Major California Drought Could Spell 'Catastrophe' for Nation's Food Supply

[EE_]

I hope California gets rain soon.

Major California Drought Could Spell 'Catastrophe' for Nation's Food Supply
'Possibly hundreds of thousands of acres of land will go fallow' in California
Published on Tuesday, January 14, 2014 by Common Dreams
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/431px_width/public/January-7-2014-US-Drought-Monitor-Map.png?itok=9QpkoMxz
(U.S. Drought Monitor)A major and unyielding drought in California is causing concern in the nation's "food basket," as farmers there say the U.S. food supply could be hit hard if the conditions in their state don't rapidly improve, Al Jazeera America reports Tuesday.

"This is the driest year in 100 years,” grower Joe Del Bosque told Al Jazeera, expressing concern that the hundreds of workers he employs for each year's harvest could be without a job this season.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, 2013 was the driest on record for most areas of California, "smashing previous record dry years" across the state, including regions where approximately half the fruits, vegetables and nuts in the U.S. are grown.

Those conditions have not relented as 2014 begins with most of the state experiencing official 'severe' or 'extreme drought' conditions.

And as Al Jazeera reports, reservoirs, which store water that flows from the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, are at less than 50 percent capacity—20 percent below average for this time of year.

“That’s rather dismal,” said Nancy Vogel, spokeswoman for the California Department of Water Resources. “If we don’t get big storms to build up that snow pack, we can’t expect much in reservoirs.”

Additionally, earlier this month firefighters were forced to Northern California to battle wildfires that were unprecedented for the time of year, and officials are concerned more fires could be on the way.

Fire experts in the state are worried, The San Francisco Chronicle reported earlier this month, "because January is a time of year when the northern reaches of the state normally are too wet to ignite."

"It's unprecedented for us to do this in January," said Battalion Chief Mike Giannini, whose Marin County Fire Department is one of the first to be called upon to send aid north.

"We've sent crews this early in the year in the past to Southern California, because their fire season never seems to end," Giannini said. "But not up there. Not to places like Humboldt, which has coastal, high-humidity, forested types of conditions we would normally equate with low fire danger."

All of these conditions, particularly those in mid-to-nothern California, where a large percentage of U.S. food is produced, have implications far beyond the state. As the Al Jazeera report continues:

The drought’s effects will ripple far beyond the fields. Consumers can expect tighter supplies and higher prices for some fruits and vegetables by summer. And farm suppliers will feel the pinch.

“We’re in the middle of what potentially is looking like a huge catastrophe,” said Ryan Jacobsen, chief executive of the Fresno County Farm Bureau. “We’re looking at some very harsh realities, as far as water allocations.”

“Possibly hundreds of thousands of acres of land will go fallow,” Jacobsen said.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/14-5

[zap]

Yes, I it dry in Ca. If we don't get some rain its really going to be a mess!

[Shami-Amourae]

The Elite are using geo-engineering to block radioactive rain from hitting California. If it rains there it could make a lot of the food supply for the nation radioactive. California feeds the nation during Winter months.

It's actually a GOOD thing it's not raining.

[EE_]

The Elite are using geo-engineering to block radioactive rain from hitting California. If it rains there it could make a lot of the food supply for the nation radioactive. California feeds the nation during Winter months.

It's actually a GOOD thing it's not raining.

How long do you think it'll be good it's not raining...month, year, decade?

[Shami-Amourae]

How long do you think it'll be good it's not raining...month, year, decade?

They are thinking short term unfortunately. My answer would be never again in our lifetimes.

I want to buy some land and get a greenhouse ASAP. That will be the only solution. There will be a coming "Clean Food" trend I think of food from the Southern Hemisphere, or grown in greenhouses.

In California now they are having like 80+ degree weather in the middle of Winter with 0 rain and humidity. That's not normal.

[Ponce]

Learn how to make drinking water from the trees, shit, piss, grass and even from the ground itself.......start educating yourself RIGHT NOW.......don't wait till later what you will not be able to do later..........even if I don't worry about water I am following my own advise and doing what I say for you to do.

V

[chad]

many will die.

[ximmy]

Drought is a term TPTB use to raise water prices.

[Dogman]

Zap is dam in the epicenter of that drought! Hay Zap any more word on the proposed pipeline between the dragon and the bigger lake? Tho it will not help at this time if they do it it may help the other one in the future, about a 2 mile dig or 12000 feet or so.

[zap]

Haven't heard anything, bet the other lake will be completely dry by July/Aug. Its 85 degrees out there right now, no rain in sight!

I really don't want to go from Summer into Summer!

[Dogman]

If they do dry up, the shit will stick to the walls and a bunch of people will be in deep dodo!

I pray for rain, for you and your area!

From what I understand the dragon gets much more rain than the other one , (normally) So the pipeline does make good sense over all. But would not help any this go around.

Bet it will go through (pipe) now things are getting into a crunch and waking some up that their taps may go dry.

[zap]

Think I might have to go to the beach this weekend, to cool off !

[Dogman]

Just watched the national news,


big thing now because it is so dry..

California is/can going to go up in smoke,

Zap be sure and double sure that your fire lanes are clear + watch your hills.

Dam I am scared at the potential your hills hold. Remember fire can travel down as well as up depending on the wind and fire can create its own weather.

Be safe!

[Ponce]

Crap, crap and triple crap...... the fires, oh my God, the fires.....there will be hell to pay in CA with the fires..........will they, once again, stop giving out water at the restaurant unless you ask for it?......like in the movie "DUNE" will they start squeezing the people for their water?................will I see what I don't want to see? even if I am already 73 ?

Remember the dream that I already had twice?........ "I was sitting in front of an open fire with about twelve kids around me and I was telling them about the days when you were able to walk into a square building and trade a little piece of paper for all the food that we wanted to eat and even got a glass of cold water for free".......they called me a liar.

V

[Dogman]

Crap, crap and triple crap...... the fires, oh my God, the fires.....there will be hell to pay in CA with the fires..........will they, once again, stop giving out water at the restaurant unless you ask for it?......like in the movie "DUNE" will they start squeezing the people for their water?................will I see what I don't want to see? even if I am already 73 ?

Remember the dream that I already had twice?........ "I was sitting in front of an open fire with about twelve kids around me and I was telling them about the days when you were able to walk into a square building and trade a little piece of paper for all the food that we wanted to eat and even got a glass of cold water for free".......they called me a liar.

V Had some here that scared the hell out of me, but missed. One good thing is there will not be a repeat in the same areas for a long time.


Zap again look at your hills and think of trimming back.

Me.

[milehi]

Think I might have to go to the beach this weekend, to cool off !

I am going down to the beach tomorrow after lunch. It was 85 at the office today and only 10 degrees cooler here in the mountains. What's miserable is that there's no rain or snow to hold down the dust and pollen. Mix in the current Santa Ana conditions whipping this shit up along with the dry air, and it sucks. The ski resorts only have a few runs open but I've only had to shovel snow once this year. The creeks fed by snow pack are long dry, but spring fed streams are still flowing here at 5600'.

[EE_]

Got your water barrels/bottles filled?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jMOZ-j3zck

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoMOvBqlTXo

[zap]

Funny, how people in the cities waste so much water,washing cars, drive ways, long showers, watering the grass, I don't think people know where water comes from? it just magically appears when you turn the faucet on.

We had a well run dry here years ago, we put 2 - 400 gal water tanks on the flat bed and I would go to town and get water to fill one 5000 tank and it would last 6 months, when it did rain we hooked up a aluminum flex to the downspout, during a good storm we could get 2500 gal.

(we didn't have the money to punch another well till years later)

I have water now but never let it get below 2500 gals. you never know when the well will run dry.

[EE_]

Funny, how people in the cities waste so much water,washing cars, drive ways, long showers, watering the grass, I don't think people know where water comes from? it just magically appears when you turn the faucet on.

We had a well run dry here years ago, we put 2 - 400 gal water tanks on the flat bed and I would go to town and get water to fill one 5000 tank and it would last 6 months, when it did rain we hooked up a aluminum flex to the downspout, during a good storm we could get 2500 gal.

(we didn't have the money to punch another well till years later)

I have water now but never let it get below 2500 gals. you never know when the well will run dry.

Good for you, you're prepped to go!
Most people take water for granted, until it gets turned off. Then it becomes the most important thing, much more then having power.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcE5x3X6TQ4

[Hitch]

Funny, how people in the cities waste so much water,washing cars, drive ways, long showers, watering the grass, I don't think people know where water comes from? it just magically appears when you turn the faucet on.

We had a well run dry here years ago, we put 2 - 400 gal water tanks on the flat bed and I would go to town and get water to fill one 5000 tank and it would last 6 months, when it did rain we hooked up a aluminum flex to the downspout, during a good storm we could get 2500 gal.

(we didn't have the money to punch another well till years later)

I have water now but never let it get below 2500 gals. you never know when the well will run dry.

That is awesome, zap. I live off of tank water too, you could say, but your tanks are considerably larger than what I'm used to . 5000 gals staggers the mind.

It's interesting, one article said the average family uses 400 gallons a day. A day! I truly find that hard to believe, and hope it's not true..

The weather out here is unprecedented, imo. We have a high pressure system sitting right on top of us, diverting the weather up north. Dry, hot, and unusual. The weather has me feeling very uneasy. Very uneasy, almost earthquake major doom uneasy.

[zap]

Yes Hitcher, I can't imagine using 400 a day, oh maybe a couple a hundred in the summer with watering and playing in the water and that would be quite a bit, I figure me and she, don't use over 75 a day, flush the toilet 4 times, shower/shampoo quick in and out, dishes, paper plates?

Also when you don't have alot of water, you use it wisely. I remember me and him would get in the shower, get wet, shut the water off, soap and shampoo and then turn the water back on to rinse it off, I bet that saves lots of water!

[Hitch]

:) Sounds like a great way to save water!

I bet you use less water than you think you do. I know my little tank in the RV, can last me a week or so, maybe 30 gallons. When you don't have a lot of water, and you use it wisely, it lasts.

[mick silver]

we also do the same zap . i added two tank for run off water . one of the tanks is use for the garden it helps alot . here a diverter i use it works great and the price is right . there nothing like having two 15000 gallon tanks with water in them ... http://www.guttersupply.com/file_area/public/Image/3b450de7010c3510b317e180cb3aa5d9.jpg

[zap]

Nice Mick,

I'm off to the beach !

[old steel]

Crap, crap and triple crap...... the fires, oh my God, the fires.....there will be hell to pay in CA with the fires..........will they, once again, stop giving out water at the restaurant unless you ask for it?......like in the movie "DUNE" will they start squeezing the people for their water?................will I see what I don't want to see? even if I am already 73 ?

