Tag Archive for: Agriculture

Confused About What’s Happening on the Klamath? Here’s a Rundown

/in , , /by /High Country Newsby Brian Oaster

Dams are killing salmon on the river’s lower half, while irrigation threatens endangered species on the upper half.

It’s been a tough year for the Klamath River.

The Klamath, which flows through Oregon and Northern California and into the Pacific Ocean, is suffering from drought and infrastructure problems. That’s caused trouble, not just for the fish in the river, but also for the tribes and farmers who rely on it for day-to-day living.

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Metropolitan Water District, Supplier of Most of Pasadena’s Water, Partners with Other Agencies to Conserve Water in Lake Mead

/in , , /by /Pasadena Nowby City News Service

In response to worsening drought conditions, the board of Southern California’s regional water wholesaler and other water agencies across the Southwest have announced a partnership with the federal government to fund a short-term agricultural land fallowing program in California that will conserve water on a large scale.

The partnership among the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Central Arizona Project, Southern Nevada Water Authority, and the Palo Verde Irrigation District is expected to help conserve up to 180,000 acre-feet of water over the next three years, amounting to about a 3-feet increase in Lake Mead’s water level.

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New Mexico Farmers Along Rio Grande Face Early Water Cutoff

/in , , /by /AP News

Hundreds of farmers along central New Mexico’s stretch of the Rio Grande face a second straight year of having their irrigation supplies cut off early.

The board that oversees the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District voted Friday to end deliveries for irrigation a month early because of low water availability.

The Oct. 1 shutoff means winter crops like those grown by Travis Harris just north of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge are at risk.

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Megadrought to Pit Fish Lives Against Human Needs in U.S. West

/in , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Bobby Magill

Water cuts aimed at farmers amid the West’s megadrought have set the stage for bitter legal and political fights over one of the most overlooked water uses—the right of water to remain in streams to sustain fish and endangered species, lawyers say.

The drought is poised to call that right into question, pitting drinking water providers and food growers against conservationists who want to keep streams wet so that fish can survive.

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IID Keeps Monitoring Conditions Following Water Shortage

/in , , /by /Holtville Tribuneby Elizabeth Varin

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River on Monday, Aug. 16, and the Imperial Irrigation District weighed in on Tuesday, Aug. 17.

That declaration has triggered cuts in water supplies to some Arizona farmers and areas of Nevada for 2022.

In the U.S., Arizona will be hit the hardest and lose 18 percent of its share from the Colorado River next year, according to the Associated Press.

That’s around 8 percent of the state’s total water use. Nevada will lose about 7 percent of its allocation, or 21,000 acre-feet of water.

California is spared from immediate cuts because it has more senior water rights than Arizona and Nevada. Mexico will see a reduction of roughly 5 percent, or 80,000 acre-feet.

The Imperial Irrigation District has addressed the cuts, though the district won’t yet be affected by the recently announced shortage reduction.

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California Enacted a Groundwater Law 7 Years Ago. But Wells Are Still Drying Up — and the Threat is Spreading

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Rachel Becker

Kelly O’Brien’s drinking water well had been in its death throes for days before its pump finally gave out over Memorial Day weekend.

It wasn’t a quiet death at O’Brien’s home in Glenn County, about 100 miles north of Sacramento.

Spigots rattled. Faucets sputtered. The drinking water turned rusty with sediment. In the end, two houses, three adults, three children, two horses, four dogs and a couple of cats on her five acres of land were all left with no water for their sinks, showers, laundry, troughs and water bowls.

As extreme drought spread across the state, O’Brien feared that the water underneath her property had sunk so low that it was out of the reach of her well.

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New Water Cuts Are Coming in the West

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Henry Fountain

In this summer of wildfires, heat waves and drought, there was another bit of bad environmental news out of the West this week. Federal officials declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, the huge reservoir on the Colorado River near Las Vegas, setting off sharp cuts in water to Arizona farmers next year.

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The Drought Is Drying Up California’s Economy: Who’s Responsible For Opening The Floodgates?

/in , , /by /Forbesby David Lynch

Cropless fields, fishless rivers, burning forests, empty reservoirs and powerless dams — either you’ve seen the headlines, or you’re living it. America’s West has run out of water.

For most of us, this is a reckoning moment. Water exists in abundance. It’s cheap, free-flowing and limitless. We’re quite literally swimming in the stuff.

But suddenly, that’s no longer true. California’s surging population and farming-dependent economy, coupled with sustained drought, means that demand has completely drowned out supply.

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California Drought Takes Toll on World’s Top Almond Producer

/in , , /by /AP Newsby Terence Chea

As temperatures recently reached triple digits, farmer Joe Del Bosque inspected the almonds in his parched orchard in California’s agriculture-rich San Joaquin Valley, where a deepening drought threatens one of the state’s most profitable crops.

Del Bosque doesn’t have enough water to properly irrigate his almond orchards, so he’s practicing “deficit irrigation” — providing less water than the trees need. He left a third of his farmland unplanted to save water for the nuts. And he may pull out 100 of his 600 acres (243 hectares) of almond trees after the late summer harvest — years earlier than planned.

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California, Oregon Braced for Another Extremist Water Rebellion. Why It’s Calm, So Far

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

Anti-government activists seemed primed for a violent clash with federal authorities this summer in the Klamath Basin along the California-Oregon border.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation had shut off water for most of the region’s 1,400 farms, denying access to the same irrigation canal in Klamath Falls, Ore., where during a drought two decades earlier, activists tried to pry open its headgates and clashed with U.S. marshals.

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