drought

"California could soon become the last state in the West to regulate water pulled from beneath the earth," says the Sacramento Bee. The Legislature passed a three-bill package on Friday that Gov Jerry Brown is expected to sign. It would require local water managers in certain parts of the state to draft plans within a few years to prevent extraction of too much water from the ground. The state could step in if the local plans are insufficient or not enforced.

The chances of the U.S. Southwest suffering a decade-long drought are at least 50 percent, thanks to climate change, says a team of researchers.

Food prices will climb a modest 3 percent this year, close to the long-term average of 2.8 percent, said USDA in a monthly update.

Researchers say the Global Positioning System, which helps drivers navigate the roads and which monitors tiny movements of the earth's surface as a possible indicator of developing earthquakes, has measured the huge loss of water due to severe drought in the West, says National Geographic.

Farmers and landowners in California are spending millions of dollars to drill increasingly deeper wells in California, says National Geographic.

Recurrent drought has combined with a smaller cattle inventory to begin shifting the cattle industry, centered in the southern and central Plains, to the north and east, says Meatingplace in a seven-part story, "Dry Age Beef."

Since the days of the Gold Rush, "groundwater has been considered a property right; landowners are entitled to what's beneath them," says the Los Angeles Times; California is the only state in the West that does not regulate groundwater.

The U.S. corn and soybean crops are in phenomenally good shape for the first week of August, said the weekly Crop Progress report, despite dry July weather in the western Corn Belt.

Satellite images show California turning brown from its three-year drought, says Weather.com, which posted pictures taken by NASA's Aqua satellite in mid-2011 and this summer. "In the animated image, California's Central Valley appears to have lost much of its plant life, as the green portion in the middle of the image has thinned in the last three years.

Record beef and pork prices are pulling up the prices of seafood as consumers look for lower-priced protein, says the government in an update of the food price outlook. Overall, food prices are forecast to rise by 3 percent this year, roughly in line with the annual average of 2.8 percent since 1990. The Agriculture Department says pork prices are up by 12 percent since mid-2013 and it expects an increase of 6 percent for this calendar year.

The Agriculture Department announced $9.7 million in emergency water assistance grants for 25 rural communities in California, now in its third year of drought. The grant program is aimed at communities suffering a significant decline in the volume or quality of drinking water. Some 75,000 people will be aided by the funds, said USDA.

The drought is propelling water prices to record levels, says the Vallejo (Calif) Times-Herald in recounting how prices have quadrupled or more. Water is, it says, "a commodity, like oil or gold, and its prices swing in response to supply and demand, geography and decisions out of Sacramento." So-called traded water is a small part of California consumption but the amount has grown greatly.

Three years into one of the driest periods ever in California, the leading fruit and vegetable state, "there is not much more room for further deterioration, at least during the dry season," said the weekly Drought Monitor.

President Obama announced a series of steps to help states and communities prepare for climate change and to speed recovery from storms and other adverse impacts. The steps range from three-dimensional mapping of the country as a way to deal with flooding to funds for management of coastal zones. The package included $236.3 million to improve the rural electric infrastructure in eight states.

Drought will cost California farmers $1.5 billion out of a statewide total of $2.2 billion this year according to a report by UC-Davis, said Business Insider. Losses will include 17,000 part-time and seasonal jobs. Because of sparse precipitation, growers are getting one-third of their usual water deliveries and are offsetting the reduction by pumping much more water from wells.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton "expressed enthusiasm for biotech seeds" and suggested the industry should stress the benefits of the crops, such as drought resistance, rather than the umbrella description...

Olive trees are taking root as a cash crop in California, with the drought as an inducement, says the Sacramento Bee, which cites a farmer who switched to olives from rice.

Widespread and locally heavy rain storms in the central Plains and Midwest capped four weeks of an easing in the extent and severity of drought across the nation, said the Drought Monitor.