central valley

see ca agribiz and westands water

see valley fever

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an 10 25

John Galgiani has been waiting for this call.

The 79-year-old physician is sitting on a chair in a side office at a health clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, long legs crammed under the table in front of him, hands folded at his stomach, when his cell phone rings. “There’s my guy,” he says.

The man on the other end, a physician who works in Tucson, is a touch less relaxed. One of his patients has been in and out of the hospital with a respiratory infection so severe that at one point she coughed up blood. Her skin is flaking, she’s losing her hair, and now the ventricles in her heart are taking too long to refill with blood between beats. The physician suspects some of these symptoms are being caused not by her underlying condition, but by the medication he has her on. The problem is, her insurance is refusing to cover a more expensive alternative.

Galgiani, the country’s leading expert on the disease they’re talking about, quickly cuts him off. Take the patient off the medication, he says, and see how she does. If she improves, show the insurance company proof and force its hand. “That’s actually a good idea,” the doctor replies.

The conversation is so routine, its conclusion — a change of medication — so anodyne, it’s easy to forget that the patient they’re talking about is battling a deadly and incurable fungus.

IFrame Content

Doctors have been searching for a cure for coccidioidomycosis,the disease afflicting the patient, since the 1890s, when an Argentine soldier was hospitalized with skin lesions that returned with a zombie-like vengeance after being scrubbed or cut off. Not long after, an immigrant farmworker landed in a San Francisco hospital with the same mutilating disease. Both patients eventually died.

It would be decades before medical researchers and public health officials connected the dots between those cases and reports of a mysterious disease referred to simply as “desert rheumatism” by the waves of settlers, immigrants, and farmworkers that rippled through the West on the heels of the Gold Rush, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and the Dust Bowl. In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the disease was known as “San Joaquin Valley Fever,” and “valley fever” became the colloquial name of the infection Galgiani later dedicated his life to studying.

By the 1930s, scientists understood that valley fever and the disease that killed the two immigrant farmworkers were different stages of one illness caused by the same fungal pathogen. They had also begun to grasp the basics of transmission. The fungus that causes the disease, called coccidioides or cocci (pronounced “cox-ee”) for short, grows in the top few inches of undisturbed earth throughout the Western U.S. and flourishes during cool, rainy periods. Then, in the summertime heat of the desert, its delicate fungal threads desiccate. Once they’re dry, any disturbance of the topsoil — a foot kicking up earth, a bulldozer digging a foundation, an earthquake shaking loose clouds of dust — sends infinitesimal spores swirling into the air, where they can be sucked through the nasal passages and into the lungs of passing humans or animals.

Most people who breathe in cocci spores — about 6 in 10 — won’t develop symptoms. But the 40 percent of exposed people whose immune systems can’t or won’t fight off the fungus develop symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches, coughing, and rash that can last weeks or months. In the 5 to 10 percent of symptomatic cases where the fungus invades the vital organs, the death rate is as high as 25 percent. The pathogen is so powerful the U.S. army weighed whether to develop it into a bioterrorism weapon in the 1960s.

Valley fever is endemic to southern Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and parts of Central and South America, but nowhere are cases of the disease more common than in Arizona. After Arizona started mandatory laboratory reporting for valley fever in 1997, registered cases ticked up and down. But the number began trending upward dramatically in 2016. Then, in 2024, cases in the state exploded, hitting their second-highest total ever. More than 15,000 infections were reported — a 37 percent increase over 2023. California, which runs just behind Arizona in its annual valley fever caseload, registered a record-breaking 12,637 cases in 2024, representing a 39 percent increase over the previous year, which had already smashed a record set in 2019.

Some portion of the rise in reported cases represents growing awareness among physicians and an associated surge in testing. The pace of new construction in untouched areas also plays a role.

But the recent increase in cases has been so dramatic, Galgiani and other researchers across the West who study the fungus think another factor may be driving the trend: supersoaker winter monsoons followed by scorching summer heat and drought, a cycle made more intense by climate change.

