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Central Valley Water - CA


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I've heard a few of you folks in CA mention water problems lately; but like most regional issues, it has seemed far away and not a big deal.

 

Not anymore.

 

I just read a Scientific American article regarding this loss not only of sufficient surface water, but groundwater as well. And then is seems that the clay that normally holds groundwater in the Valley has dried out so thoroughly that, even if water returns, the clay will be unable to hold it. The clay layer has "collapsed", with drops in some areas of 2" or more.

 

Some of the cited experts are predicting the ultimate failure of agriculture in the region, and not far off.

 

When I think of CA, I think of oranges and grapes and artichokes. One story recited involved a farmer who rented his land out to another farmer, and returned to find it stripped of crops and dried out. The subleasing farmer found it more profitable to sell the water than to use it to raise crops on the land. Sheesh!

 

Things, they are a-changing......

 

LL

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LL, it's pretty bad. In some areas here the land is subsiding more than a foot per year...

 

And by the way, the argument that the state turned off the pumps that supplied water from the Delta to save the Delta Smelt is pretty much smoke blowing... it's needed more to (no pun intended!) flush out the waste waters and incompletely processed sewage dumped into the waterways by local municipalities. Like Sacramento, the state capitol.

 

I have a number of friends who've had to have new domestic wells drilled - they're going down over 500'. The ranch Sassparilla Kid works on just put in a new ag well... 850', and the property is literally bounded on the south by the San Joaquin River.

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Comercial (ag) wells have to go deep, at least here, because of the volumes of water they need to pull. My (non ag) well is 250 ft with water at 91 feet. Just did a well test and it has dropped 11 feet since it was put in in 1978. Wild Horse Vinyard's well is about 500' deep, they draw water into a pond and water from there. The guy accross the street from me irrigates several hundred acres of pature from a 75' deep well that draws from the Salinas river which doesn't run year around here but is a good sourse of water. About a mile from me is a guy who had to sink 3 500' wells before he got water and it was contaminated with sulpher.

Location, location, location!

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On the ranch that my wife manages they've taken out almost all of the citrus trees because of the water situation and the citrus market is so bad. The water district cut off all water deliveries to the ranch for the months of July and August and they had to scrape by with whatever water they could pump from a depleted aquafir. The Reed avocado harvest was about 15% of what it was last year.

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The County agency I work for (in Madera County) has received grants to help people whose domestic wells have failed... literally, we're installing 2500 gal water tanks and trucking water to these people - allotments of 1500 gal/month per resident. This, by the way, is considered "non-potable" (although it is potable when delivered; but we don't know the state of their plumbing) for sanitation use. There are separate allotments of bottled drinking water.

 

Needless to say, it ain't cheap... :huh:

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