California Farmers Ordered To Stop Pumping From San Joaquin River Watershed

[Newsjock]

Source: CBS San Francisco

Regulators are ordering farmers with California’s oldest water rights to stop pumping from the San Joaquin River watershed for the first time in memory.

State water board engineer Kathy Mrowka told a public drought hearing that the curtailment orders will be sent to so-called senior rights holders on Friday.

The mandatory conservation orders for rights holders with century-old claims to rivers and streams will be the first anywhere in the state since the 1970s. They would be the first in memory to senior water-rights holders along the San Joaquin River.

Read more: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/05/20/california-farmers-ordered-to-stop-pumping-from-san-joaquin-river-watershed/

[NYC_SKP]

1. We've been sending it all south for far too long.

And now it's all gone.

[Duckhunter935]

2. well in southern OK

We went from within one week of going to stage 4, to no restrictions in just a few weeks. We have been lucky enough to get several weeks worth of heavy rains. More this weekend.

I hope they get some soon.

[msongs]

4. it's "all gone" because there is not enough new supply coming from the Sierra Nevada nt

[NYC_SKP]

5. Water projects, been impacted by them my entire life.

Trust me, I know about California's water infrastructure.

[Beauregard]

23. "Trust me"? :)

"I know"? Saying these things adds zero credibility to what a person claims to be true. You have to give reasons. You can't just appeal to your own unauthenticated authority. But you know that, right?

[NYC_SKP]

24. ••• Well sport, did you grow up taking water samples for the state w your grandma living on a river?

For the peripheral canal proposal in the 1960's?

Did your childhood home use sand-filtered river water coming from one of the delta waterways in that very same watershed?

Did you study courses in environmental science in colleges in that very same watershed?

Did you write curriculum about delta ecosystems for schools in that very same watershed?

Have you attended meetings related to water issues, canals, species, tunnels and more in that very same watershed?

Do you live in a house on a waterway and are you looking out right fucking now at egrets and geese on your dock on a fucking waterway on that same fucking watershed?

I didn't think so.

Trust me or not, I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

I really don't care what you think, I know what I know.

[Sgt Preston]

25. No, did you? Am I just supposed to believe your claims?

You are just some guy online. When you give reasons for your views, I'll have a look your reasons.

[NYC_SKP]

26. Books, the internet, there's all the proof you need if you care to use them.

If you used either of them you wouldn't be challenging someone who lives in the area and knows what he's talking about.

Later.

[Beauregard]

34. That's your citation? "Books, the internet."

OK, there "sport."

[Xolodno]

28. If you mean...

..."sending it all south" to the Imperial Valley to support the farms there....ok, I can agree with you to a point. If you are referring to the consumption of the LA Basin. Nope.

Farms from Bakersfield and north consume much more water. And due to decades of refusal to adopt water saving technologies (in the reasoning that if they don't consume their allotment, they won't get the same next year and it will go...*gasp* to LA!), this was bound to happen. And every time legislation was introduced to prepare for this at the state or federal level, it got shut down (before the drought, it seemed like you couldn't go 10 miles on Highway 99 without signs saying "Stop the Pelosi, Obama, Fienstien created water Crisis!&quot .

You can fault So Cal to a certain point, for years they ignored the warnings as well. As every time the idea of putting up desalinization plants came, got shut down because *gasp* more taxes (as it was sold in the south) and in the north "why should we pay more taxes so the south has water". The fact people bought this is mind boggling.

But at the same time, you have to give the So Cal some credit. Orange County takes their recycled water and pumps it back in to the water table (which they then use as water - illegal to use direct recycled water). Santa Barbara isn't even hooked up to the state water project and has a desalinization plant. And lets not forget, the City of Los Angeles gets a significant amount of water from the Owens Valley....where there are few farms.

Now some bitch and moan "why are we growing crops in a desert". Well, that's bullshit. So Cal is predominately a Mediterranean climate and few crops are grown there. In the central valley, southern part of the Tulare basin is only semi-arid. The rest is technically grassland. Imperial valley...well yeah, that's a desert. But the majority of the crops are in the Central Valley. And why is the Central Valley such a huge agricultural area? Because it has the climate to support more agriculture and is subject to less crop damaging temperature changes.

