Drought. Environmental regulations. Growing urban demand. It's all meant less water for California farmers. Times editorial writer Marjorie Miller spoke with growers and a processor from the Central Valley about how water shortages have affected them. These are edited transcripts of their comments.
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Bill Diedrich, Shields, Calif.
I have 515 acres of almonds, 75 acres of prunes and 23 acres of peaches, and I don't have a choice: I have to irrigate. If I don't irrigate, I'm going to lose all my capital investment. There have been some broad general statements about the water supply not being all that bad, only 5% off normal. Certainly for the Westside Central Valley Project, it's not the truth. This growing year, we're getting 90% less water than our usual allotment. That has to be made up through water purchases and transfers.
I've had to go to extraordinary lengths to obtain water to finish the production cycle this year. I've had to carry water from last year into this year. I've had to call on drought water that I banked in previous years. I've had to fallow 200 acres in another district to move that water to my permanent crops.
Our contract price is $100 an acre-foot. But for supplemental water, we'll probably pay close to $400 an acre-foot this year. It's a short-term way to keep our permanent crops alive in the hopes that there are better days ahead.
A long-term fix for the state -- certainly that's years off, but we're hoping that some of the more onerous pumping restrictions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta can be modified so we can get more water into the system. That's the bottom line. We're looking at a very small profit, if any at all, this year.
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Todd Allen, Firebaugh, Calif.
The shortages started last year, and I barely had enough water to finish my crops, which consisted of wheat and cantaloupes. This year, I planted 375 acres of wheat in the first part of December. I intended to plant pima cotton on the rest of my 600 acres, but then they announced that our water allocation in January, February and March was zero. In April, I did receive a 10% allocation, but by then all but 40 acres of the wheat had dried up. It was too late, and I didn't have enough water to plant anything else.