Because warmer air holds more moisture, monsoons and other major rainfall events pull in larger quantities of water vapor and produce heavier downpours as the planet warms. This physical fact has fueled a spate of monster floods across the U.S. and around the world in recent years. But the same warmth can conversely lead to drought by making the atmosphere “thirstier,” or capable of absorbing more water from the land’s surface. Both conditions facilitate the spread of valley fever — the wetter conditions by encouraging growth of the spores, and the drier by facilitating desiccation and soil disturbance.

...

an 10 25

'Alarmed local farmers': Fox News reporter debunks Trump’s repeated claim he 'turned the water on' in CA

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an 2 25

President Donald Trump has taken credit for distributing water to Southern California, but Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin said otherwise. In fact, she said in a post on X on Monday, the water went to farmers whose dormant crops did not need it.

“President Trump again said he ‘turned the water on’ in California and that water could have been used to fight the wildfires,” Griffin wrote. “A few facts: The water released by the Army Corps of Engineers from 2 dams in Central California has no way to reach Southern California. The sudden rush alarmed local farmers whose land was nearly flooded.”

She added: “The water is usually kept in reserve to help farmers in Central California during summer drought months. There are no crops that need the water right now. They are dormant. The water was released by the Army Corps of Engineers from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Lake Success but has no way to connect to the aqueduct to deliver water to Southern California to be used for wildfires (most of which are now no longer burning).”

Griffin was responding to a post from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency: “Congratulations to the Administration and DOI’s [Department of Interior] Bureau of Reclamation for more than doubling the Federally pumped water flowing toward Southern California in < 72 hours. Was an honor for the DOGE team to work with you. Great job!”

Trump repeated the claim during a press conference Monday.

More water from Northern California would not have changed the outcome of the fires that destroyed parts of Los Angeles, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom told the Los Angeles Times.

“There is no shortage of water in Southern California,” Newsom’s spokesperson, Tara Gallegos, said. “Water operations to move water south through the Delta have nothing to do with the local fire response in Los Angeles. Trump is either unaware of how water is stored in California or is deliberately misleading the public.”

Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) also questioned the move. “Unscheduled water releases require close coordination with local officials and safety personnel, as well as downstream agricultural water users, in order to reduce flood risks to communities and farms,” he wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Based on the urgent concerns I have heard from my constituents, as well as recent reporting, it appears that gravely insufficient notification was given, recklessly endangering residents downstream.”

“Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory!” Trump posted on X last week. “I only wish they listened to me six years ago — There would have been no fire!

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an 225

Trump recently ordered the release of massive amounts of water from two California dams, and now local farmers are scrambling to preserve precious freshwater resources needed for dry summer months.

The Los Angeles Times reported Friday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — acting on Trump's orders — released water from the Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and the Schafer Dam at Lake Success, which are both in Tulare County in the San Joaquin Valley. Whereas water was originally flowing from the Terminus Dam at 57 cubic feet per second (cfs), it's now reportedly flowing at more than 1,500 cfs. The flow from Lake Success went from 105 cfas to 990 cfs as of Friday morning.

In a post to his official X account, Trump tweeted a "photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California," writing: "Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons." He suggested that the water release would help officials in the Golden State fight wildfires in Southern California.

"Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory!" he tweeted. "I only wish they listened to me six years ago – There would have been no fire!

In response to an inquiry from the Los Angeles Times, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Gene Pawlik confirmed that the release of water from the dams was done "to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires." He added that the water release was "consistent with the direction" of Trump's January 24 executive order announcing "emergency measures to provide water resources in California."

However, water managers in Tulare County told Bakersfield, California-based news site SJV Water — which covers water issues in the San Joaquin Valley – that there are multiple physical and legal barriers that prevent the valley's water from getting to Southern California. SJV Water reported that the water would have to be "pumped at great expense" across the valley to the California Aqueduct, where it would still need to travel hundreds of miles to make it to the Los Angeles area.

“Every drop belongs to someone,” Kaweah River Watermaster Victor Hernandez told SJV Water. “The reservoir may belong to the federal government, but the water is ours. If someone’s playing political games with this water, it’s wrong.”

The two dams are considered important reservoirs of water for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, which is known for its "Citrus Belt" that produced more than four million tons of citrus fruits — particularly Mandarin, Navel and Valencia oranges, along with grapefruits and lemons — in the 2020-2021 season alone. Tulare County water manager Dan Vink said the release of water from the dams could make irrigation difficult.

