Agriculture Daily News July 24

Water:

 

Rally demands state face up to water crisis -- Wednesday's rally was designed to give a human face to the state's water woes. At least 300 farmworkers, most from the Valley's parched west side, marched and carried homemade signs declaring "agua es vida," or water is life, and "agua = trabajo," water equals work. Sacramento Bee 7/24/08

 

Park Service skewed data on oyster farm -- National Park Service officials overstated scientific data and deleted a key e-mail in a bitter dispute over an oyster farm's ecological impact on Drakes Bay in Marin County, according to a federal investigation. However, the report issued Wednesday by the U.S. Department of the Interior's inspector general found no evidence Park Service officials aimed to shut the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. before 2012 - when the company's permission to operate within Point Reyes National Seashore expires. SF Chronicle 7/24/08

 

UPDATE: Park Service cleared in probe of oyster farm fight -- A federal investigation found no evidence that National Park Service officials tried to prematurely close an oyster company engaged in a dispute with the agency over its ecological impact. SF Chronicle 7/24/08

 

*Attorneys: Projects don't threaten fish -- Attorneys representing state and federal water projects said Wednesday they could prove the massive system of pumps, dams and canals isn't harming three threatened fish species. U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger gave them until Aug. 29 to submit reports showing that's true. Wednesday's action was the latest in a long-running fight between environmental groups and the state and federal governments over the projects' effect on winter-run chinook salmon, spring-run chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead, all of which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Sacramento Bee 7/24/08

 

*Carbon dioxide project could help the Delta -- Government scientists and researchers at UC Davis will test a novel way to capture a gas associated with global warming before it gets into the air, and possibly help shore up levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The California Department of Water Resources on Wednesday said it has awarded $12.3 million to a project that aims to discover whether carbon dioxide can be stored in marsh plants and soils while also restoring Delta islands and, in the process, protecting levees. Sacramento Bee 7/24/08

 

Labor and immigration:

 

Worker's death costs Merced Farm Labor $263K; biggest farming fine ever -- The company that hired a pregnant teen who died of heat stroke this spring after working in a San Joaquin County vineyard was hit Wednesday with the highest fine ever issued to a California farming operation. The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined Atwater-based Merced Farm Labor $262,700 on Wednesday afternoon for violating eight workplace safety requirements. Modesto Bee 7/24/08

 

Health:

 

*Budget impasse threatens Medi-Cal clinic funding -- California lawmakers' inability to pass a budget on time is threatening the cash flow of health clinics that are funded by Medi-Cal and serve some of the state's poorest residents. Most clinics funded by Medi-Cal, a health care program for the poor, bill for reimbursement and get a weekly check. When the fiscal year began July 1 without a state budget, an emergency fund of $2 billion kicked in. That amount included $1 billion in matching federal money. SJ Mercury 7/24/08