TULARE AG CENTER CONCERT FULL

'We're going to turn the water crisis into a food crisis, because we cannot replicate the San Joaquin Valley anywhere else in the United States,' he says. This does not sit well with some farmers, such as David Roberts, who grows citrus crops in Tulare County. Some of his orchards depend entirely on water that he pumps from the aquifer. Under the new law, that will have to end.ĭavid Roberts grows citrus crops on the eastern side of the Central Valley, near Woodlake, Calif. They pump from the aquifer every year, making withdrawals but no deposits. Those farmers own land that's outside the irrigation district, and they don't get water from the dam on the San Joaquin River. 'The surrounding areas are pumping the water out from under us,' he said. Yet even here, the water table in the aquifer has been falling. It's a way to keep that aquifer bank account roughly in balance, making water deposits when there's plenty of water from the river, and pumping water out again when there's a drought. Eventually that water can filter all the way back down to the aquifer, hundreds of feet below. Most years, when there's enough rain and snow, he could use that water to irrigate orchards and let some of the water just sink back into the ground.

TULARE AG CENTER CONCERT FULL

'I'd sure feel better if this was full of water, and most years it is,' Cosysns said. It's empty this year because of the drought. Most of that water, today, is captured by a dam on the San Joaquin River.Ī deep irrigation ditch runs alongside the almond orchard. It's part of an irrigation district set up a century ago to distribute water from nearby rivers to farmers. The new restrictions are creating winners and losers among farmers.Ĭosyns's farm, near Madera, is among the fortunate ones. There can be withdrawals of water, but they cannot exceed the rate at which the aquifer is replenished. The Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), passed in 2014 but just now going into effect, treats the aquifer like a bank account that has to stay in balance. Hundreds, and probably thousands, of households are in this situation, most of them in the southern part of the Central Valley, where aquifers are most depleted.Īll that's supposed to end. She and her family now depend on water from a big black tank in their front yard, which a local non-profit fills up each week. It's something which is so necessary, we don't have.'

It's something so sad for me,' Espinoza says. 'I see how the big pumps are pumping water, and we don't have water. Those deep agricultural wells suck the water out from underneath smaller domestic wells, like the one at Esther Espinoza's house outside the small town of Riverdale. It kept fields and orchards green and productive, but there's collateral damage. (An acre-foot of water is 325,851 gallons.) State-wide, farmers to pumped an estimated six to seven million additional acre-feet of water this year, above what they normally use. Big pipes that emerge from the ground alongside fields and orchards delivered powerful gushers of water. As a result, farmers' pumps ran hard this summer. With rivers running low, there's little 'surface water' available for agriculture. 'It's just a race to the bottom.' (Cosyns was interviewed in August. 'It's unsustainable to continue over-drafting the aquifer the way we are,' said Rick Cosyns, a farmer near the town of Madera, just north of Fresno. The limits on that water use will force many farmers to scrap practices that relied on unfettered access to that shrinking underground reservoir. But it's also famously prone to drought, and in those dry years, when farms run short of water from rivers and reservoirs, they turn on powerful pumps and draw well water from aquifers. The state grows roughly 40% of the country's vegetables, fruit and nuts. The seven-year-old law is supposed to stop the over-pumping from depleted aquifers, and some farmers - the largest users of that water - concede the limits are overdue.

The state is now limiting the use of this groundwater.Ĭalifornia's agricultural empire is facing a shakeup, as a state law comes into effect that will limit many farmers' access to water. In a farming area east of Tulare, Calif., fields of corn and dairy herds depend on water from wells like this one.

Tulare ag center concert