News Articles

Still, Sacramento area will fare better than most Sacramento Business Journal – California’s new water year started Wednesday with sunny skies and Folsom Lake storage at about half of average for this time of year. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — which manages Folsom, Shasta, Oroville and other reservoirs in the Central Valley Project — classified the water year that ended Tuesday as “critically dry.” It cut back water allowances for municipal and industrial customers with Central Valley Project contracts by 25 percent and irrigation customers by 60 percent.

Stockton Record – ROBERTS ISLAND - Rogene Reynolds hit the brakes of her sedan as a family of quail skittered across the farm road. It's the same path Reynolds, 59, traveled as a little girl - on a pony.

Modesto Bee – Water supply constraints have reduced the amount of water available for California this year, causing economic losses and midseason fallowing for many farmers. Independent of what we might want, it is very likely that there will continue to be serious constraints on water available to all California users, including agriculture. At a recent state Board of Food and Agriculture meeting in Sacramento, Secretary of Agriculture A.G. Kawamura stated that because of changes in the timing and reliability of water supply, "doing nothing is not an option."

Mount Shasta News – Siskiyou County, Calif. - A drive along the I-5 corridor between Mount Shasta and Redding will quickly let even the casual observer know that California is experiencing a severe drought. The sight of a bare Mount Shasta and the exposed banks of Shasta Lake serve as stark and constant reminders of the situation unfolding throughout the North State. In a statement on its website, the Department of Water Resources calls the drought of the past two years, “the most significant water crisis in California history.” The drought is also arguably the biggest factor in the wildfires that made this year’s “the worst fire season in California history,” according to Governor Schwarzenegger  and CalFire.

Lodi News Sentinel – Thanks to a state grant of nearly $4 million, workers are busy adding to five miles of levees on the south side of the Mokelumne River.

Contra Costa Times – today highly vulnerable to shortages and facing the possibility of widespread rationing after two dry years.