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California Farms Dried Up a River for Months. Nobody Stopped Them.
NYT via Yahoo ^ | January 21st, 2024 | Raymond Zhong

Posted on 01/21/2024 1:27:38 PM PST by Mariner

During California’s most recent drought, officials went to great lengths to safeguard water supplies, issuing emergency regulations to curb use by thousands of farms, utilities and irrigation districts.

It still wasn’t enough to prevent growers in the state’s agricultural heartland from draining dry several miles of a major river for almost four months in 2022, in a previously unreported episode that raises questions about California’s ability to monitor and manage its water amid worsening droughts.

It’s not uncommon, during dry spells, for farmers and other water users in California to draw streams down to a trickle in places. But the severity and duration of the 2022 decline of the river in this case, the Merced, where one stream gauge showed zero water moving past it nearly every day from June to early October, stood out even to experts.

“I was very surprised to see a river of this size without water,” said Jon Ambrose, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service who visited the Merced’s parched riverbed that August. “This just isn’t something we see. This isn’t something that should be seen as normal.”

The Merced River originates in Yosemite National Park. It rushes through glacier-carved canyons and winds for about 60 miles through the Central Valley before pouring into the San Joaquin River, which nourishes the valley’s southern half.

(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: california; nytenoughsaid
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To: Political Junkie Too

“Is it really “worsening droughts” or is it the ever-increasing population of illegals who are drawing on the water supply?”

We’ve always had droughts.

The difference is the doubling of tilled land and the doubling of the population since 1970.


41 posted on 01/21/2024 2:42:41 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner

I hope your not talking Trash about farmers with your mouth full.


42 posted on 01/21/2024 2:43:58 PM PST by bobrlbob
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To: bobrlbob

“I hope your not talking Trash about farmers with your mouth full.”

I’ve never sat down to a dinner of almonds and hay.


43 posted on 01/21/2024 2:45:04 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner

***But they are OK with it in CA.***

I’m perfectly fine with it in CA as I am in OK.


44 posted on 01/21/2024 2:47:22 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: montag813

It is incredible what Israel has done with water isn’t it? What is the size of Israel to just the Central Valley though? I could look but won’t.


45 posted on 01/21/2024 2:49:33 PM PST by Sequoyah101 (Procrastination is just a form of defiance)
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To: Mariner

when stuff like this appears in the NYT , the NYT is trying to drum up support for a Fed takeover of state obligations

Most times you will find Fed.gov at the root of having corrupted the state management process so as to create a narrative to assume control.

If enquiring minds look, that is precisely what they will find going on in California -Federally “stimulated’ interference with state agency functions leading to the mes that they then intend to step in -in order to “fix”


46 posted on 01/21/2024 3:02:58 PM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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To: Mariner

I know what your posts are when I read them. You don’t
have to try your best to describe them for me.


47 posted on 01/21/2024 3:10:37 PM PST by DoughtyOne (I pledge allegiance to the flag of the USofA & to the Constitutional REPUBLIC for which it stands.)
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To: Mariner

So just starve peasants.


48 posted on 01/21/2024 3:11:42 PM PST by 3RIVRS
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To: Mariner

Over the past 30 years, more than 100 small dams have been removed in California.

https://www.ppic.org/publication/dams-in-california/#:~:text=Over%20the%20past%2030%20years,have%20been%20removed%20in%20California.


49 posted on 01/21/2024 3:12:46 PM PST by meadsjn (, )
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To: Mariner

THE MONITOR WAS BROKEN.

THIS is a NON- STORY.


50 posted on 01/21/2024 3:18:19 PM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: Mariner

WITH THE AMOUNT OF SNOW THAT FELL LAST WINTER-—THIS DIDN’T HAPPEN


51 posted on 01/21/2024 3:19:04 PM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: Mr. Blond

Almonds and alfalfa, for Saudi horses. We need export tariffs.


I believe that would require a Constitutional Amendment.

I lived for a year on property near Fresno on the San Joaquin River in the late 60s. There was never all that much water in it even back then.

Also, for those who don’t know, the San Joaquin Valley has some of the richest and deepest top soli in the nation. Between that and the climate, it is no surprise that it has been farmed intensely once irrigation was available.


52 posted on 01/21/2024 3:22:26 PM PST by hanamizu ( )
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To: fireman15

IIRC-—The last time I saw numbers from the survey/inventory of the Delta Smelt-—after 3 days & multiple people, the actual COUNT OF SMELT was 7 SEVEN-—


53 posted on 01/21/2024 3:23:13 PM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: DoughtyOne

I believe this data is from the 2007 time frame. It was
touched on in 2011. It describes California’s then
contribution to the the nation’s food supply.

Over 50% of all fruits, nuts, and vegetables seems impressive
to me. There are a few nuts that California supplies a
very high percentage of.

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/10cafacts_v3.pdf


54 posted on 01/21/2024 3:24:58 PM PST by DoughtyOne (I pledge allegiance to the flag of the USofA & to the Constitutional REPUBLIC for which it stands.)
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To: DoughtyOne

I have a book called “The Last days OF The Great State OF Calif”

Had it for years.

Topic is the agricultural production of the state & who buys it all.


55 posted on 01/21/2024 3:25:04 PM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: DoughtyOne

I have a book called “The Last days OF The LATE Great State OF Calif”

Had it for years.

Topic is the agricultural production of the state & who buys it all.


56 posted on 01/21/2024 3:25:15 PM PST by ridesthemiles
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To: ridesthemiles

California does export. It’s a very large state with plenty
of ports from which to do it.

If push came to shove, do you believe it would be an asset
to have California’s food as a fall back resource?

Whatever goes to the U. S. is good, but some folks dismiss
products like hay with a grin, because people don’t eat it.

Live stock does.


57 posted on 01/21/2024 3:32:03 PM PST by DoughtyOne (I pledge allegiance to the flag of the USofA & to the Constitutional REPUBLIC for which it stands.)
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To: ridesthemiles

It was 2022


58 posted on 01/21/2024 3:46:09 PM PST by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: Mariner

Talk to Lynda Resnick!

When she isn’t divulging classified information to the world, she’s a water vampire sucking the valley dry!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GE_2cg4jIk


59 posted on 01/21/2024 3:48:51 PM PST by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: Mariner
I lived in California for 30 years before leaving 10 years ago. I know about the droughts.

Somehow, the agriculture industry in California survived the droughts going back to the 1980s (when I first moved there); Del Monte and Green Giant were major tax contributors to the state. It's only when the state moved to one-party control that the droughts became a problem.

Since then, the Democrats had a policy of draining the reservoirs and increasing the illegal population. The state just had a record wet year or two -- ask the people of Santa Cruz and Capitola what they think about droughts.

We have to remember that this article is discussing something that happened in 2022, two years ago. Still, it is illustrative of the new hostility that California lawmakers have had for the central valley, which was both the state's breadbasket and the home of the state's conservative Republican base.

Where they once has fertile farmland, they now want high-speed rail to nowhere.

-PJ

60 posted on 01/21/2024 3:51:33 PM PST by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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