
English: Buried machinery in barn lot in Dallas, South Dakota, United States during the Dust Bowl, an agricultural, ecological, and economic disaster in the Great Plains region of North America in 1936 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Our behavior here in the valley feels untenable and self-destructive
EVERY Saturday in late December and January, as reports of brutal temperatures and historic snowfalls streamed in from family in Vermont, New York and even southern Louisiana, we made weekly pilgrimages to our local beer garden to enjoy craft brews and unseasonably warm afternoons.
Normal winters here in Fresno, in the heart of California’s Central Valley, bring average highs in the 50s, steady periods of rain and drizzle, and the dense, bone-chilling Tule fog that can blanket the valley for days and even weeks on end.
But not this year. Instead, early 2014 gave us cloudless skies and midday temperatures in the 70s. By the end of January, it seemed like April, with spring trees in full bloom.
We fretted over the anomalous weather, to be sure. A high-pressure system parked off the Alaskan coast had produced not just our high temperatures but also soaring levels of fine particulate matter in the air and more than 50 rainless days, worsening a three-year drought, the most severe in half a millennium. If it’s this bad in January, we wondered, what’s it going to be like in July? But then we’d return to the beer taps, or meander over to peruse food truck menus.
Life in the Central Valley revolves around two intricately related concerns: the quality of the air and the quantity of the water. Although Fresno is the state’s fifth-largest city, it is really just a sprawling farm town in the middle of the nation’s most productive agricultural region, often called “America’s fruit basket.” Surrounded by mountains, which trap the pollution created by a surging population, interstate transportation and tens of thousands of farms, the valley has noxious air, even on good days.
The political atmosphere surrounding crop irrigation is equally toxic. Some farms in the western Valley — crippled by cuts in water allocations, salt buildup in the soil and depleted aquifers — now resemble the dust bowl that drove so many Tom Joads here in the 1930s. Farmers line highways with signs insisting that “food grows where water flows,” while environmentalists counter that the agriculture industry consumes 75 percent of the water transported by California’s byzantine water system.
The Latest on: California Central Valley
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The Latest on: California Central Valley
- Coverage from the GOP Primary Debate in Californiaon September 27, 2023 at 9:06 am
Gray Television’s Joe Skurzewski and Michael Anthony are on the ground in Simi Valley, California, at the site of the second ... The debate begins at 8:00 p.m. central time. Burgum will be debating ...
- California community college enrollment is up, but one group of students lags behindon September 27, 2023 at 5:30 am
California community college enrollment is rebounding, but 20-to-30-year-olds are staying away, in part because of job opportunities.
- ‘A ticking time bomb’: Why California can’t provide safe drinking water to all its residentson September 27, 2023 at 3:01 am
More than a decade after California passed the Human Right to Water Act, about 1 million residents still lack access to clean, safe, affordable water.
- How Bad Will California's Winter Be? Weather Outlook for North and Southon September 26, 2023 at 8:10 am
There's a high chance that El Niño will continue through March. The climate pattern typically brings above-average precipitation to the Southern U.S.
- Thousands gathering in downtown Fresno for Central California Women's Conferenceon September 26, 2023 at 6:14 am
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Thousands of women will gather in Downtown Fresno in the name of empowerment and growth. It's all part of the 34th annual Central California Women's Conference. It's a day ...
- UC Merced hosts film screening of Central Valley NASA astronauton September 25, 2023 at 11:21 pm
The story of a Central Valley farmworker turned NASA astronaut has now been turned into a movie. Monday, the University of California in Merced held a ...
- California children’s hospital to build resilient clean energy microgridon September 25, 2023 at 9:32 am
The project team is led by the State of California through the California Energy Commission, and joined by Faraday Microgrids, and Redflow with zinc bromine flow batteries.
- Central Valley almond farm cuts down on harvest dust. It’s all about nurturing soilon September 22, 2023 at 11:10 am
The Central Valley Clean Air Coalition says almond dust can worsen asthma, bronchitis and other lung ailments. A retired Modesto physician has suggested that it causes valley fever, which is tied to ...
- How the Central Valley became a fertile land for Southerners, 1924 KKK “fiesta” | Opinionon September 21, 2023 at 9:37 am
The concrete foundation of the New Southern edifice that was poured following the Civil War, continued to be built upon by future generations. A year later, in 1925, the first junior KKK club in ...
- Wildfires in California, Oregon cause air quality alert in Central Valleyon September 20, 2023 at 4:44 pm
An air quality alert was issued for the Central Valley due to ongoing wildfires in California and Oregon, according to San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.
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