Water Infrastructure

Western Water Infrastructure Gets $889M Federal Investment

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 21:31:09 GMT

The Department of the Interior has allocated $889 million for critical water infrastructure projects across the West. These projects will run through 2034 and will address sinking canals, expanding reservoir storage and replacing aging delivery systems.

The funding is part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and will support Bureau of Reclamation projects in California, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

California Projects

Projects in California will receive $540 million, targeting the Central Valley Project infrastructure:

Delta-Mendota Canal ($235 million) — Repairs to the upper canal, raising canal embankments, repairing check structures and a potential new concrete lining.
Friant-Kern Canal ($200 million) — Dedicated to fixing subsidence-related bottlenecks that currently restrict water delivery to the southern Central Valley.
San Luis Canal ($50 million) — Subsidence repairs to ensure delivery reliability.
Shasta Dam ($40 million) — Planning and pre-construction to raise the dam, aiming to add 634,000 acre-feet of new storage capacity.
Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority ($15 million) — Pumping plant upgrades to increase water flow rates.

Other States

This funding will also address several failure points in the Western water grid:

Idaho ($30 million) — New pump storage and conveyance for the Lewiston Orchards Irrigation District.
Utah ($100 million) — Replacing the 110-year-old open Highline Canal with an enclosed pipeline to improve safety and water delivery efficiency.
Wyoming ($100 million) — Long-term structural repairs to the Fort Laramie Tunnels to prevent a total system collapse.
North Dakota ($108 million) — Securing a reliable backup water source for eastern North Dakota by using the Missouri River (via the Garrison Diversion and the Eastern North Dakota Alternate Water Supply Project) to protect operations from local groundwater shortages during droughts.
South Dakota ($11 million) — Lining the Belle Fourche Siphon to stop leaks currently affecting 24,000 acres of farmland.

New rules allow the Bureau of Reclamation to prioritize irrigation deliveries over some environmental flow requirements. The bureau says that thanks to rain and snow and by relaxing certain restrictions, it was able to divert and store 200,000 acre-feet of winter storm runoff that previously would have been allowed to flow out to the ocean.

“These investments strengthen our nation’s water security, modernize aging infrastructure and support the farmers, communities and industries that depend on reliable water supplies,” says Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. “By helping ensure strong agricultural production and efficient water delivery, this investment also supports more stable and affordable food prices for American families.”

Industry Reaction

Allison Febbo, general manager of Westlands Water District, says the funding toward the Shasta Dam enlargement is a much-needed investment in water supply.

“This critical funding will help put shovels in the ground and position California to better capture and store water during wet years for use during inevitable dry years,” she says. “This year’s mix of wet days followed by an unusual March heat wave only demonstrates how critical expanding storage capacity is in the state. It is a practical, forward-looking and essential strategy that protects necessary water supplies that sustain productive farmland and ensures that our family farmers can continue growing the food that feeds America.”

Febbo also acknowledged the funding to support improvements to the San Luis Canal and Delta-Mendota Canal.

“These facilities are essential components of the Central Valley Project, delivering water to farms and rural communities throughout the San Joaquin Valley,” she says. “Investments in conveyance infrastructure represent a practical step toward improving water supply reliability for the hardworking family farms who produce much of the nation’s food supply.”

Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia also expressed gratitude for this critically needed infrastructure funding.

“We are excited to see federal water infrastructure funds being deployed to address critical canal system deficiencies to ensure reliability for California farmers served by those systems,” he says. “Farmers in California’s Central Valley are grateful to President Donald J. Trump and Secretary Doug Burgum for this much-needed investment in economic sustainability.”

“Action 5” to Increase Water to California’s Central Valley

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 20:02:21 GMT

Late on Thursday, Dec. 4, the Bureau of Reclamation announced it was adopting Action 5, an updated operation plan for the Central Valley Project and the State Water Plan in California.

Among other things, the plan is projected to increase annual water deliveries to central and southern California, will remove seasonal protections for the Delta smelt, and will require that any actions that restrict the water supply “provide a material benefit to listed species.”

“Action 5 represents a forward-looking approach to water management that balances the needs of California’s communities, agriculture and ecosystems,” said Andrea Travnicek, Bureau of Reclamation assistant secretary for water and science, in the group’s announcement.

According to the Record of Decision for Action 5, the updated operations plan will increase annual CVP water deliveries by 130,000 to 180,000 acre-feet, and SWP deliveries by 120,000 to 220,000 acre-feet, “depending on hydrologic conditions and subject to the state’s adoption of Action 5.”

Praise for the plan

The move was welcomed by agricultural voices in the Golden State.

“These changes will help ensure that our growers have the water they need to support local communities and the nation’s food supply, while also protecting California’s wildlife,” said Allison Febbo, general manager of Westlands Water District, in a statement. The district delivers water to the southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley and has experienced disappointing allocation levels this year , despite comparatively good water supplies.

Westlands expressed gratitude for the rapid development and adoption of Action 5. It additionally estimated that, for its service area specifically, the updated plan is expected to deliver an average of 85,000 acre-feet per year of additional water. Such an increase will help keep more Central Valley agricultural land in production and reduce reliance on groundwater, the group said.

Western Growers also welcomed the updated plan.

“Considering the fact that the farms that pay for the Central Valley Project have only received 45% of their contracted allocations over the last 20 years, totaling many millions of acre-feet of water cutbacks, this modest potential rebalancing represents a welcome return of common sense,” said Dave Puglia, Western Growers president and CEO, in a statement.