Remember the dream that I already had twice?........ "I was sitting in front of an open fire with about twelve kids around me and I was telling them about the days when you were able to walk into a square building and trade a little piece of paper for all the food that we wanted to eat and even got a glass of cold water for free".......they called me a liar.

V

You wouldn't lie would you Ponce?

[Ponce]

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that's between you and I............ Even if I get my water for free (all that I want) I like to conserve it...take a bath in my jacuzzy in winter, from one of my blk water tanks in summer, dishes once a week, laundry every two weeks....in summer I dry my cloth on the grass..........

V

[mick silver]

why not dry your cloths on a rope there ponce. we do ponce it easer then putting them in the dirt

[Ponce]

I said "grass" nice and green and warm........the air circulates all around and the reflection of the heat on the grass helps it more.

V

[BrewTech]

I flew from SD to Sacramento on Wednesday.

Snow pack was non-existent.

[EE_]

I flew from SD to Sacramento on Wednesday.

Snow pack was non-existent.

http://unofficialnetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/california-snow-drought-extreme-critical-fire-risk-los-angeles-san-francisco-oakland-january-2014.jpg

NASA Shows Just How Bad The California Drought Is
By UnofficialNetworks · January 15, 2014 · 77 Comments

The Snow Water Equivalents in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California is at a historic low for this time of year, as can be seen in this image comparing 2013 to 2014. The Sierra Nevada mountains are experiencing Extreme Drought with no relief in sight. This might be bad news for skiers but if the second half of the season does not bring much needed precipitation it could spell disaster for the entire state of California.

This image compares January 13, 2013 and January 13, 2014 snow cover as seen by the Suomi NPP satellite’s VIIRS instrument.
http://unofficialnetworks.com/nasa-shows-bad-california-drought-127886/

[gunDriller]

the whole Pacific Coast is having a "Lite" year when it comes to rain.

which won't be good when fire season comes around.

[Jewboo]

It's actually a GOOD thing it's not raining.




http://www.boiseweekly.com/binary/6bda/1388684429-drought_map.png
More Than Half of Idaho in Drought Conditions (http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2014/01/02/more-than-half-of-idaho-in-drought-conditions)


:rolleyes: dimwit

[Shami-Amourae]

http://www.boiseweekly.com/binary/6bda/1388684429-drought_map.png
More Than Half of Idaho in Drought Conditions (http://www.boiseweekly.com/CityDesk/archives/2014/01/02/more-than-half-of-idaho-in-drought-conditions)




:rolleyes: dimwit



I'm referring to Fukushima. I know Idaho is under a drought.

[EE_]

I'm glad most of us here have stored water

UC Berkeley Professor: California Dry Spell May Be Worst Since 1500s
January 22, 2014 8:05 PM

BERKELEY (KPIX 5) – In California, 2013 was a record-setting year because of the lack of rainfall. A professor at UC Berkeley warns this time could go into the record books as the driest in centuries.

“Some people have said that this could be the start of a several decade-long dry spell,” Lynn Ingram, professor of paleoclimatology told KPIX 5. Ingram examines history to help forecast the future.

Dried up creek beds along with golden hills that look like its August instead of January could become our typical landscape, if history repeats itself.

Ingram is the author of the book “The West without Water.” She looked back 10 to 20 thousand years and came to the conclusion that we live in a dry climate.

“It’s important to understand our climate history and know when were the droughts, and then we also had years of extreme floods,” Ingram said.

A study about tree rings led her to predict that we could be in for the driest winter in 500 years. Narrow tree rings indicate little or no water for growth, just like people saw in the 1500s.

“They put on rings every single year. So you can actually be able to detect one year of drought,” Ingram said.
Another indication, but not as precise, are sediment cores that can span a few thousand years and point to the saltiness of San Francisco Bay.

More fresh water, and the salinity drops. What they are seeing is at least something on par with what happened here in the dry years of 1976 and 1977, and this could be the norm for quite some time.

“That was like the year with no rain,” Ingram said. “We could be on track for heading into a drier sort of period.”

The Bay Area was built up during the 20th century, we may be forced to adapt to a drier 21st century.

Some droughts, like one in the Middle Ages, lasted more than a century. Ingram is not predicting that, she said that’s like predicting earthquakes. Still, Ingram called this time of dry conditions anxiety provoking.

Ingram said we should use this information to rethink how we use, save, and recycle our water.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/22/uc-berkeley-professor-california-hasnt-been-this-dry-in-500-years/

[chad]

live next to ocean. be wildly excited about no water because too stupid to build desalination plants. california in a nutshell.

[Shami-Amourae]

When I left California I left my mom and her boyfriend my 2 55-gallon water barrels. I was trying to encourage them to prep and showed them how many times.

What did they do?

They got rid of them. Now my mom regrets getting rid of them.

[Ponce]

My creek had never run dry, back in 2003 it had 1/8 of an inch of water but because I was at the top of the hill (while the other four were at the bottom) I never lost my water......but.....for some reason I have a 550 and a 2,050 gallons blk water barrels......... I like to play the game of WHAT HAPPENS IF? and then I do something about it.............................however...........w hat happens if my two barrels and my jacuzzy runs out of water?.......still thinking about it.

V

[EE_]

U.S. Cattle Herd Is At A 61 Year Low And Organic Food Shortages Are Being Reported All Over America
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/23/2014 21:29 -0500

If the extreme drought in the western half of the country keeps going, the food supply problems that we are experiencing right now are only going to be the tip of the iceberg. As you will see below, the size of the U.S. cattle herd has dropped to a 61 year low, and organic food shortages are being reported all over the nation. Surprisingly cold weather and increasing demand for organic food have both been a factor, but the biggest threat to the U.S. food supply is the extraordinary drought which has had a relentless grip on the western half of the country. If you check out the U.S. Drought Monitor, you can see that drought conditions currently stretch from California all the way to the heart of Texas. In fact, the worst drought in the history of the state of California is happening right now. And considering the fact that the rest of the nation is extremely dependent on produce grown in California and cattle raised in the western half of the U.S., this should be of great concern to all of us.

A local Fox News report that was featured on the Drudge Report entitled "Organic food shortage hits US" has gotten quite a bit of attention. The following is an excerpt from that article...

Since Christmas, cucumbers supplies from Florida have almost ground to a halt and the Mexican supply is coming but it's just not ready yet.



And as the basic theory of economics goes, less supply drives up prices.



Take organic berries for example:



There was a strawberry shortage a couple weeks back and prices spiked.



Experts say the primary reasons for the shortages are weather and demand.

And without a doubt, demand for organic food has grown sharply in recent years. More Americans than ever have become aware of how the modern American diet is slowly killing all of us, and they are seeking out alternatives.

Due to the tightness in supply and the increasing demand, prices for organic produce just continue to go up. Just consider the following example...

A quick check on the organic tree fruit market shows that the average price per carton for organic apples was $38 per carton in mid-January this year, up from an average of just $31 per carton last year at the same time. At least for apple marketers, the organic market is heating up.

Personally, I went to a local supermarket the other day and I started to reach for a package of organic strawberries but I stopped when I saw that they were priced at $6.99. I couldn't justify paying 7 bucks for one package. I still remember getting them on sale for $2.99 last year.

Unfortunately, this may only be just the beginning of the price increases. California Governor Jerry Brown has just declared a water emergency, and reservoirs throughout the state have dropped to dangerously low levels.

Unless a miracle happens, there is simply not going to be enough water to go around for the entire agriculture industry. The following is an excerpt from an email from an industry insider that researcher Ray Gano recently shared on his website...

Harris farms has released a statement saying they will leave about 40,000 acres fallow this year because the FEDS have decided to only deliver 10% of the water allocation for 2014. Lettuce is predicted to reach around $5.00 a head (if you can find it). Understand the farmers in the Salinas valley are considering the same action. So much for salad this summer unless you grow it yourself.

The reason why the agriculture industry in California is so important is because it literally feeds the rest of the nation. I shared the following statistics yesterday, but they are so critical that they bear repeating. As you can see, without the fruits and vegetables that California grows, we would be in for a world of hurt...

The state produces 99 percent of the artichokes grown in the US, 44 percent of asparagus, a fifth of cabbage, two-thirds of carrots, half of bell peppers, 89 percent of cauliflower, 94 percent of broccoli, and 95 percent of celery. Leafy greens? California’s got the market cornered: 90 percent of the leaf lettuce we consume, along with and 83 percent of Romaine lettuce and 83 percent of fresh spinach, come from the big state on the left side of the map. Cali also cranks a third of total fresh tomatoes consumed in the U.S.—and 95 percent of ones destined for cans and other processing purposes.



As for fruit, I get that 86 percent of lemons and a quarter of oranges come from there; its sunny climate makes it perfect for citrus, and lemons store relatively well. Ninety percent of avocados? Fine. But 84 percent of peaches, 88 percent of fresh strawberries, and 97 percent of fresh plums?

Come on. Surely the other 49 states can do better.

Are you starting to understand how much trouble we could be in if this drought does not end?

About now I can hear some people out there saying that they will just eat meat because they don't like vegetables anyway.

Well, unfortunately we are rapidly approaching a beef shortage as well.

On January 1st, the U.S. cattle herd hit a 61-year low of 89.3 million head of cattle.

The biggest reason for this is the 5 year drought that has absolutely crippled the cattle industry out west...

Back in the late fall 2013 there was a freak snowstorm that killed close to 300,000+ cattle. This is a major hit to the cattle market.



I know in Texas where they still have a 5 year drought they are dealing with, they are having to ship grass bails in from Colorado, Utah and other parts of the country just to feed the cattle. Ranchers are sending their female cattle to the slaughter houses becasue they can not afford to feed them anymore. It is the females that help re-stock the herd. SO if you are slaughtering your females, your herd does not grow. It is expected that the US will not see cattle herd growth returning until 2017, maybe even later.

This is a problem which is not going away any time soon.

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. cattle herd has gotten smaller for six years in a row, and the amount of beef produced is expected to drop to a 20 year low in 2014...

The U.S. cattle herd contracted for six straight years to the smallest since 1952, government data show. A record drought in 2011 destroyed pastures in Texas, the top producing state, followed the next year by a surge in feed-grain prices during the worst Midwest dry spell since the 1930s. Fewer cattle will mean production in the $85 billion beef industry drops to a 20- year low in 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

It would be hard to overstate how devastating this ongoing drought has been for many ranchers out west. For example, one 64-year-old rancher who lives in Texas says that his herd is 90 percent smaller than it was back in 2005 because of the drought...