"A decision to take summer water from local farmers and dump it out of these reservoirs shows a complete lack of understanding of how the system works and sets a very dangerous precedent," Vink said. "This decision was clearly made by someone with no understanding of the system or the impacts that come from knee-jerk political actions."

Climate scientist Peter Gleick — who specializes in water issues — lamented on Bluesky that water resources farmers had been "relying on" were effectively "thrown away" by the Trump administration all for the sale of "a photo op & a bragging media post."

"This water will not be captured, will not be useful for cities or farms or firefighting," Gleick wrote. "It is now lost."

Click here to read the Los Angeles Times' article (subscription required) and click here to read SJV Water's full report.

===

cadiz water pvt hurtado

:{Vaquero Energy v. County of Kern :: 2019 :: California ...:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:top;display:inline-block;max-width:100%;overflow:hidden;text-overflow:ellipsis;white-space:nowrap"):}:

Vaquero filed suit challenging provisions of a new zoning ordinance requiring permits for new oil and gas exploration, drilling, and production. The ordinance imposed a wide range of environmental and other standards on permit applicants, adopting two procedural pathways for obtaining permits when the proposed activity would be conducted on split-estate land zoned for agriculture. Vaquero ..

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02082020/california-big-oil-environmental-health

aug 2020

ARVIN, California—In September 2018, Estela Escoto sat down with a team of lawyers and community organizers and weighed her options.

Escoto's town—Arvin, California—had just granted an oil drilling and well-servicing company, Petro-Lud, a permit to drill four new wells near a neighborhood densely packed with young families and a park where children played soccer.

Escoto, president of an environmental justice group called the Committee for a Better Arvin, was frustrated, but not surprised. For years, she and the committee had been struggling to keep oil and gas development out of their neighborhoods....

denham off bs

Following Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s visit to Don Pedro and New Melones Reservoirs at the request of U.S. Representative Jeff Denham (R-Turlock), the Department of Interior issued an official comment on Friday to the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposed water grab.

The Department of Interior’s comment notes that the proposed water grab “directly interfere[s] with the New Melones Project’s ability to store water” and “elevate[s] the Project’s fish and wildlife purposes over the Project’s irrigation and domestic purposes contrary to the prioritization scheme carefully established by Congress.” Interior’s comment also specifies that siphoning off at least 40 percent of Central Valley’s rivers during peak season would result in significant reductions in water storage at New Melones and result in diminished power generation as well as recreational opportunities. DOI recommends the Board reconsider and postpone the scheduled August 21-22 public meeting to allow for “additional due diligence and dialogue.”

“Sacramento’s radical water grab would cripple the Central Valley’s economy, farms and community. Secretary Zinke saw that when he visited New Melones and Don Pedro reservoirs with me last week,” said Rep. Denham. “They cannot drain our reservoirs and ignore our concerns. I will continue fighting to make sure Central Valley voices are heard.”

“Under Sacramento’s plan, the Valley will suffer skyrocketing water and electricity rates.” said Rep. Denham. “After a decade and millions of our money spent on a study that they required, the board ignored the science based proposal that would save our fish while preserving our water rights. We will not allow them to take our water and destroy our way of life”

Last week, Rep. Denham’s amendment to stop the states dangerous water grab passed the U.S. House of Representatives as part of a Department of the Interior appropriations bill, and put a major spotlight on this issue. The amendment, currently awaiting a vote in the Senate, prohibits federal agencies from participating in the state’s plan to deplete the federally owned New Melones reservoir, which provides water for the Central Valley Project and generates hydropower. Sacramento’s plan would drain significantly more water from New Melones each year, potentially leaving it completely dry some years. This would put in jeopardy critical water supplies for Central Valley farmers and communities who rely on the water for their homes, businesses, farms, and electric power. The amendment takes this issue head-on to protect Valley water.

Rep. Denham will continue fighting to protect Central Valley water, support science-driven river management plans that revitalize our rivers without recklessly wasting water, and push major policies like the New WATER Act that will solve California’s water storage crisis and keep the Valley fertile and prosperous for generations to come.