What is in Action 5?

Action 5 is an update of a CVP operations plan adopted in December 2024 in light of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 24 executive order . The order directed Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum “to operate the CVP to deliver more water and produce additional hydropower including by increasing storage and conveyance and jointly operating federal and state facilities, to high-need communities…”

Among the key operational changes in Action 5 compared to the 2024 plan were a pair of species-focused changes:

Removing Delta smelt protection — Action 5 removes the Delta Smelt Summer-Fall Habitat Action , which California’s Delta Stewardship Council called “a critical component” of the SWP for Delta smelt survival. Action 5, however, cites U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service findings , asserting that the protections are not expected “to have observable effects on Delta smelt survival.”
Water restrictions require proof of benefit — Any actions that restrict water supply must show a material benefit to listed species in Action 5. It adds that this can be by using predictive tools for real time assessment of environmental conditions.

Not everyone is on board with the plan

Not everyone in California is happy about Action 5, however.

Prior to the final signing of Action 5’s Record of Decision, which occurred Dec. 2–4, several California state organizations raised concerns with the then-proposed plan in their comments. For example, California Department of Water Resources deputy director John Yarbrough said Action 5 could have “adverse consequences” on the SWP’s ability to deliver water.

“If Reclamation implements Action 5 in a way that harms the SWP’s ability to deliver water to its contractors and customers, the CVP export increase would be at the expense of all SWP water contractors and, due to the different water purposes the SWP and CVP serve, disproportionately impact Californians’ water supplies,” he wrote.

He additionally described Action 5 as “vague in how it will be implemented” and incomplete in its analysis of impacts. Similarly, Diane Riddle, assistant deputy director of California Water Boards Division of Water Rights, called many of Action 5’s claims about the impact of its changes on fish in California unsupported.

How to Get 20-Plus Years Out of Your Drip Tape

Thu, 13 Nov 2025 19:20:02 GMT

What does it take to get drip tape to last for over 20 years? A lot of TLC, according to Brian King, farm manger of Fagerberg Produce.

The northeastern Colorado operation mostly grows a variety of onions as a direct-to-retail crop. King says the company was one of the first in Colorado and the nation to install permanent subsurface irrigation. It has roughly 1,000 acres under drip tape today, with one line running down the center of 28-inch beds at 8.5 inches deep for its onions. It uses majority ¾-inch tape with emitters at 12-inch intervals with some runs as long as 1,700 feet.

King estimates that the farm is about 80% of the way through replacing its original drip tape, some of which is 24 years old now. But the average lifespan is closer to 20 years, he says.

“I think the biggest key to our success is the care that we put into it and the attention to detail,” he says, adding that extensive filtration is the third rung on their overall strategy. Without those three elements, “you’re not going to be able to keep tape for 20 years.”

He says it’s not hard to do, but it is a lot of work — though it is work that pencils out for the farm.

King, who is originally from Texas, used to use single-use drip tape growing onion starts down near the Mexican border. He describes that tape as being half the cost of the tape Fagerberg uses, but since it gets replaced every year, the disposable drip tape gets “super expensive” fast. The permanent drip tape they take care of, on the other hand, is well worth the cost.

“For us, it’s a no-brainer because we’re keeping it in 20 years,” he says.

King walked The Packer through exactly what care, attention to detail and filtration looks like on the ground to get 20-plus years out of drip tape.

No. 3: Filtration (and lots of it)

King explains that Fagerberg does extensive filtration.

“We’re way overkill on our filtration,” he says. “Any drip company could come in here and tell you that we probably have three or four times the amount of filtration that we actually need.”

In practical terms, overkill means three identical filtration stations capable of handling about 4,000 gallons of water a minute, though they generally run 1,800 gallons to 2,000 gallons a minute. Well and ditch water runs through the filtration stations’ drums of specific-grit sand that gets changed every three years. The sand acts as a physical media filter.

“This is a huge pool filter is all it is,” King summarizes. “It’d be the same type of filtration that a pool would have in a house or in a backyard, but on steroids.”

Brian King of Fagerberg Produce explains the “overkill” filtration system that the farm uses to ensure the longevity of its drip tape.

(Photo by Kerry Halladay, Farm Journal)

No. 2: Attention to detail

Active filtering isn’t the only way Fagerberg pays close attention to what goes through its drip tape with an eye to its longevity. While the operation does “a ton of fertigation and chemigation through the drip,” King says he is exceptionally picky about what goes through the lines.

“Even a soluble powder that’s mixed in with water, I probably won’t put that through my tape because I don’t want to take the risk of clogging my emitters,” he says. “My true test on that is I’ll ask the salesman if they’re going to come out and shovel to dig holes when the emitter is clogged. And when they say no, I know it’s probably not safe to put it through my tape.”

When it comes to the safety of the tape — which is buried 8.5 inches compared to the usual 12 inches or more for permanent subsurface irrigation — tillage is a major challenge, King says.

“A disc is going to go 6 inches deep,” he says, adding that subsurface drip tape tends to rise over time. “So, the [tape] that’s 15-plus years old is going to end up rising an inch-plus. If we run a disc across it and we’re not diligent about setting the depth right, we’re going to start cutting tape.”

So, the team at Fagerberg is very diligent about depth and positioning accuracy when running anything in the fields with the drip tape.

