Tag Archives: California

New Kind of Troubles for Drought Ravaged California

California is sinking because of the four year drought that has farmers digging deeper and deep down in order to find groundwater for their crops, resulting in a higher risk of flooding,

Nearly half of America’s fruits, vegetables and nuts are produced in California. As farmers dig deeper down to find water, the land gradually starts to cave in, an effect scientists refer to as subsidence. Some parts of California are settling lower at a rate of two inches a month

According to Michelle Sneed of the United States Geological Survey, the area being permanently affected by subsidence is enormous, stretching about 1,200 square miles, roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island.Because of this sinking  problem, when rains eventually do come the flooding will destroy the crops while also washing away more of the land.

Sinking land is not the only problem faced by California farmers.

Anger is building in central California at state and federal agencies, who are being blocked by environmentalists from pumping water from rivers onto their arid lands, farmers blame both regulations and the agencies and activists who go to court to enforce them.

“These are communities who rely almost solely upon agricultural production or agri-business activities,” Gayle Holman, spokeswoman for the nation’s largest agricultural water supplier, the Westlands Water District, told FoxNews.com. “If we continue down this path, we will most likely see our food production turn to foreign soil. We could lose the economic engine that agriculture brings to our nation.”

California continues to pray for rain and in the hopes that the forecasted El Nino this winter will offer relief, although many are concerned that too much rain could be just as much of a disaster as this historic drought.  

California Governor Signs Bill to Tackle Racial Profiling Issue

The “Racial and Identity Profiling Act of 2015” was signed into law by California Governor Jerry Brown on Saturday. The new law is a step toward combating the nationwide issue of racial bias in law enforcement.

The new law forces police and law enforcement to record demographic data from each stop and make the information public. The information they need to collect includes: time, date, location of the stop, search, seizure, the characteristics of each officer involved in the stop, a description of all persons detained during the stop, language barriers, and the perceived or voluntarily disclosed race, gender, sexual orientation, and/or religion of the person.

Members of Black Lives Matter and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) gathered for the signing of the bill, shouting “This is what democracy looks like,” “Justice, if we don’t get it, shut it down,” “Fight back,” and “Black lives matter,” according to Breitbart News.

Law enforcement officials condemned the act stating that it will add more documentation and paperwork, keeping them from being out in the community.

“It’s a terrible piece of legislation,” said Lt. Steve James, president of the Long Beach Police Officers Assn. and the national trustee for the California Fraternal Order of Police. “We have contact with the public all the time that requires no documentation, no paperwork,” he said. “Now, the amount of time we have to spend doing documentation and paperwork has gone up. The time doing menial tasks has gone up.”

Lt. James added: “There is no racial profiling. There just isn’t,” he said. “There is criminal profiling that exists.”

Lt. Craig Lally, president of the union that represents Los Angeles police officers, called the new law “another one of these feel-good laws” that will be impossible to enforce.

“Sometimes when people get pulled over they claim it’s because they are black, or Hispanic or white,” he said. “Unless you can get into the officer’s mind when he’s doing that traffic stop, there is no way to prove it was because of race — unless he or she admits it…. It is impossible to look at statistics and prove racism.”

Supporters of the bill celebrated the move by California legislation. Studies have shown in the past unarmed black men are more likely to die by police gunfire than unarmed white men.

Rosa Aqeel, the legislative director of PICO California, a faith-based advocacy group that lobbied heavily for the law’s passage, stated the new law would allow officials to quantify data in order to see if racial profiling is happening within law enforcement agencies.

“It creates a set of actual data that will allow us to see where racial profiling is happening,” Aqeel said, describing police officials who deny that racial profiling occurs as out of touch with reality.

“All I can say: Thank God this bill got signed and we’ll be able to look at the data and see what’s really going on,” she said. “We should all want to see the data so we can see how pervasive the problem is.”

“This will provide additional data,” Melina Abdullah, a professor of Pan-African studies at Cal State L.A., said of the new law. “If I were law enforcement I’d think of it as an opportunity to demonstrate that I wasn’t racially profiling, that we have a fair and equitable system. The resistance to it signals to me and many others that there is a lot of racial profiling going on.”

The new racial profiling law was one of 13 criminal justice bills that the governor signed over the weekend. Other legislation now requires police officers who wear cameras to follow specific rules on the storage and usage of their videos so it is not mishandled. Another law now requires police agencies to issue annual detailed reports on all cases in which officers used force that results in death or serious injury of the perpetrator.

Nearly 1,600 Homes Destroyed by Northern California Wildfires

Another 162 homes North of San Francisco have been destroyed, raising the number of homes destroyed to 1,050, and making it the third worst wildfire in California’s history.

