THE BENEFITS OF USING RECYCLED WATER:
It conserves drinking water,
It may benefit fish and other wildlife when less treated wastewater is discharged into—and less fresh water is diverted from rivers and other water bodies, and
It provides water for wetlands restoration.
In 1996, the Agency began to evaluate the potential for using recycled water in irrigation. The Agency has worked closely with agricultural and environmental groups, cities, towns, and districts to evaluate the potential for a recycled water distribution system that would link the reclamation systems operated by four municipalities and two sanitation districts. These facilities currently produce between 30,000 and 40,000 acre-feet of recycled water per year, a significant source for agricultural and municipal use. Of this, approximately 15,000 acre-feet are currently reused for urban and agricultural irrigation, with the remainder discharged during the winter into the Petaluma River, San Pablo Bay, or the Russian River and its tributaries. With the proposed construction of additional reservoirs, recycled water could instead be stored and used for agricultural and municipal irrigation, thereby reducing demand on the overall water supply system, enhancing the quality of surface waters, and contributing to the recovery of threatened fish and wildlife.
The Agency is currently studying water reuse systems that could be constructed in its service area to irrigate large landscaped areas with recycled water. The Agency's study will consist of (1) reviewing existing water reuse studies prepared by the water contractors, (2) identifying water reuse sites in areas where no previous water reuse studies have been performed, (3) estimating the reduction in peak water demands that are possible through water reuse, and (4) assessing construction costs associated with potential water reuse systems.
Showing posts with label agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label agriculture. Show all posts
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Feds May Cut Water to California Farms
SACRAMENTO - Federal water managers said Friday that they plan to cut off water, at least temporarily, to thousands of California farms as a result of the deepening drought gripping the state.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries for at least a two-week period beginning March 1. Authorities said they haven’t had to take such a drastic move for more than 15 years.
The situation could improve slightly if more rain falls over the next few weeks, and officials will know by mid-March if they can release more irrigation supplies to growers.
Story continues below ↓
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Farmers in the nation’s No. 1 agriculture state predicted it would cause consumers to pay more for their fruits and vegetables, which would have to be grown using expensive well water.
“Water is our life — it’s our jobs and it’s our food,” said Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the farm bureau in Fresno County. “Without a reliable water supply, Fresno County’s No. 1 employer — agriculture — is at great risk.”
The drought would cause an estimated $1.15 billion dollar loss in agriculture-related wages and eliminate as many as 40,000 jobs in farm-related industries in the San Joaquin Valley alone, where most of the nation’s produce and nut crops are grown.
'We're talking about a huge band of area that will be affected," Richard Howitt, professor of resource economics at UC Davis, told msnbc.com in an interview Friday. "I heard these predictions coming down the line, the $1 billion loss in revenue and 40,000 jobs, so I ran the numbers again. "
He delivered the grim statistics to the state Board of Good and Agriculture last week. He said new figures to be released later Friday showed even more trouble head for the state.
"As far as job losses? The answer is the majority of losses will be related to farms and farm work, the processing done for all farm commodities, and all those secondary jobs that roll through the valley economy," Howitt said.
California's sweeping Central Valley grows most of the country's fruits and vegetables in normal years, but this winter thousands of acres turned to dust as the state hurtles into the worst drought in nearly two decades.
The state's agricultural industry typically receives 80 percent of all the water supplies managed by the federal government — everything from far-off mountain streams and suburban reservoirs. The state supplies drinking water to 23 million residents and 755,000 acres of irrigated farmland.
Farms supplied by flows from the state’s system of pumps and canals would also see cutbacks but still get 15 percent of their normal deliveries, said Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources.
This year, both the state and federal reservoirs have reached their lowest level since 1992.
Dwindling supplies would have to be routed to cities to ensure residents, hospitals and fire crews have enough to meet minimum health and safety needs, said Don Glaser, the federal reclamation bureau’s Mid-Pacific Region director.
The water shortages are so severe most cities will have to start mandatory ration programs by summertime, and residents will be asked to reduce their usage by 20 percent, Snow said.
