In what is likely a sign of the times, farmers in Brawley are selling water for more than they can make growing a crop. Closer to home, the Modesto Irrigation District, amid the din of protesting farmers, is contemplating selling water to San Francisco, a city whose big thirst broke John Muir’s heart when it succeeded in damming (and damning) the Hetch Hetchy Valley. The City of Patterson, which has […]
Search Results for: Water, Water, Everywhere
Water, water everywhere: The Great Valley Mirage
When Jay Wells noticed the City of Patterson was sinking another well in his neighborhood he sounded the alarm. “I raised a fuss,” he said recently. “I was worried about over drafting.” Like everyone in Patterson, Wells relies on groundwater for his residence and his business. He was worried that the City’s increasing demands would put too great a strain on the local aquifer. Patterson has over half a dozen […]
Trinitas Partners Hires OID Water Attorney: Conflict?
In a move very likely to revive local controversies and bitter memories, Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) water attorney Tim O’Laughlin has been hired by Trinitas Partners to manage its huge Hawaiian farming operation in Maui, where it’s known as “Mahi Pono.” Now an entity with too many names and subsidiaries to list, Trinitas/Mahi Pono recently purchased 56,000 acres in Maui for $267 million from sugar cane growers Alexander & Baldwin. […]
Searching for the truth about “water grabs”
While last year’s protests about state proposals for increased flows along our rivers rang out most everywhere in the Valley, few sounded as loud and often as those in the northern San Joaquin, where invoking “the water grab” became a sure way to encourage curses and shaking fists. A rally in Sacramento to protest the flow proposals turned out to be a litmus test for Valley virtue. Local leaders who […]
Fallow Me to Water? Not Likely
For the better part of thirty years, Modesto’s Vance Kennedy has been trying to tell people we don’t have enough water. Now in his mid-nineties, Kennedy is a retired hydrologist who received the highest possible service award from the Environmental Protection Agency when he was with the United States Geological Survey. In an announcement bound to foment even more than the usual furor over water issues, the Public Policy Institute […]
More Court Time for the Water District?
Tuesday morning, by a 3-2 vote, the Oakdale Irrigation District Board of Directors (OID) approved a proposal to sell $10 million of surplus water outside the district. As usual, the two directors against the proposal were Gail Altieri and Linda Santos, who have the singular distinction of having been sued by their own board, not long after both were elected by overwhelming margins in 2015. Tuesday’s meeting featured the usual […]
Valley Water: The Big Lie
Of all the mythologies that dominate San Joaquin Valley politics, the mythology of water may be the most powerful and enduring. The basis of the myth consists of a simple fiction that states, unequivocally, that all valley water is, “our water.” Grammarians, of whom there are fewer and fewer, might ask who is meant by “our,” but such a question would be grossly out of order in a region where […]
Oakdale Irrigation District: How High’s the Water?
Last week, Stanislaus County’s Water Resources Manager Walt Ward circulated a letter from Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) General Manager Steve Knell. In the letter, Knell defended OID’s policy of selling water outside the region. He said the OID business plan depends on water sales and added that there is no local demand for OID water. He said even if there were such a demand, there’s no way to deliver the […]
Farming and the New Politics of Water
Among the biggest surprises of Modesto’s last election, none was more puzzling than the defeat of Measure I, the anti-sprawl initiative designed to protect the region’s prime farmland. Historically, Modesto residents have supported farmland protection by huge margins. Most observers felt Measure I would pass easily, especially since it followed closely on an emotionally-charged revolt against the city’s attempt to include portions of historic Wood Colony in its general plan. […]
Will MID Fail on Water?
“We’re in a new world here,” said John Mensinger during last Tuesday’s Water Workshop in the Modesto Irrigation District’s (MID) boardroom. And while many in the audience seemed to agree, his fellow directors apparently weren’t listening. The subject was a modest proposal by MID staff to increase water rates to $29.25 an acre foot by 2017. People in the know about today’s water world might think $29.25 is a misprint, […]