Crop damage in county reaches $28 million

California's drought -- exacerbated by federal intervention in the aqueduct water supply -- has so far claimed more than 6 percent of Kings County farmland totaling 37,163 acres, resulting in a crop damage reaching $28.5 million, county agricultural officials said in a report this week.

The figure shows an increase of $7 million from the figure released just two weeks ago. The new figure was released on Tuesday, as the Kings County Board of Supervisors renewed its resolution of local emergency for the 35th time.

County leaders first declared an emergency last June. They have since renewed the declaration every fortnight.

Early this month, the officials warned that the number would continue to climb as the harvest season winds down. And it did.

On Thursday, they said the number on the damages have yet to top out.

"I think it will still continue to inch upward," said Deputy Agricultural Commissioner Steve Schweizer. "We've just received the harvest numbers for tomatoes ... We still don't have the harvest numbers for cotton yet."

A total of 37,163 acres were either abandoned, fallowed or damaged because of the drought, affecting about 6.35 percent of all farmable acres in Kings County, according to the report. Damages in Westlands Water District, 5,263 acres, accounted for 14 percent of the total damaged acres, the report said.

Here's the updated figures on damaged acres and crop losses suffered so far this year:

Rangeland: 243,183 acres damaged, $1.14 million (unchanged).

Alfalfa: 15,923 acres not planted, $11 million (unchanged).

Pima cotton: 8374 acres, $9.1 million (up $900,000)

Tomatoes: 3,300 acres damaged, 1,065 acres not planted, $3.16 million (up $22.5 million).

Wheat: 5,610 acres not planted, $1.56 million (up $645,000).

Onions: 372 acres not planted, $1.36 million.

Garlic: 600 acres not planted, $729,972.

Barley: 859 acres not planted, $204,942.

Sudangrass: 320 acres not planted, $116,000.

Safflower: 660 acres damaged, $101,676.

Sorghum: 80 acres not planted, $25,228.

The damages added up to $28,444,693.

The prolonged effect of the drought comes after meager winter and early spring rains that parched the region's farmland. Many growers switched crops and pumped well water to manage their operations facing a drastically low water supply.

"In my 35 years in this business, I've never seen a situation that California is in right now," Don Mills, general manager of the Kings County Water District, told the supervisors on Tuesday.

Many legislative efforts to address the water issue are under way in Sacramento, but no significant action has been taken by the state to reverse the drought impact, Mills said.

Meanwhile, Mills expressed a concern regarding the groundwater table that has reached a historic low. "We are continuing to overdraft at more rapid pattern," he said.

Supervisor Jon Rachford said many farmers in the Tulare County area east of Corcoran, who practice triple cropping, have reported the dropping of the water table by more than 30 feet.

"Even if we have a wet year next year, it'll only come back halfway," Rachford said. "The future is bleak."

Westside farmers were hurting even more as the federal court continues to intervene in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pump operation to protect endangered smelt fish drastically cutting the supply through the aqueduct. The surface water supply problem on the Westside is compounded by the poor quality of groundwater as well.

Meanwhile, water levels at reservoirs up north-- Shasta Reservoir, Lake Oroville and San Luis Reservoir -- have dropped to historic lows, indicating the severity of the drought.

The Central Valley would face another disaster year without a wetter-than-normal winter, Schweizer said.

"There's definitely a concern for next year," Schweizer said. "The legislative drought is obviously a part of the problem. But unless we get some relief with good winter rain and snow, it's definitely going to be a problem. Even with a normal rainfall, we'll still have a problem."

The reporter can be reached at 583-2429.

(Oct. 24, 2008)