A recent letter, published in The Madera Tribune, put forth a lot of misinformation concerning ag usage of water.
A recent update on water usage in California reports that environment uses 80.5 percent, ag uses 15 percent, and urban 4.5 percent. So, the reason farmers must pump so much water from the ground is due to the fact the state flushes most of our rainfall out to the ocean. Prior to the latest stats, it was 50 percent environment, 40 percent ag, and 10 percent urban. I wonder where the letter writer got his figures of 80 percent ag from.
He goes on to state that “we’re running out of water.”