U.S. Opens Spigot for California Farmers

wsj ^ | 3/16/10 | JIM CARLTON

[Nachum]

nterior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a sharp increase in federal water supplies for California's agricultural Central Valley, further easing drought concerns in a state where El Niño rains have raised the mountain snowpack after three severely dry years.

Mr. Salazar said water allocations from the Central Valley Project in California, a system of aqueducts and reservoirs managed by the federal Bureau of Reclamation primarily for farmers in the region, would be increased this year to between 25% and 50% of the maximum amount allowed under ideal circumstances, based on conservative forecasts by his agency. That's up from a previous estimate of just 5% for the system's junior users.

The increase is made possible, Mr. Salazar said, in part because winter rains have helped replenish the state's biggest reservoir, Lake Shasta, which now stands at 81% of capacity, compared with 55% a year ago. A former Colorado farmer, Mr. Salazar said he moved up the announcement by a week or so "because people on the ground and farming need to have certainty."

[csmusaret]

This “little” valley is more than 27,000 square miles in area. It produces more ag products than any state in the country, and in 1990 it was home to more than 2 million people.

[mancini]

THANK GOD!

[C19fan]

Just in time for Nov elections. See what happens after Nov???

[dennisw]

Lots of the framers who were bankrupted or impacted were Hispanic. Multitudes of Hispanic farm workers were made jobless. The Democrat elitists showed what they really think about Hispanics

The above are producers even the illegal aliens,. Thus I rank them higher than most Gov’t workers and higher the Liberal managerial class like 0bama who have never gotten their hands dirty to even change the oil in their car