California Drought Update
by Patrick Ruckert
July 16, 2015
http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org
https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate
The State Water Board vs. the Farmers and Water Districts
Round 1
On July 10, a Sacramento County judge blocked the state from enforcing an irrigation curtailment letter, ruling that the letter ordering curtailment violated due process. The ruling was hailed by water districts and farmers as a victory for California agriculture and the rule of law. But, the California State Water Resources Board immediately responded, by saying, “so what, we will do it anyway.”
As I reported in my California Drought Reports of June 25 and July 2, the Water Board cannot back down or their entire juggling act of shifting water supplies from one emergency to another will collapse. Submission to their dictates must be 100 percent. It is similar to the situation in Greece, where the submission of the Greek people to their own destruction by the dictates of the European monetary authorities was enforced by the complete cut-off of the Greek banks from all funds. As in Greece, also in California, these fascist policies will not solve either the collapse of the European system, not the collapse of California’s ability to sustain its population. The motivation is both cases is depopulation. Kill the Greeks by austerity, and kill Californians by cutting off their water.
California Drought Update for June 25, 2015
https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate/posts/729479270495108
California Drought Update for July 2, 2015
https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate/posts/731999950243040
Here is the report from the Stockton Record of July 10 on the judge’s decision:
“Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne W. L. Chang granted a temporary restraining order preventing the State Water Resources Control Board from “taking any action” against the West Side Irrigation District. She wrote that the curtailment letters, “including the requirement that recipients sign a compliance certification confirming cessation of diversion, result in a taking of petitioners’ property rights without a pre-deprivation hearing.”
“The state has said the curtailment letters require water users to stop diverting, or potentially face significant penalties. In court documents, however, state attorneys described the letters as merely advisory in nature.
“Water districts were put in the position of either choosing to continue to divert and risk the penalties, or shutting off their water supply and killing their crops.
“While today’s decision applies directly only to the West Side district, Herum said all curtailments sent to water users are now “equally unconstitutional.” A total of 9,329 water rights have been cut off so far this year, according to the state.”
But, not backing down, the Water Board issued this statement in response to the ruling:
“The State Water Board has received and is reviewing the Sacramento Superior Court’s Order After Hearing in the West Side Irrigation District litigation challenging the curtailment notices. Judge Chang’s order is limited in scope and only concerns the specific form of notice letter sent in May and June by the Division of Water Rights. While the order finds fault with the language of the notice, the order states: “To be clear, [the Water Board and its staff] are free to exercise their statutory authority to enforce the Water Code as to any water user, including these Petitioners, if it deems them to be in violation of any provisions of the Water Code, so long as the bases for said action are not the Curtailment Letters.
“Pursuant to section 1052 of the Water Code, unauthorized diversions during the drought emergency are subject to enhanced penalties of up to $1,000 per day and $2,500 per acre-foot of water diverted. Diversion of water when no water is available pursuant to a diverter’s water right constitutes an unauthorized diversion and a trespass under Water Code section 1052. Any such enforcement action would occur only after notice and an opportunity for hearing pursuant to the Water Code. This has been the consistent position of the State Water Board staff, and was specifically identified in the curtailment notices sent in May and June.
“The Court has provided an opportunity for additional briefing on these issues with a further hearing on the matter. The Board looks forward to this this opportunity for additional briefing and to engaging with the petitioners on these issues. The Superior Court’s Order is limited to the parties in this case.”
Round 2
On July 15, the Water Board reissued the cease and desist order, modified to reflect the judge’s decision, but again stating that the board has the power to cut-off farmers and water districts from all surface water. And those who do not obey will be hit by the full power of the state. Here is are the relevant excerpts from the Water Board’s letter:
Today the State Water Board partially rescinded and reissued a water supply availability notice to more than 4,600 holders of over 9,300 junior and senior water rights to clarify that although previous notices were only advisory, diverting water where none is legally available could result in significant penalties.
Due to the ongoing drought, the State Water Board previously issued notices to some water rights holders advising of the drought and the resulting lack of surface water availability to serve those rights. In response to a recent Sacramento Superior Court ruling, today’s notice clarifies the following:
Based on supply and demand information available to the Board, water is unavailable to serve the priority of rights identified in the notices.
There is no order to stop taking water, but diversions when there is no available water for groups of diverters under their priority of rights are unauthorized and subject to enforcement by the State Water Board.
Water right holders may voluntarily provide information about any domestic water system directives for the Board’s consideration.
