Free Republic

Hundreds of farmers who rely on the water from the irrigation district that channels water along the Rio Grande in central New Mexico face a second straight year of early cutoffs. The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District board voted Friday to end deliveries for irrigation a month early because of low water availability. The Oct. 1 shutoff means winter crops like those grown by Travis Harris just north of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge about 90 miles (144 kilometers) south of Albuquerque are at risk. “This is my livelihood,” Harris told the Albuquerque Journal. “This is how I live...

A 29-mile convoy through southern Oregon, followed by a rally, followed by a direct appeal to the White House, and a decision by the Department of the Interior. That’s what it took to open up irrigation water for farmers in southern Oregon last week. It all started with one of the biggest protests you probably didn’t even notice. In a June 9 press release, the Bureau of Reclamation announced that it had restored the 140,000-acre-feet of water originally promised to farmers in the Klamath Basin at the beginning of the season: Today, the Bureau of Reclamation confirmed the 2020 water...

Study finds that faults beneath the Salton Sea ruptured during Colorado River floods and may have triggered large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas FaultSouthern California's Salton Sea, once a large natural lake fed by the Colorado River, may play an important role in the earthquake cycle of the southern San Andreas Fault and may have triggered large earthquakes in the past. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Nevada, Reno, discovered new faults in the Salton Sea near the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. By examining...

The airburst "in an instant, devastated approximately 500 km2 [about 200 square miles] immediately north of the Dead Sea, not only wiping out 100 percent of the [cities] and towns, but also stripping agricultural soils from once-fertile fields and covering the eastern Middle Ghor with a super-heated brine of Dead Sea anhydride salts pushed over the landscape by the event's frontal shock waves," the researchers wrote in the abstract for a paper that was presented at the American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting held in Denver Nov. 14 to 17. Anhydride salts are a mix of salt and sulfates....

"The farms aren't just owned. They were created." The track record is that irrigation technology transfer hasn't worked; and transferred land mostly ends up lying fallow. "Let's say 15,000 farmers decide to stop farming in South Africa. That's 30,000,000 fewer meals every day."

Klamath Basin Agreement proponents have lost not only their grip on reality, but also their traditional American common sense neighborly values Klamath Basin groups claiming to represent the majority of Klamath Basin residents, such as the Klamath Water Users Association (“KWUA”) and the Family Farm Alliance (“FFA”), have long perpetuated the lie that the Klamath Basin Agreements will benefit ALL Basin residents. The first two of these agreements had been initially proposed during the Bush administration in an effort assist Klamath irrigators resolve longstanding science and water delivery disputes with environmentalists and tribal communities. Now, these and several additional new...

The farm fields in Jefferson County are quiet this time of year, the irrigation ditches dry, the crops dormant and the tractors, combines and balers parked in barns until spring. Even so, farmers are busy calculating their costs for the spring planting season, and this year they're factoring in a little bit of fear.

From a distance, the reservoir appears topped by a flotilla of rubber duckies. On closer inspection, the water’s surface is packed with thousands of free-floating, 13-inch plastic balls, clustered to form an undulating cover. Developed by the Israeli startup Neotop (formerly known as Top-It-Up), the mass of balls serves as a floating cooling tower, reducing surface temperatures, algae and evaporation up to 95 percent. It’s one of many potential water-saving solutions to come out of Israel’s high-tech dream factory. This could make a difference in California. With the state’s reservoirs at historic lows — the two biggest, Shasta Lake and...

From my Free Web Book 'AncientCanalBuilders.com' The largest wide-array man made (or at least non natural) structure in the world is in fact an ancient terra formed systems of agricultural-aquaculture canals in Northwestern Botswana and Northeastern Namibia, north of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa. Obviously quite ancient, the canal systems no longer provide free flowing water throughout its 105,000 mile array, but many sections show obvious intention to provide cross sectional irrigation. These canals are too evenly spaced over too large an area to be any kind of natural formation. Based on entry and exit points, it is readily...

