Paul Ryan brandishing a large wedge of gouda at a Ways and Means hearing might tell you everything you need to know about global trade at the moment. “For generations, we’ve been making gouda in Wisconsin,” the Republican committee chairman said at the hearing earlier this year. “And for generations to come, we’re going to
BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD The lowly Delta smelt is all but gone, numbering so few in a June survey of the Delta that California Department of Fish and Wildlife scientists had no choice but to place the species’ population at zero. Salmon that depend on a healthy Delta ecosystem are in danger of becoming extinct.
Excerpt from the Wall Street Journal, July 14 Global production of biofuels has surged over the past decade or so, with annual production climbing from approximately 10 billion liters in 2000 to nearly 80 billion liters in 2012. Much of this growth is being driven by governments’ increasing focus on alternate fuel sources in an
The Turlock Irrigation District agreed Tuesday to sell some of its Tuolumne River water to a treatment plant proposed for three cities. The 5-0 decision by the district board was a major milestone in a 28-year effort to reduce reliance on wells in Turlock, Ceres and south Modesto. Their leaders have not yet decided to
The tension between California farm interests and the state’s urban water users ratcheted up Tuesday, as a consortium of mostly urban water districts filed a complaint alleging Delta farmers are stealing water. The group of 27 agencies, including the massive Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta put water
If you don’t mind produce that falls short of visual perfection, Raley’s will sell it to you at a discount. Raley’s said its “Real Good” program will sell “scarred, aesthetically challenged” produce that might otherwise be headed for landfills when it launches Saturday at 10 of its more than 120 stores in an open-ended pilot
Climate change has narrowed the range where bumblebees are found in North America and Europe in recent decades, according to a study published Thursday. The paper, published in the journal Science, suggests that warming temperatures have caused bumblebee populations to retreat from the southern limits of their travels by as much as 190 miles since the 1970s. Logic
Masumoto Family Farm sits on the Kings River watershed and has historically drawn its irrigation water from two sources: “ditch water” that originates as snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountain range upstream, and water pumped from the ground. Despite relying on the Kings River for a “significant amount” of the water they use to irrigate,
Through flushing toilets and running faucets, the city of Modesto produces millions of gallons of wastewater a day, just a stone’s throw from some of the driest agricultural areas in the state. In a few years, that wastewater — treated and disinfected — could flow to farms in the Del Puerto Water District, in what
Earlier this month, with his East Bay community facing the prospect of losing its only source of water, Edwin Pattison appeared before residents at a town hall meeting and lamented the strain of California’s growing population on dwindling water supplies. “When you increase a population significantly,” said Pattison, general manager of the Mountain House Community