Tag Archive for: San Joaquin Valley

Wells Are Failing in Southeastern Madera County. What to Know About the Water Situation

/in , , /by /The Fresno Beeby Danielle Bergstrom

On Sunday evening, a well motor failed in a Madera Ranchos community water system that serves around 1,000 homes. Last week, another well pump stopped working in Parksdale, southeast of Madera. Neither community has lost water service. Both are experiencing low pressure. Madera County Public Works runs both water systems. From Madera Acres to the Bonadelle Ranchos, private wells are running dry at an alarming rate. Self-Help Enterprises, an organization that supports communities with water challenges, has been tracking the problem.

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Opinion: How Better Data Can Help California Avoid a Drinking Water Crisis

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Rich Pauloo and Alva Escriva-Bou

Drought is here — and we’re beginning to feel the effects. A majority of affected households during the last drought were in the San Joaquin Valley and these same communities are among the most vulnerable this time. As California faces a second year of drought, many are left to wonder, “What can be done to help?” Last time, small rural communities reliant on shallow wells — many of them communities of color — were among the most affected. More than 2,600 households reported losing access to water because their wells went dry between 2012–16. (That number is likely an undercount as reporting was voluntary.) Much has changed however since the 2012–16 drought.

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Calif. Senate Advances Bill to Spend $785mil to Repair Valley Canals

/in , /by /The Sunby Alex Tavlian

A bill aimed at improving the Valley’s two largest canal systems from continued subsidence-driven damage advanced through one house of the California State Legislature on Friday.

Senate Bill 559, a top priority for legislators on both side of the aisle in the San Joaquin Valley and led by Sen. Melissa Hurtado (D–Sanger), seeks to dedicate $785 million in spending for improvements to four sets of waterways, spearheaded by two canals servicing the Central Valley Project: the Delta-Mendota Canal and the Friant-Kern Canal.

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The Sinking Central Valley Town

/in , /by /SJV Waterby Lois Henry

In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using satellite technology to fully grasp. Corcoran is sinking. Over the past 14 years, the town has sunk as much as 11.5 feet in some places — enough to swallow the entire first floor of a two-story house and to at times make Corcoran one of the fastest-sinking areas in the country, according to experts with the United States Geological Survey.

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Facing a Drought, California’s Farmers Make Hard Choices

/in , , /by /The Mercury Newsby Lisa M. Krieger

In wetter times, these feathery beds of asparagus would produce generations of tender green spears, reaching for the vast San Joaquin Valley sky.

On Monday they were disked into the dry dirt, their long lives cut short by unreliable and expensive water.

“It’s a really sad day,” said Fresno County’s Joe Del Bosque, who has destroyed 100 acres of organic asparagus so he can divert precious water to more valuable melons. “The water is so uncertain this year. We didn’t think we’d have enough to carry it through.”

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Emergency Water Urged for Rural Latino Communities Before California Drought Worsens

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jessica Flores

California lawmakers should take prompt action before drought conditions worsen by sending emergency drinking water to vulnerable communities in parched regions of the state, legislative advisers say.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office released a report last week providing recommendations on how to address increasingly dry conditions throughout the state. Based on an analysis of the state’s previous efforts for the last major drought, from 2012 to 2016, analysts said lawmakers should start sending emergency water supplies to vulnerable communities in the San Joaquin Valley region, prepare to remove dead and dying trees that can increase the risk of severe wildfires, and hire additional staff, among other actions.

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Could This $36 Million Central Valley River Restoration Project Help with California’s Droughts?

/in , , , /by /San Francisco Chronicle by Tara Duggan

As California enters what could be a record-breaking drought, a just-completed nine-year floodplain restoration project at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers offers an ambitious attempt at one mitigation solution.

At a 1,600-acre former dairy ranch called Dos Rios, the conservation organization River Partners removed berms that farmers had originally constructed to protect their alfalfa and wheat crops from the river. It turned fields into seasonal pools where endangered baby salmon and migratory birds can rest, and water can trickle down to refill aquifers. Last month, it planted the last of more than 350,000 native grasses, shrubs and trees — acres of towering willows, flowering elderberry and creeping wild rye chosen to thrive in flood or drought.

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Wells Dry Up, Crops Imperiled, Workers in Limbo as California Drought Grips San Joaquin Valley

/in , , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Louis Sahagún

As yet another season of drought returns to California, the mood has grown increasingly grim across the vast and fertile San Joaquin Valley. Renowned for its bounty of dairies, row crops, grapes, almonds, pistachios and fruit trees, this agricultural heartland is still reeling from the effects of the last punishing drought, which left the region geologically depressed and mentally traumatized. Now, as the valley braces for another dry spell of undetermined duration, some are openly questioning the future of farming here, even as legislative representatives call on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a drought emergency. Many small, predominantly Latino communities also face the risk of having their wells run dry.

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Opinion: As Drought Hits California, Long-Term Issues Loom

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

By the time this column is published, Northern California may be receiving some much-needed rain, and possibly some snow. However, late-season precipitation does not change the reality that California is in one of its periodic droughts after two dry years.

Major Northern California reservoirs are only about half-full due to scanty runoff from mountain snowpacks, farmers are getting tiny percentages of their normal water allotments, and local water agencies are beginning to impose restrictions on household use.

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California Wells Will Go Dry this Summer. ‘Alarm Bells are Sounding’ in the Valley

/in , /by /The Fresno Beeby Monica Vaughan

Thousands of wells that bring water to San Joaquin Valley homes are at risk of drying up this summer, leaving families without running water for drinking, cleaning and bathing. While no one knows the extent of the threat from this second year of drought conditions, Jonathan Nelson with the Community Water Center says “the alarm bells are sounding.”

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