What's New

December, 2008

  Recently the Westlands Water District ceded to the Westside Resource Conservation District (Westside RCD) the care of numerous parcels of retired farm land on which to develop upland habitat. The Westside RCD is putting together a collaborative team of wildlife specialists, habitat restoration and development practitioners, land trusts, non-government organizations, and government wildlife agencies to develop upland habitat with specific objectives in mind. The first objective is to reduce the cost of maintenance (e.g. weed control) and the liability exposure of the Westlands Water District with respect to its retired land.

  The second objective is to develop strategically located contiguous fields of native plant communities and upland habitat that function as: a) insectaries to breed beneficial insects and native pollinators; and b) as buffers to check the migration of weeds from retired lands to neighboring farms. With the right combination of native grasses, shrubs and flowers, the insectaries can supply year round pollen and nectar to feed large populations of lady beetles, praying mantis, and other beneficial insects, as well as native bees and other native pollinators. Large fields of these plants placed next to almond orchards, melon fields, and seed alfalfa fields can help pollinate these crops when domesticated bee colonies are weak or sparsely distributed.

  A critical role of these blocks of native plants growing in undisturbed soil next to cropland is reduction of the invasion of weeds from retired lands. Native grasses and shrubs are slow to establish, but they gradually eliminate weeds by shading them out and taking moisture and nutrients from them. Over time they become a low cost or no-cost means of weed control. As a weed control tool and incubator of beneficial insects, well placed upland habitat becomes a partner in Integrated Pest Control to neighboring farms.

  The third objective is to create refugia for threatened and endangered animal and plant species to rebuild the web of life on which we depend. Biological material for modern vaccines has on occasion come from preserved or restored eco-systems. The next generation of biodiesel may come from ancient forms of algae. Our most advanced “inventions” many times utilize long-evolved life forms or mimic their behavior. As one thrust in restoring our web of life, government agencies charged with the preservation of endangered species will employ their expertise to find the most suitable parcels to develop habitat for upland species like the San Joaquin kit fox, kangaroo rat, and blunt-nose leopard lizard and to correctly design the habitat for these species so that they reproduce and thrive.

  An important aspect of establishing these refugia is to restore or develop these native communities along specific alignments such as riparian corridors to build interrelationships among the parcels  to  transform them into integrated environments. Isolated refugia tend to have fewer plant and animal species than connected habitats and because of lack of biological diversity are less resistant to insects, disease, drought, and other factors.

  The Westside RCD in collaboration with these agencies, wild life specialists, and conservation land trusts will supervise the development of these refuges to assure that the goals of the wildlife agencies and conservation land trusts are met. Once it is demonstrated to these agencies and trusts that specific refugia are viable, the Westside RCD will recommend their sale to conservation land trusts or other appropriate entities. At that point the Westlands Water District will be relieved of the liability of it's ownership of the parcels, other organizations will have assumed their stewardship, and most importantly, what is viewed today as a liability will become a public asset. Properly clustered and restored parcels of retired farm land can serve as builders of our web of life, reproduction centers of beneficial insects and pollinators, and a low cost/no-cost weed control instrument.

  The Westside RCD has been involved in the perfecting of Integrated On-farm Drainage Management (IFDM), a means of rehabilitating water-logged, saline cropland for over ten years. Saline water often needs to be drained from west side soils, because extra water (more than the crop needs) is applied to fields to wash the dissolved salts in the soil and irrigation water down past the roots of the crops. That extra water percolates down until it reaches an impermeable clay layer 6 to 10 feet under the soil surface, after which it flows laterally eastward underground to the eastern side of the Westlands Water District. There this saline drain water, prevented from going downward by impenetrable clay, soaks upward through the soil until the soil is saturated with highly saline water. When cropland reaches this state, it needs an effective drainage system like IFDM. 

  Until early 2008, it was generally accepted that for every 100 acres of farmland made suitable to grow salt-sensitive crops like lettuce, six acres would have to be dedicated to processing the salt-laden drain water. However, a device that distills pure water from saline drain water with a minimum use of energy has changed the ratio of prime crop land to drain-processing land. With the help of a vapor compression distiller, as the device is called, only two acres are now needed to process drain water from 100 acres. When large blocks of drainage-impaired Westlands Water District land are rehabilitated (for example 20,000 acres) 98% of the land will not be remain as cropland. The Westside RCD is working with the maker of the vapor compression distiller and the California Department of Water Resources to reduce the cost per acre-foot of the distilled water so that this type of device can be used on a large-scale basis.

  Regarding watershed management, the Department of Water Resources required that the Westside RCD implement California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines for all range and ranchland projects that impact west side streams to avoid undesirable consequences caused by such projects. The Request for Proposals for developing the information needed for the CEQA process is being constructed and upon completion will enable the Westside RCD to resume implementation of ranch plan projects.

  The Westside RCD Clean Energy Project began in the fall of 2007. Funding is being sought to continue outreach to agricultural processors and farmers to encourage them to implement energy conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects. The District is also seeking grants for technical and economic feasibility studies of the application of solar thermal-absorption chilling technology to produce coolers and the application of wood gasification-to-synthetic-diesel technology to almond hullers. The long-term goals of the Westside RCD Clean Energy Project are to: a) increase the long-term competitiveness of District farms and agricultural processors, b) reduce San Joaquin Valley air pollution and carbon emissions, and c) to grow the west side economy by attracting utility-scale renewable energy projects. With the aid of the Westside RCD, the west side of the San Joaquin Valley can become a solar energy center, a source of algae-derived motor fuels, and a model for growing biomass that is converted to transportation fuels on marginal soils with saline water. All of these renewable energy technologies will use sunlight instead of fossil fuel to make valuable energy products. This twenty-first century, low carbon approach to energy production will reap big rewards for the economy of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.