Drought leaves Tulare County homes without water

By Associated Press

Hundreds of rural San Joaquin Valley residents no longer can get drinking water from their home faucets because California’s extreme drought has dried up their individual wells, government officials and community groups said.

The situation has become so dire that the Tulare County Office of Emergency Services had 12-gallon-per person rations of bottled water delivered on Friday in East Porterville, where at least 182 of the 1,400 households have reported having no or not enough water, according to the Porterville Recorder.

Many people in the unincorporated community about 52 miles north of Bakersfield also have been relying on a county-supplied 5,000-gallon water tank filled with non-potable water for bathing and flushing toilets, The Recorder said.

Emergency services manager Andrew Lockman, said the supplies of bottled water distributed by firefighters, the Red Cross and volunteer groups on Friday cost the county $30,000 and were designed to last about three weeks but are only a temporary fix. To get future deliveries, officials are asking low-income residents to apply for aid and for companies to make bottled water donations like the one a local casino made a few weeks ago.

“Right now we’re trying to provide immediate relief,” Lockman said. “This is conceived as an emergency plan right now.”

Officials said the problem is partly due to the shallowness of some residential wells in East Porterville that are replenished by groundwater from the Tule River, the Fresno Bee said. But river flows are way down due to the ongoing drought, leaving some wells dry.

East Porterville resident Angelica Gallegos fought back tears as she described being without water for four months in the home she shares with her husband,, three children and two other adults.

“It’s hard,” she told The Bee. “I can’t shower the children like I used to.”

Farmworker Oliva Sanchez said she still gets a trickle from her tap, but dirt started coming out with the water about a week ago.

“I try to use the least possible. I’ll move if I have to,” she said.

Along with experiencing inconvenience and thirst, some residents have been reluctant to speak up about being waterless because they are afraid their landlords will evict them or social workers will take their children away, The Recorder reported.

“We want to make it abundantly clear we are not going to make this harder for anyone,” Lockman stressed. “These lists aren’t going anywhere. (Child Welfare Services) isn’t getting a list. They (CWS) made it abundantly clear they are not going to remove children because of no water. We just want to help the people.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:29-07:00August 26th, 2014|

Water Crisis Reducing Valley Fruit Production

Source: Dale Yurong; ABC30

The impact of the worsening drought can be seen in the expected drop in crop production.

Valley fruit production is down on many farms, but the lack of water isn’t the only factor causing the lower expectations.

The grape crop is ready for harvest in many Valley vineyards but there’s not nearly as much of the sweet fruit this year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects grape production in California to dip 9 percent.

“We came off two big years in both wine grapes and Thompson seedless, so those vines are taking a little bit of a rest,” said Nat Dibuduo with Allied Grape Growers. “The other factor is obviously the drought. We’ve got growers that lost wells or they’re minimizing their irrigations to stretch out the water they do have.”

Table olives fared even worse with the dry conditions. Production is expected to dip 45 percent statewide but as much as 60 percent in Tulare County.

“When olive trees go into dormancy they need some good deep soil moisture and they didn’t get it,” said Adin Hester with the Olive Growers Council. “The lack of moisture is something that certainly exacerbated, number one. Number two, we’ve got growers that are just flat out of water.”

Peach production is down 4 percent. We’re seeing peach, olive and grape growers rip out orchards and vineyards to put in more profitable crops like almonds and pistachios.

“I think there’s going to be not only Thompson seedless grapes pulled out after this harvest but also wine grapes throughout the San Joaquin Valley because they’re not making money, and they see their neighbors are making money with any of the various nut crops,” said Dibuduo.

Dibuduo is worried about this year’s outlook. He says winery demand for Valley grapes has taken a big hit because of international competition. Some grapes, he says, might not get sold.

Other crops like pears, apples and rice are also down from a year ago.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:30-07:00August 19th, 2014|

Native ecosystems blitzed by drought

Source: Alexandra Witze and Nature Magazine; Scientific American

Peter Moyle has seen a lot in five decades of roaming California’s streams and rivers and gathering data on the fish that live in them. But last month he saw something new: tributaries of the Navarro River, which rises in vineyards before snaking through a redwood forest to the Pacific, had dried up completely.

“They looked in July like they normally look in September or October, at the end of the dry season,” says Moyle, a fish biologist at the University of California, Davis.

