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A Dry Future Weighs Heavy on California Agriculture

/in /by /High Country News (Paonia, Colo.)by By Sena Christian

On a hot summer afternoon, California farmer Chris Hurd barrels down a country road through the Central Valley city of Firebaugh, his dog Frank riding in the truck bed. He lurches to a stop in front of Oro Loma Elementary School, which was built in the 1950s to accommodate an influx of farmers’ and farmworkers’ children.

“All three of my sons went here,” Hurd says, as we walk through overgrown weeds toward the shuttered building, closed in 2010. “I was on the school board, the grass was green, kids were running around. Now it’s a pile of rubble.”

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OPINION: Water, growth and a little history

/in /by /The Bakersfield Californianby Lois Henry

Last Sunday, I had a column that asked what I thought was a simple question: How much more development can our water supplies sustain?
I figured planners must be looking at this issue considering the drought and new groundwater legislation that requires a holistic attitude toward our basin as opposed to the “I got my straw, go get your own” way we’ve always done things.
Nope.

Even with about 58,000 new homes either in some phase of construction or approved to be built in and around Bakersfield, no one is looking at how all that new demand will affect our aquifer.

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You Can’t Always Get What You Want – A Mick Jagger Theory of Drought Management

/in /by /California WaterBlog (Davis)by Jay Lund

“You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need,” Rolling Stones (1969, Let It Bleed album)

The ongoing California drought has many lessons for water managers and policy-makers. Perhaps the greatest lesson is how unimportant a drought can be if we manage water well.

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Spaulding, Folsom Lakes Well Above Normal

/in /by /Auburn Journalby Michael Mott

Fed by gushing runoff, some area reservoirs are filling fast: Lake Spaulding, which provides much of the water for the Auburn area is at 173 percent of normal, and Folsom Lake is at 118 percent.

Given rising levels, water leaders in Placer County rescinded an emergency drought status on Thursday. The Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) lifted the status when emergency conditions ended.

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Feds Consider Initial CVP Water Allocation for Farms, Cities

/in /by /Capital Press (Salem, Ore.)by Tim Hearden

The return of rain and snow to California “could be helpful” to prospects for bringing federal water to farms this year, but officials could still be a couple of weeks from making that determination, a spokesman says.

The Central Valley Project typically makes its initial allocations to cities, farms and other entities in late February, but hydrologists and other officials aren’t ready to predict how much water they’ll be able to deliver this spring and summer, spokesman Louis Moore said.

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New Limits on California Well-Drilling Sought

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Jeremy B. White

Warning that a drought-driven surge in well drilling is causing the earth to sag and imperiling long-term water supplies, a California senator wants to place more stringent limits on new wells.
In an effort sure to inflame ever-sensitive disputes over water rights, Senate Bill 1317, by Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, would have people hoping to sink new wells in strained basins obtain conditional use permits and furnish proof that a new well would not have “undesirable impacts” like causing the earth to sink or dropping water levels too low. It would halt new wells in critically overdrafted basins, of which there are currently 21 across the state.

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No Drought Buster, But March, April Could Bring Rain

/in /by /Ventura County Starby Cheri Carlson

Two words. Nine letters. That’s what it takes to sum up Ventura County’s rainfall so far this year.
Not enough.

“The rain we’re getting now is not enough,” said Casitas Municipal Water District’s Ron Merckling as showers started earlier this week.

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OPINION: When Drought Became Deluge 30 Years Ago

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

History is best not forgotten, especially when lives could be at stake.
Earlier this month, operators of the federal dam at Folsom Lake significantly increased releases into the American River, even though California’s water crisis is far from over.

Though the reservoir was sitting at 40 percent of capacity, a manual drawn up in 1987 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers required the action, The Bee’s Ryan Sabalow, Phillip Reese and Dale Kasler reported last week. Some regional water managers and experts frowned that too much water was being released when California is still gripped by drought.

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Williams Floats Groundwater Safety Bill

/in /by /Santa Barbara Independentby Léna Garcia

A new bill by Assembly member Das Williams, AB 1882, would require the State Water Resources Control Board to monitor groundwater safety by closely reviewing underground injection control (UIC) wells. Such wastewater disposal wells are used to extract oil and natural gas, thereby producing brine water, which may contain fracking chemicals, said Williams’s office, which cited the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s unfavorable review of California’s UIC program and alleged contamination from UIC wells within his district.

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Opposition – and an Alternative – Key to Stopping Twin Tunnels, GOP Candidate Says

/in /by /Daily Republic (Fairfield)by Ryan McCarthy

Politicians who oppose the plan of Gov. Jerry Brown for twin tunnels in the Delta lose labor money, a Republican candidate for the 3rd state Senate district said Wednesday – so an out is available for them to just state they don’t support the tunnels.

Greg Coppes said at the Vaca Valley Tea Party evening meeting that people should demand that politicians oppose the twin tunnels and have a plan to stop them.

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