Home » Posts tagged 'jerry brown' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: jerry brown
Making Every Drop Count
Making Every Drop Count
Last week, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order requiring urban centers to reduce their water consumption by 25%. With the driest winter on record and only a one-year supply of water stored in the state’s reservoirs, many are questioning whether the burden of conservation should fall so heavily on cities, when no restrictions have been placed on agriculture, which uses 80% of the state’s water but generates only 2% of its economic activity.
Despite these criticisms, the Governor has defended his position: “The farmers have fallowed hundreds of thousands of acres of land…They’re not watering their lawn or taking longer showers. They’re providing most of the fruits and vegetables of America.”
It’s true. California produces over half of the country’s fruits and vegetables: roughly 71% of the country’s spinach, 90% of its broccoli, 97% of its plums, and 99% of its walnuts—and that’s justthe tip of the fruit (and vegetable) bowl. It’s also true that those crops require billions of gallons of water. But are all farms at fault in this water crisis?
Practices, Practices, Practices
In the drought blame game, almonds have become a “poster crop” for the excesses of agricultural water use. Articles have pointed to how water-intensive almonds are to grow and have told dark tales of greedy investors buying up land and draining California’s water to grow almond monocrops for export.
Before you run off and boycott almonds, it’s important to note that not all almond farms follow this model. Take Greg Massa of Massa Organics, a diversified family farm in the Sacramento Valley. A fourth-generation farmer, Massa and his wife, Raquel Krach, grow organic almonds and rice, along with raising pork and lamb. They sell mostly at farmers markets in northern California.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Silver Lining in the California Drought
The Silver Lining in the California Drought
Denial, it’s been said, is not just a river in Egypt.
It runs, of course, through each of us. But Californians have displayed quite a dose of it as a record-breaking drought rolls through its fourth year.
It was just last week, propelled by the lowest snowpack in the Sierra Nevada in recorded history, that Governor Jerry Brown announced mandatory water-use cutbacks averaging 25 percent for the state’s 400 municipal water utilities.
With only one year of water supply left in the state’s surface reservoirs, and rampant depletion of groundwater, the world’s eighth largest economy and the nation’s premier producer of fruits and vegetables is in some trouble.
Scientists have determined that this drought, which began in 2012, may be the worst the state has experienced in 1200 years.
Yet cities still use potable water to irrigate grass along road medians. The Santa Fe Irrigation District in southern California, which, despite its name, supplies not farms but some 19,300 people, tallied residential water use in February 2015 of 345 gallons per person per day—4.5 times the state average for that month and up 30 percent from two years earlier.
The state’s water use in February 2015 was only 2.8 percent lower than it was in February 2013, which, according to the Los Angeles Times, officials called an “alarming trend.”
Clearly, the governor’s urging a year earlier for voluntary water-use reductions of 20 percent had come to little effect.
Meanwhile, some 44 percent of California’s 9 million acres of crops are flood-irrigated. That means far more water is applied to the land than the crops require. While some of it seeps down to groundwater, recharging depleted aquifers, it can pollute those aquifers with farm chemicals. Some of the irrigation water simply evaporates into the dry air.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
After Warmest Winter, Drought-Stricken California Limits Water But Exempts Thirstiest Big Growers
After Warmest Winter, Drought-Stricken California Limits Water But Exempts Thirstiest Big Growers
As California’s record drought continues, Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered residents and non-agricultural businesses to cut water use by 25 percent in the first mandatory statewide reduction in the state’s history. One group not facing restrictions under the new rules is big agriculture, which uses about 80 percent of California’s water. The group Food & Water Watch California has criticized Brown for not capping water usage by oil extraction industries and corporate farms, which grow water-intensive crops such as almonds and pistachios, most of which are exported out of state and overseas. Studies show the current drought, which has intensified over the past four years, is the worst California has seen in at least 120 years. Some suggest it is the region’s worst drought in more than a thousand years. This comes after California witnessed the warmest winter on record. We speak with environmental reporter Mark Hertsgaard, author of the book, “Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth.”
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: California Governor Jerry Brown ordered residents and non-agricultural businesses to cut water use by 25 percent in the first mandatory statewide reduction in the state’s history. Ninety-eight percent of California is now suffering from drought. Governor Brown issued the executive order at the mostly snow-bare Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The nearby Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort closed for the season weeks ago due to lack of snow.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Californians Outraged As Oil Producers & Frackers Excluded From Emergency Water Restrictions
Californians Outraged As Oil Producers & Frackers Excluded From Emergency Water Restrictions
California’s oil and gas industry is estimated (with official data due to be released in coming days) to use more than 2 million gallons of fresh water per day; so it is hardly surprising that, as Reuters reports, Californians are outraged after discovering that these firms are excluded from Governor Jerry Brown’s mandatory water restrictions, “forcing ordinary Californians to shoulder the burden of the drought.”