Blame the drought. The Navarro and its hard-pressed inhabitants are just one example of stresses facing a parched state. From the towering Sierra Nevada mountains — where the snowpack this May was only 18% of the average — to the broad Sacramento–San Joaquin river delta, the record-setting drought is reshaping California’s ecosystems.

It is also giving researchers a glimpse of the future. California has always had an extreme hydrological cycle, with parching droughts interrupted by drenching Pacific storms (see ‘Extreme hydrology’). But scientists say that the current drought — now in its third year — holds lessons for what to expect 50 years from now.

“The west has always gone through this, but we’ll be going through it at perhaps a more rapid cycle,” says Mark Schwartz, a plant ecologist and director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment at the University of California, Davis. He and others are discussing the drought’s ecological consequences at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America, which runs from August 10 to 15 in Sacramento, California. He says that the state’s plant and animal species are at risk in part because California ecosystems are already highly modified and vulnerable to a variety of stresses.

Many of the state’s 129 species of native inland fish, including several types of salmon, are listed by federal or state agencies under various levels of endangerment. “We’re starting from a pretty low spot,” says Moyle. He hopes to use the current drought to explore where native fish have the best chances of surviving.

That could be in dammed streams such as Putah Creek near the Davis campus, where water flow can be controlled to optimize native fish survival. Another focus might be on spring-fed streams such as those that flow down from volcanic terrain in northernmost California and can survive drought much longer than snow-fed streams.

In the late 1970s, Moyle discovered that native fish in the Monterey Bay watershed recolonized their streams relatively quickly after a two-year drought. But today’s streams face greater ecological pressures, such as more dams and more non-native species competing for habitat.

Other challenges arise in the delta where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers meet, north-east of San Francisco. An invasive saltwater clam (Potamocorbula amurensis) has taken advantage of warming river waters and moved several kilometres upriver, says Janet Thompson, an aquatic ecologist with the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California.

Potamocorbula out-competes a freshwater clam (Corbicula fluminea), and accumulates about four times as much of the element selenium from agricultural run-off and refineries as its freshwater cousin does. When endangered sturgeon feed on Potamocorbula, the fish consume much more selenium than is optimal. “That’s the biggest shift that we’ve seen that’s of environmental concern,” says Thompson. “These are the kinds of things that can have a lasting effect on a predator species.”

Teasing out the drought’s effects on terrestrial animals is tougher. Researchers have documented drops in various California bird populations this year, such as mallard ducks (Anas platyrynchos) and tricolor blackbirds (Agelaius tricolor). But many other factors — especially habitat loss — also come into play, so it becomes hard to isolate the effects of drought.

The drought’s effects on larger animals such as bears are also uncertain. Anecdotal reports suggest that more bears than usual are showing up closer to people this year, says Jason Holley, a wildlife biologist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in Rancho Cordova. Within the space of six weeks this spring, four black bears appeared along the Sacramento River corridor, much farther out of the mountains than normal. “Those sorts of calls definitely pique your interest,” says Holley, who thinks that dry conditions in the mountains might be pushing bears closer to populated areas.

The longest-lasting effect could be on California’s forests, including its iconic giant sequoias. The drought has handed forest ecologists an unplanned experiment, says Phillip van Mantgem, a forestry expert at the USGS in Arcata, California, who is speaking at the Sacramento meeting.

Researchers are gathering data to examine whether thinning of plots in the forest, in part to reduce fire risk, might help trees do better under drought. Tests may also help to reveal the main mechanisms by which drought kills different tree species, whether by interrupting the flow of water within the tree or by starving it. “I’m really curious to see how this turns out,” van Mantgem says.

There should be plenty of time to gather data. Climatologists expect an El Niño weather pattern to form in the Pacific this year, which usually brings more rain and snow to parts of California (see Nature 508, 20–21; 2014). But the pending El Niño looks to be weaker than first expected, and may not have much, if any, influence on ending the drought. Chances are that the state will remain dry well into 2015.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:31-07:00August 14th, 2014|

Access to water proves key factor in farmland value

Source: Kate Campbell; Ag Alert

With drought adding new constraints on the state’s water supplies and farmers and ranchers increasingly turning to groundwater to sustain food production, lawmakers now are contemplating bills requiring changes to how groundwater basins are managed. If adopted, opponents said, the bills have the potential to undermine food production, reduce agricultural land values and hamper the overall economy.

