Sometimes the problems of life get to be too much and "something has got to give". My life has been that way lately. So, on Thursday, June 4, I threw some things in the car and drove north. I didn't really have a destination, but I did take a list of quilt related events as far as the Canadian border. I knew I wouldn't get that far since I had to be back for today's meeting of the new Surfside Quilters Guild. But I had five days of just driving in almost isolation - except for gas stations, motels, restaurants and my caring good friends Mary and Joe. I spent the first night at their oh-so-welcoming home in San Juan Bautista.
When I drove up in April I was trying to take pictures of the many fully loaded citrus trucks on I-5. This time I managed a shot of one of the trucks hauling garlic. One can always tell if there is a garlic truck ahead because the air is filled with hopping, jumping, floating white pieces of the dry husks. This truck might be headed for Gilroy, self-proclaimed Garlic Capitol of the World.
I was not aware of a water war in the central valley, until I started seeing these yellow signs posted along the roadway, mostly on the edge of unplanted fields which were very dry and sometimes haunted by dust devils. "Congress Created Dust Bowl" is the farmer's reaction to the with holding of water upstream to supply salmon streams with water enough for the salmon to get upstream to spawn. Not much news about this 'war' in the LA media, but it seems to be a hot topic in the north and central parts of the state.
Further north these signs started to appear. I don't know if this is part of the same struggle over water. I can't quite make the connection.
A typical view of the Valley - contrasting dry, waterless acres and those that are still receiving what seems to be adequate water. When I came home I found in my mail a notice from the water district that covers my area - water restrictions on a graded scale down to no outdoor watering at all. We knew this was coming, we just stuck our heads in the sand and kept planting sweeping grass lawns. I just hope they won't outlaw showers!
...Continued tomorrow...
3 comments:
I live in the Delta. I don't believe Sacramento and Stockton are dumping sewage into the Delta. Both towns have municipal sewage plants. Our island is hooked up to a local sewage plant. We don't dump any sewage into the rivers and sloughs.
Bad information!
I live in the Valley. :) The water being denied to the farmers is to "save the smelt." Rather than divert it for agricultural purposes, it travels straight to the Pacific. We hear on a daily basis that Sacramento dumps raw sewage into the Delta. For more info see the following http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2008/06/28/opinion/doc4865ce6076fcc330223412.txt
It's a hard thing to accept, when the Valley is the source of so much of our nation's food supply...
I copied and pasted Suzanne's link, but it just took me to a search page. No help at all.
The Delta supplies drinking water to 23 million in southern California. The smelt are being killed at the transfer stations.
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