The Board also emphasized that the recent court ruling explicitly upheld the State Water Board’s authority to enforce the Water Code. The court ruling states: “To be clear, [the Water Board and its staff] are free to exercise their statutory authority to enforce the Water Code as to any water user, including these Petitioners, if it deems them to be in violation of any provisions of the Water Code, so long as the bases for said action are not the Curtailment Letters.”
The Water Board also issued a fact sheet to explain exactly what the order meant. From the fact sheet:
“You may only divert water if there is enough for you to do so under your priority of right. The State Water Board staff has determined based upon available data that, as of the date of the original notice, there is not enough water in the system for water right holders with your priority to divert unless you have an alternative water source or some other legal basis for diverting water. If you continue to divert water and are unable to demonstrate your diversion is authorized under California’s water rights priority system, you may be subject to administrative or civil enforcement seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties
“The Clarification Notice reminds water rights holders that diversion when there is no available water under the priority of the right is unauthorized diversion and use, subject to enforcement by the State Water Board. Penalties of up to $1,000 per day of violation and $2,500 for each acre-foot diverted or used in excess of water available to the water right priority may be assessed.”
Round 3
On July 16, the first enforcement order was issued by the board to the West Side Irrigation District. Here is an excerpt of the Water Board’s announcement of the order:
The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) has issued a draft Cease and Desist Order against the West Side Irrigation District of Tracy for the unauthorized diversion or use of water. This is the first water right enforcement action related to drought conditions in 2015.
The West Side Irrigation District may request a hearing before the State Water Board within 20 days of receiving the draft Cease and Desist Order. If the district does not come into compliance, or timely request a hearing, the State Water Board will adopt the order. If the district refuses to comply with the Cease and Desist Order as adopted, it may be subject to penalties of up to $10,000 for each day of noncompliance, and may be referred to the Office of the Attorney General for further action.
Round 4: Next Week
El Nino: Please Don’t Drool; It May Not Be What You Are Wishing For
The flurry of reports this past week forecasting the likelihood of an El Nino event this winter are impossible to not report here. While forecasters are now saying that there is a 90 percent chance of a strong El Nino, like the one that brought a deluge of precipitation to the state in the winter of1997-98, there is still a note of caution in those forecasts that should be noted. Capital Press, the West’s Ag website, as it describes itself, had this headline on July 14, “Strong El Nino likely this winter, but no end of drought seen.” The author of the article, Tim Hearden wrote:
“Federal forecasters now say there’s a 90 percent chance that significant El Nino conditions will last throughout the winter, bringing the chance of more storms into drought-parched California. But forecasters warn that storms may not be enough to end the drought.
“Still, a stubborn ridge of high pressure that’s contributed to the drought may prevent the anomalous rains of a super El Nino such as 1997-98, asserts Brett Anderson, an AccuWeather senior meteorologist.
“Michelle Mead, a National Weather Service warning coordinator in Sacramento, agrees. She has consistently urged caution amid some media reports that suggested this could be a historically wet winter.
“And one wet winter may not be enough to end the drought, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bernie Rayno advises.
“‘Current rain deficits are way too large,’ Rayno said in an online weather bulletin. ‘Even if California receives that rain that fell in 1997-98, it will not come close to ending the long-term drought.’”
El Niños occur when warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific develop, and pump extra moisture and energy into the atmosphere, which can shift and amplify the storm track along the West Coast and much of North America. That often times brings torrential rains to California, while depriving the Northwest states of their usual wet winters. Strong El Ninos occur when those Pacific waters are at least 1.5 degrees Celsius above normal. At this time the water temperatures are about 2 degrees Celsius above normal. Yet, even a strong El Nino could be blocked from delivering rain and snow at least to Northern California, where it is most needed. A ridge of high pressure over a huge area of warm water off the Pacific coast of North America could, like it has the last two winters, steer storms around California.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
From thousands of homes without running water, to crops in the ground being cut-off from water, to fallowed land and stunted crops, the consequences of the drought and the criminal policies that created the water crisis, weekly, piles up a list that is impossible to catalog here. Here are just two reports of such new developments.
The Los Angeles Times reported on July 8:
“Los Angeles Department of Water and Power officials are seeking an increase in rates over the next five years in a bid to boost water conservation amid California’s drought and expand repairs of crumbling water mains and electricity infrastructure.
“The rate increase is significant because it puts the greatest financial pressure on the heaviest residential water users — those who consume roughly 20,000 gallons of water a month and make up 10% of the department’s customer base. For those users, water bills would increase 34% by 2021.”