Two pieces of legislation were each amended twice last week and now have identical language, requiring assessment of impacts on local ecosystems from groundwater pumping. The measures will be heard in their respective Appropriations Committees this week. The California Farm Bureau Federation and other agricultural and water organizations oppose both measures.

Jack Rice, CFBF associate counsel, warned of unintended consequences from laws that are hastily passed and implemented.

“Figuring out how to improve groundwater management in California requires figuring out the best possible solution for a highly complex problem,” Rice said. “That doesn’t mean throwing legislation together and passing it before people even have a chance to understand the implications of how a new groundwater management framework will operate. Poorly conceived and executed changes to groundwater management would be very disruptive.”

Among the issues hanging in the balance, he said, are farm and ranch land values, which depend on property rights for access to groundwater supplies, particularly when surface water supplies are unreliable due to drought, plus regulatory and water-system constraints.

In summarizing current farm and ranch real estate trends, the California Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers concluded in its 2014 trends assessment that acute drought threatens many growers this year, and long-term water policy will have long-term ramifications on the farm and ranch sector.

In a presentation to agricultural land appraisers this spring, the association said “property in areas with threatened ground and surface water is at risk, but property in areas with good water will continue to be attractive.”

Rice said discussions about potential changes to groundwater management raise questions about the ability of affected property to sustain anticipated cash flow.

“Those kinds of uncertainties can have an impact on the value of underlying assets, such as land values, property improvements and equipment,” he said.

The Salinas Valley, which produces much of the nation’s fresh produce, is in a unique situation, according to Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm Groot.

“We’ve been working for the past 60 years to manage our water resources—addressing everything from groundwater management and saltwater intrusion to surface supplies and flood control,” he said.

Because landowners have been engaged on many issues at the local level, Groot said, “we think another layer of regulation from the state will only hinder what we’re doing. It’s a hindrance we don’t need.”

Tony Toso, a Mariposa County rancher and professional farm and ranch land appraiser, said land appraisal values are based “on what has occurred in the rearview mirror,” but that how well water is managed at the local level has an impact on values.

“The market is going to start telling me as an appraiser what’s happening to land values in specific irrigation districts and groundwater basins based on reliability and quality of water supplies,” said Toso, who is a CFBF director.

“We do know groundwater is essential to ensuring a consistent agricultural land value,” he said. “Everyone knows that land without water isn’t worth much.”

Overall, appraisers said California farm and ranch land prices have held steady. However, rangeland without access to water has seen a decline in recent years.

Experts warned that not getting groundwater regulation right has the potential to strip some of California’s best farmland of its productive use and set off a decline in asset values.

“It’s hard to prove something that could happen in the future,” Toso said, “but if you don’t analyze water supply problems right, if regulations aren’t implemented right, if it’s turned into an emotional issue, then asset values could start heading for zero.”

Changes to groundwater management regulations could have a “huge” effect on local economies, said Tod Kimmelshue, a senior lender with Northern California Farm Credit, who explained that agricultural lenders always take into account water quantity and reliability for farm operations.

The question lenders need to determine, he said, is what is the highest and best use of a piece of land.

“Farmers need to be heavily involved in deciding who determines beneficial use,” said Kimmelshue, who is a past CFBF director. “It’s important for groundwater users to start monitoring how much water they’re using so they can document how much water they need for beneficial use.”

He said lenders are requiring increasingly more information on a property’s wells and access to groundwater, adding, “It’s a huge part of the collateral we consider when making individual lending decisions. But the impact of poorly designed groundwater management regulations could extend beyond affecting agricultural land values; there could be a ripple effect that moves through local economies from reduced property and business tax revenue and local jobs.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:32-07:00August 14th, 2014|

Understanding California’s Groundwater

California’s Groundwater Is in Crisis

Source: Janny Choy and Geoff McGhee; Water in the West

California’s groundwater is back in the spotlight. Largely invisible, lightly regulated and used by 85% of California’s population and much of the state’s $45 billion agriculture industry, groundwater is a crucial reserve that helps stave off catastrophe during drought periods like we’ve experienced over the past three years.