Me personally, I would prefer the San Joaquin river returned to a natural state with the Chinook Salmon returning. Along with the restoration of Owens Lake and Lake Buena Vista. Hell, even see the Colorado River make it to the Gulf of California....but, I know that's as good as a chance of convincing a farmer that if he doesn't use his total allotment, LA won't take it away.

[upaloopa]

30. How about the "food grows where water flows" signs.

Farmer propaganda

[jtuck004]

3. In specific terms? How many does this serve, affect?

? Bad for lettuce

[NYC_SKP]

6. The section of the Central Valley from Lodi down to Madera, and the Sierras west to Coastal Range

And on the map you can see right there along the west side the two canals that have been shipping our water south.
The California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal.

[upaloopa]

31. Shipping "our" water south. I bet you're happy

to eat our vegetables and strawberries.
None of us here lives in a vacuum. We are all in this together. My neighbor who works for the Vandenberg Village Water company says here on the Central Coast we haven't been effected by the drought much but we still restrict water useage like the new conservation measures dictate.
So screw the "our water" bull shit because most of it comes from our snow.

[CreekDog]

27. probably not lettuce, that's grown elsewhere mostly

The Salinas Valley and Imperial Valley (in winter) are the main sources of that.

[Xithras]

33. The title is misleading. It impacts farmers who pull directly from the rivers.

It doesn't impact farms that pull their water from wells. This primarily impacts farmers in the Delta itself (ironically, one of the greenest parts of California historically), and to a lesser extent farmers directly bordering the rivers. The Delta contains about 1800 farms, and is one of the last farming areas in the state that is still dominated by smaller family growers (though there ARE some large corporate farms there as well). There are no almonds in the Delta. These farmers have no source of water other than river pumping, and will essentially be out of business if pumping is prohibited. The caveat is that the Delta covers two watersheds, and the order only covers farms in the southern part in the San Joaquin watershed. Farmers in the northern Delta pulling from the Sacramento or Mokelumne watersheds aren't blocked by the order.

Until I hit financial problems several years ago, I used to own a couple of acres along the Stanislaus River, which is a tributary to the San Joaquin. The water we used to irrigate both our lawn and the roughly one acre field behind my home came from a pump in the river itself. My property had been part of a ranch established in the 1800's that had senior water rights, and my property had inherited them when it was subdivided and resold. Nobody I knew abused it, but legally we had the right to pull as much water as we wanted from the river, so long as we didn't pull enough to violate environmental regulations and we didn't draw so much that we were pulling water released upstream for transfers into the state water project (that water technically belonged to someone else).

FWIW, I'm already hearing conspiracy theories on the local radio about this. Delta farmers tend to be the most vocal opposition to the Delta Tunnels project championed by the state, and were the ones who killed it the last time it came around decades ago. Because the tunnels project will lead to saltwater intrusion, destroying both the delta ecosystem AND farming, the residents there are huge opponents of the plan. Some are ALREADY saying that the stop-pumping order is a political attempt to shut down farming in the Delta to stifle opposition to the tunnels project.

[jtuck004]

35. Wow. This sounds like they are treating about 2000 people badly, and it may well not be necessary.

Thank you for the context, not getting near that from the "news" sources.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. We really need a transcontinental aquaduct....

If that pipe bursts, what's the worse thing to happen?

Something might grow?

[MFrohike]

9. Why?

I don't get why the rest of the country should support the insane desire to live and conduct large scale agribusiness in a desert. To my mind, this is no different from living on the Outer Banks of NC or in a flood zone of the Mississippi. They chose to live in a place that isn't fit for habitation without a massive, continuing effort. They should move to a place more suitable, rather than suck up even more water to continue this deluded fantasy.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

10. Think of it as terraforming.

[Humanist_Activist]

15. Unless we have the power required provided by renewable sources, the water mostly...

reclaimed after use, and potable afterwards, its a foolish endeavor at this time.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

16. They were going to build one back during FDR as a WPA project....

There's nothing foolish about it.

Ever see a map showing how many natural gas and oil pipelines there are?



They could pump water.

[paleotn]

20. Think of it as unsustainable. (nt)

[Spitfire of ATJ]

32. Look at other places like Dubai....

Besides, California farming has begin to go with water conservation ideas like drip irrigation. One that they've recently come up with is to reuse the water they use to WASH vegetables for market back into tanks for irrigation.

