News that Gov. Jerry Brown declared the drought officially over
Wednesday got a very different reaction from local growers
depending on their water source and their location within the
county.
Courtenay Edelhart
News that Gov. Jerry Brown declared the drought officially over Wednesday got a very different reaction from local growers depending on their water source and their location within the county.
“For me, personally, I’m doing OK,” said Phil Cerro who grows wheat, corn and alfalfa south of Bakersfield. “Our land is in the Kern Delta Water District, which gets a lot of Kern River water. But I don’t feel like I’m typical.”
Indeed, Bob Giragosian, managing partner of Lamont carrot producer Kern Ridge Growers, laughed out loud when he heard about the governor’s announcement.
“It’s nice of the governor to tell us that. I feel a lot better now,” he said, giggling.
Giragosian said he still has at least 1,000 acres around the state that remain fallow due to lack of water.
“When we get all that farmland back into production, that’s when I’ll feel the drought is over,” he said.
One of the issues for many growers is that even though water is becoming available, it’s too late to do anything with it. They needed to know well in advance how much water they would have so they could plant.
A survey this week found California’s mountain snowpack is 165 percent of the April 1 full season average, and still growers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are not receiving the full allocation called for in their contracts.
“If they can’t get 100 percent on a year like this, then it’s probably not mathematically possible,” said Kole Upton, a board member with the Madera agriculture group Families Protecting the Valley.
Until federal restrictions on pumping delta water are addressed, there will continue to be shortages no matter how much rain falls, Upton said.
Pumping has been limited for several years to protect threatened fish populations.
Harry Starkey, general manager of the West Kern Water District, called this season “probably one of the biggest turnarounds we’ve seen after a drought.
“We went from scrambling in our cupboards trying to find water, and now it’s a great year.”
Starkey said he just hopes it doesn’t make people complacent about water conservation and long-term infrastructure improvements.
“I don’t want to see us kick the can down the road,” he said. “Ground water levels are as low as they were after the seven-year drought. it will take many years like this, including a delta fix, to get our ground water basin back where it needs to be.”