To read the full comment from the Department of the Interior, click here. For more information about what Rep. Denham is doing to fight for water in the Valley, visit http://www.denham.house.gov/water, where you can also sign up to receive periodic updates on his work in Washington to improve local water infrastructure, storage and delivery.

kpfa 8/28

1 mil acres almond san joachain vly ? (inpaired drainage, not much GNP?) Resnick?

denham amnedmnt, valadao

gut ESA [drollinger fish > man] David B esq

salt, flush chem, heat

https://thevalleycitizen.com/the-denham-dossier**-part-iii-**water-for-tunnels/

Denham has a lot of explaining to do. Once again on his biennial campaign tour, Denham’s latest reelection gambit features Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke.

Secretary Zinke is supposedly helping Congressman Denham work against state requirements for increased flows along our rivers, the so-called, “water grab.” Denham obviously wants to show he has tremendous clout in Washington D.C., but some of his work with fellow Republicans back east isn’t good for his district, no matter how he spins it.

For example, Jeff Denham is supporting Devin Nunes and David Valadeo in their attempts to approve the Twin Tunnels project in the San Joaquin Delta.Already, over five million acre feet of northern California water leave the delta for points south, and that often includes water from our own San Joaquin and Stanislaus Rivers.

The Twin Tunnels project would make it easier to send even more water south, this time through two forty-foot diameter tubes. Republicans Ken Calvert and David Valadeo have added riders to H.R. 6147 which would make it impossible to sue to stop the tunnels as well as exempt California water policy from judicial review. Denham himself added a rider to stop current proposals to update the state’s water plan.

Needless to say, exempting the tunnels from litigation is not only a violation of due process, it also puts government above and beyond public review. Why would Jeff Denham favor such a thing?

Why? Because Jeff Denham has three conflicting challenges:(1) He has to convince voters in the Modesto Irrigation and Turlock Irrigation Districts (MID and TID) he can stop the state from increasing flows along the Tuolumne River (2) He has to overlook Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) water sales because, (3) He has to work with fellow Republicans Nunes and Valadeo to keep water going south and, in the best of cases (for them), increase the amount of water they get from northern California.

It’s a difficult act along a very tight wire, but Jeff Denham is a master of putting perception before reality. And he knows that he couldn’t have better misdirection than the furor caused by the state’s proposal to increase flows along our rivers.

Even though the proposals for increased flows have been on the table for years now, and the opportunity to adjust and negotiate was always present, Jeff Denham did nothing. Now, as is also the case with immigration, Denham needs to make his position on water look right just long enough to get reelected.

But most of all, Jeff Denham is hoping no one will notice he’s never once demonstrated a desire to keep CA-10 water in CA-10 rather than send it south. That’s because when Donald Trump promised to deliver water to “Central Valley farmers,” Jeff Denham, like Devin Nunes and David Valadeo, knew Trump was really talking aboutBIG AG in the southern San Joaquin Valley. They knew because they’ve been helping send water south all along. Denham is hoping the increased flow proposals will obscure the fact that that OID has been selling water south to Westlands Water District for well over a decade. He’s also hoping no one will notice OID water sales came to an abrupt halt when they were challenged in court. They came to a halt because they’re environmentally unsound. OID then began a process of abandoning its own water rights so it could continue to ship water south—not exactly the message you want to send if your region is complaining about water shortages.

The southern San Joaquin Valley is where Stewart Resnick and Boswell Farms have well over 300,000 acres between them. It’s also where corporate giants like Boswell and Resnick have already diverted enough water out of the San Joaquin River that it ran dry for a sixty-mile stretch until a judge ordered restored flows.

Boswell also managed to destroy Tulare Lake, a wonder of nature that once extended 60 miles from end to end and was 36 miles wide. Boswell took all that water and it still wasn’t enough.

The southern San Joaquin Valley is also where farmers, especially BIG AG, have pumped so much groundwater that the land has sunk—as much as thirty feet in some places, and it’s still sinking. Once the lake was gone and rivers dried up and the land had sunk beyond use, James Boswell, Stewart Resnick and friends looked north.