Texas rancher Looney, who is 64 and has been in the cattle business his whole life, said his herd is still about 90 percent below its size from 2005 because of the prolonged dry weather. It will take years for the pastures to come back, even if there is normal rainfall, he said. About 44 percent of Texas was in still in drought in the week ended Jan. 7, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

And it isn't just the U.S. that is dealing with this kind of drought. The largest freshwater lake in China that was once about twice the size of London, England has almost entirely dried up because of the ongoing drought over there.

Meanwhile, global demand for food just continues to rise.

If this drought ends and the western half of the nation starts getting lots of rain, this could just be a temporary crisis.

However, the truth is that scientific research has shown that the 20th century was the wettest century in the western half of the country in 1000 years, and that we should expect things to return to "normal" at some point.

So is that happening now?

Over the past couple of years, I have warned that Dust Bowl conditions are starting to return to the western half of the United States. Just see this article, this article and this article.

Now the state of California is experiencing the worst drought that it has ever gone through and "apocalyptic" dust storms are being reported in Colorado and Nevada.

Just because things seem like they have always been a certain way does not mean that they will always stay that way.

Things out west are rapidly changing, and in the end it is going to affect the lives of every man, woman and child in the United States.

[brosil]

Has anyone noticed the temps in Florida? I wonder if Florida oranges will run short this year?

[Ponce]

I can only guess that will have to invade.....who?......Bolivia?, Peru?, El Salvador?, CUBA?, for their vegetable instead of oil......... on top of all this add a WWIII and what will happen?.............we are in deep poopoo.

V

[EE_]

Has anyone noticed the temps in Florida? I wonder if Florida oranges will run short this year?

Temps, no...disease yes!

Florida citrus growers worry that deadly bacteria will mean end of orange juice

(Joe Raedle/ Getty Images ) - Guy Davies, an inspector for the Florida Division of Plant Industry, uses a stick to hit the leaves on a grapefruit tree hoping to dislodge Asian citrus psyllid into the container. The insects carry the bacterium causing disease, “citrus greening” or huanglongbing, from tree to tree.
Published: January 12
The sprawling citrus orchard that Victor Story toured recently sure looked like a steal at $11,000 an acre. The investors who owned it were going to lose money, and potential buyers such as Story might have stood to reap a handsome reward.

But as he bumped along the 40 acres of groves in a large SUV, Story was taken aback by the sickly look of the trees. Their leaves were an inch shorter than normal and yellowing. Full-size oranges were still apple green. Other mature oranges that should have been the size of baseballs were no bigger than ping-pong balls.

Video

Winter is making a comeback in North Central Florida. While the weather remains pleasant during the day, citrus farmers prepare for near-freezing temperatures overnight.



“That fruit’s never going to be of any value,” said Story, 68, who has been growing fruit all his life. He said his pickers wouldn’t even bother to reach for it. “It’s going to fall off the tree. It’s never going to get squeezed,” he said. “These investors paid $15,000 an acre for that grove. I know because they bought it from a friend. I frankly don’t think it will sell for $11,000.”

What Story saw in the orchard in Polk County, Fla., wasn’t an anomaly. It’s the new norm in the Sunshine State, where about half the trees in every citrus orchard are stricken with an incurable bacterial infection from China that goes by many names:
huanglongbing, “yellow dragon disease” and “citrus greening.” Growers, agriculturalists and academics liken it to cancer. Roots become deformed. Fruits drop from limbs prematurely and rot. The trees slowly die.

The bacteria is spread by a tiny, invasive bug, also from China, called Asian citrus psyllid. It acquires the bacteria while feeding on the leaves of infected trees, then transmits it when feeding on healthy trees — akin to the way mosquitoes transfer malaria.

Psyllids were first detected in a Broward County, Fla., garden in 1998 and spread to 31 other counties within two years. The Asian strain of the bacteria was discovered in 2005 just south of Miami. The disease ruins the look and taste of the fruit but isn’t known to harm humans.

Florida citrus, which provides up to 80 percent of U.S. orange juice, has been hardest hit, but the disease — which also has an African and Latin American strain — also has been detected in Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and California. It has spread to other parts of the world, including Mexico, India, sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil, which provide nearly 20 percent of the orange juice Americans drink. In each case, the impact to citrus has been devastating.

Worldwide concern prompted 500 scientists from more than 20 nations to gather in Orlando last February for a conference on huanglongbing. Despite the fact that nearly $80 million has been poured into research on the disease, scientists still don’t know how to eliminate the bacteria or remove it from trees.

Even those who are optimistic about a scientific breakthrough say that if the infection continues unabated for another decade or so — admittedly a worse-case scenario — Florida’s $9 billion citrus industry could be destroyed.

“What’s at stake is orange juice on the breakfast table,” said Michael Sparks, chief executive of Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade association. “I don’t want to indicate that’s going to happen next year. With a 10-year decline, your supply will reduce.”

Researchers funded by the industry, the state and the U.S. Agriculture Department are exploring an option that could save the trees and their citrus, but also turn off consumers: engineering and planting genetically modified trees that are resistant to the bacteria carried by the psyllid.

“Would that be accepted by the public?” Sparks asked. “You don’t have to do a focus group or another survey to know it is a public concern.”

He said he and the growers hope they don’t get to the point where they have to use a genetically modified plant.

The threat to the world’s citrus production is another example of how, in an era of global trade and travel, viruses, insects and animals are inadvertently transported to places they don’t belong. Pythons from Latin America and Africa are threatening the natural balance of wildlife in the Everglades; a fungus from Europe is wiping out bats along the East Coast; stink bugs from China are attacking farm crops and invading homes in the Mid-
Atlantic region; and the voracious Asian snakehead is devouring native fish in the Chesapeake Bay.

Even before being hit by the disease, Florida’s orange, grapefruit and specialty fruit crops faced many threats, including hurricanes, frost and a fungus that causes canker disease. The crops have been declining since the mid-1990s.

But the decline has accelerated since the detection of huanglongbing, said Harold Browning, chief operating officer of the Citrus Research and Development Foundation, a nonprofit agency that studies the disease under the guidance of the University of Florida.

Since the disease’s detection in Florida City and Homestead, 90,000 acres of citrus have been wiped out. The high cost of spraying to kill off some of the psyllids is pushing some growers to the financial brink. The average cost of producing an acre of oranges is $1,800, nearly double what it cost in 1995.

“It’s a huge amount of money,” said Stephen H. Futch, a University of Florida extension agent. A 2012 analysis estimated the disease has cost growers $4.6 billion and resulted in the loss of about 8,000 jobs.

In the heyday of Florida citrus, around 1970, the number of acres with orange, grapefruit and specialty fruit orchards surpassed 900,000. Today, it’s only slightly more than 500,000 acres, according to an analysis by Futch.

But consumers have felt only a subtle pinch, he said. “The [orange juice] container got smaller, not significantly, from 64 ounces to 59 ounces. That’s a way to do a price increase without raising the price.”

Growers represented by the industry trade group “believe we are at a crossroads this year,” Sparks said. Banks are watching closely to see if they can produce enough citrus to repay their debts.

“The small growers are saying, ‘Should I continue to invest?’ ” Sparks said. “The citrus industry is built on the backs of smaller growers. In the state of Florida, we have 135,000 acres that have been abandoned.”

Story sprays the 2,000 acres of orchards he owns under his business, Story Cos., in an attempt to kill as many psyllids as possible. He sprays an additional 3,000 acres he manages for investors through a side business called Story Citrus Service.

A team of six sprayers start at 10 p.m., when the winds usually die down. They try to treat 200 acres per night, spraying until 6 a.m.

“I fall asleep looking at the radar on my phone to make sure there’s no rain,” Story said. “We don’t want it to wash off.”

Even then, the spraying keeps the psyllid at bay for only 30 days, “no longer than 45,” he said.

“Four years ago, I would see an occasional tree with this disease. I can remember seeing the first grove and seeing the first tree,” Story said. “This year I can ride around and see greening symptoms on 75 percent of my trees.”

None of that matters, Story said, because he and a determined corps of medium-size growers aren’t about to give up.

“When we lose a tree, we put a tree back,” he said. “We’re constantly resetting. There are people that are committed to this industry.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/florida-citrus-growers-worry-that-deadly-bacteria-will-mean-end-of-orange-juice/2014/01/12/1391c470-7891-11e3-b1c5-739e63e9c9a7_story.html

[BrewTech]

Churches around here find they are sitting on so much food they are telling people that come to their food bank days (Tues & Fri, locally) to come through the line more than once to take it all. People are taking away entire cases of organic vegetables, artisan breads, and more. Stuff one would normally pay a hefty premium for at places like Sprouts, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's.

Anyone have a plausible explanation for this?

[EE_]

California's drought, times three
The state is facing three distinct water crises, each requiring its own emergency and long-term responses.

In California's drought emergency, Gov. Brown declares the obvious
January 26, 2014

Southern Californians are facing not one drought but three, interconnected yet distinct, each bringing its own hazards and each requiring its own emergency and long-term responses.

The first drought is regional, caused by the lack of rain in our own mountains and our own backyards. In normal winters — or rather those we have come to accept as normal — storms blow south from the Gulf of Alaska, churning in a counterclockwise direction and keeping much of their stored water in the air until they move inland from the west and run smack into the San Gabriel Mountains. When they lack enough energy to push over the peaks, they dump their water — in torrents that rush down the mountainsides, feed seasonal rivers such as the Los Angeles, replenish groundwater basins and, occasionally, cause havoc.

The winter rain falls not just on the slopes but throughout the basin and the valleys that make up the geographic triangle outlined by the mountains and the coastline. That's the water that soaks into our backyards and landscapes and lessens the need for sprinklers. It's the water that also soaks into natural oaklands and scrublands, and when it goes missing — as it has for three winters now — the ground dries out, the trees and chaparral get dangerously crisp and wildfire becomes an increasing danger.

That's the hazard Southern California faces in the coming months. The recent Colby fire north of Glendora may have been started, as prosecutors allege, by three men carelessly smoking marijuana in the foothills, but it spread quickly and frighteningly because of the tinder-dry conditions. Without substantial rainfall in February and March, we can expect more fires like that one in the summer and fall fire seasons.

Other than extra caution by residents and vigilance and expertise on the part of professional firefighters, there is little Southern Californians can do about this regional drought beyond hoping for rain.

The second drought is different but related. The same Gulf of Alaska system that usually sends rain south of the Tehachapis also sends storms across the Central Valley and into the higher, colder Sierra Nevada, where the water falls as snow and forms California's greatest natural reservoir, releasing its water later in the year in manageable, and useful, seasonal pulses. More often than not, that's the water that comes out of the tap here, brought to Los Angeles households from Eastern Sierra snowmelt through the Owens River and the aqueduct for which the centenary was celebrated a few months ago; and it's the water that comes to us, and to all of Southern California, plus Silicon Valley, much of the coast and Central Valley fields and homes, from Western Sierra snowmelt that flows from the Sacramento River to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and to the California Aqueduct.

