Drought Impacts....

[Darian]

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal, today, concerning the impact of earlier dry weather pattern on growers in the Southern San Joaquin Valley. Check it out:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...002529626.html

Looks like a lot of land will not be cultivated this year.

[Jgoding]

I was gonna get on my soap box.... but I'm refraining because it'll just get ugly.

[Mike O]

It's an election year!!lotta those people down there already proved they own our Senators when it comes to this stuff

[Darian]

Altho I'm an outspoken critic of big-ag, I only posted the article to add some perspective to our ongoing water wars. Sometimes it's good to hear the other guys point of view. We've got to remember that several of our BB members are growers as well as fly fisherman....

[huntindog]

far more ag land has been developed (plowed, deep ripped, etc.) than we have water to irrigate it with even in normal years...Ca water is over allocated and under priced....plow it all, who cares if there isnt water. we can complain later.

[Darian]

Drought, like most everything else, is a two edged sword. On one hand it has the negative impacts on growers and the local economy mentioned in the article. On the other, it forces west side growers who would cultivate on lands that're loaded with salts to retire that land at least temporarily.

Also, as a result of reduced allocations, there should be an accompanying reduction in the amount of ground and surface water pollution due to drainage from those same lands.

While I agree that we've over committed our existing water supplies, there are a bunch of other users who contribute to that problem besides growers and urban users. Just one example is "fracking." The oil/Gas industry routinely injects chemicals with water to release/recover gas/oil. For every barrel of oil extracted, 6-9 barrels of polluted water is produced. in one instance near Bakersfield the waste water is dumped into an uncapped/unlined pond and left to seep into groundwater.