California should require oil producers to cut their water usage as part of the administration’s efforts to conserve water in the drought-ravaged state, environmentalists said on Wednesday.Governor Jerry Brown ordered the first statewide mandatory water restrictions on Wednesday, directing cities and communities to cut their consumption by 25 percent. But the order does not require oil producers to cut their usage nor does it place a temporary halt on the water intensive practice of hydraulic fracturing.
California’s oil and gas industry uses more than 2 million gallons of fresh water a day to produce oil through well stimulation practices including fracking, acidizing and steam injection, according to estimates by environmentalists. The state is expected to release official numbers on the industry’s water consumption in the coming days.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
For First Time In History, California Governor Orders Mandatory Water Cuts Amid “Unprecedented, Dangerous Situation”
For First Time In History, California Governor Orders Mandatory Water Cuts Amid “Unprecedented, Dangerous Situation”
Amid the “cruelest winter ever,” with the lowest snowpack on record, and with 98.11% of the state currently in drouight conditions, California Governor Jerry Brown orders mandatory water cuts in California for the first time in history…
Lowest snowpack on record…
98.11% Drought…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Calls For Immediate Shutdown Of Illegal California Injection Wells As Regulators Host ‘Aquifer Exemption Workshop’
Calls For Immediate Shutdown Of Illegal California Injection Wells As Regulators Host ‘Aquifer Exemption Workshop’
While California legislators are calling for immediate closure of the thousands of injection wells illegally dumping oil industry wastewater and enhanced oil recovery fluids into protected groundwater aquifers, regulators with the state’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) were holding an “Aquifer Exemption Workshop” in Long Beach on Tuesday.
Just 23 out of the 2,500 wells DOGGR officials have acknowledged the agency improperly permitted to operate in aquifers that contain potentially drinkable water have so far been closed down — 11 were closed downlast July and 12 more were shut down earlier this month.
Given the urgency of the situation, it certainly does not look good that DOGGR made time to hold a workshop to outline “the data requirements and process for requesting an aquifer exemption under the Safe Drinking Water Act,” when it has given itself a two-year deadline to investigate the thousands more wells illegally operating in groundwater aquifers that should have been protected under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act all along.
Last Friday, state legislators sent Governor Jerry Brown a letter calling for the immediate closure of the wells, writing that “the decision to allow thousands of injection wells to continue pumping potentially hazardous fluids into protected aquifers is reckless.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans
California Is Turning Back Into A Desert And There Are No Contingency Plans
Once upon a time, much of the state of California was a barren desert. And now, thanks to the worst drought in modern American history, much of the state is turning back into one. Scientists tell us that the 20th century was the wettest century that the state of California had seen in 1000 years. But now weather patterns are reverting back to historical norms, and California is rapidly running out of water. It is being reported that the state only has approximately a one year supply of water left in the reservoirs, and when the water is all gone there are no contingency plans. Back in early 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency for the entire state, but since that time water usage has only dropped by 9 percent. That is not nearly enough. The state of California has been losing more than 12 million acre-feet of total water a year since 2011, and we are quickly heading toward an extremely painful water crisis unlike anything that any of us have ever seen before.
But don’t take my word for it. According to the Los Angeles Times, Jay Famiglietti “is the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine”. What he has to say about the horrific drought in California is extremely sobering…
As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions.January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We’re not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we’re losing the creek too.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
More California Oil Industry Wastewater Injection Wells Shut Down Over Fears Of Groundwater Contamination
More California Oil Industry Wastewater Injection Wells Shut Down Over Fears Of Groundwater Contamination
The latest in the ongoing investigation into California regulators’ failure to protect residents from toxic oil industry waste streams has led to the closure of 12 more underground injection wells. The 12 wells that were shut downthis week are all in the Central Valley region, ground zero for oil production in the state.
California has roughly 50,000 underground injection wells. State officials are investigating just over 2,500 of them to determine whether or not they are injecting toxic chemical-laden oil industry wastewater into aquifers containing usable water (or at least potentially usable water) that should have been protected under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
A coalition of environmental, health and public advocacy groups filed a legal petition with Governor Jerry Brown last week in an attempt to force an emergency moratorium on fracking after it was discovered that flowback, a fluid that rises to the top of a fracked well, contains alarmingly high levels of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals.
Fracking flowback is an increasingly prevalent component of the oil industry wastewater that is being injected into the state’s aquifers, as fracking is now used in up to half of all new wells drilled in California.
Prompted by an inquiry by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in 2011, state officials shut down 11 wastewater injection wells last year over similar concerns that they were polluting badly needed sources of water in a time of prolonged drought. It was later confirmed that 9 of those wells were in fact pumping wastewater into protected aquifers—some 3 billion gallons of wastewater, by one estimate.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
