Archive of posts filed under the California category.

UC team: California ag “positioned to weather this drought”

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The latest analysis by a University of California team has concluded (pdf) that agriculture in that state is doing pretty well in the current drought, all things considered: The current drought is causing large economic losses but given innovative responses by farmers and others, those losses have been manageable and California agriculture is positioned to …

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Another example of how drought hits the poor

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From the Washington Post: A recent laboratory test found that water in St. Anthony’s shallow well has twice the concentration of arsenic considered safe. For many Californians, the state’s long drought has meant small inconveniences such as shorter showers and restrictions on watering lawns. But in two rural valleys, the Coachella southeast of Los Angeles and …

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Public Policy Institute of California water mailing list

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The work of Ellen Hanak and her colleagues at the Public Policy Institute of California’s water project is a model for provision of a crucial public good in water policy processes: independent information to help build a shared understanding of the resource and its use. You can sign up here to get on their mailing …

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Some thoughts on the bathtub ring and Lake Mead’s historic drop below 1,075

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I’ve had my head down the last ten days reading and writing about 1940s and ’50s-era Los Angeles water management, and I look up to see that Lake Mead last week dropped below elevation 1,075, a level freighted with meaning. But what meaning, exactly? Drew Beckwith at Western Resource Advocates, in Caitlin McGlade’s story, wins for …

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Drought adaptive capacity, Kings County CA edition

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In your latest reminder that California agriculture has shown some remarkable capacity to adapt to that state’s crushing drought, Todd Fitchette in Western Farm Press reports that total agricultural farm gate receipts in Kings County, in California’s drought-devastated southern Central Valley, were up 9 percent last year: Kings County agricultural values advanced 9 percent from …

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Your 1952 Aquifer Queen of Central Water Basin

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Los Angeles water, management, circa 1952: There are many reasons for the diminishing underground water supply. Foremost among them, probably, is the vastly increased demand created by an unprecedented population influx and the constant press of industrial expansion. But there are important contributory reasons. Prolonged dry spells of little or no rain leave water-bearing aquifers …

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Arizona’s Colorado River zeitgeist

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In this morning’s Arizona Star, Tucson journalist Tony Davis asks, “Is California trying to take our water?” In journalism, there’s a joke known as “Betteridge’s Law“: “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.” As Tony’s story strongly suggests, the notion making the rounds these days in some Arizona political …

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Running out water – again with the governance

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This Alex Breitler story reminds how running out of water is almost invariably as much a problem of governance as much as it is of drought: MOUNTAIN HOUSE — Years before the first shovelful of earth was turned on this master-plan community near Tracy, developers and county officials knew that its sole source of water could …

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