Unheralded, Underegulated and Overused, California’s Groundwater Is in Crisis

But after more than a century of unregulated use, California’s groundwater is in crisis – and with it the state’s hydrologic safety net. This carries profound economic, environmental, and infrastructure implications. How did it come to this, and what do we do now?

6 Million Californians Rely on Groundwater

Over 6 million Californians rely solely or primarily on groundwater for their water supply. Many of them reside in towns and cities in the Central Valley and along the Central California coast, where communities generally have limited local surface water options or don’t have the ability to finance other water supply sources.

For Others, Groundwater Complements the Surface Water Supply

Generally, though, groundwater is used alongside surface water to meet the state’s needs, which range from urban and industrial uses to irrigating roughly half the fruits and vegetables grown in the United States.

In normal and wet years, groundwater provides 30 to 40% of the water supply. It supplements surface water that is collected from snowmelt and rainfall then is stored and conveyed by a vast system of state and federal dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts.

During droughts, surface water availability can be sharply reduced, leaving water users to pump water from local wells. At times like these, groundwater can surge closer to 60% of water used statewide, and even higher in agricultural areas like the Central Valley.

When Rain and Snow Don’t Fall, Groundwater Prevents Disaster

This year, the third consecutive year of an extreme and extensive drought, state officials have warned that little or no surface water will be made available to most consumers. In turn, water providers are advising large users to pump their own groundwater.

As bad as this drought is, it is not uncommon. Droughts are a part of life in California, as anyone who has lived here long enough knows. But what most may not know is that groundwater has been getting us through droughts, including the last big one in the 1970s, and it is getting us through the one today.

In fact, 5 million acre feet of additional groundwater will be pumped in the Central Valley alone to make up for the 6.5 million acre feet in surface water reductions for agriculture in 2014. Even so, the economic loss for the Central Valley from this drought is expected to be $1.7 billion.

By Overusing Groundwater Today, We Are Living Off Our ‘Savings’

Writers often turn to financial metaphors to explain the importance of groundwater. As Tom Philpott of Mother Jones magazine wrote recently, “To live off surface water is to live off your paycheck … To rely on groundwater, though, is to live off of savings.”

Another metaphor frequently applied to groundwater is that of mining. In fact, “groundwater mining” is exactly what experts call nonrenewable groundwater use, where farmers “mine” water to grow almonds, alfalfa or grapes. You could even say they are “mining” those commodities themselves.

Recommendations for Groundwater Reform

Through numerous hearings, workshops, and consultations with experts and interest groups, recommendations by groups such as the California Water Foundation are coalescing around the concept of local groundwater management with the state serving as a backstop authority if local action has not occurred or is insufficient.

Next steps might include creating and empowering local groundwater management entities; requiring groundwater management plans; and defining the state’s role for assistance, oversight, enforcement and funding. Read more in the California Water Foundation’s report with recommendations for sustainable groundwater management.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-10-14T19:45:06-07:00August 12th, 2014|

Caifornia drought transforms global food

Source: Jeannette E. Warnert; ANR News Blog

Due to the California drought and what scientists believe will be a drier future, the state’s farmers will likely move away from commodity crops to focus on high-value products like almonds, pistachios and wine grapes, according to Richard Howitt, agricultural economist at UC Davis. Howitt was used as a source in a lengthy story on Bloomberg.com about repercussions worldwide of the three-year dry spell in the Golden State.

Another source was Dan Sumner, director of the UC Agricultural Issues Center. He said shifts in California ag trends reverberate globally.

“It’s a really big deal,” Sumner said. “Some crops simply grow better here than anyplace else, and our location gives us access to markets you don’t have elsewhere.”

California is the United States’ top dairy producer and grows half of the country’s fruit. In 2012, almonds became the state’s second-most valuable ag crop. The Washington Post reported that in the U.S., almond consumption has grown by more than 220 percent since 2005. In the late 2010s, almonds surpassed the long-running nut leader peanuts (not including peanut butter) in per capita consumption.

The Bloomberg article opened with the story the Fred Starrh‘s family farm in Kern County. The Starrh family was a prominent cotton grower for more than 70 years. The shifting global market and rising water prices prompted the family to replace more of their cotton plants with almonds.

“I can’t pay $1,000 an acre-foot (of water) to grow cotton,” said Starrh, 85.