The Northern California drought does little to affect fire danger here but a great deal to affect the supply of water to homes and businesses. Southern California is unlikely to go thirsty this year because it has water reserves banked around the region. But it's worth noting that although the winter snowpack is down by 80%, Gov. Jerry Brown's drought declaration called for only a 20% decrease in water use.

It may seem counterintuitive to let lawns turn brown and gardens dry up in such dangerous conditions. But conservation is nevertheless crucial to address the problems caused by the drought in the Sierra.

The third drought is occurring across the Western United States, and especially in the Rocky Mountains, which feed the Colorado River and by extension the other major component, after the Central Valley, of California's agricultural wealth. It also forms a major part of Los Angeles' water portfolio.

Because these three droughts are interconnected, we rarely suffer from one without dealing with the others, and this year's situation is no different. The vast majority of Californians rely on water that falls in other parts of the state, or even outside the state, and although the multiple sources make water more secure for all of us, shortages usually come all at once.

Southern California must prepare for the future by recapturing more of the rainwater that in wetter years still runs, unused, to the sea. It must do even more than is already being done to clean and reuse urban water. We will likely need a storm water bond, tax or other measure. We may have to build new dams to store water for future use without drying up rivers and destroying the ecosystem, as dams in California historically have done. A statewide water bond, which voters will consider in November, should help clean up groundwater basins here to allow residents to rely more on local supplies and less on the Sierra — although distant snowmelt must always be a part of the entire state's water portfolio.

That means diverting some of the delta's water with pumps that do less damage to endangered fish and rely less on earthquake-vulnerable levees. The kind of system envisioned by the Bay Delta Conservation Plan would help all parts of California deal with global climate change and its inevitable result: precipitation that falls on the Sierra less like the snow that generations have come to rely on and more like the rain that comes, when it does, to Southern California in unmanageable torrents.

These measures are needed not merely for drought years like this one. But the trio of droughts serves as a reminder of the urgent need for action — to plan, to conserve, to store, to reuse, to transport and to share the state's most precious resource.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-new-drought-20140126,0,7229717.story#ixzz2rnmp8dPk


Hundred Years of Dry: How California’s Drought Could Get Much, Much Worse
Scientists fear California's long-ago era of mega-droughts could be back
By Bryan Walsh @bryanrwalshJan. 23, 20140

California is the driest it has been on record, but its geologic history indicates the drought could get far worse

As he gave his State of the State speech yesterday, California Gov. Jerry Brown had reason to feel pretty good. The 75-year-old governor has helped rescue the state from fiscal insolvency and presided over the addition of 1 million new jobs since 2010. But as he spoke, Brown hit a darker note. Last week, amid the driest year for the state since record-keeping began in the 1840s, Brown declared a drought emergency for California, and in his speech he warned of harder times ahead:

Among all our uncertainties, weather is one of the most basic. We can’t control it. We can only live with it, and now we have to live with a very serious drought of uncertain duration…We do not know how much our current problem derives from the build-up of heat-trapping gasses, but we can take this drought as a stark warning of things to come.

Californians need to be ready, because if some scientists are right, this drought could be worse than anything the state has experienced in centuries. B. Lynn Ingram, a paleoclimatologist at the University of California, Berkeley, has looked at rings of old trees in the state, which helps scientists gauge precipitation levels going back hundreds of years. (Wide tree rings indicate years of substantial growth and therefore healthy rainfall, while narrow rings indicate years of little growth and very dry weather.) She believes that California hasn’t been this dry since 1580, around the time the English privateer Sir Francis Drake first visited the state’s coast:

If you go back thousands of years, you see that droughts can go on for years if not decades, and there were some dry periods that lasted over a century, like during the Medieval period and the middle Holocene [the current geological epoch, which began about 11,000 years ago]. The 20th century was unusually mild here, in the sense that the droughts weren’t as severe as in the past. It was a wetter century, and a lot of our development has been based on that.
Ingram is referring to paleoclimatic evidence that California, and much of the American Southwest, has a history of mega-droughts that could last for decades and even centuries. Scientists like Richard Seager of Columbia University’s Lamont-Dohery Earth Observatory have used tree-ring data to show that the Plains and the Southwest experienced multi-decadal droughts between 800 A.D. and 1500 A.D. Today dead tree stumps—carbon-dated to the Medieval period—can be seen in river valley bottoms in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and underwater in places like California’s Mono Lake, signs that these bodies of water were once completely dry. Other researchers have looked at the remains of bison bones found in archaeological sites, and have deduced that a millennium ago, the bison were far less numerous than they were several centuries later, when they blanketed the Plains—another sign of how arid the West once was. The indigenous Anasazi people of the Southwest built great cliff cities that can still be seen in places like Mesa Verde—yet their civilization collapsed, quite possibly because they couldn’t endure the mega-droughts.

In fact, those droughts lasted so long that it might be better to say that the Medieval West had a different climate than it has had during most of American history, one that was fundamentally more arid. And there’s no reason to assume that drought as we know it is the aberration. Ingram notes that the late 1930s to early 1950s—a time when much of the great water infrastructure of the West was built, including the Hoover Dam—may turn out to have been unusually wet and mild on a geologic time scale:

I think there’s an assumption that we’ll go back to that, and that’s not necessarily the case. We might be heading into a drier period now. It’s hard for us to predict, but that’s a possibility, especially with global warming. When the climate’s warmer, it tends to be drier in the West. The storms tend to hit further into the Pacific Northwest, like they are this year, and we don’t experience as many storms in the winter season. We get only about seven a year, and it can take the deficit of just a few to create a drought.
These mega-droughts aren’t predictions. They’re history, albeit from a time well before California was the land of Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And the thought that California and the rest of the modern West might have developed during what could turn out to be an unusually wet period is sobering. In 1930, a year before construction began on the Hoover Dam, just 5.6 million people lived in California. Today more than 38.2 million live in the largest state in the U.S., all of whom need water. California’s 80,500 farms and ranches produced crops and livestock worth $44.7 billion in 2012, but dry farming districts like the Central and Imperial Valleys would wither without irrigation. (Altogether, agriculture uses around 80% of the stare’s developed water supply.) More people and more crops have their straws in California’s water supply. Even in normal years, the state would be in trouble. If we see a return to the bone-dry climate of the Medieval period, it’s hard to see how the state could survive as it is now. And that’s not even taking the effects of climate change into account—the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report found that it was likely that warming would lead to even drier conditions in the American Southwest.

In his speech, Brown told Californians “it is imperative that we do everything possible to mitigate the effects of the drought.” The good news is that the sheer amount of water we waste—in farms, in industry, even in our homes—means there’s plenty of room for conservation. The bad news is that if California lives up to its climatological history, there may not be much water left to conserve.
Read more: California Drought: Water Supply Could Tighten in Mega Droughts | TIME.com http://science.time.com/2014/01/23/hundred-years-of-dry-how-californias-drought-could-get-much-much-worse/#ixzz2rnXr6q3A

[mick silver]

global warming ....................... they need to tax us all so it will rain

[EE_]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/29/report-some-bay-area-communities-could-run-out-of-water-within-4-months/
Latest News

Report: Some Bay Area Communities Could Run Out Of Water Within 4 Months
January 29, 2014 8:02 AM

Water levels are low at the San Luis Reservoir, near Los Banos, California on March 11, 2009. (Robyn Beck / Getty Images)

SAN JOSE (KCBS) — As the drought in California continues, 17 communities throughout the state could run out of water within 60 to 120 days, state officials said.

In some districts, the wells are running dry while other reservoirs are nearly empty. The state Health Department compiled a list after surveying the more than 3,000 water agencies in California last week.

The water systems are in all in rural areas that serve from 39 to 11,000 residents. They range from tiny Lompico County Water District in Santa Cruz County to districts that serve the cities of Healdsburg and Cloverdale in Sonoma County.

Some districts have long-running problems that began before the drought. Larger communities like Santa Clara Valley however, have fared better because of long-running conservation programs.

“Our conservation programs that we implemented since 1992 now reduce the county’s water demands by about 10 percent, or 56,000 acre-feet a year—so that’s a significant contribution in a year like this,” Joan Maher, spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, said on Tuesday.

Maher said the district was joining San Francisco in approving a voluntary ten percent cutback in water usage.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the smaller water districts along the coast could be forced to truck in water or use expensive mobile-desalination plants.

[mick silver]

just how are they going to wash all those super nice cars they all own ? ah

[BrewTech]

We're fucked.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-31/california-water-officials-cut-delivery-as-state-drought-deepens.html

Parched California Cuts Farm Water Supplies To ... Zero (http://gawker.com/parched-california-cuts-farm-water-supplies-to-zero-1513414826)

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19e9tcrnyv4w4jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

[mick silver]

can they still fill the swimming pools ? i bet the large mouth bass fishing in the large lakes are great right now with the water being so low

[gunDriller]

and Fukushima is turning the Pacific into Radiation City.

looking like a perfect storm.

[EE_]

We're fucked.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-31/california-water-officials-cut-delivery-as-state-drought-deepens.html

Parched California Cuts Farm Water Supplies To ... Zero (http://gawker.com/parched-california-cuts-farm-water-supplies-to-zero-1513414826)

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/19e9tcrnyv4w4jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

Time for a "DOOOM at the Bottom of the Lake" party?

[BrewTech]

Time for a "DOOOM at the Bottom of the Lake" party?

I used to live near the area that picture was taken...spent many an afternoon hiking up and down Steven's Creek catching lizards and whatnot. I'm sure I could find it again!

[mick silver]

can they still fill the swimming pools ?????????????????????????????

[EE_]

I hope it rains and snows like hell soon. This is quickly turning into a diasaster.

Severe Drought Has U.S. West Fearing Worst
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and IAN LOVETTFEB. 1, 2014

A Deepening Drought in the WestA Deepening Drought in the WestMax Whittaker for The New York Times
LOS ANGELES — The punishing drought that has swept California is now threatening the state’s drinking water supply.
With no sign of rain, 17 rural communities providing water to 40,000 people are in danger of running out within 60 to 120 days.

State officials said that the number was likely to rise in the months ahead after the State Water Project, the main municipal water distribution system, announced on Friday that it did not have enough water to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that provide water to an additional 25 million people. It is first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.

Parched, California Cuts Off Tap to Agencies
JAN. 31, 2014 State officials said they were moving to put emergency plans in place. In the worst case, they said drinking water would have to be brought by truck into parched communities and additional wells would have to be drilled to draw on groundwater. The deteriorating situation would likely mean imposing mandatory water conservation measures on homeowners and businesses, who have already been asked to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent.

