RAIN!
4 Dry Years Spur Plans to Capture/Save H2O
Research Warns Of Drier Sierra

San Joaquin Valley - The first rain of this season looks like it will fall the day we go to press (November 7) a welcome clearing of the sooty air we breathe and a chance to quiet a thirst that drives our lifeblood - agriculture.

But will there be enough? With the season ending September 30 this was the fourth year in a row the runoff on the San Joaquin River - home to the big Friant Kern canal that feeds Tulare County - was below average. The year before was just 57% of normal reducing the amount of class 2 "surplus" federal water that comes into the Kaweah area only when its available and only when federal contractor Tulare Irrigation District agrees to take it.

When it does come next time local irrigation officials want to be ready to capture some of it. That's the reason why in recent weeks Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District, the cities of Farmersville, Visalia and Tulare Irrigation District among others are working to site more ponding basins and even widen channels in places like Cameron Creek to allow more seepage into our ever declining groundwater table.

Under new management these days, Tulare Irrigation District is now on the same page as other Kaweah water districts when it comes to ways to capture this surface water and to protect our groundwater. TID fought the Kaweah interests for years over the issue of leakage from the main TID canal into the Kaweah area - but it's a new day.

Today TID general manager, Paul Hendrix, says his board is near to signing an agreement not to export Kaweah groundwater as long as it does not preclude TID from water exchange that will benefit the Kaweah District. TID, KDWCD and the City of Visalia have a joint project to site recharge basins and other water saving fixtures that benefits everyone. Citizens of Visalia actually pay money every year to help fund the projects. Often the basins double as parks.

Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District is doing some long range planning of their own this winter, hiring a consultant to provide an update on the state of the district's groundwater resources, a project that hasn't been tackled since the early 1970s. KDWCD general manager Bruce George says water levels in the district have fallen 15 to 20 feet in the past few years as we extract more water than we put back in.

Meanwhile, to insure no entity within the Kaweah exports groundwater, KDWCD monitors water users water sales and the district working to head off attempts to sell water rights out of the district. Such is the case with the water trading and ag company Cadiz who owns water rights near Woodlake on the Kaweah. TID is also negotiating with Cadiz to buy the rights working on Cadiz's desire to move more water to its Kern County ranch - Sun World. The talks are ongoing according to Hendrix.

Meanwhile, the entire Friant District continues to discuss a water quality trade for water quantity with Metropolitan Water District. And Friant isn't the only one, Kings River Water Agency made of 28 district continues to negotiate with MET in a possible water exchange that will trade water on a one to one basis with Kings River getting money to build more water recharge basins or conveyance devices. Watermaster Tim O'Halloran figures the district that's over about 1 million acres has an overdraft of about 200,000 acre ft. in a year and when a big flood year comes, like in 1998, the district can get a million acre ft. of flood water in a wet year.

Trading high quality Kings River water to MET for lower quality state water might be worth it if MET foots the bill for more basins. MET seeks water with fewer salts or impurities fourn in state project water.

That has been the approach of Friant contractor Arvin Edison who has a relationship with MET with a canal that connects the Friant Kern to the state California Aqueduct. O'Halloran says the Kings Water District is now studying the MET proposal. In our area Paul Hendrix says he believes it quite possible that a Friant/MET project could be sited somewhere in the Kaweah area.

Mammoth Pool

One potential project getting a new look this winter is the plan to enlarge Mammoth Pool near Shaver Lake on the San Joaquin - a project that had been studied by Edison back in the early 1980s. The new project calls for expansion of the reservoir there by 30,000 acre ft. over its current capacity at 122,000 acre ft. The enlargement would help capture more winter runoff given that Millerton Lake is not large enough to hold a typical winter runoff. Mammoth Pool typically spills in years of 80% natural runoff. In addition, expansion of the reservoir would generate over 70 kilowatt hours helping to pay some of the cost of the expansion project. Long term plans to expand storage above Millerton could get a short term boost with this modest project.

Drier Winters To Come?

One scary notion is that increased warming of our climate due to higher doses of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could have a negative effect on snowpack up and down the Sierra. A recent study by researchers at UC Santa Cruz says that the state's climate in the next 50 to 100 years will mean warmer temps reducing the size of the snow pack although rainfall would stay largely the same in southern California increasing in northern California but in the central Sierra warmer rainfall might fall in March with an additional 8 inches of rain but snow pack falls by 13 ft. and by the end of April the snow pack is gone.

The study suggest warmer temps affect the high Sierra forcing our water reservoirs to prepare for flood water sooner in the year. The effect on rainfall in California clearly vary significantly says the study, with precipitation in northern California increasing by nearly one quarter given a doubling of carbon dioxide levels. But April snowfall above Fresno would dwindle - the source of the San Joaquin River. Overall snow pack in March could be reduced by a whopping 82% by the year 2050, says the UC study.

As we begin this 2002-03 water season the good news is that forecasters are calling for a chance of increased rainfall this winter given the return of an El Nino warming in the Pacific. Celebrate when it does rain - we all can breathe a little easier.

Tulare County - Business may be good for some few sectors in the central valley this November - like homebuilders, but despite the approaching holiday season many find little reason for cheer.

