Asimov article on CA drought

B

Brad Widelock

Brad Widelock
Eric Asimov wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times on how the drought is affecting two different producers in the Paso Robles region. Closer to home, Front Porch Farms, which produces some wine as well as a beautiful selection of vegetables, has run out of water. Their farm is on the Russian River. The scuttlebutt at the Marin farmers markets is that many farms are running out of water and will no longer be able to come to the markets.

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www.nytimes.com
 
originally posted by Brad Widelock:
....The scuttlebutt at the Marin farmers markets is that many farms are running out of water and will no longer be able to come to the markets...
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Wow. These are small farms I presume, but still. Scary stuff. And I thought Marin got more rain than many other parts of the Bay. These are the scenarios my wife has been predicting/fearing for years.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Brad Widelock:
....The scuttlebutt at the Marin farmers markets is that many farms are running out of water and will no longer be able to come to the markets...
Click to expand...

Wow. These are small farms I presume, but still. Scary stuff. And I thought Marin got more rain than many other parts of the Bay. These are the scenarios my wife has been predicting/fearing for years.
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The rainfall varies radically within the county. From what I remember when I lived in West Marin, Fairfax got 40 in., and parts of Mt. Tam up to 60. But in the west county, we got less rain and more fog (which has diminished owing to global warming), but Novato was quite dry in comparison.

I recently spoke to someone who lives at Green Gulch Farm (very close to where I used to live in Muir Beach) and they told me their reservoir, which provides water for the farm, was almost dry this year, and that they might not be able to do much farming at all.
 
Brad,
Drought and annual fires. Two reasons we left.
BTW, the new do is you. And who is that giant in your house?
Best, jim
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Brad Widelock:
....The scuttlebutt at the Marin farmers markets is that many farms are running out of water and will no longer be able to come to the markets...
Click to expand...

Wow. These are small farms I presume, but still. Scary stuff. And I thought Marin got more rain than many other parts of the Bay. These are the scenarios my wife has been predicting/fearing for years.
Click to expand...

When my wife was young, Marin County quenched a bit of its thirst by moving East Bay water across the Richmond Bridge, among other regulations like letting it mellow.

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www.mercurynews.com
 
originally posted by Andy Beaton:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Brad Widelock:
....The scuttlebutt at the Marin farmers markets is that many farms are running out of water and will no longer be able to come to the markets...
Click to expand...

Wow. These are small farms I presume, but still. Scary stuff. And I thought Marin got more rain than many other parts of the Bay. These are the scenarios my wife has been predicting/fearing for years.
Click to expand...

When my wife was young, Marin County quenched a bit of its thirst by moving East Bay water across the Richmond Bridge, among other regulations like letting it mellow.

Loading…

www.mercurynews.com
Click to expand...

Yup, I lived in Richmond then. Marin was hurting because unlike SF and EBMUD they didn’t have reservoirs in the Sierras. There were public campaigns encouraging showering with a friend and helpful tips about putting bricks in the tank of the toilet to reduce its water consumption. There were lengthy discussions about the water consumption of bathing vs showering. Lawns died and were replaced. Then, I relocated to SoCal in ‘77 and saw people washing their cars and watering their lawns with water pumped in from the Owens Valley. [FURTHER COMMENTS REDACTED]

Mark Lipton
 
FWIW, I have lived in FL over 60 years and I can not remember a time we did not have water use restrictions.
CA is and has been beyond cavalier with water.
Soon it will cost what gas does.
Not that that will help . . .
 
Really, it's not as if no one has ever seen "Chinatown." The basic situation of CA is old news. It just needed a feather to push it over the edge. And the recent push of climate change has been somewhat more energetic.
 