[paleotn]

37. The US vegetible basket in a desert is not sustainable even in normal conditions....

....the vast increase in the human population of southern and central CA coincided with a relatively wet period. Even under normal conditions, you WILL run out of water for that many people and that much agra-biz. Your aquifers are already telling the tale. So are the Sierra Nevada and Colorado river watersheds. Add global climate change to the mix of long term fluctuations in weather patterns and CA as we know it today is doomed. Period. End of story.

By the way, Dubai is no one's breadbasket.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

39. Your right. California? STOP BREEDING!!!!

[MFrohike]

40. No

I think of it as enabling a deluded fantasy. There's no need to waste fresh water on it.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

42. The entire West Coast???

[MFrohike]

44. That's a stretch

The thread is about CA's water problems. I'm referring to the part of that state which fits the definition of desert.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

45. That part doesn't have a water shortage problem.....

At least, not from the drought.

[Humanist_Activist]

14. Actually, I would say that's not comparable, floodplains are very productive...

farmland. Should we build commercially or residentially on them? No. But farms make sense.

Also, bear in mind that floodplains may only be flooded from once a year to once every 10 years or even longer. Levees are relatively low cost for the amount of production you can get out of those fertile plains.

[MFrohike]

41. Until the catastrophic loss

A system of levees that effectively barricade in a river make large-scale flooding inevitable. It'd make more sense not to waste the resources in the first place.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

43. A lot of people look at a fertile valley and think about carving it up into 1/8 acre tract homes.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. I was thinking about buying a small property in the Mojave Desert

I'd like to get away from it all and was eyeing restoring an old house in some of the semi ghost towns along the old route 66, like Goffs, Essex, or Chambless where only handfuls of people still live. It turns out that the County of San Bernardino passed recent laws whereby anyone living there has to have a well. Wells can cost up to $100,000 to drill in that area. But big developers are buying up the land and selling it in major giant sized lots to turn it into developments and plan to drill extensive wells. There is a large underground acquifer undermeath the Mojave but it's down at least 500 feet or more. But the County is fine with companies like Cadiz, Inc. drilling dozens of wells from public lands and selling the sweet water to southern California where profits of $2 billion or more are anticipated. Real, ordinary people don't count and can't even live there if they buy a house. But rich developers or corporations on the other hand...

http://www.route66news.com/2012/05/16/company-wants-to-sell-water-from-mojave-desert-public-lands/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

11. Also the water could be extremely alkaline.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

12. I've read that the water is really good

AAA installed a community well in the town of Essex many years ago and the water was a blessing to those small desert communities. But it's fallen into disrepair and the county won't spend any money on it. I think the county wants a bigger tax base, meaning it wants corporations and developers to move in and it wants to discourage individual small home owners returning to the desert and reviving the ghost towns. Everything I've read about the Mojave aquifer indicates the water is very drinkable and there's plenty of it, far below ground.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

13. Looks like you could use one of these.....

[reddread]

18. the most beautiful part of California, teeming with wildlife

If only property and available housing was remotely affordable.
Hard to believe the asking prices for mobile homes in desolate areas.

[quadrature]

17. Almonds are more important than people

(sarcasm)
this is a bad decision

[chernabog]

19. Why does everyone use the almond argument?

The true culprit is the meat and dairy industry. Shut them down and all the water problems go away.

[quadrature]

21. where is HRC on this?

Almonds or People

GO ALMONDS

....

(sarcasm)

[chernabog]

22. ...no idea what you're talking about

[christx30]

29. People do need food. N/t

[CanSocDem]

36. The thing is....

...what they grow on these massive irrigated farms is not really "food".

Lettuce, for example, is mostly water yet it fuels a massive ecological disaster with its distribution program. Its' production has no redeeming value.




.

[paleotn]

38. There is by far enough ariable land....

....in this country with regular, reliable and plentiful rainfall. We don't need the central valley. It's just tailor made for large scale, centralized, petroleum based agri-biz. It will revert back to desert as it has so many times in the distant past, even without global climate change.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140214-drought-california-prehistory-science-climate-san-francisco-2/

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520268555