“You’ve got to think about water as a precious resource,” he said. “It may seem a stretch to conserve 20 percent of your water, but that’s nothing in comparison to the consequences of the drought and job loss in agriculture.”
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials said parched reservoirs and patchy rainfall this year were forcing them to completely stop surface water deliveries for at least a two-week period beginning March 1. Authorities said they haven’t had to take such a drastic move for more than 15 years.
The situation could improve slightly if more rain falls over the next few weeks, and officials will know by mid-March if they can release more irrigation supplies to growers.
Story continues below ↓
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
advertisement | your ad here
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Farmers in the nation’s No. 1 agriculture state predicted it would cause consumers to pay more for their fruits and vegetables, which would have to be grown using expensive well water.
“Water is our life — it’s our jobs and it’s our food,” said Ryan Jacobsen, executive director of the farm bureau in Fresno County. “Without a reliable water supply, Fresno County’s No. 1 employer — agriculture — is at great risk.”
The drought would cause an estimated $1.15 billion dollar loss in agriculture-related wages and eliminate as many as 40,000 jobs in farm-related industries in the San Joaquin Valley alone, where most of the nation’s produce and nut crops are grown.
'We're talking about a huge band of area that will be affected," Richard Howitt, professor of resource economics at UC Davis, told msnbc.com in an interview Friday. "I heard these predictions coming down the line, the $1 billion loss in revenue and 40,000 jobs, so I ran the numbers again. "
He delivered the grim statistics to the state Board of Good and Agriculture last week. He said new figures to be released later Friday showed even more trouble head for the state.
"As far as job losses? The answer is the majority of losses will be related to farms and farm work, the processing done for all farm commodities, and all those secondary jobs that roll through the valley economy," Howitt said.
California's sweeping Central Valley grows most of the country's fruits and vegetables in normal years, but this winter thousands of acres turned to dust as the state hurtles into the worst drought in nearly two decades.
The state's agricultural industry typically receives 80 percent of all the water supplies managed by the federal government — everything from far-off mountain streams and suburban reservoirs. The state supplies drinking water to 23 million residents and 755,000 acres of irrigated farmland.
Farms supplied by flows from the state’s system of pumps and canals would also see cutbacks but still get 15 percent of their normal deliveries, said Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources.
This year, both the state and federal reservoirs have reached their lowest level since 1992.
Dwindling supplies would have to be routed to cities to ensure residents, hospitals and fire crews have enough to meet minimum health and safety needs, said Don Glaser, the federal reclamation bureau’s Mid-Pacific Region director.
The water shortages are so severe most cities will have to start mandatory ration programs by summertime, and residents will be asked to reduce their usage by 20 percent, Snow said.
“You’ve got to think about water as a precious resource,” he said. “It may seem a stretch to conserve 20 percent of your water, but that’s nothing in comparison to the consequences of the drought and job loss in agriculture.”
Thursday, October 16, 2008
limiting water waste
In addition to income levels, water prices help to set the extent of demand. For example, in the late 1990s, when my colleagues and I simulated global water use from 2000 until 2050, we found that worldwide water requirements would rise from 3,350 cubic kilometers (km3)—roughly equal to the volume of Lake Huron—to 4,900 km3 if income and prices remained as they were in 1998. (A cubic kilometer of water is equivalent to the volume of 400,000 Olympic swimming pools.) But the demand would grow almost threefold (to 9,250 km3) if the incomes of the poorest nations were to continue to climb to levels equivalent to those of middle-income countries today and if the governments of those nations were to pursue no special policies to restrict water use. This increased requirement would greatly intensify the pressure on water supplies, a result that agrees fairly well with forecasts made by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) when it considered a “business-as-usual,” or “do-nothing-different,” scenario in the 2007 study Water for Food, Water for Life.
Ways to Limit Waste
Given the importance of economics and income in water matters, it is clear that reasonable pricing policies that promote greater conservation by domestic and industrial users are worth adopting. In the past the cost of freshwater in the U.S. and other economic powers has been too low to encourage users to save water: as often happens when people exploit a natural resource, few worry about waste if a commodity is so cheap that it seems almost free.
