Water Wars: Central Valley Farms Lose Again

What more do I need to say? Except that Sacramento fails again. And another source said 2.4 million acre-feet since December.

From:  http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2016/02/millions-of-gallons-of-wasted-storm-runoff-ignored/

Millions of Gallons of Wasted Storm Runoff Ignored 

By Assemblyman Jim Patterson

Assembly Member Jim Patterson represents the 23rd District, which includes portions of Fresno and Tulare counties.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2016

Last week the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Resources and Transportation heard testimony from several of the state’s water bureaucrats about how they are spending water bond funds. Surprising to me was that after all the back-patting, there was not one mention of all the water we are wasting.
According to the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, more than 208,000 acre feet of water was flushed out to the ocean during the month of January.
We should be pumping that water out of the Delta to refill and replenish the reservoirs we will rely on for our next dry season.
Fresno County Farmer Wayne Western has been crunching numbers to keep the public aware of all the water waste.  “The people of California have been conserving for a major drought for over three years.  We’ve also been paying for it by lost jobs, fallowed fields,” Western said. “It’s time for the government to end the man-made drought and start pumping and saving water.”
Unfortunately, pumping restrictions have drastically limited pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. I joined several of my legislative colleagues last week to call on the State Water Board to work with the necessary agencies to at least allow for some pumping after drenching winter storms.
If our voices are not heard and action is not taken we will lose millions of acre feet of water this year.
FAST FACTS ON WATER RELEASES

• During the month of January 208,000 acre feet was lost to the ocean
• That’s enough to supply 462,000 families for a year
• Resulting in 69,000 acres of fallowed farmland and 16,000 lost jobs

Follow Jim Patterson on Twitter @jimpatterson559

EPA Tryanny in Wyoming

Andy Johnson is a small farmer/rancher who works as a welder to raise his family of six.  He built a stock pond a few years ago, after obtainingall needed local and state permits.  These permits were signed off by the correct agencies when the pond was completed.

Two years later EPA charged him with an illegal construction in a wetland.  They have been fining him at least $37,500 per day ever since.  The total is now over $16 million.

Watch this video to see the injustice and to see the beautiful little pond that has enhanced the local environment on Andy's property and neighborhood.

Andy Johnson Stock Pond in Wyoming - PLF video

Thankfully, Pacific Legal Foundation and many legislators have come to Andy's assistance.  However, EPA still maintains that Andy has violated teh Clean Water Act, especially now that they have declared jurisdiction of all of the "Waters of the U.S."

The scary part is that if the EPA prevails on its "Waters of the U.S." declaration, they will have destroyed private property rights for all Americans who have any type of water on their property.  Significantly, the White House supports and encourages this bureaucratic tyranny.

See PLF page here:  Pacificlegal.org/Cases/Case-johnson

RedBear encourages donations to PLF for the good work they do for freedom.

Similar story:  Mike and Chantall Sackett fought the EPA and after about 6 years finally won in the Supreme Court.  The court said things like "egregious overreach" about the EPA.  The decision was 9-0.  See here:  Sackett Case against EPA

Are Our Forests Really Overgrown?

Another fire is active within 20 miles of us today.  It is the Courtney Fire in Oakhurst and 21 structures have burned since it started yesterday around noon.  This comes on top of last week's Bridge Fire that almost destroyed 250 homes in Ponderosa Basin, near us.  Two other fires are active near Coulterville.

We all know it is year three of drought and everything is extremely dry.  But one of the real culprits here is the overabundance of fuels in the woods and a 100 years of fire repression without adequate management of fuel loads.  The inability of the Forest Services to properly manage lands due to excessive meddling and lawsuits by environmental groups is adding greatly to the problem.

So what does it mean to say there is too much fuel in the forests.  Well, over 100 years ago several naturalists made surveys of the forests from Arizona to Washington.  They counted numbers of trees per acre.  The general result was that the pine forests of then held about 30 to 40 mature trees per acre.  Smaller tress were regularly kept in check by ground fires.  Today, it is easy to see 300 to 400 trees per acre, many of which are small and midsize trees that constitute the majority of the fuel load, and the danger.

Here is an article that appeared last year during the huge, 400 sq. mile Rim Fire in Mariposa County and Yosemite Park.    Fire-in-Yosemite-offers-forest-management-lessons  It discusses the results of an ongoing survey that started 100 years ago and shows clearly the high fuels load.

Here is a quote:  "Big increase in tree density - A large part of the answer may be found in Stephens' interrupted expedition. His four-person research team was in the process of measuring tree diameters and densities on 15,000 acres that had been studied by the U.S. Forest Service in 1911.
The group found as many as 400 trees per acre on the land. That's compared with between 60 and 90 trees per acre in 1911. There was also between 30 and 40 tons of woody debris per acre on the forest floor, compared with 6 to 8 tons 102 years ago, Stephens said. Besides the dramatic increase in tree density, the researchers found more undergrowth species and, although there were still many old growth trees, the average size of the trees was smaller than in 1911, he said.
"We know the last fire in that area was in about 1905. That's 100 years without fire," Stephens said. "If you don't clear trees and brush and do some prescribed burning, you are eventually going to get a very closed forest that is very dense."

There is a little good news in some places around the Sierra.  I have been riding a lot of forestry roads and roads like Highway 4 Ebbett's Pass yesterday.   I am seeing more instances of Forestry and other agencies doing fuel reduction alongside the roads to about 100 yards back from the road edges.  They are trimming limbs, collecting dead-fall and trash, and cutting the medium size-infill trees for later burning.

I believe we need much more of this thinning, We we consider that the Rim Fire costs about $100 million, think of all the labor hours that could provide valuable jobs to forest workers.  Think of all the homes that could be saved from out-of-control fires.

Jerry Brown, are you listening?