Launch media viewer A once-submerged car at a California reservoir. Jim Wilson/The New York Times “Every day this drought goes on we are going to have to tighten the screws on what people are doing” said Gov. Jerry Brown, who was governor during the last major drought here, in 1976-77.

This latest development has underscored the urgency of a drought that has already produced parched fields, starving livestock, and pockets of smog.

“We are on track for having the worst drought in 500 years,” said B. Lynn Ingram, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

Already the drought, technically in its third year, is forcing big shifts in behavior. Farmers in Nevada said they had given up on even planting, while ranchers in Northern California and New Mexico said they were being forced to sell off cattle as fields that should be four feet high with grass are a blanket of brown and stunted stalks.

Fishing and camping in much of California has been outlawed, to protect endangered salmon and guard against fires. Many people said they had already begun to cut back drastically on taking showers, washing their car and watering their lawns.

Rain and snow showers brought relief in parts of the state at the week’s end — people emerging from a movie theater in West Hollywood on Thursday evening broke into applause upon seeing rain splattering on the sidewalk — but they were nowhere near enough to make up for record-long dry stretches, officials said.

“I have experienced a really long career in this area, and my worry meter has never been this high,” said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, a statewide coalition. “We are talking historical drought conditions, no supplies of water in many parts of the state. My industry’s job is to try to make sure that these kind of things never happen. And they are happening.”

Officials are girding for the kind of geographical, cultural and economic battles that have long plagued a part of the country that is defined by a lack of water: between farmers and environmentalists, urban and rural users, and the northern and southern regions of this state.

“We do have a politics of finger-pointing and blame whenever there is a problem,” said Mr. Brown. “And we have a problem, so there is going to be a tendency to blame people.” President Obama called him last week to check on the drought situation and express his concern.

Tom Vilsack, secretary of the federal Agriculture Department, said in an interview that his agency’s ability to help farmers absorb the shock, with subsidies to buy food for cattle, had been undercut by the long deadlock in Congress over extending the farm bill, which finally seemed to be resolved last week.

Mr. Vilsack called the drought in California a “deep concern,” and a warning sign of trouble ahead for much of the West.

“That’s why it’s important for us to take climate change seriously,” he said. “If we don’t do the research, if we don’t have the financial assistance, if we don’t have the conservation resources, there’s very little we can do to help these farmers.”

The crisis is unfolding in ways expected and unexpected. Near Sacramento, the low level of streams has brought out prospectors, sifting for flecks of gold in slow-running waters. To the west, the heavy water demand of growers of medical marijuana — six gallons per plant per day during a 150-day period — is drawing down streams where salmon and other endangered fish species spawn.

“Every pickup truck has a water tank in the back,” said Scott Bauer, a coho salmon recovery coordinator with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “There is a potential to lose whole runs of fish.”

Without rain to scrub the air, pollution in the Los Angeles basin, which has declined over the past decade, has returned to dangerous levels, as evident from the brown-tinged air. Homeowners have been instructed to stop burning wood in their fireplaces.

In the San Joaquin Valley, federal limits for particulate matter were breached for most of December and January. Schools used flags to signal when children should play indoors.

“One of the concerns is that as concentrations get higher, it affects not only the people who are most susceptible, but healthy people as well,” said Karen Magliano, assistant chief of the air quality planning division of the state’s Air Resources Board.

The impact has been particularly severe on farmers and ranchers. “I have friends with the ground torn out, all ready to go,” said Darrell Pursel, who farms just south of Yerington, Nev. “But what are you going to plant? At this moment, it looks like we’re not going to have any water. Unless we get a lot of rain, I know I won’t be planting anything.”

The University of California Cooperative Extension held a drought survival session last week in Browns Valley, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, drawing hundreds of ranchers in person and online. “We have people coming from six or seven hours away,” said Jeffrey James, who ran the session.

Dan Macon, 46, a rancher in Auburn, Calif., said the situation was “as bad as I have ever experienced. Most of our range lands are essentially out of feed.”

With each parched sunrise, a sense of alarm is rising amid signs that this is a drought that comes along only every few centuries. Sacramento had gone 52 days without water, and Albuquerque had gone 42 days without rain or snow as of Saturday.

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, which supplies much of California with water during the dry season, was at just 12 percent of normal last week, reflecting the lack of rain or snow in December and January.

“When we don’t have rainfall in our biggest two months, you really are starting off bad,” said Dar Mims, a meteorologist with the Air Resources Board.

Even as officials move into action, people who have lived through droughts before — albeit none as severe as this — said they were doing triage in their gardens (water the oak tree, not the lawn) and taking classic “stop-start-stop-start” shower.

Jacob Battersby, a producer in Oakland, said he began cutting back even before the voluntary restrictions were announced.
“My wife and I both enjoy gardening,” he wrote in an email. “ ‘Sorry, plants. You will be getting none to drink this winter.’ ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/02/us/severe-drought-has-us-west-fearing-worst.html?_r=0

[mick silver]

it snowing here 6 to 10 ins tonight . dam ground never been this wet at this time of the year

[Shami-Amourae]

:(

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/newsradio1310.com/files/2014/01/SugarBeetPile_BenitoBaeza-300x224.jpg


BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Growers of sugar beets and potatoes in eight counties along southern Idaho’s Snake River could be in jeopardy after a fish hatchery’s complaint it isn’t getting its fair share of water.
Idaho Department of Water Resources’ director Gary Spackman signed an order Wednesday telling 2,300 water-right holders they’ll have to shut down irrigation if they can’t reach a compromise with Rangen Inc, a Hagerman-based fish farm.
This shut-off call for famers who pump water from deep beneath the earth comes amid a disastrous year of snowfall, at least so far, that portends a parched summer — and scant water to sustain this rich agricultural region’s demands. Rangen’s water right has priority, giving it first dibs on water over the pumpers. Groundwater lobbyist Lynn Tominaga says pumpers are now scrambling for alternatives.


Read More: Magic Valley Growers May Have to Turn Off Water (http://newsradio1310.com/magic-valley-growers-may-have-to-turn-off-water/?trackback=tsmclip) | http://newsradio1310.com/magic-valley-growers-may-have-to-turn-off-water/?trackback=tsmclip

[EE_]

:(

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/newsradio1310.com/files/2014/01/SugarBeetPile_BenitoBaeza-300x224.jpg

Don't fuck with my Idaho potatoes! I eat a lot of potatoes.

[mick silver]

if the cost of potatoes go up anymore i may starts planting them to sell around here

[mick silver]

Great Lakes Water Levels Are in Unusual Declinehttp://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Z5.JelXUZ8zWnC6p4xZ8fQ--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9Zml0O2g9Mjc-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/logo/livescience/livesci_logo_73.jpg (http://www.livescience.com/)By By Becky Oskin, Staff Writer | LiveScience.com – 45 mins ago



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The Great Lakes share a surprising connection with Wisconsin's small lakes and aquifers — their water levels all rise and fall on a 13-year cycle, according to a new study. But that cycle is now mysteriously out of whack, researchers have found.
"The last two decades have been kind of exceptional," said Carl Watras, a climate scientist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Water levels have been declining since 1998, Watras told Live Science. "Our lakes (http://www.livescience.com/topics/lakes/) have never been lower than they are."
The research was published Jan. 21 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
According to 70 years of lake and aquifer records from northern Wisconsin, the states' small lakes usually rise and fall on a regular cycle — about six years up, and six years down. But since 1998, there has been only one brief uptick in levels, in 2002 through 2003).
Both the normal 13-year cycle and unusual recent downward trend are mirrored in the world's biggest freshwater water body, the linked Great Lakes of Michigan and Huron (http://www.livescience.com/32011-lake-michigan.html), Watras said.
"What that tells us is some hydrologic driver is operating on all of these lakes, and groundwater in the region, and controlling the water levels," Watras said.
Earlier research uncovered a 12-year cycle of rising and falling lake levels in the Michigan-Huron lakes, as well as a shorter 8-year cycle. [The Great Lakes: North America's 'Third Coast' (http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/great-lakes-freshwater-0569/)]
"It is likely the same signal," said Janel Hanrahan, a climate scientist at Lyndon College in Vermont and lead author of the earlier studies, who was not involved in the new research. Hanrahan attributed the 8-year cycle to changes in precipitation during the winter months, and the 12-year cycle to precipitation changes during the summer.
Watras and his co-authors similarly link the long-term rise and fall in Wisconsin's lakes to an cyclic atmospheric pattern called the circumglobal teleconnection (CGT), a narrow, high-altitude wind similar to the jet stream (http://www.livescience.com/27825-jet-stream.html). The pattern flows about 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) above the Midwest, bringing in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.
Since the lake levels started their downward plunge in the late 1990s, the CGT's pattern has been stuck in a position that means less rainfall for Wisconsin, the study found. But evaporation also plays a role. Warmer-than-average winters since 1998 kept smaller lakes free of ice for longer time spans, allowing more water to escape through evaporation.
"The balance between precipitation and evaporation is key," Watras said.
The good news is that with this year's polar vortex icing the Great Lakes (http://www.livescience.com/29312-great-lakes.html), combined with an early freeze in November that put a lid on small lakes, 2014 could be a better year overall for Wisconsin's lakes, Watras said.
"Our crystal ball is foggy," he said. "Things may return to normal, but we don't know. This year we are seeing lake levels and groundwater levels rise a little bit, but we don't know whether the uptick will be sustained or everything will continue to crash. At least now we have a history to look back on, and make comparisons."
Email Becky Oskin (boskin@techmedianetwork.com) or follow her @beckyoskin (https://twitter.com/beckyoskin). Follow us @OAPlanet (https://twitter.com/OAPlanet), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/OurAmazingPlanet) and Google+ (https://plus.google.com/115001017876084075679/posts). Original article at Live Science's Our Amazing Planet (http://cms.livescience.com/43047-great-lakes-water-cycle-discovered.html).


Dry and Dying: Images of Drought (http://www.livescience.com/21634-dry-dying-images-of-drought.html)
Weirdo Weather: 7 Rare Weather Events (http://www.livescience.com/30198-weird-weather-anomalies-110302.html)
Weather vs. Climate Change: Test Yourself (http://www.livescience.com/18834-weather-climate-change-quiz.html)

Copyright 2014 LiveScience (http://www.livescience.com/), a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

[EE_]

if the cost of potatoes go up anymore i may starts planting them to sell around here

Potatoes are healthy, a great value and should be one of everyone's main staple. They are for me.

