Industry Trends for California Water & Ag || 09/20 - 09/26/2020
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WATER SUPPLY
By Freso Bee, 9/24/20
It’s been four years since safe drinking water flowed from the tap at Jovita Torres-Romo’s home. When the well at her rental house went dry in 2016, the only running water available to her family came through a hose stretched across the street from a neighbor’s house. “Just close your eyes and imagine you had no water for a day or even a week to do basic things like shower, wash your hands, and use the bathroom,” Torres-Romo told The Fresno Bee. “That was my life for three months.”
By Valley News, Opinion, 9/24/20
While health and safety of our water supply remains our top priority, reliable water service is an enabling force for economic growth and improves the quality of life for families. According to a recent study by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Value of Water, the United States needs to invest $109 billion per year in water infrastructure over the next 20 years to close the water infrastructure gap. Industry studies also show that every $1 million spent on water supply development and treatment projects creates 15-17 jobs. Some of those jobs are the direct result of construction, but many more stem from the ripple effect – jobs created by the demand for goods and services.
By Las Vegas Sun, 9/24/20
For the West this summer, the news about water was grim. In some parts of California, it didn’t rain for over 100 days. In western Colorado, the ground was so dry that runoff at first evaporated into the air. And in New Mexico and Nevada, the rains never came. “The upper Colorado Basin had a 100% snowpack, yet runoff was only 54% of normal.”
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WATER DEMAND & SOLUTIONS
By Los Angeles Times, 9/16/20
Amid mounting controversy and concerns over environmental justice, California American Water on Wednesday withdrew its application for a desalination project in the small Monterey Bay town of Marina. The proposal had become one of the most fraught issues to come before the California Coastal Commission, which was set to vote Thursday. The decision would have been the first major test of the commission’s new power to review not only harm to the environment when making decisions but also harm to underrepresented communities.
If Californians are serious about "environmental justice," they need to find ways to pump more water into the state's remarkable infrastructure systems. Environmentalists have won the latest battle in California's water wars, as California American Water just announced it is temporarily withdrawing its application to build a desalination plant on an old sand mine in the largely low-income town of Marina near Monterey. The proposal faced a tough approval process at the California Coastal Commission after local activists complained about its effects on their community.
By The Sacramento Observer, 9/22/20
Is your tap water safe to drink? For a majority of Californians, the answer is “yes.” However, in some areas, especially rural and disadvantaged communities, the drinking water does not meet state and federal drinking water standards and regulations. California has some of the strictest water quality regulations in the nation, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution for communities with challenges meeting those regulations. The quality of your drinking water depends largely on where you live. For example, if you live in Stockton, the source of your drinking water may be from local groundwater wells or from the San Joaquin River Delta. Many Southern Californians drink water from the Colorado River.
By Los Angeles Times, 9/21/20
Twenty years after the initial desalination plant proposal, Poseidon has requested a delay in its request for a permit from the Santa Ana Regional water board to address concerns that should have been addressed before the original proposal was made, concerns such as the need for the water as well as the project’s costs. The Orange County Water District under its Ground Water Supplemental program now produces 100 million gallons of fresh water daily, more than enough to surpass the 50 million gallons that Poseidon is offering to produce, and the district will soon be producing 130 million gallons of fresh water daily. The cost of water the OCWD purchases from the Metropolitan Water District is $900 to $1,100 an acre foot and desal water is $2,600 an acre foot.
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INFRASTRUCTURE & PRICING
By Barrons, 9/24/20
Investors will be able to make wagers on the price of water later this year with the launch of futures contracts, which are expected to better balance supply and demand for the commodity and hedge price risks.
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WEATHER, HYDROLOGY & CLIMATE CHANGE
By Los Angeles Times, 9/23/20
The autumn equinox was at 6:30 a.m. PDT on Tuesday, meaning there are nearly equal periods of daylight and darkness. From now until the winter solstice in December, days will gradually get shorter and nights will get longer in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s good news and bad news for fire-scorched California. The good news is that as the Northern Hemisphere tilts farther from the sun, the sun’s rays are less direct, and cooler daytime temperatures result, along with cooler nights. The arrival of the rainy season is usually in about November.
By Courthouse News Service, 9/17/20
As historic wildfires continue to burn across California, Oregon and other Western states, government climate experts say much of the U.S. is likely to see persistent drought conditions and fire risk alongside continued above-average temperatures through the fall.
By Pew, 9/18/20
California is supposed to burn. Before settlers populated the region in the 1800s, about 5 to 12% of the land that now makes up the Golden State caught fire each year — more than has burned so far in 2020, the most destructive year in modern history. Some of the historic fires were caused by lightning and others were set by Native Americans as a land-management tool, but they mostly burned with low intensity and touched much of the state with great regularity.
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AG & FARMING
By LA Weekly, 9/21/20
Last week, Oregon Representative Kurt Schrader (D) and Virginia Representative Morgan Griffith (R) introduced The Hemp and Hemp-Derived CBD Consumer Protection and Market Stabilization Act of 2020 (“H.R. 8179”). If enacted in its current form, H.R. 8179 would legalize the manufacture, sale and marketing of hemp, hemp-derived cannabidiol and other hemp extracts (collectively referred to as “Hemp Products”) as dietary supplements under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”). This means that these products would be exempt from the FDCA’s “Drug Exclusion Rule,” which, as we previously discussed, currently prevents the sale and marketing of any substance that has been approved or investigated by the FDA as a new drug as a conventional food or dietary supplement – In July 2018, the FDA approved CBD as a drug ingredient in Epidiolex.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has submitted California’s proposed state regulatory plan for hemp production to the United States Department of Agriculture for review and approval. CDFA will notify the public via our electronic mailing list of any updates regarding the plan. The Proposed California State Regulatory Plan for Hemp Production can be found on our website at:
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Cadiz Inc.
550 South Hope Street, Suite 2850
Los Angeles, CA 90071
(213) 271-1600
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