“One-hundred percent of our passes are going to be with an RTK GPS guidance system,” King says. If an operator is going to be close to the tape, such as when undercutting the onions, they will need to check every two to three turns to ensure accuracy.

“The attention to detail is every time we go over with any implement, even though it’s not even close to the tape, we’re going to send a crew out there to make sure everything’s set perfect,” King says.

It’s a tedious process, he admits, but it is one the team has perfected. The tenure of the six full-time, year-round team members ranges from three to 33 years.

“We’ve got a great crew here,” King says.

No. 1: Care (aka maintenance)

The work it takes to keep the drip lines maintained and clean is also tedious but well worth it for Fagerberg. King explains that, at the beginning of every season, a crew of about four will go out to check for leaks along the lines. One to three days of checking for leaks is just part of the crop plan at Fagerberg.

A leak will show up on the surface as a very visible sink hole, but has the potential to wash away seeds or new starts if they aren’t established, which can be a very costly mistake, King says.

Leaks can come from a number of sources, including mice and worms that look for water sources in winter.

“The first year we had tape, we did not put a pesticide there in the wintertime when we winterized it and when we fired up in the spring, it was a disaster,” King says. Since then, the team at Fagerberg will pump the system out and run a pesticide through everything to keep the mice and worms from chewing holes in the tape.

However, taking care of the tape during the season plays potentially the biggest role in extending its lifespan, according to King.

“At the end of every irrigation cycle that we run, maybe for the last two hours, we’re putting sulfuric acid through it,” he says.

He explains that most operators with permanent drip tape will clean out the lines with acid once a year as part of winterization, but that he prefers to do it more often. The acid cleans out any moss or algae that could potentially build up in the tape or emitters.

“I think that may be the biggest key to our longevity,” King says. “We’re keeping that tape extremely clean throughout the growing season.”

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Voters Approve Initiatives for Food in Colorado and Water in Texas

Thu, 06 Nov 2025 18:54:51 GMT

While most of the 2025 election attention turned to the coasts — California’s redistricting proposal and the New York City mayoral race — there were a few food- and ag-focused items on more central U.S. ballots. And all four items passed, most with strong margins.

Coloradans Fund Universal School Food

Just over a third (35.6%) of registered voters turned out in Colorado for the off-year 2025 election. Both of Colorado’s statewide ballot issues that dealt with funding the state’s universal free meals for public school students — Propositions LL and MM — were approved by voters. Both propositions, in different ways, aimed to help fund the state’s Healthy School Meals for All program and its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Prop LL asked voters if it could keep $12.43 million in excess tax money it previously collected from high-income taxpayers and put it into the HSMA program and SNAP. This question was put to voters because of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which requires the state to return excess tax revenue to the taxpayers unless voters allow the state to keep it.

According to the Colorado secretary of state’s office , Prop LL passed 64.7% to 35.3%, a difference of roughly 425,000 votes.

Prop MM passed with a slightly narrower margin — 58.1% for and 41.9% against, representing a difference of about 236,000 votes — according to the Colorado secretary of state’s office. Prop MM asked to raise up to $95 million annually by reducing the itemized or standard state income tax deductions high-income earners can claim. Currently, those deductions stand at $12,000 for single filers and $16,000 for joint filers. With the passage of Prop MM, these will drop to $1,000 and $2,000, respectively.

The Colorado secretary of state’s office estimates that Coloradans with a federal taxable income of $300,000 or more will see their income taxes increase by an average of $486 as a result of the passage of Prop MM.

Texans Opt for Untaxed Feed and Money for Water

Just under 16% of Texas voters turned out to voice their desires on two different amendments to the state constitution. Proposition 4 asked voters if the state could ear-mark up to $1 billion in its sales and use taxes for water infrastructure, and Prop 5 asked voters to not count animal feed stored for retail sale among property taxes. Both passed with noteworthy margins.

Prop 4 passed with a more than 40 percentage-point spread at 70.4% in favor and 29.6% opposed, a difference of about 1.2 million votes, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office .

The state constitutional amendment proposed to earmark the first $1 billion dollars after $46.5 billion is collected via sales and use taxes each fiscal year for the Texas Water Fund. This fund, administered by the Texas Water Development Board, goes to fund other water-related projects and initiatives throughout the state.

The amendment also requires that no less than 50% of the money that goes into the Texas Water Fund as a result of this measure must go to the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and/or the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas . Together, these two funds focus on increasing water supplies in the state. This can be through efforts like reservoir building, recapture and reuse projects, acquiring water or water rights from nearby states, or desalination efforts.

Prop 5 passed with 63.6% voting in favor and 36.4% voting against. With the passage of this amendment, “animal feed held by the owner of the property for sale at retail” will no longer be subject to property tax. According to Texas state Rep. Cody Harris, R-District 8, who authored the bill, the amendment will bring added consistency to how the state handles animal feed as it relates to taxes.

Across the state, only 15.7% of eligible Texas voters cast their vote on this issue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, voter turnout for this amendment was higher in small, rural counties.

Food, Water and Ag on the Ballot in Colorado, Texas

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 13:13:41 GMT

Presidential elections get a lot of attention. Attention starts dropping off for midterm elections. But off-year elections? Voters might not even know about them.

This year, on Nov. 4, citizens in at least 22 states will get to vote on a variety of state- and local-level positions and issues. Most ballot items deal with local nitty-gritty issues like school board members, bonds and city council representatives, but some will feature state-level issues as well.