Health Benefits
Potatoes are a very popular food source. Unfortunately, most people eat potatoes in the form of greasy French fries or potato chips, and even baked potatoes are typically loaded down with fats such as butter, sour cream, melted cheese and bacon bits. Such treatment can make even baked potatoes a potential contributor to a heart attack. But take away the extra fat and deep frying, and a baked potato is an exceptionally healthful low calorie, high fiber food that offers significant protection against cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Our food ranking system qualified potatoes as a very good source of vitamin B6 and a good source of potassium, copper, vitamin C, manganese, phosphorus, niacin, dietary fiber, and pantothenic acid.

Potatoes also contain a variety of phytonutrients that have antioxidant activity. Among these important health-promoting compounds are carotenoids, flavonoids, and caffeic acid, as well as unique tuber storage proteins, such as patatin, which exhibit activity against free radicals.

Potatoes' Phytochemicals Rival Those in Broccoli
Potatoes' reputation as a high-carb, white starch has removed them from the meals of many a weight-conscious eater, but this stereotype is due for a significant overhaul. A new analytical method developed by Agricultural Research Service plant geneticist Roy Navarre has identified 60 different kinds of phytochemicals and vitamins in the skins and flesh of 100 wild and commercially grown potatoes. Analysis of Red and Norkotah potatoes revealed that these spuds' phenolic content rivals that of broccoli, spinach and Brussels sprouts, and includes flavonoids with protective activity against cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems and certain cancers. Navarre's team also identified potatoes with high levels of vitamin C, folic acid, quercetin and kukoamines. These last compounds, which have blood pressure lowering potential, have only been found in one other plant, Lycium chinense (a.k.a., wolfberry/gogi berry). How much kukoamine is needed for a blood pressure lowering effect in humans must be assessed before it can be determined whether an average portion of potatoes delivers enough to impact cardiovascular health. Still, potatoes' phytochemical profiles show it's time to shed their starch-only image; spuds—baked, steamed or healthy sautéed but not fried—deserve a place in your healthy way of eating."Phytochemical Profilers Investigate Potato Benefits,"Agricultural Research, September 2007

Blood-Pressure Lowering Potential
UK scientists at the Institute for Food Research have identified blood pressure-lowering compounds called kukoamines in potatoes. Previously only found in Lycium chinense, an exotic herbal plant whose bark is used to make an infusion in Chinese herbal medicine, kukoamines were found in potatoes using a new type of research called metabolomics.

Until now, when analyzing a plant's composition, scientists had to know what they were seeking and could typically look for 30 or so known compounds. Now, metabolomic techniques enable researchers to find the unexpected by analyzing the 100s or even 1000s of small molecules produced by an organism.

"Potatoes have been cultivated for thousands of years, and we thought traditional crops were pretty well understood," said IFR food scientist Dr Fred Mellon, "but this surprise finding shows that even the most familiar of foods might conceal a hoard of health-promoting chemicals." Another good reason to center your diet around the World's Healthiest Foods!

In addition to potatoes, researchers looked at tomatoes since they belong to the same plant family—Solanaceae—as Lycium chinense. Metabolomic assays also detected kukoamine compounds in tomatoes.

The IFR scientists found higher levels of kukoamines and related compounds than some of the other compounds in potatoes that have a long history of scientific investigation. However, because they were previously only noted in Lycium chinense, kukoamines have been little studied. Researchers are now determining their stability during cooking and dose response (how much of these compounds are needed to impact health).

Vitamin B6—Building Your Cells
If only for its high concentration of vitamin B6—1 medium potato contains over one-half of a milligram of this important nutrient—the potato earns high marks as a health-promoting food.

Vitamin B6 is involved in more than 100 enzymatic reactions. Enzymes are proteins that help chemical reactions take place, so vitamin B6 is active virtually everywhere in the body. Many of the building blocks of protein, amino acids, require B6 for their synthesis, as do the nucleic acids used in the creation of our DNA. Because amino and nucleic acids are such critical parts of new cell formation, vitamin B6 is essential for the formation of virtually all new cells in the body. Heme (the protein center of our red blood cells) and phospholipids (cell membrane components that enable messaging between cells) also depend on vitamin B6 for their creation.

Vitamin B6—Brain Cell and Nervous System Activity
Vitamin B6 plays numerous roles in our nervous system, many of which involve neurological (brain cell) activity. B6 is necessary for the creation of amines, a type of messaging molecule or neurotransmitter that the nervous system relies on to transmit messages from one nerve to the next. Some of the amine-derived neurotransmitters that require vitamin B6 for their production are serotonin, a lack of which is linked to depression; melatonin, the hormone needed for a good night's sleep; epinephrine and norepinephrine, hormones that help us respond to stress; and GABA, which is needed for normal brain function.

Vitamin B6—Cardiovascular Protection
Vitamin B6 plays another critically important role in methylation, a chemical process in which methyl groups are transferred from one molecule to another. Many essential chemical events in the body are made possible by methylation, for example, genes can be switched on and turned off in this way. This is particularly important in cancer prevention since one of the genes that can be switched on and off is the tumor suppressor gene, p53. Another way that methylation helps prevent cancer is by attaching methyl groups to toxic substances to make them less toxic and encourage their elimination from the body.

Methylation is also important to cardiovascular health. Methylation changes a potentially dangerous molecule called homocysteine into other, benign substances. Since homocysteine can directly damage blood vessel walls greatly increasing the progression of atherosclerosis, high homocysteine levels are associated with a significantly increased risk for heart attack and stroke. Eating foods rich in vitamin B6 can help keep homocysteine levels low. In addition, diets high in vitamin B6-rich foods are associated with overall lower rates of heart disease, even when homocysteine levels are normal, most likely because of all the other beneficial activities of this energetic B vitamin.

A single baked potato will also provide you with over 3 grams of fiber, but remember the fiber in potatoes is mostly in their skin. If you want the cholesterol-lowering, colon cancer preventing, and bowel supportive effects of fiber, be sure to eat the potato's flavorful skin as well as its creamy center.

Vitamin B6—Athletic Performance
Vitamin B6 is also necessary for the breakdown of glycogen, the form in which sugar is stored in our muscle cells and liver, so this vitamin is a key player in athletic performance and endurance.

Description
Whether it is mashed, baked or made into French fries, many people often think of the potato as a comfort food. This sentiment probably inspired the potato's scientific name, Solanum tuberosum, since solanum is derived from a Latin word meaning "soothing". The potato's name also reflects that it belongs to the Solanaceae family whose other members include tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and tomatillos.

There are about about 100 varieties of edible potatoes. They range in size, shape, color, starch content and flavor. They are often classified as either mature potatoes (the large potatoes that we are generally familiar with) and new potatoes (those that are harvested before maturity and are of a much smaller size). Some of the popular varieties of mature potatoes include the Russet Burbank, the White Rose and the Katahdin, while the Red LeSoda and Red Pontiac are two types of new potatoes. There are also delicate fingerling varieties available which, as their name suggests, are finger-shaped.

The skin of potatoes is generally brown, red or yellow, and may be smooth or rough, while the flesh is yellow or white. There are also other varieties available that feature purple-grey skin and a beautiful deep violet flesh.

As potatoes have a neutral starchy flavor, they serve as a good complement to many meals. Their texture varies slightly depending upon their preparation, but it can be generally described as rich and creamy.

History
Potatoes originated in the Andean mountain region of South America. Researchers estimate that potatoes have been cultivated by the Indians living in these areas for between 4,000 and 7,000 years. Unlike many other foods, potatoes were able to be grown at the high altitudes typical of this area and therefore became a staple food for these hardy people.

Potatoes were brought to Europe by Spanish explorers who "discovered" them in South America in the early 16th century. Since potatoes are good sources of vitamin C, they were subsequently used on Spanish ships to prevent scurvy. They were introduced into Europe via Spain, and while they were consumed by some people in Italy and Germany, they were not widely consumed throughout Europe, even though many governments actively promoted this nutritious foodstuff that was relatively inexpensive to produce. The reason for this is that since people knew that the potato is related to the nightshade family, many felt that it was poisonous like some other members of this family. In addition, many judged potatoes with suspicion since they were not mentioned in the Bible. In fact, potatoes initially had such a poor reputation in Europe that many people thought eating them would cause leprosy.

Some of the credit for the rise in potatoes' popularity is given to two individuals who creatively engineered plans to create demand for the potato. In the 18th century, a French agronomist named Parmentier created a scheme whereby peasants could "steal" potatoes from the King's "guarded" gardens. He also developed and popularized the mashed potato that became popular probably because he made this suspicious vegetable unrecognizable. Another person who was instrumental to the acceptance of potatoes was Count Rumford. A member of the British scientific group, the Royal Society, Rumford created a mush soup made of potatoes, barley, peas and vinegar, which the German peasants adopted as a satisfying and inexpensive dish.

It is thought that the potato was first brought to the United States in the early 18th century by Irish immigrants who settled in New England. People in this country were slow to adopt the "Irish potato" and large scale cultivation of potatoes did not occur in the U.S. until the 19th century.

There are not that many foods that can claim that a pivotal historical event centered around them. But the potato can. By the early 19th century, potatoes were being grown extensively throughout Northern Europe, and potatoes were almost solely relied upon as a foodstuff in Ireland owing to this vegetable's inexpensive production and the poor economy of this country. Yet, in 1845 and 1846, a blight ruined most of the potato crop in Ireland and caused major devastation: this event is known as the Irish Potato Famine. Almost three-quarters of a million people died, and hundreds of thousands emigrated to other countries, including the United States, in search of sustenance.

Today, this once-infamous vegetable is one of the most popular throughout the world and the one that Americans consume more of pound for pound than any other. Currently, the main producers of potatoes include the Russian Federation, Poland, India, China and the United States.

How to Select and Store
While potatoes are often conveniently packaged in a plastic bag, it is usually better to buy them individually from a bulk display. Not only will this allow you to better inspect the potatoes for signs of decay or damage, but many times, the plastic bags are not perforated and cause a build up of moisture that can negatively affect the potatoes.

Potatoes should be firm, well shaped and relatively smooth, and should be free of decay that often manifests as wet or dry rot. In addition, they should not be sprouting or have green coloration since this indicates that they may contain the toxic alkaloid solanine that has been found to not only impart an undesirable taste, but can also cause a host of different health conditions such as circulatory and respiratory depression, headaches and diarrhea.

Sometimes stores will offer already cleaned potatoes. These should be avoided since when their protective coating is removed by washing, potatoes are more vulnerable to bacteria. In addition, already cleaned potatoes are also more expensive, and since you will have to wash them again before cooking, you will be paying an unnecessary additional cost.

Since new potatoes are harvested before they are fully mature, they are much more susceptible to damage. Be especially careful when purchasing these to buy ones that are free from discoloration and injury.