California grows four-fifths of the world’s almonds, the Bloomberg story said, using enough water to meet the needs of 75 percent of the state’s population. An advocate for bigger water supplies for cities suggests in the story that farmers should be profitable, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of urban water ratepayers.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:32-07:00August 12th, 2014|

Water Use in California – Analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC)

Source: Jeffrey Mount and Jay Lund, UC Davis, and Emma Freeman, PPIC

Water in California is shared across three main sectors. Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. However, the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins, and can be used again.

Environmental water use falls into four categories: water in rivers protected as “wild and scenic” under federal and state laws, water required for maintaining habitat within streams, water that supports wetlands within wildlife preserves, and water needed to maintain water quality for agricultural and urban use. Most water allocated to the environment does not affect other water uses.

More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes. In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33%, compared to 53% agricultural and 14% urban).

Agricultural water use is holding steady even while the economic value of farm production is growing. Approximately nine million acres of farmland in California are irrigated, representing roughly 80% of all human water use. Higher revenue perennial crops—nuts, grapes, and other fruit—have increased as a share of irrigated crop acreage (from 27% in 1998 to 32% in 2010 statewide, and from 33% to 40% in the southern Central Valley).

This shift, plus rising crop yields, has increased the value of farm output (from $16.3 billion of gross state product in 1998 to $22.3 billion in 2010, in 2010 dollars), thereby increasing the value of agricultural water used. But even as the agricultural economy is growing, the rest of the economy is growing faster. Today, farm production and food processing only generate about 2% of California’s gross state product, down from about 5% in the early 1960s.

Despite population growth, total urban water use is also holding steady. The San Francisco Bay and South Coast regions account for most urban water use in California. These regions rely heavily on water imported from other parts of the state. Roughly half of urban water use is for residential and commercial landscaping. Despite population growth and urban expansion, total urban water use has remained roughly constant over the past 20 years.

Per-capita water use has declined significantly—from 232 gallons per day in 1990 to 178 gallons per day in 2010—reflecting substantial efforts to reduce water use through pricing incentives and mandatory installation of water saving technologies like low-flow toilets and shower heads. Coastal regions use far less water per capita than inland regions—145 gallons per day compared with 276 gallons per day in 2010—largely because of less landscape watering.

The current drought exposes major water use challenges. In the Central Valley, where most agricultural water use occurs, the failure to manage groundwater sustainably limits its availability as a drought reserve. The increase in perennial crops—which need to be watered every year—has made the region even more vulnerable. In urban areas, the greatest potential for further water savings lies in reducing landscaping irrigation—a shift requiring behavioral changes, not just the adoption of new technology.

Finally, state and federal regulators must make tough decisions about how and when to allocate water to the environment during a drought. They are faced with balancing short-term economic impacts on urban and agricultural water users against long-term harm—even risk of extinction—of fish and wildlife.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:33:33-07:00August 11th, 2014|

Harlan Ranch Bulldozes Citrus Trees Due to No Water

Harlan Ranch Loses More than Just Trees

Shawn Stevenson is the Vice President of Harlan Ranch, a third-generation family-owned and operated farm located in Fresno County. He says this is the toughest time the ranch has experienced in its history.

Stevenson spoke as a bulldozer uprooted productive trees last week. “Once we finished pushing these trees, we’re going to be out about 400 acres of the 1200 acres that’s pushed. In addition, we have another 140 acres we’re just giving enough water to barely keep alive,” said Stevenson. “The balance of our crops are receiving 66 percent of their normal water. So no matter what kind of crop that is out here on Harlan Ranch this year, it’s a very tough year as far as water goes,” he added.

Stevenson explained that the lack of water isn’t just about crops, but the people involved as well.

“There’s not enough water. It impacts the trees. It impacts our employees. Earlier this year I had my first layoffs I ever done because of lack of work, and that’s because we are pushing out so many trees. About 30 percent of our employees were let go. That was the probably the most devastating time that I’ve faced here,” said Stevenson.

He added that this reaches far more than just his farm, that the drought permeates all aspects of the industry, not just growers.

Stevenson predicted that this coming season, he’ll produce and deliver to the packing house about 25 percent of the volume of citrus produced in the past year. “That impacts not only our employees but the packers at the packing house, the people who sell the fruit, and the people we buy pesticides and fertilizers from,” Stevenson added.