Colorado and Texas in particular have four ballot measures that deal with food access and ag-adjacent concerns.

Colorado’s Food-Funding Props LL and MM

Every Colorado voter will be asked two statewide ballot issues: Propositions LL and MM . Both deal with food funding via tax changes, though neither create new taxes.

Prop LL asks voters if the state can keep the $12.43 million excess tax money it collected from high-income taxpayers following the creation of the state’s universal free Healthy School Meals for All program in 2022. The money would fund the program and, eventually, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the state. According to Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, any tax revenue collected in excess of estimates proposed to voters must be returned unless citizens vote to let the state keep it.

Prop MM would reduce the tax deduction levels for the same high-income Colorado taxpayers who paid excess taxes for the HSMA program. Currently, the itemized or standard tax deductions are $12,000 for single filers and $16,000 for joint filers. The measure proposes to reduce these levels to $1,000 and $2,000 respectively. The additional revenue generated from this would also go to fund the HSMA program and SNAP. If passed by voters, the state estimates that up to $95 million could be generated by the measure.

The HSMA program provides universal free breakfasts and lunches to all Colorado public school students rather than just those students who qualify based on economic need. Eligibility for free or reduced-cost school meals for students are often tied to household eligibility for support programs, such as SNAP, WIC and Medicare. The passage of the Federal Budget Reconciliation tightened eligibility standards for such programs across the country. Nonprofit group Illuminate Colorado estimates that almost 300,000 Colorado families will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits as a result.

Every registered Colorado voter should have received a ballot by mail. Ballots must be dropped off at designated drop boxes or at polling places by 7 p.m. on Nov. 4. Voters who opt to vote in-person can do so, but they must return their unused mailed ballots. For more information, visit the Colorado secretary of state’s voter information page .

Propping Up Water Funds With Texas’ Prop 4

Proposition 4 asks Texas voters to amend the state’s constitution to get more dedicated funding for water infrastructure in the state. Water in the arid state is already a pressing agricultural issue , particularly since the state largely depends on increasingly late, short and unreliable water deliveries from Mexico . But the state’s population is also growing rapidly, according to the Texas Water Development Board , and there is already a massive funding shortfall for the state’s water infrastructure needs.

Rather than create a new tax, the amendment would earmark up to $1 billion per year of the state’s existing sales and use tax revenue for the Texas Water Fund for 20 years, starting September 2027. The Texas Water fund would get the first $1 billion in sales and use tax revenue after $46.5 billion was collected each fiscal year. According to the Texas comptroller , the state brought in $47.2 billion in sales and use tax revenue in 2024.

The Texas Water Fund was established in 2023 is administered by the TWDB, which has the mission to “ensure a secure water future for Texas.” The fund’s money can be used for water infrastructure efforts, including reservoir-building efforts, as well as funding other water-related programs TWDB already oversees.

Taking Off Texas Taxes on Animal Feed

Texans will also be asked to weigh in on Proposition 5 . This is another proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would exempt animal feed held on a property for retail sale from property taxes.

The amendment was authored by Texas state Rep. Cody Harris, R-District 8. In his analysis document, Harris notes that “animal feed is typically exempt from taxation at each location or transaction during its life cycle,” except for when it is inventory and the amendment “seeks to address this inconsistency.”

Texas voters can vote early through Oct. 31 or vote on Election Day, Nov. 4. Texas voters can find their polling places as well as Election Day information here .

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Automation Takes Valve Flipping Out of Watermelon Farming

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 13:36:54 GMT

Even drip irrigation can be made more efficient with comparatively simple, adaptable irrigation automation technology. So says the finding of a University of Florida assessment into watermelon growers in northern Florida’s Suwannee Valley.

Tyler Pittman, the UF Extension agent who conducted the 2024 assessment, explains that watermelon growers in the area already used drip tape under plastic tarping with manual or diesel pumps. Because watermelons benefit from frequent short waterings , and fertilizer efficiency is heavily impacted by proper irrigation, that means a lot of valve flipping for growers.

But the crop is also transient, maybe growing in the same field only once every seven to 10 years according to Pittman, meaning traditional automated irrigation technology built for permanent or consistent crops are difficult for watermelon growers. Pittman wanted to help change that.

“We started with what looked like analog garden timers on water-operated valves,” he says. “We did that with two farmers on about 80 acres as a proof of concept that we could automate this process and take the valve flipping out of the farming so that they could irrigate differently. From there, Toro organically came into the space with Tempus.”

In the 2024 assessment, four area watermelon growers collectively farming 1,883 acres, using Toro’s Tempus AG controller, reported using 24% less water, or an average of 873 gallons, per day irrigating. That amounted to roughly 164 million gallons, or 503 acre-feet, of water saved over the course of the 100-day watermelon growing season in the region.

“We’re flirting with saving more than 696 million gallons of water each year if the farmers of all 8,000 acres of watermelon in the region adopt this technology,” said Pittman in a UF spotlight on the assessment .

Participants in the assessment also reported spending, on average, 1.7 fewer hours in the field per day. One participant reported eliminating three staff as a result of the automation, saving $36,000 over the course of the 100-day growing period, according to an assessment results document.

About the controller

Adoption of irrigation automation in Suwannee Valley’s watermelon growers grew rapidly between 2022 when Pittman conducted his initial proof-of-concept trial on 80 acres to 2024 with the larger assessment. Toro’s Tempus systems have been popular among growers.