The ideal way to store potatoes is in a dark, dry place between 45F to 50F (between 7-10C) as higher temperatures, even room temperature, will cause the potatoes to sprout and dehydrate prematurely. While most people do not have root cellars that provide this type of environment, to maximize the potato's quality and storage, you should aim to find a place as close as possible to these conditions. Storing them in a cool, dark closet or basement may be suitable alternatives. Potatoes should definitely not be exposed to sunlight as this can cause the development of the toxic alkaloid solanine to form.

Potatoes should not be stored in the refrigerator, as their starch content will turn to sugar giving them an undesirable taste. In addition, do not store potatoes near onions, as the gases that they each emit will cause the degradation of one another. Wherever you store them, they should be kept in a burlap or paper bag.

Mature potatoes stored properly can keep up to two months. Check on the potatoes frequently, removing any that have sprouted or shriveled as spoiled ones can quickly affect the quality of the others. New potatoes are much more perishable and will only keep for one week.

Cooked potatoes will keep fresh in the refrigerator for several days. Potatoes do not freeze well.

Tips for Preparing and Cooking
Tips for Preparing Potatoes
The potato skin is a concentrated source of dietary fiber, so to get the most nutritional value from this vegetable, don't peel it and consume both the flesh and the skin. Just scrub the potato under cold running water right before cooking and then remove any deep eyes or bruises with a paring knife. If you must peel it, do so carefully with a vegetable peeler, only removing a thin layer of the skin and therefore retaining the nutrients that lie just below the skin.

Potatoes should be cleaned and cut right before cooking in order to avoid the discoloration that occurs with exposure to air. If you cannot cook them immediately after cutting, place them in a bowl of cold water to which you have added a little bit of lemon juice, as this will prevent their flesh from darkening and will also help to maintain their shape during cooking. As potatoes are also sensitive to certain metals that may cause them to discolor, avoid cooking them in iron or aluminum pots or using a carbon steel knife to cut them.

more info: http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=48

[Shami-Amourae]

Funny thing: All the potatoes I eat around this time of year are from Oregon. That's mainly since all the potatoes I see for sale here that are organic are from Oregon. I have to will till the summer months when the farmers market is open to get fresh organic Idaho potatoes again. I saw a special for potatoes a month back at Walmart for $5 for 50lbs of potatoes. Pretty crazy.

The organic potatoes cost like 8x the price, but I'd rather have organic than GMO.

[mick silver]

i grow most of the potatoes we eat . wife told me the other day that are garden was going to be twice the size ............

[Son-of-Liberty]

Didn't realize it was getting this bad in California and other areas. Going to have to keep an eye on this.

[ImaCannin]

FYI, if you are thinking of stocking up on some food, right now might be a good time. There is a company called Azure Standard, www.azurestandard.com , they are a co-op based in Oregon. How it works is, you go online and order your food, they deliver it to a drop in your area every two weeks or month. You go pick it up and pay for it. You have to call to see if they have a drop in your area. Last time I checked, they had drops all over the west but not a lot back east. The prices are wonderful, example, Justins Hazelnut butter is 11.95 in the natural grocery store, it is 7.65 at Azure, if you order 6. They have all kinds of organic food, grains and rice.
I get tons of Lundberg organic rice from Azure.

Any way, thought this would be good on this topic, since our food producing state (CA) isn't getting water this year!

I live in a farming/growing area in Idaho. I am seeing several people putting the farm ground up for sale right now. We had water wars last year and I am sure it is gonna get worse this year.

[EE_]

FYI, if you are thinking of stocking up on some food, right now might be a good time. There is a company called Azure Standard, www.azurestandard.com , they are a co-op based in Oregon. How it works is, you go online and order your food, they deliver it to a drop in your area every two weeks or month. You go pick it up and pay for it. You have to call to see if they have a drop in your area. Last time I checked, they had drops all over the west but not a lot back east. The prices are wonderful, example, Justins Hazelnut butter is 11.95 in the natural grocery store, it is 7.65 at Azure, if you order 6. They have all kinds of organic food, grains and rice.
I get tons of Lundberg organic rice from Azure.

Any way, thought this would be good on this topic, since our food producing state (CA) isn't getting water this year!

I live in a farming/growing area in Idaho. I am seeing several people putting the farm ground up for sale right now. We had water wars last year and I am sure it is gonna get worse this year.

Hi Ima :)
Probably smart to prepare for skyrocketing food prices and some shortages.
It's not looking like it will get better.
I'm planning to expand my original garden plans. The problem I have is too many tall trees, so I have limited full sun space.
I'm in zone 9 so many things will grow in partial shade.

[ImaCannin]

Hi EE,
can you do earth buckets and set them in the sunny spots between the trees?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXEgJXec_Zk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL0vXmkWUCs
http://suburbanvegetablegardening.com/how-to-build-an-earth-box-cheap/

[EE_]

Photos http://weather.aol.com/2014/01/31/dramatic-photos-reveal-californias-epic-drought/#photo=1

[EE_]

Something else to think about.
I hate posting bad news and I hate sounding like an alarmist...okay, I don't really care about the alarmist part, but this site was founded on truth and awareness, so...
If things get worse, those relying on well water may have to stop drinking it for the time being?

Health experts warn of water contamination from California drought
By Sharon Bernstein
February 18, 2014 10:49 PM

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - California's drought has put 10 communities at acute risk of running out of drinking water in 60 days, and worsened numerous other health and safety problems, public health officials in the most populous U.S. state said on Tuesday.

Rural communities where residents rely on wells are at particular risk, as contaminants in the groundwater become more concentrated with less water available to dilute them, top state health officials said at a legislative hearing on the drought.

"The drought has exacerbated existing conditions," said Mark Starr, deputy director of the California Department of Public Health.

The state has helped about 22 of 183 communities identified last year as reliant on contaminated groundwater to bring their supplies into conformance with environmental guidelines, but the rest are still building or preparing to build systems, he said.

The contamination warning comes days after President Barack Obama announced nearly $200 million in aid for the parched state, including $60 million for food banks to help people thrown out of work in agriculture-related industries as farmers leave fields unplanted and ranchers sell cattle early because the animals have no grass for grazing.

View gallery A buoy lies on the bottom of Hirz Bay in Shasta Lake, which is 100 feet (30 meters) below its normal …The California Farm Bureau estimates the overall impact of idled farmland will run to roughly $5 billion, from in direct costs of lost production and indirect effects through the region's economy.

Last month, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency, as reservoir levels dipped to all-time lows with little rain or snow in the forecast.

On Tuesday, the state's top public health officials said they were targeting 10 communities for immediate relief, trucking in water when necessary and helping to lay pipes connecting residents with nearby public water systems.

Worst hit is the small city of Willits in the northern part of the state, public health director Ron Chapman said. Also targeted for priority help included tiny water systems throughout the state, one so small it serves 55 people in a community listed simply as Whispering Pines Apartments.

"Small drinking water systems are especially vulnerable to drought conditions," the public health department said on its website. "They have fewer customers, which can mean fewer options in terms of resources like funding and infrastructure."

View gallery Almond trees are blossoming all over the county, but growers say the drought will not only affect th …STAGNANT POOLS, CONTAMINATED WELLS

Linda Rudolph, co-director for the Center for Climate Change and Health in Oakland and a former state health official, said millions of Californians rely on wells and other sources of groundwater where the concentration of contaminants is growing because of dry conditions.

"Many groundwater basins in California are contaminated, for example with nitrates from over application of nitrogen fertilizer or concentrated animal feeding operations, with industrial chemicals, with chemicals from oil extraction or due to natural contaminants with chemicals such as arsenic," Rudolph said.

In addition, as dry conditions turn ponds and creeks into stagnant pools, mosquitoes breed, and risk increases for the diseases they carry, she said at the hearing. Residents with asthma and other lung conditions are also at risk as dry conditions create dust.

The state's firefighters put out 400 blazes during the first three weeks of January, normally the state's wettest season and its slowest for wildfires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

"We are experiencing conditions right now that we would usually see in August," its website quoted Chief Ken Pimlott as saying.

(Editing by Richard Borsuk)

http://news.yahoo.com/health-experts-warn-water-contamination-california-drought-034954936.html

[BrewTech]

Take the massive damage to the GoM from the oil spill, radiation from Fuku, and a seemingly unending drought here...

I do believe we are seeing the beginning of a very ugly end.

[mick silver]

adding more to our garden maybe a good thing the way things are going in this world we all live in

[monty]

adding more to our garden maybe a good thing the way things are going in this world we all live in

And build a big root cellar to store the vegetables and home canned goods in through the winter. I remember my grandmothers root cellar, shelves with canned fruits and vegetables, jams and jellies and canned venison along with potatoes, carrots

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner

[mick silver]

already done monty , now i am thinking about a spring house ,my be about to happen

[singular_me]

dont fall for the lack of water argument... (excerpt of my latest internet article: Smoking Gun: Global Food Waste Debunks Overpopulation Theory and Humanitarian Aid)


Although this investigation aims at delving into the deception that is 'food waste', it is useful to mention that 'water waste' too is a highly disturbing topic that will be thoroughly investigated in a future column. For the moment, just remember that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization report (FAO) indicates that we currently extract less than 10% of the 43,750 cubic kilometers of fresh water returned each year to the Earth's rivers, lakes and aquifers. One inevitable question pops into mind: is this just plain carelessness or eco-terrorism? How does it come that despite the so many technological advances, the so-called rich West hasn't been more efficient at redistributing our 'blue gold', which life depends upon, but can spend trillions on standing armies? Is taxation a scheme for collateral destruction? As a matter of fact, aquifers can be found almost everywhere. It is more about how deep one is willing to drill to reach them. The climate change argument stands no chance here..... http://empathyascurrency.blogspot.com/2014/01/smoking-gun-global-food-waste-debunks.html

[palani]

http://i60.tinypic.com/zsu5uq.jpg

Any attempt by man to change California from this condition would fall under the category CLIMATE CHANGE and would be frowned upon by the world in general.

[zap]

Plan English Thanks Palani.

I totally understood the post above ! :)

[BrewTech]

dont fall for the lack of water argument... (excerpt of my latest internet article: Smoking Gun: Global Food Waste Debunks Overpopulation Theory and Humanitarian Aid)

I know where the water I drink (and, make beer with, for that matter) comes from, and I saw with my own two eyes that there ain't none currently where there should be lots.

I'm not falling for any "argument".

[Hitch]

Amen Brew. Dry and hot up here too. I think we hit 80 degrees today. I have been on a job with guys from back east, and three guys from Japan, and they all love it. They don't understand that we should be getting our asses kicked by storms this time of year.

[singular_me]

aquifers are sometimes up to 800ft deep. If taxation ever was proven to be useful, instead of spending trillions on the military complex, it could provide water for almost everybody. If pipelines exist for oil, they could be built for water. Intended idiocy rules the world... thats why we think everything is scarce. It is not as it is man made. And when man made it shouldnt be taken into consideration at all. All this can be resolved... so there is no REAL issue at stake. Fake problems will never be real.