They found that contributions to politicians like David Valadeo, Devin Nunes, and Jeff Denham could bring water south, but Denham had to be careful not to let his constituents in on the scheme.

Now, Jeff Denham has to continue his delicate act of splitting his district into contending forces; instead of working with the major water districts to share their water and keep it here at home, Denham is working to maintain the status quo.But he’s had plenty of experience at such things; after all, every two years he promises a new immigration policy and every two years he fails to produce one.

But what’s important to Jeff Denham isn’t necessarily that anything happen. As has been the case in previous election years, the important thing is optics—Jeff has to look as though he’s working really hard for his district. The simple fact is he’s perfectly happy with the status quo,and always has been. Now, he and his Republican buddies are promising measures they know will meet almost certain defeat in the United States Senate. Oh, and by the way, Jeff Denham, Devin Nunes, and Ryan Zinke also want to do away with the Endangered Species Act—you know, the act that saved the Bald Eagle, California Condor, and, here in CA-10, the Aleutian Canada Goose, from extinction—that act.

California Secretary of Resources John Laird sent a powerful letter to House and Senate Committees on Resources condemning the legislation by Denham and his Republican cronies down south. Diane Feinstein and Kamala Harris have promised to oppose it in the Senate. But perhaps the strongest statement about the tunnels came from California Congressman John Garamendi, who wrote,

“The twin tunnels are an environmental and financial boondoggle that would devastate the ecology of the Delta to funnel more water south. As of today, over 90 parties, including environmental groups and northern California water users have taken legal action against the tunnels…The language in H.R. 6147 would not only insulate the tunnels from needed legal review but would also override water rights across the state.”

Jeff Denham doesn’t care. As long as he can convince his constituents he’s working in their interests and still keep water moving south, he’s the very model of today’s professional politician—a hypocritical servant of big money who puts donor approval before the interests of his own constituents.

fire tweet ca water to ocean, courts ca farm bureau

Monday, as California continued to struggle with the largest wildfires in the state's recorded history, which have killed seven people and burned over 750 structures, Trump took to Twitter to scold the state government and Gov. Jerry Brown, insinuating that their own mismanagement of the environment was responsible for the disaster:

California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018

Governor Jerry Brown must allow the Free Flow of the vast amounts of water coming from the North and foolishly being diverted into the Pacific Ocean.Can be used for fires, farming and everything else. Think of California with plenty of Water - Nice! Fast Federal govt. approvals. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2018

Apparently, even Trump administration officials are unwilling to stand by this claim. As CNN reports, "administration officials declined to offer any clarity on Trump's series of tweets claiming environmental laws and water regulations in California are hampering the state's ability to fight the wildfires."

One simple reason Trump's White House might not be defending his Twitter outburst? It's absolute gibberish.

In a lengthy column taking down Trump's fabrications, Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times explained that water is not an issue for California firefighters:

The likeliest explanation for [Trump's] take on water is that he’s confused by the demands for more irrigation water he’s hearing from Republican officeholders in the Central Valley. They’re the people who grouse about water being “wasted” by being diverted to the ocean, rather than into their fields.

Their demands have nothing to do with the availability of water for firefighting. Fire agencies haven’t been complaining about a lack of water, especially water “diverted” to the Pacific. Major reservoirs are near the worst fire zones; the Carr fire is near Lake Shasta and Whiskeytown Lake and the Mendocino Complex fire is near Clear Lake. All are at or near their historical levels.

“There have been no issues getting water from them,” Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, told me.

In fact, some of Trump's officials are actively contradicting him, including one FEMA official who told CNN that there is no issue in California with access to water for the purpose of firefighting.

Moreover, if Trump was really concerned about water shortages in California, he might pay more attention to climate change. A new climate model estimatesthat melting Arctic sea ice could reduce precipitation over the Golden State by up to 20 percent within three decades. Furthermore, rising temperatures threaten to reduce the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains, which provides a third of California's water.

Trump has called climate change a hoax invented by the Chinese, is pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and has placed a former coal lobbyist in charge of the EPA. So it seems unlikely he will consider this side of the story.

Between all of this, it is no wonder that even the administration itself can no longer go out on a limb to defend Trump's bizarre lies.