From Tulare County's biggest farms and top crops to Main St. businesses and retail stores, some former unshakable optimists are today whistling a different tune. "In 25 years in the insurance business in Visalia, I've never had a worse year," says former city council member and Downtown businessman Don Sharp. "For the first time I really don't know if I am going to be farming five years from now," says Visalia farmer Brian Blain.

Take the pride and joy of the central valley, retail powerhouse Gottschalks - based in Fresno whose stock has now fallen to about $1.50 a share from about $9 in January 2000 and even higher in years before. Stock prices are so low that for the first time people are actually believing rumors that the company faces a likely sellout to Federated Dept. Stores.

Or how about Visalia's largest employer Cigna, the insurance giant that fell in stock value from $120 per share to some $36 this week just since January of 2001. The company employs nearly 1300 in Visalia - all who are worried about their jobs.

Two recent Tulare County companies who are laying off long time workers - Waterman Industries in Exeter and Sequoia Pacific Apparel in Porterville - say the high cost of doing business in the US or California particularly, mean they just can't go on.

And there was fresh evidence this week that government is feeling the pinch of the slower economy and the reduced taxes it is collecting. The Tulare County Board of Supervisors ended a contract that successfully had moved hundreds of former welfare recipients back to work. That includes ending the respected MOVE program that has relocated Tulare County families to other states with the promise of a paying job. In addition the welfare department itself is looking at layoffs of up to 70 people currently working for the County, says HHS director Ron Probasco.

Tulare County's ag engine, the big three farm crops are not doing well either.

Tulare's largest employer, Land O'Lakes, just reported a $12 million net loss for the third quarter largely because of the low price of milk and milk commodities. One key issue is the cost to the company to start up the new joint venture with a Japanese partner. The joint venture - CPI in Tulare is gearing up to make cheese just as the cheese market has crashed at support levels for some cheeses.

The mozzarella cheese plant has been facing startup hurdles that include a waiver of their air pollution permit because some emissions are too high and the prospect of a $300,000 a month increase in their sewer bill because of high salt loads in their waste water. The company has employed a "salt team" to work to lower the electrical conductivity of the waste water than is dumped in the city sewer system.

Milk, the number one crop in Tulare County and a $1 billion commodity in Tulare County, is now priced about one third lower than last year drying up most of the expansion plans dairy farmers have had that had been tied up until recently by environmental concerns.

Only the Haagen Dazs people (Tulare) are happy in the milk commodity business because they haven't reduced the price of their premium ice cream to consumers but are paying far less for their raw ingredients this year. The new Farm Bill may insure dairy prices stay low now for years worries Congressman Cal Dooley since it offers an incentive to produce whether they market it or not.

The Tulare grape industry is even worse off as is the rest of the valley raisin, grape and wine grape industry. Estimates are that upward of 50,000 acres of grapes went unharvested and unattended this season - the only good news would be for a wholesale pulling of thousands of acres of overplanted grapes statewide. Wine grape prices for valley Chardonnay grapes - fell by one estimate by about half as raisin growers requested a bailout in recent weeks, a move that would join valley cotton growers as federal aid recipients.

In the orange business the buzz about this season's crop is that its big - in volume and in many cases small in size meaning lower prices at least for those with the smaller sizes. The bad news, the flood of orange competition is back with Spanish Clementines coming in the marketplace again. Like a host of other Tulare County crops, the onslaught of foreign competition often subsidized is "just killing us" admits olive industry spokesman Adin Hester.

Visalia insurance agent Don Sharp says in the insurance business the trouble started with 9-11 and the collapse of the twin towers. Sharp says the latest estimate of the potential cost of the 9-11 tragedy was in the neighborhood of $70 billion. The huge losses associated with the terrorist attack had a resonating impact on the re-insurance industry, says Sharp, companies that help carry the risk from major insurers. Losses includes not just loss of life, but loss of rents, business income contingents, worker comp losses and life insurance payments. Every car crushed in the underground helped increase the price of auto insurance and then there was the effect on the airline industry and travel.

The Enron bankruptcy too had a huge ripple effect explains Sharp in the bonds issued to provide power contracts to supply energy had to be fulfilled. The bankruptcy of Kmart was another blow, says Sharp, another company who was left uninsured for worker comp claims who paid to have bonds because it is a legal requirement in all states. A bond company insured Kmart's sales tax proceeds to cities which it now has to eat.

The litigious nature of business in California plays a part in skyrocketing worker comp cost here as well, says Sharp along with product defect suits and mold cases and the like that have skyrocketed in the Golden State.

"Hundreds of insurance companies have left the state leaving the state affiliated State Fund as the only supplier of worker comp in some areas," he says. Now that the state won't allow the State Fund to add employees because of a state freeze on the budget, and Sharp says State Fund can no longer handle the business they have.

To make matters worse in the insurance business companies typically make up for loss they count on investment income that helps put them in the black. Not in the past year as the value stock as well as interest returns have plunged.

In the health insurance industry skyrocketing medical costs are hurting profitability in the health insurance industry - witness Cigna.

Sorry to be a gloomy Gus, but taken as a whole - it's not a pretty picture.