California fire officials announced the numbers on Sunday stating that the two wildfires in North California have destroyed nearly 1,600 homes. The fires have also killed five people.

Cal Fire reported Monday that the Valley Fire was about 69% contained but an additional 6,563 residential buildings were at risk from the wildfire north of San Francisco. Daniel Berlant the spokesman for the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection stated teams have completed about 80% of the damage assessment. At this time, only homes have been accounted for, additional structures like barns, sheds, and other outbuildings have not been counted.

The Butte Fire, a second large blaze about 170 miles southeast in the Sierra Nevada foothills, is threatening another 6,400 structures and has destroyed about 550 homes and 356 outbuildings.

Cal Fire reported on Twitter that the Butte Fire was 72% contained early Monday. The evacuation orders were lifted on Saturday, but some residents had nothing left.

“Everything was destroyed,” said Annie Curtis, 16, an evacuee from Mountain Ranch, told KCRA.

“My house, the barn, the woodshed, three cars, some tractors, a whole backhoe, the tires melted off,” she said.

Another fire in Monterey Country, named the Tassajara fire, is reportedly 30% contained as of Monday.

Sierra Nevada Snowpack Lowest in 500 Years

The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains has reached its lowest level in 500 years.

A new study from the University of Arizona examined tree ring data from 1405-2005 and snowpack measures since the 1930s.  The results showed what the research team called “unprecedented” loss.

“Our study really points to the extreme character of the 2014-15 winter,” Valerie Trouet, an associate professor of dendrochronology at the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, said in a press release. “… We should be prepared for this type of snow drought to occur much more frequently because of rising temperatures.”

Trouet added that 2015 was a record year because of the double blow from the extreme drought and record heat.

“What happened in 2015 is that very low precipitation co-occurred with record high temperatures. And that’s what made this snowpack low so extremely low,” Trouet said.  “We didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

The snowpack is vital for water supplies throughout California.  The California Water Project’s information officer told National Geographic they can only provide 20 percent of the water requested by customers.

There also appears to be no relief on the horizon.  Climatologists say that 2015 could be the hottest on record and that 2016 will be even warmer.

California Fires Force Declarations of Emergency

Lake and Napa Counties in California are in a state of emergency because of the Valley Fire.

At least one person has been confirmed dead because of the out of control blaze and several firefighters were severely burned.  Cal Fire officials say the wounded were being treated at a Sacramento-area burn center with 2nd degree burns.

The fire passed 50,000 acres on Sunday and has been declared to be zero percent contained.

“I’m looking in all directions, and all I see is fire,” Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman told The Press Democrat. “This is unreal. … This thing just blew up on us.”

Over 10,000 residents were forced to flee the flames and officials confirmed over 400 homes and businesses.  Over 5,000 homes are without power in the region because of melted power lines.

The town of Middletown has entire blocks destroyed with homes reduced to a pile of smoking ash.

“It looked like hell everywhere,” Maddie Ross, who fled with her grandparents from their Hidden Valley Lake home, told the New York Times. “It was terrifying, truly terrifying. I’ve never been in a situation like that. We all felt like the world was coming to an end.”

“Losing everything you own and having to replace everything is a scary thought,” Alexis Woodruff said to CNN.

Legionnaires’ Disease Outbreaks Nationwide; Four Dead in Illinois

Four residents of a veteran’s home in Illinois are dead after an outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease.

At least 29 other residents of the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors Home have been infected with the deadly bacterium.  Those who died allegedly had severe underlying medical conditions that compromised their immune systems and left them particularly vulnerable to the bacteria.

“The Legionella bacteria can be found anywhere, but it’s usually in small doses that won’t make you sick,” Adams County Health Department Director of Clinical and Environmental Services Shay Drummond told WGEM-TV. “But when a cluster of people get sick like this, it’s very likely there’s one source point.”

Drummond believes the outbreak has been contained to just the veteran’s home.

At San Quentin State Prison in California, six inmates have been confirmed to have the disease with another 51 under observation in the prison’s medical unit.

Prison officials say all cooking at the prison has been shut down and that prisoners are eating box meals until the source of the disease can be found.

In New York City, where 12 people died from an outbreak this summer, a school had to be shut down after the bacteria was found in a cooling tower.  City officials praised the school’s quick response and also said the action showed the importance of a new city law designed to combat the disease.

“The Convent of the Sacred Heart School properly disinfected its cooling tower. Its cooling tower’s positive test result, and subsequent disinfection, underscores the importance of the new legislation the Mayor signed just two weeks ago,” the Department of Health said in a statement.