“The funny part about [the 2024 assessment] is I was trying to find demo farms for the Toro system, and everybody turned me down,” Pittman says. “Usually, farmers don’t turn down free equipment. But the reason they were turning me down is because they had already purchased it themselves, and that was a testament to the utility of it.”

Tony Tavares, marketing communications manager for Toro, explains the Tempus AG is a controlling automation system developed to be easy to use and install. They are battery powered and use “LoRa” technology that allows for long-range, low-power communication.

This means they “can be installed directly at the valve rather than in a centralized location,” he says. “This makes it very easy to re-deploy the system in different configurations each year as field layouts and irrigation needs change between seasons.”

He adds that the controllers can be operated via Bluetooth by any Android or iOS devices. To use the systems remotely, the controllers need to be in WiFi range or can connect to 4G via base stations provided by Toro.

“I would say probably 90% of the operations here have put in Tempest because it didn’t require the infrastructure and it was simple to install,” says Pittman, adding that the region’s watermelon growers rarely have electricity in the field.

“So having the ability to run something off of 12 volt with solar power that can automate a field, but also be picked up and moved next year to another field, was kind of the big selling point for a lot of our growers,” he adds.

New California Law Focuses on Long-Term Water Planning

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 16:19:06 GMT

A bill with unanimous support is basically a unicorn in today’s divided politics, so California just saw the return of a water-planning unicorn in the form of SB 72 that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Oct. 1 .

Prior to being signed, the bill — effectively an update to the California Water Plan that enforces the need for quantifiable water needs reports and water goals — passed through the state’s legislature without any “no” votes.

This also isn’t the first time it happened. Past iterations of the bill also received unanimous support, but this is the first time the governor signed it.

According to Jason Phillips, CEO of the Friant Water Authority — which supplies water to over a million acres of irrigated farmland in the San Joaquin Valley — the overwhelming and repeated legislative support shows a shift in the understanding of the state’s dire water situation.

“It is an acknowledgment that water conservation is not going to solve the supply deficit both current and projected that we have in this state,” he says.

The bill’s author, state Sen. Anna Caballero , District 14, said in an early September press meeting that the cost of this inaction has been borne mostly by California’s farmers. This is especially true in the San Joaquin Valley, a massive center of the state’s fresh produce production.

She said that the state’s water challenges have resulted in “a scenario where fallowing land has become the norm as a way to make it through the growing season.”

Caballero also characterized that fallowing of farmland as threatening the entire state’s economy — currently the fourth-largest in the world — to the tune of up to $14.5 billion and 67,000 jobs annually .

“It’s all the ripple effect that comes from taking millions of acres out of irrigated lands in California, and we just need to understand that that’s just in one region,” she said.

About the Bill

Caballero said that the California Water Plan “hasn’t seen meaningful revisions in 20 years,” but Phillips characterizes SB 72 as an effort to solve that issue.

“This bill is going to mandate that the California Water Plan do what it was supposed to do and what it used to do, which is identify the water needs of the regions of the state of California, both now and in the future, and put together a plan on how those needs will get met,” he says.

The bill creates a planning framework with deadlines that will require the state to establish long-term water supply targets and strategies to reach them. One of the earliest goals of the bill requires that, by 2028, the California Department of Water Resources creates plans on how it will achieve 9 million acre feet “of additional water, water conservation, or water storage capacity” annually by 2040.

Philips called the efforts necessary to achieve such a goal “no small planning task.”

“This is a very significant task that the state will have to go through to identify how [it’s] going to come up with 9 million acre feet per year statewide and with storage and conservation, recycling and desal,” he says.

California’s Current Crisis

Despite the daunting task, Phillips says there’s no real choice; the state must ensure there is water for farms and people today and into the future. But that goal can’t be achieved through the popular narratives, he adds.

“Water conservation is what people want to go to first when thinking of farmers,” he says. “But agricultural use in the San Joaquin Valley is already about maximized on water conservation.”

Phillips says the only things that will help solve the water challenges in the over 5.5 million acres of productive farmland in the San Joaquin Valley are more surface water to offset the groundwater overdraft or to permanently retire over a million acres of productive farmland. This would be in addition to the farms and farmland already lost.

According to USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service records, there were 24.3 million acres of land in farms in 2020. This compares to 2024 when there were only 23.7 million acres . The number of individual farms also fell from 69,600 operations to 62,500 in that time.

Policy and Planning

“The most unfortunate form of [water] conservation that we have in this state is people leaving and farms leaving,” Phillips says. This exodus of farms from California is not a policy decision but instead the result of inaction and a lack of reporting on current conditions, he adds.

“The governor of the state of California needs to have that presented with that; [farm loss is] a policy decision,” he says. “It needs to be highlighted to policymakers that we either find a way to develop that water or we’re going to lose a substantial amount of productive agriculture.”

That needs to change, and he hopes SB 72’s passage and the reporting requirements it contains will help.

“My engagement is going to be to make sure there is a thoughtful and thorough assessment of the water supply situation that we have today,” he says. “It’s very quantifiable and needs to be quantified.”

California's Water Crisis: Farmers Warn Water Rules Could Cripple Central Valley Agriculture

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 10:52:47 GMT

On Hansen Ranch in the Central Valley, fifth-generation farmer Erik Hansen grows a little bit of everything — pistachios, almonds, pomegranates, alfalfa, corn for silage and cotton.