Setting higher prices for water where possible is therefore near the top of my prescription list. It makes a lot of sense in developed nations, particularly in large cities and industrial areas, and more and more in developing ones as well. Higher water prices can, for instance, spur the adoption of measures such as the systematic reuse of used water (so-called gray water) for nonpotable applications. It can also encourage water agencies to build recycling and reclamation systems.
Raising prices can in addition convince municipalities and others to reduce water losses by improving maintenance of water-delivery systems. One of the major consequences of pricing water too low is that insufficient funds are generated for future development and preventive upkeep. In 2002 the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that many domestic water utilities defer infrastructure maintenance so that they can remain within their limited operating budgets. Rather than avoiding major failures by detecting leaks early on, they usually wait until water mains break before fixing them.
The cost of repairing and modernizing the water infrastructures of the U.S. and Canada to reduce losses and ensure continued operation will be high, however. The consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has projected that the two countries will need to spend $3.6 trillion combined on their water systems over the next 25 years.
When the goal is to save water, another key strategy should be to focus on the largest consumers. That approach places irrigated agriculture in the bull’s-eye: compared with any other single activity, conserving irrigation flows would conserve dramatically more freshwater. To meet world food requirements in 2050 without any technological improvements to irrigated agriculture methods, farmers will need a substantial rise in irrigation water supplies (an increase from the current 2,700 to 4,000 km3), according to the IWMI study.
On the other hand, even a modest 10 percent rise in irrigation efficiency would free up more water than is evaporated off by all other users. This goal could be achieved by stopping up leaks in the water-delivery infrastructure and by implementing low-loss storage of water as well as more efficient application of water to farm crops.
An agreement between municipal water suppliers in southern California and nearby irrigators in the Imperial Irrigation District illustrates one creative conservation effort. The municipal group is paying to line leaky irrigation canals with waterproof materials, and the water that is saved will go to municipal needs.
Ways to Limit Waste
Given the importance of economics and income in water matters, it is clear that reasonable pricing policies that promote greater conservation by domestic and industrial users are worth adopting. In the past the cost of freshwater in the U.S. and other economic powers has been too low to encourage users to save water: as often happens when people exploit a natural resource, few worry about waste if a commodity is so cheap that it seems almost free.
Setting higher prices for water where possible is therefore near the top of my prescription list. It makes a lot of sense in developed nations, particularly in large cities and industrial areas, and more and more in developing ones as well. Higher water prices can, for instance, spur the adoption of measures such as the systematic reuse of used water (so-called gray water) for nonpotable applications. It can also encourage water agencies to build recycling and reclamation systems.
Raising prices can in addition convince municipalities and others to reduce water losses by improving maintenance of water-delivery systems. One of the major consequences of pricing water too low is that insufficient funds are generated for future development and preventive upkeep. In 2002 the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported that many domestic water utilities defer infrastructure maintenance so that they can remain within their limited operating budgets. Rather than avoiding major failures by detecting leaks early on, they usually wait until water mains break before fixing them.
The cost of repairing and modernizing the water infrastructures of the U.S. and Canada to reduce losses and ensure continued operation will be high, however. The consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has projected that the two countries will need to spend $3.6 trillion combined on their water systems over the next 25 years.
When the goal is to save water, another key strategy should be to focus on the largest consumers. That approach places irrigated agriculture in the bull’s-eye: compared with any other single activity, conserving irrigation flows would conserve dramatically more freshwater. To meet world food requirements in 2050 without any technological improvements to irrigated agriculture methods, farmers will need a substantial rise in irrigation water supplies (an increase from the current 2,700 to 4,000 km3), according to the IWMI study.
On the other hand, even a modest 10 percent rise in irrigation efficiency would free up more water than is evaporated off by all other users. This goal could be achieved by stopping up leaks in the water-delivery infrastructure and by implementing low-loss storage of water as well as more efficient application of water to farm crops.
An agreement between municipal water suppliers in southern California and nearby irrigators in the Imperial Irrigation District illustrates one creative conservation effort. The municipal group is paying to line leaky irrigation canals with waterproof materials, and the water that is saved will go to municipal needs.
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