Almond Industry Headline Environmental News

   Air Quality

• Pesticide firms told to change products over Valley air pollution concerns - - Pesticide air pollution has spiked again in the country's top farming region, prompting the state to protect human health by calling for chemical manufacturers to change hundreds of products. The state Department of Pesticide Regulation in the next several weeks will require reformulation of up to 800 pesticides, a spokesman said Friday. The agency also announced a 14 percent increase in smog-making gases from pesticides in the San Joaquin Valley. <more> April 9, 20005 Modesto Bee
   

• California regulators move forward on concerns about VOCs from pesticides - - California regulators are moving ahead to limit farm chemical uses of volatile organic compounds due to concerns about air quality. The most recent inventory of VOC emissions for different areas of the state is expected to be announced within a week, said Glenn Brank, spokesman for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation. <more> April 8, 2005 Capital Press
   

• Healthy milestone in reach for Valley air . Numbers encourage air officials, who caution that pollution still not licked.  - - The San Joaquin Valley's air, perennially among the dirtiest in the country, might reach a cleanup milestone this year — meeting a health standard for dust, smoke and other small debris. In decades of regulation, the Valley air never has been healthy under any standard for so-called PM-10, known as particulate pollution. <more> March 31, 2005 Fresno Bee
   

• A silver lining. New almond harvesting equipment helps cut dust, boost harvest efficiency.  - - As an alternate member of the Almond Board’s environmental committee, Doug Flora knows all too well that Central Valley agriculture is under the gun to cut dust production. As a third-generation almond producer who farms with his father, John Flora, near Modesto, Calif., Doug Flora also knows the value of the bottom line to staying in business. <more> March issue of The Grower Magazine.

Crop Protection

• Almond incident in court - - Two managers from Golden West Nuts of Ripon will be arraigned Wednesday on criminal charges for allegedly exposing an employee to a hazardous dose of methyl bromide. <more> March 29, 2005 Modesto Bee

Water Quality

• Overflowing with relief. Growers reap the benefits of above-normal rainfall that will prolong water delivery. - - Snowcapped peaks and an often-soggy Valley floor are bringing smiles to farmers who have been more accustomed to frowning through years of below-normal precipitation. <more> April 3, 2005 Fresno Bee
   

• Wet winter, heavy snows mean more water this summer - - The Sierra Nevada mountains are blanketed with a third more snow than normal. Reservoirs, low enough to show bathtub rings the last few years, are filling. Southern California, after a multiyear drought, has had its second wettest year on record. While the Pacific Northwest has had a dry winter dampened by a recent series of storms, most of California is swimming. <more> April 2, 2005 Associated Press
   

• Agriculture water won't flow southward this year -- Three deals to transfer water from the Sacramento Valley to state water contractors south of the Delta are dead. Eight state water contractors, led by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, notified local water districts Wednesday night they would not exercise option contracts that were negotiated earlier in the year. <more> April 1, 2005 Chico Enterprise
   

Endangered Species

• Lawsuits challenge species protection - -  A conservative legal foundation on Wednesday filed lawsuits challenging federal protection for 42 species — including two fairy shrimp that kept the University of California off the university's preferred building site near Merced. <more> March 31, 2005 Modesto Bee

General Industry News
 

• Don't overlook valley's farmers - - What if there were a local industry group in Stanislaus County that generated $1.5 billion in sales and employed 65,000 people? Economic development gurus would be falling over each other to recruit the industry and make sure it stayed here and prospered, said Carol Whiteside, president of the Great Valley Center, a Modesto research group. Well, the industry is here, but it is largely taken for granted, said Whiteside, speaking at the Modesto Chamber of Commerce's AgAware Luncheon on Thursday at the SOS Club. <more> April 8, 2005 Modesto Bee. Click here for the complete speech text.
   

• Biotech is devil's friend, says film 'Future of Food' - - Deborah Koons Garcia has never shied away from a food fight. In her 20s, she would berate friends who ate meat. At 55, she has calmed down a little, but not much. "I'm almost like a food fanatic, but I'm not so evangelical now," she says during a phone interview from her home in Marin County. Although she is best known as the widow of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, she also is a filmmaker, so it was natural for her to make a movie about food. She thought she might take on pesticides, but then she decided to battle a monster she believes is much bigger. <more> March 31, 2005 Sacramento Bee
   

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