“We farm 15, 16 different crops,” Hansen says. “Cotton is our biggest acreage crop, and that’s in the form of Pima cotton.”

That diversification has long been the Hansen family’s survival strategy. But in spring 2023, no amount of crop rotation could shield them from disaster.

“Where we’re standing right now was underwater,” Hansen recalls. “A mile from here, over by that PG&E substation, was the edge of the lake.”

The flood wiped out 600 acres of pomegranates and 400 acres of pistachios. One thousand acres of permanent crops gone in one season.

“It was a massive hit,” Hansen says. “We had about 5,000 to 6,000 acres under water. Some of that water lasted for over a year.”

From Too Much Water to Not Enough

The irony is hard to ignore: In 2023, floodwaters destroyed thousands of acres. Now, Hansen says it’s the lack of access to water that could cripple farms across the Central Valley.

“The last projections I heard were anywhere from 1 million to 1.2 million acres totaled in the valley,” he says, referring to farmland that could be idled by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) .

Passed in 2014, SGMA requires local agencies to reduce groundwater overdraft and achieve sustainable use by 2040. On paper, Hansen says, that makes sense.

“To some extent it is good because you have to have a way to manage the overdraft,” he explains. “The problem is there are surface water facilities we developed back in the 50s and 60s that we’re just not using. A lot of that water is going out to the Pacific Ocean.”

For Hansen, the politics sting. He believes decades of state decisions — prioritizing fish and wildlife, reallocating water, and neglecting infrastructure — set up today’s crisis.

“I’m frustrated because the families that have been farming here for years, some decades, sometimes even more, are being footed with a bill for problems that somebody else created,” Hansen says. “If the state doesn’t look in the mirror, I think we’re going to find ourselves in the same position again.”

Young Farmers Face the Same Struggles

Forty miles south, 30-year-old Elizabeth Keenan is navigating the same regulatory headwinds. Her grandfather Charlie started Keenan Farms in 1972, acquiring one of California’s first pistachio orchards. Today, Elizabeth farms alongside her parents and brother.

“Rolling with the regulatory punches can be complicated,” she admits. “Despite pistachios being such a high-value product, despite having optimal land and weather conditions, we really have everything set up beautifully — except for legislation.”

Water, she says, is the most difficult hurdle.

“We’re up to a 50% allocation,” Keenan explains. “The base allocation is 2.2 acre-feet, so we get 1.1 acre-feet to use. Otherwise, we have to have open fallow fields. To pump more water, we have to buy it on the open market, and that’s expensive too.”

A Political Battle Over Flows

Signs line highways across the Central Valley warning that 80% of California’s river water flows out to the Pacific instead of farms. Assemblyman David Tangipa, a freshman lawmaker representing the 8^th District, says those numbers are real.

“It’s 100% happening,” Tangipa says. “Almost 83% of all water in the state is automatically pushed out for environmental purposes.”

California averages about 200 million acre-feet of water each year, Tangipa notes, but despite record rainfall, farms often get less than half of their allocations.

“We’ve prioritized so much environmental legislation that more than 80% of our water is pushed out immediately to the ocean, unnaturally,” he says. “Meanwhile, farmers get less water and more land goes out of production.”

Proponents of Current Water Flows

There are proponents of the current way the water flows, mainly for environmental reasons and to prevent saltwater contamination of freshwater sources.

California releases water into the ocean to prevent saltwater intrusion into freshwater supplies, protect endangered aquatic species and ecosystems, and maintain the delicate balance of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary, a critical source of drinking and irrigation water.

A portion of released water is also used for stormwater management to prevent flooding, as it can be difficult and impractical to capture and store all of it.

And those in favor of environmental water releases say it’s essential to support broader ecosystem benefits like water filtration and carbon sequestration, which are important for overall environmental health.

The Ripple Effect

The Central Valley of California is a powerhouse in food production for the U.S. That area alone produces approximately half of all the fruits and vegetables grown in the U.S., as well as a large portion of the nation’s nuts and other foods. When you break down the numbers, the Central Valley accounts for about 60% of the nation’s fruits and nuts, and about 30% of the nation’s vegetables.

For Thomas Putzel, who works with farmers across the Central Valley, the impact of regulations isn’t just measured in acre-feet. It’s measured in livelihoods and the food supply.

“The environmentalists try to say farmers are wasting water,” he says. “But when we look at what farmers provide, we’re planting forests. One acre of almonds will capture 18 metric tons of carbon a year. That’s like taking 29 million cars off the road.”

Putzel says California voters already approved a water bond to build new storage a decade ago, but no new projects have been built.

“Not one shovel has gone in the ground in 10 years,” he says. “Actually, they took some of that money and tore dams down.”

Meanwhile, permanent crops wither when water isn’t available, leaving behind dead orchards that invite pests and rodents into neighboring fields.

“SGMA’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Putzel says. “But you’ve asked growers to run a marathon with their legs tied together. People don’t understand; food doesn’t come from a grocery store. It comes from a farmer. If California stopped shipping produce for one week, our stores would be empty.”

“Is Farming in California’s Best Interest?”

For Erik Hansen, the question is bigger than water allocations or acreage lost.

“Government is probably the biggest problem right now,” he says. “It just seems California hasn’t really decided whether farming is in their best interest. Politicians like to say they’re for small business and small farming, but virtually every piece of legislation makes it more difficult to survive.”

