I ran across this on CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/01/us/california-water-restrictions-drought/index.html

It puts a lot of pressure on everyone. How does this affect home gardeners/fruit growers? Do I have it right that farmers/nurseries purchase water rights to a certain amount of water?

I hope you guys get some rain...

Pretty Scary!  We have already had county restrictions.  They divided up all the residents into sections.  Each section can only water gardens on certain days and times.  That will probably change again with these new restrictions.  We are in the agricultural water zone, not city, so we are on orchard and dairy farm rules. 

We all hope for rain soon!

Suzi

That’s funny, I just wanted to post the same link story.

Yes, it is serious. We can water once a week only with the sprinklers, I am working on installing the drip lines where it is possible to use them.

Wow, good luck. Each year it seems we get guidelines about water usage, but I've never really felt anything truly serious. Maybe when I was a kid there were a few restrictions for a couple hot summers...

I think we are all hoping Ca gets some water soon. An aweful lot of food is grown out that way. This looks like its getting serious.

Our current rain season is about over in Cali, so unless there is a freakish storm, that's about it till hopefully next Oct/November.

Many of the restrictions Gov Brown is suggesting/mandating should have been done a long time ago. For example, lawns, golf courses - a real waste in a drought. I'd rather they grow food with 'lawn' water. Also more tiered water charges so homeowners who use more pay more so conservation is encouraged.

"Also more tiered water charges so homeowners who use more pay more so conservation is encouraged. "

That is currently the case in Santa Barbara county.  I own a house on a 1/4 acre lot.   A few months ago I got a water bill for $273.00  as I was trying to save my avocado tree.   Later I learned Lake Cachuma, our water source was below 30% capacity so I practically stumped my big hass avocado to try to wait out the drought. 

Hope we finish our desalination plant soon.

Tim  Zone 10a

Don't look for desal water to lower your water bill. It's very expensive. If a plant is built in your area, it probably will turn your $270 water bill into more than a $500 one. Unless you use less.

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near

I'm thankful that Fig trees (in ground) are drought tolerant.  The few potted figs we have are on drip.  We have planted most of ours near boulders so their roots can stay cool and damp.  We replaced our lawn with a very expensive FAKE very GREEN putting green.  Everything is on drip, and that isn't cheap either.  Some smart previous owner practically covered this land (1.5 acres) with drought tolerant rosemary.  Svanessa has a beautiful drought tolerant perennial called Statice.  I just ordered seeds.

I just don't want our pine groves to die.  They are on drip, and were neglected for years from foreclosure, so they are coming back.  Just lost a lime to some disease.

I do make coffee and wash the dishes, but we cut the showers to really short and every other dayish. 

I have planted a ton of succulents.  They spread fast and my big worry is fire.  They hold any water they can in their leaves and stop the burn.

Not pretty, but most of our country has had drought or floods.

Rain Dance!!

Suzi

My figs are irrigated from my water well which has a standing water table within a few feet of soil surface.  The rest of my crops are watered from the Sacramento River water and I still expect to have all I need this year.  Almost feel guilty....

I'm using recycled water. I pick it up 210 gallons at a time from the wastewater treatment plant. I love it because a) it's free b) it includes organic fertilizer.

That 210 gallons of water is worth about $1.25 at local water rates. The fertilizer portion could be valued anywhere from $0.25(compared to ConvertedOrganics products) to $7.88 (compared to fish emulsion)

How do you transport that many gallons?  You have access to a tank truck?
Suzi

Norwesco Plastics makes tanks for pickup trucks - they have an indent for the wheel well. I bought mine at Tractor Supply for $250. 

In case anyone is worried about weight...
210 gallons = 1700lb. My truck has a GVWR of 7000, and a curb weight of 5300, so the math works perfectly on load. 

Once you get it on site, how do you distribute it to the plants?

I offload the water into an IBC container which holds 275 gallons. That is plumbed into my drip irrigation.  The IBC container with the water is 25ish feet higher than what it's watering, so it's gravity fed. I'm running 100gph of drippers so irrigation should take 2-3 hours, but due to the low pressure it takes a lot longer. Yesterday I filled up the IBC at 1pm and it was about half empty at 5pm. There's a filter in-line that might be getting clogged and slowing it up.

Most people just use a pump.

PS: IBC containers are 1000L plastic totes in a metal cage. New they are 250ish, but used ones can be found. Average used price in my area was $125 - but recently the price has been dropping. 

smatthew that is a great contribution to this thread and I'm sure it will help many without water.  Thanks so much for your input.

Suzi

Another sad story for CA.
There is plenty of water here in NJ.
Wish we had a better warm climate to re-declare NJ as the 'Garden State' from older times ...

[E: todays NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/us/california-imposes-first-ever-water-restrictions-to-deal-with-drought.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=0]

Indeed our water issues are downright scary!   In hindsight, too bad we didn’t start major conservation rules a few years ago, not like this crisis just snuck up on us.

