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California Keeps On Farming, With or Without Water

/in /by /Bloomberg View Columnestby Justin Fox

California agriculture, which had been plowing ahead in the face of a major drought, finally had an off year in 2015, according to data released recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The state’s farms brought in cash receipts of an estimated $47.1 billion (this will be revised in the months and years to come), down from a record $56.6 billion in 2014. Here’s how that looks in historical context, with the numbers adjusted for inflation.

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With standards relaxed, water use on the rise throughout California

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow, Dale Kasler and Phillip Reese

Californians continued to backslide on water conservation during the hottest summer on record, worrying regulators and frustrating environmentalists critical of a new policy enacted this spring that allows most urban water districts to avoid mandatory cuts in water use.

On Wednesday, the State Water Resources Control Board announced that conservation in urban California in August was still below the baseline year of 2013 – but by a far smaller percentage than in August 2015. In August 2015, Californians saved 27 percent compared with 2013. This year, that savings rate fell to less than 18 percent.

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Two New Faces to Join Water Board After Election

/in /by /Del Mar Timesby Joe Tash

The Santa Fe Irrigation District, which provides water to residents and businesses in Rancho Santa Fe, Solana Beach and Fairbanks Ranch, will see new faces on its five-member board of directors later this year, as two incumbent directors are stepping down from their seats and will be replaced by candidates running in the Nov. 8 election. Two candidates each are running for the Div. 1 seat, now held by Greg Gruzdowich, and the Div. 2 seat, now occupied by Alan Smerican. Both incumbents opted not to seek new terms.

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OPINION: Flora Not Blinded By Tunnel Vision, Would Protect Our Water

/in /by /The Modesto Beeby Kenneth Groves, Jr.

Why does Jerry Brown desire to send Northern California water south? The governor has a seriously poor sense of direction. Sacramento bureaucrats have no right to assume the power to re-direct river water from Northern California farmland, demanding to send the water to the Delta strictly for the survival of fish and, ultimately, out to sea. After all, the fish didn’t elect Brown. Heath Flora, seeking Assembly seat 12, places people, food, jobs and the economy first.

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Project Underway To Prevent Straying Of Adult Sacramento River Salmon

/in /by /Daily Democrat (Woodland)

Yet another hazard to migratory salmon will disappear soon, when local, state, and federal officials finish building a permanent, fish-friendly weir in the Yolo Bypass.The Wallace Weir Fish Rescue project, located four miles northwest of Woodland and near Knights Landing, will help prevent adult Sacramento River salmon from swimming into a drainage ditch that leads deep into farm fields where spawning is hopeless. By building a permanent barrier across the Knights Landing Ridge Cut, the agencies will be able to better control farm drainage releases to avoid attracting salmon.

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$4 Million Groundwater Study To Be Held N. Orange County, Calif. Water Basin

/in /by /WaterWorld Magazine (Tulsa, Okla.)

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced it has reached an agreement with the Orange County Water District to conduct a remedial investigation and feasibility study to address a large area of groundwater contamination in Northern Orange County known as the “North Basin.” The work required by the agreement is expected to take up to two years to complete and is estimated to cost up to $4 million.

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Scientists Take To The Air To Look For Water Under The Ground

/in /by /KBAK (Bakersfield)by Carol Ferguson

A low-flying helicopter is circling above the community of Lost Hills, checking for water below the ground. The flights are being done by U.S. Geological Survey researchers on behalf of state water officials, and the work will continue next near Buttonwillow. Officials say they’re developing 3D maps of where there’s fresh and salty groundwater in certain oil field areas in the state. The first phase of that big project is the work underway in Kern County. “We will be trying to find places where it’s likely that fresh water exists,” USGS research geophysicist Lyndsay Ball told Eyewitness News on Thursday.

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How the Drought is Shrinking Southern California Mountain Lakes

/in /by /The Press-Enterprise (Riverside)by Jim Steinberg

There was a blue heron a few yards away from the Big Bear Marina. Mallards played in the water near the marina’s office.“This is pretty sad looking,” said Scott Ruppel, 60, as he sat in front of the marina office on a recent weekday morning. A frequent lake visitor, Ruppel, a Barstow resident, talked about the grass and other plant life — some green, some not — growing on land once covered by a 3,000 acre lake.

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OPINION: Time to Stop the Backsliding on California’s Water Conservation

/in /by /The Sacramento Bee

The drought persists. This summer was the hottest on record. Last month, a National Weather Service meteorologist called the chance of adequate winter rainfall this year “a crapshoot.” Farmers in the Central Valley are pumping groundwater like there’s no tomorrow. And they may not be wrong; it’s not for nothing that the rest of the world ratified the Paris climate accord on Wednesday. Thank heaven Californians finally have gotten serious about water conservation – oh, wait

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Water Contractors Sue Federal Government For $350 Million

/in /by /KBAK (Bakersfield)

Seventeen California water districts have filed a lawsuit for $350 million against the federal government for not delivering water to contractors in the drought year of 2014. The Fresno Bee reports that the districts in the San Joaquin Valley and the city of Fresno filed the suit Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. Attorney Craig Parton, who is representing the contractors, says the claim seeks to recover the fair market value of Friant Division water not delivered to the contractors even though there were sufficient supplies in Millerton Lake that year.

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