There’s no issue more important to California than having a reliable supply of water, but the situation is increasingly uncertain from both immediate and long-term perspectives.
We all know the saying about saving something for a rainy day, but in California it’s about saving the water for a dry day.
Water is the third rail of California politics — and the state’s Senate candidates are carefully steering around it. Water is a perpetual problem in California, with bitter fights over scarce resources even in rainy years.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the West Coast’s largest estuary, an awe-inspiring area of wetlands with 700 miles of waterways and 1,100 miles of levees nestled between the San Francisco Bay and the Central Valley south of Sacramento. It’s one of the most magnificent places in California—a refuge of orchards, marinas, tin-roofed shacks, plantation homes and tiny historic towns that feels more Deep South than Golden State.
The state is sending millions to farmers throughout the San Joaquin Valley to keep water in the ground.
The money, paid through the LandFlex program, goes to groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) and then directly to farmers, paying them for every acre foot they don’t pump.
As the San Joaquin Valley yo-yos from drought to flooding, the region’s top water experts spent Thursday afternoon examining how to best approach the Valley’s long and short-term needs.
The viewpoints came amid the California Water Alliance’s third-annual water forum featuring the leaders of Friant Water Authority, Westlands Water District, farmer Cannon Michael, and Rep. John Duarte (R–Modesto).
Tom Barcellos has farmed the reclaimed soil of the Tulare Lake Basin for nearly five decades, and he’s rarely witnessed a winter like 2023.
A slew of drenching storms, funneled across the Pacific Ocean as atmospheric rivers, have prompted prolonged flooding in large swaths of the San Joaquin Valley.
The very real threat of losing water from the Colorado River is the potential cuts to California’s agriculture.
The Imperial Valley alone has 500 thousand acres of farmland at the lower basin of the Colorado River.
Farms like Bear Valley Organic Farm in Valley Center run on water.
Agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley may be able to blunt a sharp decline in the years ahead if policymakers and the industry can come together on a series of strategies for reducing demand for irrigation while also increasing water supply, according to a new assessment from a prominent policy organization.
The report this month from the Public Policy Institute of California examined the biggest challenge confronting the state’s ag industry then recommended softening the impact by loosening water-trading rules, incentivizing farmland reuse and investing in storage, including groundwater recharge.
The powerful storms that clobbered California for weeks in December and January dropped trillions of gallons of water, flooding many communities and farms. But throughout the state, the rains have done little to nourish the underground supplies that are critical sources of California’s drinking water.
Thousands of people in the San Joaquin Valley have seen their wells go dry after years of prolonged drought and overpumping of aquifers. And a two-week deluge — or even a wet winter — will not bring them relief.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
