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As the Colorado River Shrinks, Can New Technology Save Water on Farms? The Answer Is Complicated

/in , , /by /Arizona Public Mediaby Alex Hager

On a warm November day in Yuma, Arizona, the desert sun is beating down on a sea of low, green fields. Here, near the banks of the Colorado River, Matt McGuire is surveying an expanse of vegetables that sprawls into the desert landscape.

“You find it on the grocery shelf and it’s a leafy green,” he said, “it probably came from here. Because about 80-85% of the vegetables in the wintertime come from this area.”

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Opinion: In Ojai Valley, a Glimpse of How to Nurture Land in a Drier, Post-Hydrocarbon World

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Stephanie Pincetl

The Ojai Valley in Ventura County is a magical place. Consider its elements: the sweet smell of California citrus blossoms in the spring, the open space preserved by orchards, the seasonal creeks that run free through the cultivated lands. But the Ojai Valley is also a place in peril. That’s because the water source that keeps this inland Ventura hamlet thriving is nearly dry.

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Rancho Guejito Tapped Groundwater Deep in San Pasqual Valley. Some Farmers Aren’t Happy About It.

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

Hank Rupp stands on the edge of a holding pond on the historic Rancho Guejito — more than 22,000 acres purchased nearly 50 years ago by the now-deceased shipping mogul Benjamin Coates and considered by many the ecological crown jewel of San Diego County.

The 20-foot-deep reservoir — fed in part by several 1,000-foot wells dug on a more recently acquired property — is vital to the transformation of Rancho Guejito into a working agribusiness.

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Snowpack Up 160% in ‘Good Start’ to 2022

/in , , /by /AgAlertby Christine Souza

After two consecutive years of drought, the state Department of Water Resources conducted the season’s first manual survey of the snowpack Dec. 30 and found a promising result—deep snow totaling 160% of average for the time of year.

State Climatologist Michael Anderson said storms in December that dumped several feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada and brought much-needed precipitation were “a great start to the water year.”

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Opinion: Despite Heavy Snow, We Must Seek a New Water Path

/in , , /by /AgAlert (California Farm Bureau)by Justin Fredrickson

California is facing an indisputable fact: We need, in a big way, to get busy finding water alternatives to the long-indispensable Sierra Nevada snowpack.

Yes, we’ve been blessed by recent exceptional snowfall, perhaps a snowy feast after an extended water famine. But year to year, California’s frozen reservoir—the mountain snow whose melt feeds farming and quenches the thirst of Californians—is dwindling and increasingly unreliable as the climate changes.

Opinion: The Importance of California’s Agricultural Water Supplies

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Chris Scheuring

Wendell Berry famously said that eating is an agricultural act. That makes all of us into farmers, and nowhere is that more true than in water terms.

For farming is irreducibly the process of mixing dirt, water and sunshine to bring forth from the ground what we need to eat. And no matter who you are, it’s true:  somebody, somewhere, must devote a lot of water to the process of feeding you.

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In Pinal County, Colorado River Shortage is Forcing Growers to Plant Fewer Ccres

/in , , /by /Arizona Republicby Brandon Loomis

More than two decades of dry winters and drying Colorado River reservoirs will finally produce a long-feared landscape of drier farms in central Arizona starting this month.

Desert farmers, especially the 900 or more in Pinal County, start the new year with massively reduced allocations from the canal that delivers water hundreds of miles from the river.

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Rainy Years Can’t Make Up for California’s Groundwater Use

/in , , /by /ARS Technicaby K.E.D. Coan

Over a third of American vegetables are grown in California, largely in the state’s Central Valley. The region also produces two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts. These crops—and the many Americans who produce and consume them—are heavily reliant on California’s water supply. But, given recurrent and severe droughts, the state’s groundwater supply has been strained.

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A Frenzy of Well Drilling by California Farmers Leaves Taps Running Dry

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Maria L. La Ganga, Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee and Ian James/Photography by Irfan Khan

Vicki McDowell woke up on a Saturday morning in May, thinking about what she would make her son for breakfast. He was visiting from Hayward, and she wanted to whip up something special. Biscuits and gravy. Fried potatoes. Eggs.

She walked to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. Turned on the faucet. Nothing happened. Worried, she tried the bathroom sink. Still nothing. She flushed the toilet. It gurgled.

In the verdant San Joaquin Valley, one of the nation’s most productive farming regions, domestic wells like McDowell’s are drying up at an alarming pace as a frenzy of new well construction and heavy agricultural pumping sends the underground water supply to new lows during one of the most severe droughts on record.

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Bay Area Farmers Happy to Get Latest Round of Precipitation

/in , , /by /KPIX 5by Max Darrow

Farmers in the Bay Area were excited that the latest storm brought another round of much-needed rain in the hopes it will bring them closer to the end of what has been a difficult drought.

Many in the agricultural and farming industries of the Santa Clara Valley are relieved the region took in substantial rainfall over the past few days.

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