As the Central Valley wrestles with the challenges of floods, drought and regulations, one reality is clear: The fate of these farms is tied not just to weather and soil but to political decisions that could shape the future of food in America.

Mango Program Helps Fund Water Infrastructure Projects

Mon, 07 Jul 2025 23:29:07 GMT

In June 2025, Continental Fresh celebrated five years of its Water for All mangoes program. The company’s signature philanthropic program donates a percentage of the proceeds from every case of mangoes sold to improving water infrastructure in Latin America. According to Albert Perez, CEO of Continental Fresh, the program started as a seasonal effort, but has since grown to be year round.

“Since its launch, Water for All has helped fund multiple clean water and sanitation projects, directly impacting more than 1,000 people,” Perez says. While projects have been built in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Colombia, most projects have been in the Dominican Republic.

“Water for All funds gravity-fed aqueduct systems that bring clean, running water directly into homes in rural Latin American communities,” he adds. “These systems are built in partnership with BLUE Missions, using natural elevation to transport water from mountain springs to villages, eliminating the need for pumps or electricity.”

The programs also eliminate the need for women and children, who are usually tasked with fetching distant water where no water infrastructure exists, to travel long distances. Perez describes this dynamic as time poverty, often resulting in children missing school and women missing out on work opportunities. Water piped into communities and homes lessens that impact.

Perez gives an example of one project.

“In 2024, Water For All helped fund an aqueduct that now serves over 80 families in the Dominican Republic,” he says. “Before the project, families had to walk long distances to fetch water from a shared source. Today, each home has access to clean, safe water — improving hygiene, reducing illness and allowing children to return to school instead of fetching water.”

He adds that lack of water infrastructure and contaminated water sources are among the top water issues facing the parts of rural Latin America that Water for All focuses on.

“We believe that access to clean water is a fundamental human right,” Perez says, “And our mangoes serve as a vehicle for change. Every purchase supports our ongoing efforts to improve lives through water infrastructure and education.”

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Disappointing Water Allocations for California’s Central Valley

Tue, 01 Jul 2025 20:20:10 GMT

California growers get the first news about how much water they will get for their operations that year in late February. In bad years, the news can start and end there. In over half of the past 24 years , however, allocation updates — usually slight increases, but not always — trickle in each month through the end of June.

June came and went this year without an update to the 55% water allocation for Central Valley Project (CVP) South-of-Delta agricultural contractors received in late May.

Of course, finding out you’re only getting half of your annual water allocation in May or June doesn’t work well for growers who have already planted crops. Knowing earlier rather than later is necessary to make fruitful plans.

According to the Westlands Water District, which serves a southern portion of the San Joaquin Valley, an estimated 210,000 acres will be followed in the district this year. That represents slightly more than a third of the district’s area.

Full Reservoirs, Low Allocations

At the end of May, when the allocation for South-of-Delta agricultural contractors went up from 50% to 55%, Allison Febbo, general manager for the Westlands Water District, called the increase appreciated but disappointing given the situation.

The situation? Almost all of California’s reservoirs were at or above their historic average levels at the time. This situation continued to the end of June.

Reservoir conditions in California as of midnight on June 30, 2025, according to the California Department of Water Resources reservoir storage monitoring app, available at cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain.

(California Department of Water Resources)

“If you look at the reservoir levels and you look at the stream flows and you look at the general hydrology — precipitation, snowpack, all of those things — we’re in a pretty good year,” she says. “We were really hoping, in a year like this, we’d be able to get much higher allocation, much closer to our full allocation amount.”

Westlands gets its water from the San Luis Unit , a joint effort of the federal CVP and the California State Water Project. It primarily supplies irrigation water to the farmland of central California’s San Joaquin Valley; some of the most productive farmland in the world.

“When the CVP came online and we built the San Luis unit of the CVP, the expectation was we would get 100% of our water supply in all years except maybe the very driest years, so extreme drought years,” Febbo says. “And that was happening for the first decade or so, but then we started seeing environmental restrictions come in and cut our water supply.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the South-of-Delta agricultural contractors have received full allocation, or come close, in only seven out of the past 35 years. In five of those past 35 years, the allocations have been nothing (0%), or close to it.

“We have a long decline in our available water supply to a point now where, instead of expecting something like 100%, we’re expecting on average maybe 30 to 40%,” Febbo says. “That’s really just unsustainable. It points to the fact that we have a broken water system in California that is not meeting the needs and intentions it was built for.”

Modernizing California’s Water Infrastructure

Febbo says the state needs modernized water infrastructure.

The two major water projects in California — the State Water Project and the CVP — were both conceived of in the early 1900s, built throughout the 1900s and represented huge investments from both the federal government and the state of California.

“The state and the federal government saw the value of building a water system in California to grow our economy to become what we are now: The fourth largest economy in the world . But unfortunately, in about the ’70s and ’80s, we as a culture stopped investing in our water systems. We haven’t made any major infrastructure improvements since,” Febbo says.

Modern water infrastructure looks like substantial investments in surface water storage and water conveyance, because it all comes down to surface water, according to Febbo.

“When we don’t have the water supply deliveries that we expect from the water projects, people turn to groundwater, and that’s caused overdraft and subsidence,” she adds. “The best way to protect our groundwater is to make sure we continue to have surface water.”

For 2025, the Westlands Water District estimates it will need to pump 200,000 acre-feet of groundwater to make up for grower needs. But the availability of groundwater will severely decline soon too.