With drought reaching the majority of the state, with 58 percent of California at the highest drought-level, according to a U.S. Drought Monitor report, some farmers are thinking about the future of the industry in California.

“Now, I understand not all of Fresno and not all of California looks this bad, but imagine that we’re like the “canary in the coal mine”. This is what the future of California looks like. This kind of devastation that you see here is what our future looks like. If we continue to have no or little surface water deliveries, and as the groundwater situation continues to deteriorate. Without more surface water, without more water supplies, this is the future of the Central Valley,” said Stevenson.

“Several months ago, I looked back at what the worst case scenario would be and started making plans for that worst case scenario. And, the worst case scenario is about right on track. I don’t think a lot of people realize that is like a natural disaster, like Hurricane Katrina, or a wildfire or an earthquake, it’s just going to take a lot longer time to happen. It’s going to happen slowly—the devastation to our economy, to peoples’ lives, to whole communities,” he said.

Stevenson also mentioned communities such as Mendota and Orange Cove, which rely completely on the agriculture industry for employment, and added, “without work, this can leave entire cities in dire situations.”

“Our water infrastructure has been far out-stripped by the people in this state, so it’s time we update it and figure out how to get more water to more people in the state and try to preserve agriculture for our state, our country, and our world,” Stevenson said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:12-07:00August 3rd, 2014|

Modesto Irrigation District leaders hustling to get growers more water

By: Garth Stapley; The Modesto Bee

Nut farmers and other Modesto Irrigation District customers can wait to water crops as late as Oct. 3. That’s two weeks later than initially planned, giving trees a better chance of surviving the drought and being healthy enough to produce again next year.

The MID board also agreed Tuesday to accommodate another round of farmer-to-farmer water transfers with a Sept. 2 application deadline. And the district might offer to sell some extra water reserved in April by a few farmers who haven’t asked or paid for it since then.

Faced with a third consecutive dry winter, district officials in February said the irrigation season would end Sept. 19, several weeks earlier than usual, and capped deliveries at 24 inches per acre, down from 36 in a normal year.

But farmers, especially those raising almonds, have been pressing for later deliveries.

Citing University of California research, Ron Fisher said trees that don’t drink just after harvest can lose 74 percent of nuts the following year.

Some almond varieties, such as padre, mission, Monterey and Fritz, harvest later than Sept. 19, growers told the board.

“I’ve farmed almonds over 50 years and I’ve never got my harvest completed by Oct. 3,” said Cecil Hensley, a former board member. “There is no use having (water) next year if we don’t keep our trees alive.”

Farmers won’t get more than their fair share with the extension; Tuesday’s unanimous vote simply allows them to apply their allotment later in the year, explained board member Jake Wenger, who farms.

Board Chairman Nick Blom, also a grower, reminded people that they can rent district wells and canals after the regular season ends, for late-season irrigating.

“It’s not the purest snow water, but it’s water,” Blom said.

To augment deliveries, scores of farmers this year have taken advantage of new programs allowing them to buy or sell MID shares in fixed-price transfers managed by the district or open-market sales at any agreed-upon price.

The district has accommodated more than 100 open-market deals for farmers who submitted transfer requests by deadlines of June 1, July 1 and Friday. Tuesday’s 4-1 vote, with Larry Byrd dissenting, adds a fourth deadline of Sept. 2.

“This gives everyone a little more time and flexibility,” Modesto farmer Aaron Miller said.

Wenger initially suggested an Aug. 15 deadline. Attorneys Stacy Henderson and Bob Fores said their clients would appreciate more time and noted that MID General Manager Roger VanHoy had acknowledged that his staff has experienced no difficulty processing transfer requests.

In April, 26 farmers indicated interest in the district’s allocation return program, meaning they might want to sell a portion or all of their MID water shares, or buy water given up by others. The cost was $200 per acre-foot on either end.

The district set aside enough water to cover those potential deals, but a handful of farmers – fewer than a dozen, said civil engineering manager John Davids – did not sign contracts and have not paid for the extra water they initially said they might buy.

Davids did not know how much water remains in that pot, but said it represents a potential $300,000 loss. Board member John Mensinger said that’s “regrettable” and Wenger suggested selling the water to others in what VanHoy termed “something like a last call.”

