San Joaquin Valley

Scientists suspect that parts of the San Joaquin Valley have started to sink again after years of stability, a troubling development that geologists say can be traced to increased pumping of groundwater. State water managers are worried that falling land surfaces could damage the California Aqueduct, which carries water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the valley and Southern California. To measure the extent of the problem, the U.S. Geological Survey is launching a three-year study that will use sophisticated satellite tracking to map sagging land in the valley's arid floor in western Fresno and Kings counties.

- Early cherries are reason enough to head to the farmers market, but be careful. Erratic winter chill, freezes during bloom, hail and late rains have made for a short crop of early cherries from the southern San Joaquin Valley. But there's still plenty of great fruit available at farmers markets for those who take care to select fresh, ripe cherries of the best varieties. In the last decade, the task has become trickier, but potentially more rewarding, with the arrival of new and unfamiliar varieties.

Community groups, public health advocates and environmentalists filed suit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Friday to overturn an October 2007 rule that allowed San Joaquin Valley officials to declare victory in a long battle against the airborne dust technically known as coarse particulate matter (PM-10). According to Earthjustice, the environmental law firm that filed the suit in the 9th District Court of Appeals, air quality monitors in the Valley show that federal standards are not being met. The EPA and the local air district say that the recurring violations are natural ones that do not need to be addressed through further controls.

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The new immigration law has not caused a farm labor shortage in the San Joaquin Valley, according to the chairman of the Fresno Farm Bureau's labor committee. Grape grower Don Laub said "the work force looks real good," although he admitted that it is still too early to predict whether there will be enough workers when the harvest season reaches its peak in late summer. Many growers expressed concern last year that not enough undocumented workers would legalize their status under the amnesty provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to form an adequate labor pool.

Ever since the construction of Friant Dam in 1946, the San Joaquin River has been little more than a ditch for salt-laden irrigation water draining from farms along the east side of the San Joaquin Valley. Virtually the entire natural flow of the San Joaquin, which rises just west of the Mammoth Lakes area in the central Sierra, has been diverted for farm use during the irrigation season. The San Joaquin's salmon run has been decimated, and the polluted water that does reach the river's historic outlet of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta contributes to the severe water-quality problems in the delta.

More water may be headed to the Southland and the San Joaquin Valley after a judge concluded Tuesday that a federal agency acted arbitrarily when it imposed pumping limits to protect migrating salmon and steelhead. The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger is the latest development in a tangle of legal challenges to restrictions based on the Endangered Species Act that are cutting water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, east of San Francisco. Wanger sharply criticized some of the scientific rationale for the pumping curbs, but stopped short of jettisoning them, saying he needed more information before deciding on a cure.

The Fresno City Council officially has opposed the local air district's idea of moving the San Joaquin Valley into the worst-polluter category for smog. The change in category could buy more time to achieve healthy air and help the city avoid federal sanctions, which could cost millions. The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District was to consider the matter at its meeting today.

A moderate earthquake registering up to 4.6 on the Richter scale moved some furniture Monday afternoon in the southern San Joaquin Valley, but there were no reports of damage, authorities said. Residents reported feeling the 4:14 p.m. quake in downtown Bakersfield, 21 miles northeast of here, where the quake was centered, and some said their furniture had moved at home. "It sort of felt like a truck hit the building . . .

The farm belt of the San Joaquin Valley has the highest teen birthrate of any region in California -- more than twice as high as those in the urban and more affluent Bay Area, a statewide study released Thursday has found.

Los Angeles County officials are exploring an unconventional solution for handling the prisoners the state is passing off to them: passing them off to someone else. By year's end, hundreds of criminals who would have done their time in state prisons are expected to go instead to county lockups as part of the governor's plan to thin the population in California's chronically overcrowded prisons. Taking some of those inmates and shipping them out again is being considered as a last resort, county officials said.

Grapefruit may be the most misunderstood of California's fruits. Excellent locally grown examples are available year-round at farmers markets, but it's also easy to fall for fruit ? often similar-looking and grown just a few miles away ? that may be ludicrously sour or overmature. Choosing quality fruits depends on understanding the calendar of varieties and growing areas, which may seem inscrutable to the uninitiated but is easy to learn. Grapefruit originated in the Caribbean, as a natural hybrid of pummelo and sweet orange, and needs virtually tropical heat over a long season to achieve a pleasing balance of sweetness and acidity.

January is peak season for oranges from the San Joaquin Valley, the state's leading growing area. It takes a little more care to obtain top-quality citrus from this district, where each variety has a relatively defined season, than fruit from Southern California, where citrus can hang on the tree much longer. Some of the best choices right now are Page, Washington navel and Moro blood oranges. Page hybrid Page is not a purebred orange, or even a mandarin, as it's sometimes called, but a hybrid of Minneola tangelo and clementine made by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1942.

The San Joaquin Valley town of Chowchilla ? known for its dairy farms and prisons ? has defaulted on a municipal revenue bond, underscoring the tight times and drastic choices faced by struggling California cities. The city, which has a skeletal manufacturing base, failed to make its January payment on a bond issued in much flusher times to renovate the ample City Hall, which houses a government that has seen a 45% cut in its workforce since mid-2009. But Assistant City Administrator Wayne Padilla said Thursday that he had negotiated with the bond trustee to draw down on bond reserves Friday and make the January payment, the last one due for this fiscal year.

King Cotton is back. More than a decade after the state's "white gold" crop started losing its luster, booming commodity prices have farmers cashing in on growing export demands ? and have turned great swaths of Central California a snowy white during harvest season. Cotton-picking machines chug across old vegetable fields, former vineyards and land long fallow. Stacks of Pima cotton, as long as a semitrailer, stand row upon row as far as the eye can see, waiting to be shipped to mills and turned into Jockey underwear, Fieldcrest towels or L.L. Bean shirts.

The beige notice appeared on Becky Quintana's doorstep one recent morning here in Seville, a century-old settlement nestled amid fruit and almond groves in the Central Valley. "Boil your water," it warned in bold, capital letters. Alarming as that was, the blue "unsafe water alert" that came the next day was more worrisome: Don't drink, cook or even wash dishes with the water ? and don't boil it, because that just concentrates the nitrates. But, a day later, more pastel-colored circulars arrived.

More water may be headed to the Southland and the San Joaquin Valley after a judge concluded Tuesday that a federal agency acted arbitrarily when it imposed pumping limits to protect migrating salmon and steelhead. The decision by U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger is the latest development in a tangle of legal challenges to restrictions based on the Endangered Species Act that are cutting water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, east of San Francisco. Wanger sharply criticized some of the scientific rationale for the pumping curbs, but stopped short of jettisoning them, saying he needed more information before deciding on a cure.

Economic news has gone from worse to bad lately, and last week was no exception: New national figures showed a surprisingly high number of jobs created in March, the fourth straight month in which jobs were added across the country. Another report, however, brought a sober reckoning closer to home. Each month, the Associated Press creates something of a misery index, a measurement of "economic stress." The calculations take together joblessness, foreclosures and bankruptcies, the last gasps registered as people fall off the edge of the precipice.