According to California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 , local agencies must submit groundwater sustainability plans.

“We have an approved groundwater sustainability plan and we are meeting sustainability on a fast track by 2030, but that means we’re cutting our access to groundwater for our growers significantly — by more than half — in just a few years,” Febbo says.

This is part of why science- and data-based regulations and management systems for water are another big part of modernized water infrastructure, she adds.

“We’re looking at the various regulations on how we can move water through the Central Valley Project to make sure that, whenever we are cutting water supplies, it has a meaningful benefit. And if there is not a meaningful benefit to our ecosystems, then that action shouldn’t be taken,” she says.

“Westlands remains committed to working with state and federal partners to advance balanced, science-based solutions that improve the regulatory landscape, water storage and delivery capabilities for the hardworking families who grow the food that feeds California — and the nation — day in and day out.”

Those communities in California’s central valley are not doing well, she adds.

“We have local communities that completely rely on our agricultural operations, and we’re seeing them dwindle,” Febbo says. “Schools are closing. Businesses are closing. It’s really hard when people leave to get them back. We want to keep our communities thriving. We want to keep being able to have safe, affordable food. So, that’s why we are taking this so seriously and really advocating for our water supply.”

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California governor proposes fast-tracking water infrastructure projects

Mon, 19 May 2025 12:35:54 GMT

California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a proposed addition to his state budget May 14 that would “fast-track” water infrastructure improvements. The presented changes would, among other things, change the way property acquisitions — including eminent domain — are dealt with relative to water infrastructure projects under the State Water Project . It would also change how protests to water rights permitting decisions are managed.

“For too long, attempts to modernize our critical water infrastructure have stalled in endless red tape, burdened with unnecessary delay,” Newsom said in a news release. “We’re done with barriers — our state needs to complete this project as soon as possible, so that we can better store and manage water to prepare for a hotter, drier future.”

The proposal includes several changes to existing law.

For example, it notes the state currently must appraise a property it seeks to acquire before negotiations start. The government must also provide a summary of how that appraisal was reached to the property owner. The proposal would exempt efforts by the State Water Resources Development Board to acquire property relative to the needs of water supply facilities from these requirements.

The proposal also notes that, under existing law, protests to water rights permitting decisions must meet certain requirements, including deadlines. While existing law “authorizes the board to cancel a protest, permit or petition” for failure to meet the specified requirements, the new proposal would require the cancellation.

“The proposals will allow the Department of Water Resources to move quickly through the permitting and land acquisition processes for the Delta Conveyance Project to allow the state’s most important water supply and climate adaptation project to move forward, saving years, and billions of dollars by avoiding further delay,” Ryan Endean, deputy director of communications for the California Department of Water Resources, told The Packer.

“The State Water Project delivers water to 750,000 acres of farmland,” he added. “Fast-tracking the Delta Conveyance Project will allow the system to more reliably deliver water to those agricultural regions — providing growers with a higher degree of water supply security — as we see more extreme swings between wet periods and drought.”

Endean said Newsom’s proposed budget will go to the California Legislature, which is required to pass the main budget by June 15. The same deadline is not required of trailer bills such as the new proposal.

“If approved by the Legislature and signed by the governor, the proposals would take effect later this summer,” said Endean, who added, “The target date for the start of [the Delta Conveyance Project’s] construction is 2029 and these proposals keep that target on track.”

Mexico Will Send More Water to Texas to Make Up Treaty Shortfall, USDA Says

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 13:11:02 GMT

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Monday that Mexico would increase its water shipments to Texas to help make up a shortfall under a 1944 treaty that outlines water-sharing between the countries.

U.S. officials and lawmakers have complained that Mexico’s failure to meet its obligations under the treaty is harming Texas farmers.

Mexico has argued that it is under drought conditions that have strained the country’s water resources.

“After weeks of negotiations with Mexican cabinet officials alongside the Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, we secured an agreement to give Texas producers the water they need to thrive. While this is a significant step forward, we welcome Mexico’s continued cooperation to support the future of American agriculture,” Rollins said in a statement.

🚨In President Trump’s first 100 days, we have secured an agreement with Mexico alongside @DeputySecState for an immediate transfer of water from international reservoirs to Texas farmers.

This will meet the immediate needs of American farmers and ranchers, and sets the stage…
— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) April 28, 2025

Earlier this month, Reuters reported that the water issue had emerged as a possible new front in trade negotiations between the two countries.

The water treaty requires Mexico to send 1.75 million acre-feet of water to the U.S. from the Rio Grande every five years.

Mexico will now “transfer water from international reservoirs and increase the U.S. share of the flow in six of Mexico’s Rio Grande tributaries through the end of the current five-year water cycle,” which ends in October, said a USDA statement.

My gratitude to President Trump and Secretary Rollins. They have delivered as promised for our farmers. Mexico will meet its treaty obligations and provide south Texas water as required.
— Sid Miller (@MillerForTexas) April 29, 2025

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce in a statement thanked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum “for her personal involvement in facilitating cooperation across multiple levels of her government to establish a unified path to addressing this ongoing priority.”

Mexico’s government released its own statement later on Monday saying it would implement “a series of measures aimed at mitigating potential shortfalls in water deliveries” including immediate water transfers as well as during the upcoming rainy season.

“All of these actions have as their fundamental premise the assurance of water supplies for human consumption for the Mexican populations that depend on the waters of the Rio Grande,” the statement said.

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