“Let’s make it available. I think people would take us up on it,” Wenger said.

VanHoy said he will suggest rules for such deals at a future meeting.

The board next meets at 9 a.m. Tuesday at 1231 11th St., Modesto.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:12-07:00July 31st, 2014|

Farmers Markets Try to Weather the Drought

Source: Ching Lee; Ag Alert

With summer harvest in full swing and farmers markets brimming with the usual variety of produce, the effects of the drought may not be immediately apparent to shoppers–but farmers who work those markets tell a different story.

Kern County farmer Greg Tesch, who works five farmers markets in his region and runs three of them, relies entirely on surface water to farm more than 70 different fruits, vegetables, herbs and cut flowers. Tesch said he’s not selling his usual array of products this year.

He said he couldn’t plant strawberries last fall because the canal that feeds his farm went dry in August. Half his cherry trees did not survive, so he had fewer cherries to sell. And because he did not have water deliveries until mid-March, he was unable to plant certain crops on time, missing an important early-season niche.

“We’re typically able to sell things that are slightly out of season,” he said. “The water wasn’t available, so we had to plant when a lot of other people planted, and so there is less demand for our product at farmers markets, as well as wholesale.”

He said the late start also forced him to lower his prices because he now faces “a glut of produce all at one time” and “competing against stores in the wrong time of year.”

Looking ahead, Tesch said he plans to scale back his vegetable production and plant more deep-rooted crops, most likely cherries on drought-tolerant rootstocks. He said he wants to grow crops that mature in the spring, which he acknowledged will affect his farmers-market business.

Some farmers who have better access to water were not necessarily spared from impacts of the drought. In San Diego County, Eli Hofshi, who uses mainly municipal water for irrigation, said he has stopped watering his winter vegetables and will not harvest them because his water bills have become unaffordable.

He said while certain crops such as tomatoes, squash and trees can handle some water stress, vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts become too bitter if not irrigated. In hindsight, he said he should not have planted the winter vegetables.

“We just didn’t realize it was going to be this costly,” he said. “We planted them last fall and they’ve just now started to produce. So it was a bad mistake. It’s been a double loss by putting the water in, doing the labor.”

With the loss of product, Hofshi said he’s had to buy from other farmers to fill in at his farm stand, but he’s not able to do that at the farmers market, where he’s taking a loss, despite raising prices.

“People are definitely balking at the prices right now,” he said. “They don’t like to pay (more). But we absolutely had to do it, with the cost of water and not to mention we’ve had a minimum-wage increase.”

Fresno County blueberry farmer Kim Sorensen, whose season ended earlier this month, said she also had to raise prices this year—by about 8 percent—to cover some of her higher production costs from having to pump water during the winter. While her customers noticed the price increase, she said most of them understood.

“We lost a little business I think, but not a tremendous amount just because most of what we do is in more affluent areas,” she said.

Farms in other parts of the state where there’s more water also reported increased production costs, with some having to reduce their production or not grow more thirsty crops in order to save water.

San Joaquin County farmer Beatriz Jimenez said she didn’t grow as much okra, eggplant and peppers. Cesar Cuebas, who works for Perry’s Garden Highway Gardens in Sacramento County, said the farm cut at least 30 percent of its production of crops such as sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers and watermelon. And El Dorado County farmer Patrick Hoover said he restricted water on some of his crops, such as apples, and may have smaller fruit this year.

“The drought is not just about water,” said Dan Best, general counsel of the California Federation of Certified Farmers Markets, noting that the warm winter did not give trees such as cherries enough chill hours to set fruit, leaving many growers with a very small crop or nothing to sell.

But for the most part, farmers-market managers reported little change in the amount and variety of products selling at their markets, and said any price increases have been minimal.

Joe Schirmer, who grows a variety of vegetables in Santa Cruz County, said warm, sunny winter weather increased patron attendance at farmers markets, which was good for business. With access to adequate groundwater supplies, he said he was able to extend his growing season during the winter.

“Things really were productive in the wintertime, so we actually did pretty well because of the drought,” he said.

And while having to irrigate through the winter definitely increased his costs, he said the extra production and sales probably resulted in a net gain for his farm.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:34:14-07:00July 23rd, 2014|