Several farmer friends in Oregon have had to abruptly end their seasons because of water access being shut off as well.
 
originally posted by Brian C:
Several farmer friends in Oregon have had to abruptly end their seasons because of water access being shut off as well.
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are you talking about the willamette wine country? i didn't think that they irrigated west of the casecades.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
originally posted by Brian C:
Several farmer friends in Oregon have had to abruptly end their seasons because of water access being shut off as well.
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are you talking about the willamette wine country? i didn't think that they irrigated west of the casecades.
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No, the original post also included vegetable growers which was what I was referring to. Mainly in southern and east side Oregon. Regardless of whether these are dry areas naturally, growers I know have never experienced this before. One in particular cancelled the season altogether as he was told just prior to planting that he would only be allowed 8 weeks of irrigation and their crops require at least 12-14.
Between the drought and the fires it’s hard to describe how ever present the impacts are out here these days. We had an AQI of 260 last week at my farm and there aren’t fires anywhere near us. Last summer at the peak of harvest we were over 300 for 2 weeks. It’s a public health disaster for farm workers who have to work in those conditions.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Brad Widelock:
....The scuttlebutt at the Marin farmers markets is that many farms are running out of water and will no longer be able to come to the markets...
Click to expand...

Wow. These are small farms I presume, but still. Scary stuff. And I thought Marin got more rain than many other parts of the Bay. These are the scenarios my wife has been predicting/fearing for years.
Click to expand...

Well, it is a desert state, dependent on snow melt for a water source with 38 million people, something got to give.
 
It's a story a long time in the making. See Cadillac Desert for a classic, non-fictional narrative of the lead-up through the mid-80s.

All that provides no comfort at all for the folks suffering under these blows now. In the coming years, we'll see more departures from the status quo in regional climates, with follow-on effects that include community disruption and dislocation. Our capacity to respond humanely and rationally will be tested.
 
I'm a wine fanatic who is also an ecologist.

Water resources and water politics are a troubling issue everywhere these days for those of us who understand water requirements of vineyards. Vineyards use terrific amounts of water for irrigation and wine production. Most of that water is pulled from local sources, extinguishing local watersheds that are the only source for native species of plants and animals . It's been going on for generations without accountability; now the impact is catastrophic. The rest of the water is pulled from regional water management agencies.
It is easy to say that the people of CA deserves our current water impoverishment scenario (for political reasons/history) but I don't see anyone acknowledging how much CA vineyards (and others world wide) deplete local and regional water aquifers and rivers. In most places it's only because of irrigation of rich (now "desert") soils deposited millions of years ago that vines are grown here.
Not to speak of the fertile crescent that used to be CA supplying an enormous percentage of food to the rest of the USA and the world. People rely on the breadbasket. This is not a moral judgement, just a fact of our economy.
It's not about tit for tat. Or blaming one regional population/history. It seems a lot bigger than that to me.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
where irrigation is a necessary part of agriculture, using the land for grapes requires and uses far less water than orchards.
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As I said, not tit for tat. I am not assigning blame since we are all part of the problem.
My point is to strive for an understanding of our own part.
 
In other wine-climate news, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current shows signs of possible breakdown. AMOC disruption could shift the path of the Gulf Stream, which significantly moderates climate conditions in Europe.

Central France is about the same latitude as northern Michigan; southern Germany about that of central Ontario; the differences in average air temperatures between the North American locations and the European ones, over the course of a year, is due in large measure to the Gulf Stream, which transports water heated in the tropics to colder regions at higher latitudes.

In the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes (north of the tropics south of the arctic), prevailing winds are southwesterly (blowing northeast), and carry air warmed by the Gulf Stream over western Europe. A westward shift in the Gulf Stream could cause a regional fall in average temperatures, with a big effect on European viticulture. Imagine Burgundy turning to vintners in the Leelanau Peninsula for consultation.

That said, it's a complex system and specific consequences are hard to predict. FWIW, OTOH, AMOC disruption is one hypothesis put forward to explain the recorded periods of exceptionally cool weather ('little ice age') in Europe between the 11th and 14th centuries.
 
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