost concerns of uncommitted farmers, according to John Amarel, a prune farmer who has taken part in other water projects with the conservation service.
"The support is there, because the programs help us comply with the standards," he said last week. "In order to do that you find technology's the answer, but it's expensive. But the popularity is growing every year because people go through it, then tell their neighbors."#
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/farmers-85385-water-program.html
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DWR’s California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff, for information purposes, by the DWR Public Affairs Office. For reader’s services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news . DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of California.
No comments:
Post a Comment