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drought
Feb 3, 2014 14:49:10 GMT -5
Post by 12540dumont on Feb 3, 2014 14:49:10 GMT -5
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 14:53:43 GMT -5
Post by billw on Feb 3, 2014 14:53:43 GMT -5
Wow. The green/brown seasonal transition is always striking in California, but for February, that looks depressing.
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 16:46:26 GMT -5
Post by steev on Feb 3, 2014 16:46:26 GMT -5
Right; we're still waiting for the green part of that transition.
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 17:31:00 GMT -5
Post by richardw on Feb 3, 2014 17:31:00 GMT -5
Looks a like around here,but only in summer
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 18:15:06 GMT -5
Post by philagardener on Feb 3, 2014 18:15:06 GMT -5
Talk about brown and toasted! Hope you get some rain soon!
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 21:23:58 GMT -5
Post by steev on Feb 3, 2014 21:23:58 GMT -5
Brown and toasted!? Holly's place is a rich and vibrant green compared to my farm.
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 21:30:39 GMT -5
Post by flowerweaver on Feb 3, 2014 21:30:39 GMT -5
It's not looking too good here, either...
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drought
Feb 3, 2014 22:54:09 GMT -5
Post by steev on Feb 3, 2014 22:54:09 GMT -5
I'm sure this drought is ramping up the push to convert the valley between Maxwell and my farm's valley into a reservoir; I'd hate to see that, for several reasons.
Today I heard that California is the only state that doesn't regulate ground-water pumping; can that be true? I know it has no extraction tax on petroleum.
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drought
Feb 4, 2014 17:05:27 GMT -5
Post by flowerweaver on Feb 4, 2014 17:05:27 GMT -5
Does that mean you would have lakefront property or that you would only be able to farm by jet ski?...ugh.
I'm not exactly sure how it's done in Texas; I know that individual wells like mine have no limits (yet). But fish farms and bottled water companies have to appear before a board and be granted a permit for their huge uses, perhaps through the soil and water conservation district? San Antonio, which is the most populous city in the nation entirely dependent on aquifer water has been buying up water rights out here. It's a real concern when we don't even have enough for ourselves.
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drought
Feb 4, 2014 17:34:25 GMT -5
Post by steev on Feb 4, 2014 17:34:25 GMT -5
I'd not be able to cross that valley at all; there are two other routes, each adding NLT an hour to my drive, one of which is locked to non-residents in Winter (wet ones, anyway), being unpaved (beautiful drive, though). That way has a paved part through mountains that is sometimes closed due to snow.
Aside from just being a poor idea water-wise, that reservoir would make my area, which is already very economically disadvantaged, even more remote and poorer.
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drought
Feb 6, 2014 11:34:14 GMT -5
Post by flowerweaver on Feb 6, 2014 11:34:14 GMT -5
Or worse (speaking from experience here)--it would become a 'summer resort' community of developments along the water driving up taxes, and when the rains return and water seems plentiful someone is going to build a golf course (or two) which will get watered daily even when your well is dry and nothing has come out of your tap in six months and these absentees are off in their city homes sipping Fiji water from bottles.
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drought
Feb 26, 2014 17:07:32 GMT -5
Post by freeholder on Feb 26, 2014 17:07:32 GMT -5
The brown picture is about what it looks like here, too, but our 'normal' for this time of year should be white. We've hardly had any snow this winter, and only a little rain (it's sprinkling lightly right now -- hope it keeps it up!).
Kathleen
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drought
Mar 17, 2014 22:42:40 GMT -5
Post by steev on Mar 17, 2014 22:42:40 GMT -5
Every week, the drive to the farm is seeing more row-crop land converted to (mostly) nut orchards or vineyards. These are high-value crops in global trade, which require fewer laborers. In California, surface water is very regulated, but ground-water is very unregulated, so you can pump the hell out of your well. Are you depleting the (precipitation-fed) aquifer? Tough; it's legal. Is the very land collapsing? Tough; unrestricted pumping is legal.
There are rumblings of legislation to put meters on private wells; will this be a battle? Damned straight! Up close and personal? You betcha.
People are gonna fight over this as if water is vital to life, and more to the point, vital to profits.
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drought
Mar 17, 2014 23:03:05 GMT -5
Post by flowerweaver on Mar 17, 2014 23:03:05 GMT -5
San Antonio is the most populous city entirely dependent on aquifer water. They are buying up water rights way out here. Every new development upstream from me means less water in my well, too, which is only one of many straws through gravel to the river flowing below us all.
Here what's vital to life is being stolen for lawns, both distant city and local summer homes.
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drought
Mar 18, 2014 1:13:56 GMT -5
Post by steev on Mar 18, 2014 1:13:56 GMT -5
As "unrealistic" as I'm sure I may seem, I think we are seeing the agribusiness/commodification of food in full operation. I believe it is no less than the re-serfdom/re-peonage of the non-landowning peasantry. What? Are the rural young all going to become computer programmers? What bullshit! This just in; some of them want to live agricultural/livestock-related lives! Wow! What a concept!
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