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Feds Say He Masterminded An Epic California Water Heist. Some farmers Say He’s Their Robin Hood
April 29th, 2024
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, an article on a federal allegation that a San Joaquin Valley water district official secretly directed employees to exploit a leak in the Delta-Mendota Canal: Robert Zavala was fresh out of the Marines and looking to escape dead-end work at a poultry plant in the early 1990s when his old […]
Read more »California’s Salmon Industry: Facing Extinction, Not Because of Drought, but Politics and Policies
April 28th, 2024
Courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, commentary on how water, politics, and policy are driving the salmon industry into extinction in California: Kenneth Brown, the owner of Bodega Tackle in Petaluma, reckons he has lost almost $450,000 in the last year. “I haven’t taken a paycheck in seven or eight months,” he says. He has […]
Read more »The Sinking Arizona Town Where Water and Politics Collide
April 23rd, 2024
Courtesy of the New York Times, an article on how Democrats see an opening to win back rural Trump voters in Arizona fed up with their groundwater being pumped by huge farms: In Arizona’s deeply conservative La Paz County, the most urgent issue facing many voters is not inflation or illegal immigration. It is the […]
Read more »US Lawmakers Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna Seek to Ban Trade In Water Rights
April 22nd, 2024
Via The Guardian, a report on a proposed bill that would stop private investors, including hedge funds, farmers and municipalities, from profiting off water scarcity: With private investors poised to profit from water scarcity in the west, US senator Elizabeth Warren and representative Ro Khanna are pursuing a bill to prohibit the trading of water as a […]
Read more »‘Complete and Absolute Despair’ for Texas Farmers Over Reductions In Shared Water Supply with Mexico
April 20th, 2024
Via Fast Company, a report on how Mexico has only met 30% of its expected water delivery to Texas, due to its own drought conditions: Texas farm groups warn of a disastrous season ahead for citrus and sugar as Mexican and U.S. officials try to resolve a dispute over a decades-old water treaty that supplies U.S. farmers with […]
Read more »California Farming Area Placed on Probation over Declining Groundwater and Sinking Land
April 19th, 2024
Via the Los Angeles Times, a report on California’s efforts to crack down on farmers’ excessive groundwater pumping: For the first time, California water regulators are cracking down on one of the state’s major farming regions for failing to take steps to curb growers’ excessive groundwater pumping, which has sent water levels into rapid decline […]
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