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/retreat-living/united-states-aquifer-locations/
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/current/?type=gw

But I digress, water waste is real, yet we only use less than 10% of it worldwide... how can this happen in a so-called modernized world???


ps: I a see a lot of blue in California by the way
https://www.google.com/search?q=aquifers+in+deserts&client=firefox&hs=nUj&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=OUQJU-vFJK78yAHQroCAAQ&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=641#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=gxA_sxp0_CJb9M%253A%3BHS0h-zKFWMhXmM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252F nclimate%252Fjournal%252Fv3%252Fn4%252Fimages_arti cle%252Fnclimate1744-f1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252Fncl imate%252Fjournal%252Fv3%252Fn4%252Ffull%252Fnclim ate1744.html%3B600%3B371



I know where the water I drink (and, make beer with, for that matter) comes from, and I saw with my own two eyes that there ain't none currently where there should be lots.

I'm not falling for any "argument".

[BrewTech]

aquifers are sometimes up to 800ft deep. If taxation ever was proven to be useful, instead of spending trillions on the military complex, it could provide water for almost everybody. If pipelines exist for oil, they could be built for water. Intended idiocy rules the world... thats why we think everything is scarce. It is not as it is man made. And when man made it shouldnt be taken into consideration at all. All this can be resolved... so there is no REAL issue at stake. Fake problems will never be real.

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/retreat-living/united-states-aquifer-locations/
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/current/?type=gw

But I digress, water waste is real, yet we only use less than 10% of it worldwide... how can this happen in a so-called modernized world???


ps: I a see a lot of blue in California by the way
https://www.google.com/search?q=aquifers+in+deserts&client=firefox&hs=nUj&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=OUQJU-vFJK78yAHQroCAAQ&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=641#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=gxA_sxp0_CJb9M%253A%3BHS0h-zKFWMhXmM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252F nclimate%252Fjournal%252Fv3%252Fn4%252Fimages_arti cle%252Fnclimate1744-f1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252Fncl imate%252Fjournal%252Fv3%252Fn4%252Ffull%252Fnclim ate1744.html%3B600%3B371

If you don't mind me asking, where do you live?

You don't see anything but computer graphics made by some high school programmer. Let me repeat...


I've lived in this state for 40 years... I know how much water there should be.

There ain't no fucking water... saw it with my own two eyes... not on the internet.

[Cebu_4_2]

Here is a company with a shitload of water in an aquifer. Been watching it for many many years and it never did take off. Right now it should be through the roof but it just sits. Makes no sense. http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/pico/interactive-chart

[singular_me]

NM, not too far from CO... I do not always trust the internet, and if I ever do so, I need a lot of data backing up my findings.. sure digging up to 800ft deep may seem like warter is really gone, and this also seems to suit the water privatization agenda pretty well. Somebody who does not trust pro-global warming stories, shouldnt trust the water scarcity argument neither. IMHO




If you don't mind me asking, where do you live?

You don't see anything but computer graphics made by some high school programmer. Let me repeat...


I've lived in this state for 40 years... I know how much water there should be.

There ain't no fucking water... saw it with my own two eyes... not on the internet.

[woodman]

aquifers are sometimes up to 800ft deep. If taxation ever was proven to be useful, instead of spending trillions on the military complex, it could provide water for almost everybody. If pipelines exist for oil, they could be built for water. Intended idiocy rules the world... thats why we think everything is scarce. It is not as it is man made. And when man made it shouldnt be taken into consideration at all. All this can be resolved... so there is no REAL issue at stake. Fake problems will never be real.

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/retreat-living/united-states-aquifer-locations/
http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/current/?type=gw

But I digress, water waste is real, yet we only use less than 10% of it worldwide... how can this happen in a so-called modernized world???


ps: I a see a lot of blue in California by the way
https://www.google.com/search?q=aquifers+in+deserts&client=firefox&hs=nUj&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=OUQJU-vFJK78yAHQroCAAQ&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=641#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=gxA_sxp0_CJb9M%253A%3BHS0h-zKFWMhXmM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252F nclimate%252Fjournal%252Fv3%252Fn4%252Fimages_arti cle%252Fnclimate1744-f1.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.nature.com%252Fncl imate%252Fjournal%252Fv3%252Fn4%252Ffull%252Fnclim ate1744.html%3B600%3B371

Aquifiers deplete very fast. Many wells throughout the Midwest and elsewhere are going dry through aquifier depletion. Once the fossil water is gone, it will take centuries to replenish it.

[singular_me]

here is a case of man-made scarcity. Where I live, NM, at 7000ft elevation, most houses have a well and still PLENTY of water so far. The ditch service causes more fights between people as water distribution for the fields is restricted. But there is a control burn of the forest almost every year... what for, would one ask? It is simple, so Texas can have more water. It tells a lot about the size of that aquifer, it is huge! But meanwhile, up here, where I live, much of the dryness of the soil is attributed to global warming. I am almost sure that there is a massive scam behind that Texas story.

also what I didnt mention is that if we really wish to have more water, the soda industry must go... it is not only a major health threat (plastic bottles, dyes and corn/fake sugar are harmful) but most likely cause #1 of aquifer depletion.

How much water do you think all these mega GMO farms need to ultimately poison us? something to chew on. *How Factory Farming Pollutes Water and Soil - Global Action Network

what is the water waste per household? All these long daily showers people take? May 1, 2012 - Gimme Green documentary explores America's $41 billion per year ... American lawns require 200 gallons of fresh water per person per day, not to mention all the chemicals to keep the lawns radiant green and fight weeds. Gimme Green (2007) | Watch Documentary Free Online: http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/gimme_green_2007/

This is my next internet column, and I am going to prove that water depletion is essentially man-made. Not the result of global warming. There is plenty of water for everybody but it is just criminally misused by corporations and ignorant people. Water scarcity isn't real just yet, but a new mantra serving the resources privatization agenda. It is about (population) control.

This whole issue, just like food waste amounting to almost 50% of food globally produced, is making me sooo upset, and so should you too be... dont fall for the food/water scarcity argument as they are fabricated problems with real consequences.


Coke's Water Use
2011: 1.42 liters for one finished liter of Coke.
http://prezi.com/kvdafglhxcac/global-water-depletion-carbon-dioxide-emissions-soft-dri/







Aquifiers deplete very fast. Many wells throughout the Midwest and elsewhere are going dry through aquifier depletion. Once the fossil water is gone, it will take centuries to replenish it.

[Hypertiger]

During the last depression...London dumped grain at sea, while the population starved, to support prices.

Food shortages are on the way...shortages of everything except misery are on the way.

[singular_me]

In my food waste investigation, I state that supermarkets throwing food away, serves the same purpose but with the ensuing inflation. Even at the production level, producers must make sure to meet the quota (or lose their contracts) and throw out surplus of food as a result, it also is inflationary of course, they have to bill the distributors for producing too much or they would be faced with bankruptcy.

this is absolutely insane!!

for those who missed my column, plz read the addendum too
http://empathyascurrency.blogspot.com/2014/01/smoking-gun-global-food-waste-debunks.html

anybody who really cares about water waste/depletion should stop buying sodas and taking long showers to start with. Until I left the Big Apple, I too was taking 15min showers every day... now I have changed and take a 10min shower twice weekly, as for sodas which I bought very rarely, and plastic bottled water, I do not buy them anymore . Taking action individually is what counts the most.




During the last depression...London dumped grain at sea, while the population starved, to support prices.

Food shortages are on the way...shortages of everything except misery are on the way.

[Ponce]

Singular, Agnut picks up free vegies on Wend, Sat and Sund from a market which he distributes among the needed, here in my Micky Mouse town where is needed the most they always make sure to destroy all.

V

[singular_me]

from my column, to substantiate what you just said, HT.


Rightfully, the UN warns of looming worldwide food crisis in 2013... and we can trust that with such trends, the threat hasn't gone away. Rising food prices will threaten disaster and unrest and much of it will be blamed on the global warming. Although records show that earth temperatures have never been constant, such a blatant pillage and waste of resources will never be admitted by our so-called lawmakers. However, this UN statement is very enlightening and proves we cannot trust the organization. The UN perfectly knows the prime cause of food waste but then double-speaks as if it never read the investigations of its own FAO department

To add to the injury, the hypocritical UN claims that:
'We've not been producing as much as we are consuming'. Supplies are now very tight across the world and reserves are at a very low level, leaving no room for unexpected events next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior economist with the FAO.... The UN figures come as one of the world's leading environmentalists, Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Research Center in Washington, says that the climate is no longer reliable and the demands for food are growing so fast that a breakdown is inevitable... the global food supply system could collapse at any point, leaving hundreds of millions more people hungry, sparking widespread riots and bringing down governments. Lester goes on: Food shortages undermined earlier civilizations. We are on the same path. Each country is now fending for itself. The world is living one year to the next,' he writes in a new book. According to Lester Brown, we are seeing the start of a food supply breakdown with a dash by speculators to "grab" millions of square miles of cheap farmland, the doubling of international food prices in a decade, and the dramatic rundown of countries' food reserves.... more



During the last depression...London dumped grain at sea, while the population starved, to support prices.

Food shortages are on the way...shortages of everything except misery are on the way.

[singular_me]

Agnut surely does the right thing... and yes ignorance destroys... it is appalling.


Singular, Agnut picks up free vegies on Wend, Sat and Sund from a market which he distributes among the needed, here in my Micky Mouse town where is needed the most they always make sure to destroy all.

V

[singular_me]

as I am searching the net for my next column... the Texan' s fracking massive hoax could be taking shape


Fracking in America generated 280bn US gallons of toxic waste water last year – enough to flood all of Washington DC beneath a 22ft deep toxic lagoon, a new report out on Thursday found........ It can take 2m to 9m gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals to frack a single well. The report said the drilling industry had used 250bn gallons of fresh water since 2005. Much of that returns to the surface, however, along with naturally occurring radium and bromides, and concerns are growing about those effects on the environment.... About 260bn US gallons of the 280bn US gallons of toxic waste water were from Texas, a state that has undergone three years of severe drought and where there is fierce competition for water between the oil industry and farmers and ranchers.... more
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/oct/04/fracking-us-toxic-waste-water-washington


Fracking blamed for drought in California
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/21/us-california-fracking-moratorium-idUSBREA1K23620140221?feedType=RSS
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101408226

feel free to check out this thread too
Texan Fracking: 260bn of gallons of toxic water waste since 2005... drought in CA?
http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?75963-Texan-Fracking-260bn-of-gallons-of-toxic-water-waste-since-2005

[Shami-Amourae]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95TWwzBynWA