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
- Local solutions central to water forumon May 19, 2022 at 11:30 pm
Facing a third year of drought, leadership from county Farm Bureaus, spanning all regions of California, gathered in Sacramento last week to engage with state water officials about all things water. A ...
- CA San Joaquin Valley - Hanford CA Zone Forecaston May 19, 2022 at 11:09 pm
Hanford CA Zone Forecast for Thursday, May 19, 2022 458 FPUS56 KHNX 200601 ZFPHNX Zone Forecast Product for Interior Central California National Weather Service San Joaquin Valley - Hanford CA 1100 PM ...
- The California destination that paid people to visit last year is trying to get your attention againon May 19, 2022 at 6:29 pm
This year, the region set amid ranchland on the Central Coast is at it again with another attention-grabbing public relations campaign called the "beat inflation vacation" — an attempt to lure in ...
- Central Valley to get new 350 area code as 209 runs low on numberson May 19, 2022 at 4:08 pm
STOCKTON – California's Central Valley is getting a new area code -- 350 -- to ensure that enough phone numbers are available in the region currently served by the 209 area code, the California Public ...
- High winds, heat boost fire threat in California, facing long seasonon May 19, 2022 at 12:39 pm
Hot, dry and windy weather in northern California may jumpstart another difficult fire season for the drought-stricken state ...
- California to test solar panels over irrigation canals to save water, boost electricity outputon May 19, 2022 at 10:34 am
The Turlock Irrigation District in central California is conducting a pilot project to save water and increase power output by putting solar panels over canals. The project might eventually help the ...
- Why SF Bay Area is spared in massive red flag warning across huge swath of Californiaon May 18, 2022 at 10:50 pm
A huge swath of California stretching across the Central Valley will be under a red flag warning on Thursday and Friday, meaning warm temperatures, very low humidity, strong winds and dry conditions ...
- Santa Maria Valley heartens California visitors with a 'Beat Inflation Vacation'on May 18, 2022 at 6:00 am
As the rising cost of goods and services continues to drive inflation across the country, Santa Maria Valley is reminding people interested in traveling this summer of the value it offers as an ...
- State of the race to represent the Central Valley’s 16th Senate districton May 17, 2022 at 7:13 am
Just three weeks out from this year’s 2022 midterm primary election in California, the contest to take the 16th State Senate District continues to be one of the ...
- Valley Children's, Central California Food Bank join hands to feed hungry kidson May 11, 2022 at 4:49 pm
The hospital is committing $150,000 over the next three years to make healthy food available to kids across the region.
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