Posted on Apr 23, 2023
California's destructively wet winter has a bright side. You'll want to see it
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https://www.npr.org/2023/04/21/ [login to see] /californias-destructively-wet-winter-has-a-bright-side-youll-want-to-see-it
The roads are still rutted where rainwater carved them and farms are still flooded down the valley, but here in California's largest remaining grassland, the benefits of the state's destructively wet winter are on full display.
And they're spectacular.
The roads are still rutted where rainwater carved them and farms are still flooded down the valley, but here in California's largest remaining grassland, the benefits of the state's destructively wet winter are on full display.
And they're spectacular.
California's destructively wet winter has a bright side. You'll want to see it
Posted from npr.orgPosted in these groups: 
State of California
State of California
Posted 1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel good day Brother William, always informational and of the most interesting. Thanks for sharing, have a blessed day!
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."In normal years, most of the water that comes down from the mountains is used up by agriculture. Low-income rural communities, wetlands and riparian areas are lower in the water pecking order. Years of drought forced California to cancel its $1.4 billion salmon fishing season this year, for just the third time in history. Some wetlands, "oases of habitat," Kaminski said, haven't received surface water during the drought either, relying instead on landowners like duck-hunting clubs to pump groundwater to the surface.
"The only wetlands that are on the landscape here now are when big floods happen, sort of re-creating the wetlands that were here historically," he said, driving along a water- and bird-filled wetland northeast of Bakersfield, "and then these duck clubs that traditionally have drilled wells and pumped groundwater to flood their wetlands."
"I try to look at it as: these floods are devastation for some but they're also opportunities," said Matt Kaminski (right), a regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited.
Claire Harbage/NPR
This year, the few wetlands that remain are getting their share of water up and down the Central Valley, helping alleviate the flood risks to the towns and farms that are slowly displacing them.
Idling along a levee on the wetlands' edge, along the channeled waters of Poso Creek, Kaminski gestured to the south. The levee on the other side had breached a couple of weeks earlier, as rainwater filled the creek, flooding part of a dairy farm."...
..."In normal years, most of the water that comes down from the mountains is used up by agriculture. Low-income rural communities, wetlands and riparian areas are lower in the water pecking order. Years of drought forced California to cancel its $1.4 billion salmon fishing season this year, for just the third time in history. Some wetlands, "oases of habitat," Kaminski said, haven't received surface water during the drought either, relying instead on landowners like duck-hunting clubs to pump groundwater to the surface.
"The only wetlands that are on the landscape here now are when big floods happen, sort of re-creating the wetlands that were here historically," he said, driving along a water- and bird-filled wetland northeast of Bakersfield, "and then these duck clubs that traditionally have drilled wells and pumped groundwater to flood their wetlands."
"I try to look at it as: these floods are devastation for some but they're also opportunities," said Matt Kaminski (right), a regional biologist for Ducks Unlimited.
Claire Harbage/NPR
This year, the few wetlands that remain are getting their share of water up and down the Central Valley, helping alleviate the flood risks to the towns and farms that are slowly displacing them.
Idling along a levee on the wetlands' edge, along the channeled waters of Poso Creek, Kaminski gestured to the south. The levee on the other side had breached a couple of weeks earlier, as rainwater filled the creek, flooding part of a dairy farm."...
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