Agriculture Daily News 1/18

In another attempt to reduce its carbon footprint, Safeway Inc. announced it will operate its truck fleet with biodiesel fuel. The shift to biodiesel fuel will reduce Safeway's carbon emissions by 75 million pounds per year - the equivalent of taking 7,500 passenger vehicles off the road. Safeway's trucks will use a blend of biodiesel that is 20 percent vegetable based, in this case mostly from soy oil produced in the Midwest, and 80 percent petroleum diesel based. SJ Mercury 1/18/08

 

Forty years after it started farming the west San Joaquin Valley, Westlands Water District and several smaller irrigation districts which make up the nation's largest irrigation district -- and one of the richest -- has repaid only 15 percent of what it owes taxpayers for a massive water delivery project, according to a congressional watchdog agency. This comes in a report commissioned to help lawmakers evaluate a proposal from Westlands and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that would turn ownership of pieces of the Central Valley Project over to the water district and forgive the debt. In exchange, Westlands would develop its own drainage disposal plan and relieve the federal government of its obligation to drain irrigation water from the region. CC Times 1/18/08

 

The Davies family, makers of Schramsberg sparking wine in Napa, are having problems. Son John Davies filed a lawsuit against the company last year. Though a large portion of the suit was thrown out by a Napa County Superior Court judge late last year, John is promising to "right the wrongs" allegedly done to him and to the minority shareholders of the privately held winery. SF Chronicle 1/18/08

 

A federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday temporarily set aside some of the tough restrictions on upcoming naval exercises off Southern California that employ a type of sonar linked to the injury and death of whales and dolphins. The decision by Judge Florence-Marie Cooper defers to President Bush, who moved earlier this week to exempt the Navy's exercises from environmental laws that formed the basis for a long-running court case between the Pentagon and environmentalists. LA Times 1/18/08

 

While flooding in California’s Central Valley is ‘the next big disaster waiting to happen,’ water-related infrastructure issues confront almost every community across the country, according to engineers at the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering in separate reports to California officials and in the journal Science. Science Centric 1/18/08