Agriculture Daily News 10/25

According to the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force more attention needs to be placed on the area and less water drawn from it. The commission also recommends the state impose strict limits on new housing in the region's floodplains and that it build new reservoirs and an aqueduct to deliver water from Northern California to the south. The panel's bedrock conclusion is that the needs of water agencies can no longer trump environmental concerns. SJ Mercury 10/25/07

 

Five of the nine Bay Area counties have phone notification systems similar to the reverse 911 used to contact people endangered in southern California’s wildfires. Alameda and Santa Clara counties have neither a countywide 911 reverse system nor an independent alert system for wireless devices. The Alameda County city of Dublin does have its own automated phone alert system. Officials describe the system as useful “on the level of a natural disaster or in the event of something like a terrorist attack or pandemic flu outbreak.” SF Chronicle 10/25/07

 

As wildfires continued to rage Wednesday in parts of Southern California, water officials warned that the blazes may threaten the state's long-term supply. They said unequivocally that California has more than enough water to combat the fires, but are concerned with how that loss of water will impact other water needs. Contra Costa Times 10/25/07

 

Dozens of families were leaving their homes on the Monterey Peninsula on Wednesday as planes prepared to resume showering the area with a chemical mist aimed at crippling a crop-destroying moth. Critics are causing the spraying solution antiquated, putting people at risk of unknown potential consequences.

The Santa Cruz City Council decided to fight state plans to spray a chemical over the city to tame a crop-destroying moth. The council voted Tuesday to hire an environmental lawyer to challenge the state. AP 10/25/07  

 

Central Valley growers generally like the 1,312-page farm bill debated Wednesday by the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Reformers definitely do not. The senate and house bills have come to resemble one another on many issues. Both largely keep intact the traditional crop subsidies paid to cotton, rice, wheat and corn growers, and both steer funds to pet congressional projects. Modesto Bee 10/25/07