Agriculture Daily News 11/29

The Delta Task Force will meet today and tomorrow and are expected to finalize their plane for the region. The Blue Ribbon Task Force is expected to conclude that the Delta's ecosystem should no longer be treated as an afterthought and that Californians may have to get by with less Delta water. It was still unclear Wednesday whether the panel would endorse new dams or a new aqueduct to move water around the Delta.  Contra Costa Times 11/29/07

 

Worry over California's future water supply has reached "crisis" levels in government and among water agencies. But concern by most Californians over the issue is still at a trickle, officials said at the Association of California Water Agencies' annual fall conference on Wednesday. The Desert Sun 11/29/07

 

The Inland Empire's water supplies from Northern California next year are going to be cut in half thanks to a drought as well as an endangered fish swimming in a delta near Sacramento that needs the water. San Bernadino Sun 11/28/07

 

The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency is expected to vote today on bolstering nearly 25 miles of levees in Natomas. A decade ago North Natomas levees were certified as meeting minimum standards – able to withstand great floods likely to occur once every 100 years. But a recent study found the levees remain vulnerable to underseepage. The $400 million-plus project was unveiled two months ago. Since then, critics have emerged from all sides. Sacramento Bee 11/29/07

 

A National Research Council report Wednesday supported more water being released down the Klamath River to protect salmon runs, siding with authors of a 2006 study that critics said the Bush administration tried to suppress. The Klamath, once the third most productive salmon river on the West Coast, in recent dry years has been a battleground over water and the Endangered Species Act. The 172-page report raises some of the same concerns of critics of the settlement talks – that important tributaries of the Klamath, particularly the Scott and Shasta rivers in Northern California where irrigation withdrawals are heavy, are being ignored. Sacramento Bee 11/29/07

 

Americans have stopped getting fatter. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 34.3% of adults -- or more than 72 million people -- were obese in 2005 and 2006. The figures were essentially unchanged from the previous two-year period for the first time since 1980. LA Times 11/29/07