The brutal and sadistic nature of the Brownshirts is probably no where better demonstrated in this report by vice.com, “In the Face of Drought, California Prisons Are Restricting Inmates’ Shower and Toilet Use,” on July 14, By Jessica Pishko, excerpted below. The full article is here:
“As part of mandatory drought restrictions announced in April, Governor Jerry Brown ordered public agencies to reduce their water consumption by 25 percent. Officials at the 34 prisons operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) have responded by restricting inmates’ shower privileges, ability to flush their cells’ toilets, and access to clean clothes, according to interviews with inmates.
“At San Quentin State Prison, a men’s facility about 20 miles north of San Francisco, most inmates have been restricted to three showers a week for a maximum of five minutes each….
“According to inmates, prisoners at San Quentin have traditionally used showers to wash their clothing, because they are only provided three clean pairs of underwear per week and laundry services are unreliable.”
Commentary
The following commentary published early this week by Erik Wilson, one of the founders of the face book group My Job Depends on Ag, is reproduced in full here because it is one of the best statements I have found on the importance of Central Valley agriculture for the nation and humanity, written by a man who lives agriculture. Just two months old, the face book group now has 32,000 members.
Why farm a desert?
By Erik Wilson
My Job Depends on Ag
https://www.facebook.com/groups/694281934016818/
Well….first let’s take a look back into the actual truth of what central valley looked like before a plow touched the soil. A Famous explorer described this valley as being abundant in birds and geese of all kinds, antelope and elk in herds by the thousands, rich in fir and pelts, and water in abundance. That was a sumarization of Jedediah Smith’s view of the cental valley.
It is true that this Valley can be like that of a desert. The summers are long and hot and all the grass turns brown by the end of April.
It is also true the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valley have the single largest patch of Class 1 soil in the world. Which means there is no other place in the entire world in one location with this much fertile soil. The best of the best. These soils produce over 400 different crops.
People say, why do you they farm a desert? And that may sound unreasonable to do so. But our semi-arid climate is no more unique than the 25 million who also live in the desert called Los Angeles. The mountains surrounding LA don’t provide the city itself with enough water to support life there.
Farming is a risky venture every single year. And growing crops in the San Joaquin Valley makes so much sense when you understand the WHY.
For those that have lived your whole lives in the central valley, you know that a big thunderstorm is a rare occurrence and it usually makes for big news. You can usually count on having dry weather once the month of May begins and we don’t think about rain till Halloween. This is period of relative tranquil weather is the number 1 reason we can do what we do. See…it is too risky to grow raisins anywhere else, why, because of the unpredictable rain that occurs in every other state, growing cherries is also very risky, a rain storm on those at the wrong time, you have a disaster. Any rain on canning tomatoes is cause for great concern because mold can ruin the whole crop. The fresh food market is an industry that has food safety as it’s number 1 priority. And our humid free summers and lack of any rain during the growing season doesn’t promote soil borne pathegons that can plaque other regions. All the wonderful produce Salinas grows also can be done because of our long periods of dry weather. It is big money to grow all the produce they grow and it would be an extremely risky proposition to grow those crops where summer thunderstorms are the norm….and that includes most of USA. Farmers are not stupid….they are the smartest business folk there is. If these so called giant Ag corporations could do what they do somewhere else where there is water don’t you think they would have left?
Californians should be proud of what takes place here. The attention to food and employee safety is second to none. I could write a book about each of the 400 crops grown here and the Why….but you get my point.
This valley may be very dry and seem like a desert but it’s past tells a very different story. You don’t have a self sustaining population of American Indians residing in the central valley without food and water. They lived here and were highly successful at doing just that.
The entire area of Southern California is completely unsustainable without those delta pumps. They too, by their own measure live in a desert. From Santa Barbara to San Francisco the whole coast is no different. They too, are artificially supported by water projects and dams.
While we work in the honorable profession of feeding and clothing people we have our own America citizens angry at the farmers because their lawn is now brown. But they don’t realize that the very thing that gives them those green lawns life, comes from the same place that grows their food. So why is it we have to move!! California only grew in the 1870’s and beyond because it was Agriculture that led the way for the state to grow. You can do all your city work in any city. Not every field can make your food like this Valley can.
Later Erik added this note:
Also we can grow 2 crops on the same ground, produce 10 tons per acre of Alfalfa in 7 to 9 cuttings, we can grow 5 bale cotton, we can grow 90 ton an acre of canning tomatoes. We can grow 7 tons an acre of beardless wheat and follow that with a 1,500 carton per acre honeydew field and then have an Onion for seed crop planted before winter. You cannot do that anywhere else.