Drought Makes One California County Like Living in Third World Country

The four-year drought that has been drying out California is making some parts of the state on par with life in some third world nations.

In a county that traces its history to residents fleeing the “Dust Bowl” of Oklahoma in the 1930s, residents are facing fields of dust that lay fallow because of a lack of water.

Tulare County brought in $8.1 billion in agriculture revenue in 2014, the most of any county in the nation.  Now, 1,252 of its wells are dry, more than all other California counties combined.

In Okieville, California, some residents can’t even get enough water for a single flush of their toilet.  Almost all the 100 homes in the community are without water because their wells have run dry.  Residents banded together to create a single water line from the only well in town deep enough to hit an aquifer that is rapidly drying out.

The county has been filling 2,500 gallon tanks in many yards using state drought relief money.  Still, officials admit the conditions are disastrous but because of the nature of the problem it’s not easy to show to the world.

“It’s not an earthquake or flood where you can drive down the street and see the devastation,” Andrew Lockman, of Tulare County’s Office of Emergency Services told the AP.

Some farmers have gone to extreme steps to keep their farms in place.  One farm bought their own $1 million drilling rig to make sure they never run dry.

Many residents of Okieville are so poor they cannot afford to move nor can they sell a house without water.  Maria Marquez said they pray for rain and that she does it nightly when she bathes her 4-year-old granddaughter.

“God, give us water so we don’t have to move,” the 4-year-old says, pressing her palms together. “God, please fill up our tank, so we don’t run out of water.”

California Drought Could Eliminate Endangered Fish

While California’s drought is driving up food prices nationwide and causing some cities to ration water resources, the drought is also taking its toll on wildlife.

The delta smelt, a fish that lives in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, has been endangered for years.  The drought, now in its fourth year, has driven population levels to the point that a July survey showed zero for the level of delta smelt abundance.  Researchers found “a handful” of the fish but the number was too small to register on the population gauge.

“The delta smelt is basically on its last legs right now. We’ll be lucky if it survives the coming year,” said Peter Moyle, a fish biologist at the University of California.”The drought has basically made all the things that were bad for smelt worse.”

Other native fish are endangered because of the drought including longfin smelt, green sturgeon and Chinook salmon.

Moyle said that because the water releases from the Shasta Dam were so warm, an entire generation of winter-run Chinook was erased.  The eggs either never hatched or the young died soon after hatching.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the operator of the dam, admitted miscalculating the volume of cold water and didn’t maintain the proper river temperature.

“We’re going to be losing most of our salmon and steelhead if things continue,” Moyle said.  “It would be a major extinction event.”

Military Troops Brought in to Fight Western Wildfires

With over 100 wildfires burning in Western states, the U.S. military is now training troops to join the fight against them and provide relief to some of the 25,000 firefighters on scene.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reported that 200 active duty troops will be split into 10 units of 20 men and all deployed to the same fire.  The move marks the first time that active duty military has been called out to fight domestic fires.  The troops will come from 17th Field Artillery Brigade of the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis, Washington.

National Guard troops have already been on the scene at several fires to help firefighters.

Officials in Idaho reported that an elderly woman died and 50 homes were destroyed in a cluster of fires along the Clearwater River.  The “Clearwater Complex” fire has burned more than 50,000 acres of timber & brush.

A spokesman for Clearwater fire command said that they are facing significant shortages and have had requests for reinforcements for ground forces and aircraft returned “UTF” or “unable to fill.”

Currently fourteen major wildfires are impacting Idaho.  Oregon and Washington have more than 30 large fires and have totaled the highest property losses from the flames.

At least 32 homes were destroyed in fires burning in north-central Washington near the resort town of Chelan.

Minor Quake Strikes Oakland Area

Some residents of the Easy Bay area didn’t need their alarm clocks to start the week as a magnitude 4.0 earthquake struck the area early Monday morning.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported the quake struck at 6:49 a.m., three miles away from Oakland, California.  The quake was felt throughout the Oakland/San Francisco area.

Oakland police Lt. Chris Bolton reported on the department’s official Twitter feed that they had no reports of injuries or damage from the quake.

The quake struck along the Hayward fault, a major fault that remains a concern for geologists in the area.  The scientists believe that the fault could produce a potentially catastrophic quake that could kill tens of thousands.  The Hayward fault is part of the San Andreas fault system.

The fault runs for more than 60 miles through the region from Fremont to Hayward.  The fault runs under hospitals, freeways and reservoirs.  It even runs from end zone to end zone at the football stadium for the University of California Berkeley.

The quake was followed by six aftershocks.