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a 2009 federal decision that called for reducing the amount of water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in order to protect salmon and other species. The 2009 environmental review by the National Marine Fisheries Service found that continuing to pump water from the delta at such a high rate would threaten several endangered salmon species and killer whales. Some of the state’s biggest water agencies, including Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District, had challenged the 2009 federal decision. …

Democrats were writing obituaries for California's GOP after winning a supermajority in the state legislature last November, thus gaining veto-proof power to raise taxes. But their legislative lock may have slipped after this week's special election in which Republican farmer Andy Vidak appears to have defeated a Democrat—in a heavily Democratic senate district—who had championed high-speed rail and a higher minimum wage. If Mr. Vidak wins an outright majority—late Friday, he led with 49.8% of the vote and provisional ballots were still being counted—his victory would put Republicans two senate seats short of reclaiming their veto on tax hikes. But...

In the year 802 C.E., the founder of the medieval Khmer empire, Jayavarman II, anointed himself "king of the world." In laying claim to such a grandiose title, he was a little ahead of his time: It would be another few centuries before the Khmers built Earth's largest religious monument, Angkor Wat, the crowning glory of a kingdom that stood in what is today northwestern Cambodia. But Jayavarman II had good reason to believe that his nascent kingdom, in the sacred Kulen hills northeast of Angkor, was a record-holder. Airborne laser scanning technology, or LiDAR, has revealed the imprint of...

Enlarge Image Thanks, California! Massive amounts of irrigation in California's Central Valley boost summer precipitation across the American Southwest and during that period increases runoff into the Colorado River, which flows through the Grand Canyon, by an average of 28%, a new study suggests. Credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock Water diverted to central California's farmlands boosts rainfall in nearby states and may even exacerbate periodic flooding in some regions, a new study suggests. The phenomenon may also be happening elsewhere in the world. California's Central Valley—an area almost twice the size of Massachusetts where farmers raise more than 200 different crops, including...

Over the past few months I have made several references to my water tank in the gardening threads and in several of the emergency prepper threads. I've decided to put up a thread here at FR with pictures to explain what I did and how, and be able to reference this thread when I need to. This is not the end-all be-all by any means. This is one man's ideas and my only challenge is to find a way to do what I did, only better. Pass this on and use any of the pictures or comments in any way...

Nowhere in the Maldives juts more than 10 feet above the Indian Ocean, making it extremely worried about sea level rise. Its president, Mohamed Nasheed, illustrated the point by holding a cabinet meeting under water in the run-up to last year's Copenhagen summit. But a new study shows that global warming is not the only cause of swelling seas. Much comes from "water mining" – the pumping of vast amounts of groundwater from beneath the earth, mainly to irrigate crops. This inevitably ends up in the oceans after it evaporates from farmland and comes down as rain.

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

BAGHDAD — The Directorate General of Water Resources for Baghdad, Thair Dahri, visited Pump Station One in Saab al-Bour, May 16, to encourage students learning new skills and see firsthand the recent increase in irrigation. "This increase means [more than 6,000 acres] of land will be irrigated," said Thair. "We are committed to increasing the ability to maintain this pump station as well." Thair talked with 18 students training as operators at the station and said the ministry is working on getting them employed. "We have helped increase the output of Pump Station One from two cubic meters per second...

"Feed Me Seymour" Israeli scientists have developed a product that enables plants to tell farmers that they are hungry or even turn on the water itself. OK its not a talking plant like "Little Shop of Horrors" its a sensor that measures the stress of plants and their water levels. Israel is a country with a severe water problem, and this invention will enable farmers to use water only when needed. It is projected to save farmers up to 30 to 40 percent in water use. More Below:

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, Dec. 30, 2008 – The provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan’s Konar province is working to restore an irrigation system in the province’s Manawara district that has become a casualty of decades of war. An Afghan village elder leads provincial reconstruction team members to a well in Afghanistan’s Konar province. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Russell Gilchrest  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The ancient Karez system, comprising 12 wells and numerous aqueducts, uses river water and underground spring water to irrigate crops in the area. During the Soviet-Afghan war that began in 1978 and ended in...

Dr. Ayad, the director general of agriculture in the Baghdad province, thanks Lt. Col. Matthew Mckenna, from Pittsburgh, deputy commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, for all of the Coalition forces' help with the farmers of the Mada’in after a meeting at the Salman Pak government center, Oct. 29, 2008. Photo by Pfc. Evan Loyd, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division Public Affairs. FOB HAMMER — Leaders of the government of Iraq, Mada’in Qada and 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, met at the Salman Pak government center to discuss issues of importance to...