As worsening drought conditions in California and the West take a heavy economic toll on agriculture, state legislators are considering a plan to pay farmworkers $1,000 a month to help them cover the cost of necessities.
The bill is meant to assist farmworkers who have fewer crops to tend as climate change limits the window for each growing season and cuts the Golden State’s water supply.
California is in its third year of extreme drought. Given that, is it time to rethink California’s role as the breadbasket of the country? Agriculture brought in $49.1 billion to the state, nearly half of which was money made from exporting crops. But agriculture also uses 80% of the state’s water. Last year the industry lost 87,000 jobs, and crop land totaling an area bigger than Los Angeles went unplanted.
From afar, the rows of knobby grapevines blend into the landscape of pink-blossomed almond trees and fragrant citrus. But get up close and you’ll see something strange: The trunks of the vines are standing in several inches of glistening, precious water.
These grapes, at the Kearney Agricultural Research Center in California’s San Joaquin Valley, are part of a grand experiment that many hope will help solve the state’s deepening water crisis.
A new report estimates that in 2021, drought conditions cost agriculture $1.2 billion and another half a billion dollars in other sectors. The report, written by researchers at both UC Merced and the Public Policy Institute of California, blames these economic impacts on one of the driest water years on record, which resulted in huge water losses even after tapping into millions of acre feet of groundwater.
Conservation efforts combined with projects across San Diego are playing a role in putting the county in a better position to weather a drought, but is also leaving the county with some of the highest water rates in the state — higher than Los Angeles County.
A new report by Arizona State University environmental economist Michael Hanemann offers an analysis of water rates in San Diego County. He found that the San Diego County Water Authority’s wholesale rate for untreated water is $400 more per acre-foot than the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles.
For most of us, fog is a nuisance. It makes driving difficult and it tends to dampen the mood of the day.
But Dr. Daniel Fernandez at Cal State Monterey Bay has been working with fog for nearly 20 years, using nets to collect tiny fog water droplets on murky, breezy days.
The fog nets are one-square meter of mesh-mounted vertically on poles in regions that are prime for fog. Places like the central and southern California coast are perfect, but the Central Valley is another spot with more foggy days than rainy days.
Over 600,000 Californians rely on nitrate-contaminated public supply wells for their household water needs. However, those numbers are even greater as they don’t include the many others who struggle with contaminated groundwater from domestic wells. Balancing long-term groundwater sustainability and water quality will help California weather future droughts, ensure safe drinking water, and support our thriving agricultural community that feeds the nation.
One tool for groundwater sustainability is groundwater recharge, where water is intentionally spread on the ground and allowed to infiltrate into the underlying aquifer. However, there is much concern that groundwater recharge can increase water quality issues, especially when the recharge water is spread upon agricultural lands.
As recently as Christmas, it looked like California’s devastating drought could—if not fully disappear—at least be on track for serious improvement by spring. That’s no longer the case.
California’s snowpack was promisingly high at the start of the year after Pacific storms in October and December delivered a round of heavy rains and deep snows. But it has since dropped below where officials hoped it would be for this time of year after those early-season cloudbursts turned out to be isolated events.
After two years of solid drought, and four months into California’s “wet” season, we don’t know if this year will be wet or dry. This is normal for California. But this year’s monthly precipitation “whiplash” is unusual.
For northern California, October was the 2nd wettest October in 102 years of record (400% of average October from one 2-day storm!). November was the 31st driest November (50% of average). December was the 23rd wettest December (160% of average), and January was the 7th driest January on record (16% of average).
Whoever coined the phrase “Whisky is for drinking, water is for fighting” didn’t have things quite right.
In California, water is for scamming. The newest example is a majestically cynical ploy being foisted on taxpayers by some of the state’s premier water hogs, in the guise of a proposed ballot measure titled the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022” — or, as its promoters call it, the More Water Now initiative.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
