Environment - Not Farmers Using 80% of California's Water ?

CBS 47 via California Citrus Mutual Report ^ | 4-10-15 | cakid1

[cakid1]

Environment - Not Farmers Using 80% of California's Water ?

Does the California Citrus Mutual have a point?

In a Press Release - they also claim "The only sector that has been "exempt" from water reductions is, in fact, the largest user of water - the environment. "

" For a second consecutive year farmers in the Central Valley will receive a zero percent allocation of surface water from the Central Valley Project. Citrus growers in the Friant Service Area are among the most severely impacted. "

"As growers grapple with another year of no water, more and more acreage continues to be taken out of production."

"There is no denying that California is the midst of a water crisis," says California Citrus Mutual President Joel Nelsen. "For a fourth consecutive year Mother Nature has failed to provide the rain and snow desperately needed to replenish our nearly depleted reservoirs."

"This is not the first time California has experienced a drought and it certainly will not be the last. But until recent history, we have had the infrastructure and water policy necessary to navigate successfully through the inevitable dry years. Today, we do not have a system in place that is capable of meeting the State's growing demand."

"No sector has been asked, or forced, to take a cut as large as agriculture has. Citrus growers are receiving zero surface water this year. Trees, some decades-old, are being bulldozed. How much more of a cut can we take?" It is a widely sensationalized myth that agriculture uses 80% of California's water. According to information from the California Department of Water Resources, it is the environment that actually consumes a majority of the State's water resources, approximately 78.5%.

The chart below shows how California's water resources are divided between the environmental, agricultural and urban sectors. Both agriculture and the urban sector have been required and forced to reduce their water use.

The only sector that has been "exempt" from water reductions is, in fact, the largest user of water - the environment.

[bray]

The majority’s tyranny over the minority. It is ironic that the minority feeds the majority and they will feel the pain of radical environmentalism.

Pray America is waking

[GailA]

How much water does the entire state use for beautification projects in Medians? or along streets?

When our tiny berg in TN installed the useless, hazardous as they were very poorly planned and stick out to far into the turning lane things they had to put in a automated sprinkler system plus hire a Horticulturist to over see them for $50+K per year. I can buy the wheel chair curb installs, but not the Medians. They are USELESS, dangerous especially if you put TREES in them. Plus city workers must mow them.

Snarled traffic and still snarls it. Hurt the businesses too.

When you go to Niagara Falls the US side is nearly bare, while the Canadian’s are taxed to the hilt to maintain their picture perfect side. And the difference in the prices are extreme.

[Thud]

Ping

[GeronL]

good question, much better to replace that grass and shrubbery with spanish tiles or something, even looks nice.