Personally, I’ve let a lot of tropical (water loving) landscape die back and replacing with more drought tolerant succulents.   I have a small lawn area of a hybrid Bermuda (takes little water) but, that too may go on the chopping block.    Lawn removal landscapers are working overtime around here these days.   My only dilemma is what to do with 3 acres of commercial lemons surrounding my house.   Last year the grove manager pruned way back and reduced water but, not sure how long that will work.  Even with an ag water rate, the economics really start to suck if rates go sky high or restrictions.   But, then again, soon as I tear out the lemons (along with all other growers) a diminished supply will surely drive lemon prices sky high and I miss the market…..urgh.

Funny thing is, I’m about to do a way overdue pool replaster project, called the water district about any restrictions and they had no issues whatsoever.   As long as I’m willing to pay for the water at current rate, that is!   Geeesh…… I’m really feeling guilty now after the last few days of publicity about out shortage…….. :-(

Oh the price of a wonderful climate… 

California politicians (Democrat controlled legislature my whole life) have resisted spending money on water infrastructure for the last 40-50 years, esp storage projects. However, they are always willing to issue more building permits (money making item for them) for more houses and businesses that USE water. There are water projects here in San Diego that were planned in the 1800s that still have not been completed. Wa are currently experiencing a rainfall/snowpack issue, but we have had a mismanagement issue for a long, long time.

I had to laugh when someone observed that our current governor (Governor Moonbeam for those old enough to remember the last time he was governor) has the perfect name for the future of California:  Brown.

Watch to see when the politicians realize that the water issue is going to become a tax issue. All the businesses such as farms that depend on water will be paying less taxes because they are doing less business. That means they are buying less stuff, which means they need to hire less people, and their suppliers will hire less people, and pretty soon income tax receipts from those people who are not working and producing will drop. The politicians will figure this out in a year or two when the State treasurer's report says that receipts are down, and then they will all be looking around, scratching themselves, wondering what happened. They will never see it coming.

If you are in farming or have an orchard, prepare to find a new job. If you are in the nursery or landscaping business, prepare to find a new job. If you are in any of the service industries that supply goods and services to the agricultural industry, prepare top find a new job. If you have landscaping, prepare for it to go away. If you eat, prepare to pay more for your food, or do without, and/or get it from questionable foreign sources where sanitation practices do not compare with those here.

if you eat walnuts, pistachios, almonds, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, prunes, raisins, wine, rice, apples, artichokes, garlic, figs, macadamias, peaches, nectarines, plums, avocados, lettuce, melons, strawberries, tomatoes, corn, broccoli, carrots and a host of other things, prepare to see less of them and pay more for them. This affects dairy products, alfalfa, cotton, beef, chicken, eggs, and a whole lot more.

Meanwhile, lush green lawns in Arizona with people watering so it flows down the gutter like a river all day saturated with fertilizers and roundup.

Very very very very well said Jon.
We deffinitlly have the technology and means of producing clean drinkable water from sea water and don't we always hear the argument that the sea level keeps rising? How about controlling and collecting all the melting ice and flood water running purposeless down the middle of our country? I also understand that it takes a vast amount of energy to convert or desalinize sea water but with all the solar and wind options California has it is just a matter of willing to spend the money on infrastructure ,just like Jon said. Best of luck to all of us and I hate to say that it's a darn shame that we have to leave serious and totally solvable matters like that to " Luck"!

Agree with what Jon says.  We did finally pass a water bond last year which includes a bunch of garbage but did include funding for storage and, supposedly, the Sykes reservoir will be built.  To be located in Colosa County north of me, it won't be directly connected to any stream or reservoir but used to store water during heavy run-off periods.  Although we're in a drought, we had way above average rainfall in December and a lot of water flowed right past my farm and out into the ocean.

It's not being reported much, but most of our reservoirs have more water in them today than a year ago because of the December rains.  The bad news is that much more water is flowing into them because of the dismal snowpack.

Crumbling (and underdeveloped) infrastructure is a problem across the whole country.  We seem to be living off of the investments that were made in the last century and there isn't the political will to invest in the future.  Our newly elected republican governor is scaling back on transportation infrastructure projects that we need in my area. Many of our political leaders don't want to spend the money on what will benefit us over the long term. What I often read about California is that some of the crops that are grown there (alfalfa, some of which is exported, rice, etc) are not really suited for what appears to be a new normal i.e. a dry west.  Harvey, I'd like to get your thoughts on this - are there crops currently grown in California that would be better grown elsewhere, given the projections regarding water in the west over the next few decades?  I grew up on a farm in Iowa which has some of the richest farmland in the world.  But essentially none of the crops grown there is recognizable as human food.  It gets turned into high fructose corn syrup, ethanol, and meat.  There's got to be a way to move at least a bit of the water-intensive agriculture going on in California to areas where there is more water.  As far as desalination - it may come to that but it is very energy intensive and therefore very expensive to do on the scale needed to satisfy agricultural demands.