Sunrise over the Sacramento River in the delta. (Photo: Chris Briggs, via Shutterstock)OPINION: Access to reliable, clean drinking water should be a fundamental human right for all Californians. Unfortunately, many disadvantaged communities throughout the state lack access to clean drinking water, and our aging water delivery infrastructure threatens water reliability for millions of California residents.
Pesticide warning signs in a California field that is ready for planting. (Photo:Tom Grundy, via Shutterstock)FairWarning: Farmers in California, the nation’s top agricultural state, are applying near-record levels of pesticides despite the rising popularity of organic produce and concerns about the health of farmworkers and rural schoolchildren. The latest figures, released in April by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation and covering 2016, show that 209 million pounds of pesticide active ingredients were used in agriculture.
An aerial view of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.State water officials today ordered cuts in water to dozens of growers and ranchers, limiting supplies to farmers who have had rights to the water for more than a century. The cutbacks mark the first time since 1977 — also a severe drought year — that such reductions have been ordered.
An aerial view of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.Gov. Jerry Brown went back to the future Wednesday, saying water problems have confronted him, his father’s governorship and their predecessors as they sought ways to get northern water to the south. Brown said delta-linked proposals had been studied for decades, with perhaps a million personnel-hours spent looking at the plan. “Until you put a million hours into it, shut up!” Brown, defending the proposal, told a gathering of hundreds of people at a statewide at a conference of the Association of California Water Agencies. Brown’s comment drew applause.
A drought-stricken farm in Central California. (Photo: Johnny Habell)As California suffers through its third-driest year on record, the effects of the drought are hitting home in some of the nation’s richest farmland. The state’s $37.5 billion-a-year agricultural yield represents about 12 percent of the nation’s total. Agriculture uses about about 80 percent of the state’s water.