Friday, July 15, 2022
CapitalPress.com 5
Sacramento Valley farmers
struggle with water cutback
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Diesel and gasoline prices declined slightly in the
first week of July after hitting record highs in late
June, the U.S. Energy Information Administration
reported July 7.
Diesel prices dip,
stay over $6 in West
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
On-highway
diesel
prices dropped slightly
during the first week of
July after hitting a record
high in late June, the
U.S. Energy Information
Administration reported
Thursday.
Diesel averaged $5.67
a gallon nationally, down
10.8 cents from a week
before. Prices still topped
$6 a gallon in California,
Oregon and Washington,
a level reached in early
May.
Crude oil prices,
responsible for about half
of the cost of diesel at the
pump, declined slightly
in late June, according to
the EIA’s weekly petro-
leum report, also released
Thursday.
Also, oil refineries
increased production in
the last week of June,
while gasoline consump-
tion has been on a down-
ward trend since April,
likely at least partly due
to high fuel prices, the
EIA said.
EIA usually reports
fuel prices weekly, but
computer problems had
prevented the agency
reporting prices since
mid-June. The catch-up
report showed prices were
rising until late June.
Regular gasoline aver-
aged $4.77 a gallon on
July 4, down 10 cents
from the week before.
Gasoline in California,
Oregon and Washington
stayed over $5 a gallon,
a threshold broached in
mid-March.
California had the
country’s highest die-
sel and gas prices. Diesel
was $6.77 a gallon, down
8.4 cents from the week
before, while gas was
$6.04, down 9.6 cents.
Oregon and Washing-
ton are grouped with sev-
eral other Western states,
where diesel averaged
$6.03 a gallon, down 11
cents, and gas was $5.32
a gallon, down 7.4 cents.
In Idaho and other
Rocky Mountain states,
diesel was $5.73 a gallon,
down 3.8 cents. Rocky
Mountain gas prices
bucked the trend, rising to
$5 a gallon, up 1.7 cents.
Nationwide, gasoline
prices were up 61% in
June compared to the year
before, the EIA reported.
With COVID restric-
tions easing, gas con-
sumption rose from mid-
2020 until April. Since
then, gas consumption
has been 3% less than
during the same period in
2021.
WB1621
When Josh Davy bought 66 acres
of irrigated pasture in Shasta County,
Calif., three years ago, he thought his
cattle operation would be relatively
drought-proof.
He was counting on the Sacra-
mento Valley’s water supply, which for
decades has been largely guaranteed,
even during critically dry years.
But things didn’t go as planned.
His first year, Davy had all the water
he needed. Last year, he got a 75% allo-
cation. This year, for the first time ever,
Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation Dis-
trict won’t deliver any water to Davy or
its approximately 800 other customers.
“It’s scary in a lot of ways,” said
Davy, who is concerned about the farm-
ers, livestock, crops, wildlife and native
plants that rely on the water.
Davy, who when he’s not ranch-
ing is a farm adviser with the Univer-
sity of California Extension, said he
would never have bought the land had
he known he wouldn’t receive water.
Since 1964, farmers in the Western
Sacramento Valley have had a mostly
guaranteed water supply due to historic
water rights agreements.
Anderson-Cottonwood
Irrigation
District, or ACID, for example, holds a
pre-1914 right to divert water from the
natural flow of the Sacramento River.
According to California’s State
Water Resources Control Board, when
fortune seekers in 1849 entered Califor-
nia during the Gold Rush, many staked
out “finders-keepers” claims to water in
an early version of “first in time, first
in right.”
In the 1930s, the federal government
stepped in when it started building the
Central Valley Project, California’s
behemoth water conveyance system.
After 20 years of negotiation, water
rights holders struck a deal with the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1964.
Under that agreement, renewed in
2005, a group of landowners and irri-
gation districts called the Sacramento
River Settlement Contractors is entitled
to receive a large portion of the water
that flows from Shasta Lake. ACID is
among the contractors.
Until this year, the contract has
barred Reclamation from cutting dis-
tricts’ water to any less than 75% of the
WB1720
Courtesy of Josh Davy
Josh Davy, cattle rancher and farm adviser at the University of California Ex-
tension, faces a zero-water allocation.
contract total in critically dry years.
But that’s changing as California
faces its continuing drought.
In a letter March 14, Reclamation
notified John Currey, then-manager of
ACID, to plan for “considerably less
water” — 18% of the contract total.
In response, the district, along
with other districts across the valley,
cut deals with state and federal gov-
ernments, agreeing to reduce water
deliveries.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Com-
missioner Camille Touton applauded
the Sacramento River Settlement Con-
tractors for working with Reclamation.
“What the contractors did is really a
great example of our partnership with
them, of them saying: ‘This is what our
contracts are, we recognize the reality
of where we are in the hydrology, how
can we work together?’” said Touton.
“And it is not without impacts to the
valley. But we fully recognize we can
work toward the best outcome this year
(and) we can do better next year.”
ACID then went even further. Rather
than delivering the remaining 18% to its
customers, the district sold that water
through a transfer and announced that
“there would be no irrigation season for
2022.”
Angry and confused, many farm-
ers showed up at the district’s public
meetings April through June, express-
ing frustration that the district sold the
remaining 18%.
According to meeting minutes, the
district responded that it had “physical
limitations” to moving that small vol-
ume of water and current conditions
“render the district unable to equitably
distribute water to its landowners and
water users for the 2022 irrigation sea-
son.” The board determined that selling
the water was the best course.
The district’s leaders did not respond
to repeated requests for comment. June
30, John Currey, district general man-
ager, and Emmy Westlake, assistant
general manager, resigned.
Sacramento Valley farmers, mean-
while, are worried about their farms and
futures.
“It’s just dry in this whole district.
We have never missed irrigating here,
ever, until this year,” said Bill Gregory,
88, a retired cattle rancher who now
leases his land to another cattleman.
Gregory worries this year’s actions
set a precedent for future shutoffs.
“If they can do it this year, can they
do it next year?” said Gregory.
Davy, the rancher and farm adviser,
expressed similar concern. Davy plans
to sell at least half his breeding cows
and all his calves early this season and
expects to lose more than $100,000.
He thinks he can survive one year. But
two?
“What am I going to do if there’s
another year of this?” he said.
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