As California faces what experts are calling the state’s worst drought in its entire history, some scientists are cautioning that the impact may be a harbinger for agriculture nationwide.

Gov. Jerry Brown raised the issue of causation in his State of the State address last week, according to theAssociated Press, stating that, “We do not know how much our current problem derives from the build-up of heat-trapping gasses, but we can take this drought as a stark warning of things to come.”

Brown asked businesses and homeowners to voluntarily reduce water usage by 20 percent to mitigate the effects of the drought and conserve water needed to fight brush fires and forest fires.

The more than 13 months of severely reduced precipitation has already had an immediate impact in terms of localized shortages and mandatory rationing. But the more serious longer-term damage is to agricultural productivity, according to a story in the Christian Science Monitor.

Agriculture and energy generation account for 80 percent of the nation’s entire water usage, Prof. David Dzombak, head of Carnegie Mellon University’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, told the magazine. Food and electricity, obviously, are two commodities modern society cannot do without.

A drought as severe as the current crisis in California needs to be a catalyst for renewed attention to how we manage a limited resource, Dzombak said.

“At the state, regional and federal levels, people are just starting to come to grips with the fact that our climate is not stationary,” Dzombak said. “We are in a dynamic, changing climate situation that will affect all parts of the country in different ways.”

Perhaps worst of all, according to climatologists, it does not appear that the atmospheric conditions causing this prolonged drought will be disappearing anytime soon.

The unseasonably dry weather is the result of an equally unprecedented high-pressure ridge stalled offshore in the Pacific Ocean, which is blocking the advance of the typical winter storms needed to generate precipitation along the West Coast, according to Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Neb. Unfortunately, Fuchs told the CSM, the ridge has persisted for more than a year, and the longer it remains, the less likely it is to dissipate.

“This high-pressure ridge system is feeding on itself, creating a sort of perfect environment for perpetuating dry conditions,” he said.

The ripple effect

Across virtually all of the Southwest, precipitation is as much as 20 percent below normal, according to the National Weather Service, with river flows at historic lows, high-altitude snow packs needed to fill downstream reservoirs severely depleted and out-of-season wildfires already hitting several states.

As a result of dried-up reservoirs, the drought will increase pressure on over-utilized aquifers, as farmers and orchard growers are forced to pump more water from underground sources to replace unavailable irrigation water.

If there is any upside to this drought — and even contemplating something “good” about the damage done to agriculture is a stretch — it’s this: For decades, despite previous Western droughts, severe Midwestern flooding and Florida cold snaps that destroy entire citrus crops, about the only real fallout affecting consumers is higher prices at the grocery store. Like high prices for any other essential commodity, we complain, but we pay the price and move on. Few of us bother to spend much time thinking through the causes or the implications of farm- and food-related natural disasters.

We just assume that no matter what, there will always be stocked-up shelves and filled-up freezers at the local supermarket.

That’s a dangerous delusion, one closely related to the equally insidious fantasy that all of the challenges associated with food productivity — resources depletion, soil erosion, energy constraints — could be solved just by going vegetarian.

Believing that a record-breaking, economy-wrecking drought is merely a blip on the Accu-Weather radar is a close cousin to the belief that switching to soy-based analogs and out-of-season fruits and vegetables will resolve the challenges of global food availability and affordability.

For all the diehard activists out there: California happens to be not only a leading producer of food crops, it is THE most important state in terms of fruit, vegetable and tree nut production. In fact, California produces 70 percent of the total U.S. production of green beans, sweet corn, tomatoes, carrots, onions and lettuce — all those healthy alternatives veggie activists insist we should choose to replace animal foods.

If California’s farm production dries up due to the drought, the impact will be devastating, and not just for the vegan fringe but for all Americans.

The current water crisis is only one piece of a larger set of challenges affecting food production in the 21^st century, and none of them are going away anytime soon.

Even if that stubborn high-pressure ridge dissipates tomorrow.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Murphy, a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator.

 

(AP) — By the time the U.S. Supreme Court refused a last-minute stay of execution for Herbert Smulls, the Missouri inmate was already dead. His attorneys say it was the third straight time a Missouri inmate has been executed with an appeal pending.

Late Wednesday, attorneys for Smulls made one last appeal to the Supreme Court. It had already ruled hours earlier that the execution could proceed.

Smulls’ attorney Joseph Luby says the stay was denied at 10:24 p.m., four minutes after Smulls was pronounced dead.

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster says in a statement that the Supreme Court has ruled that pending litigation is not sufficient to stop an execution. He says the state directly asked the high court if the execution should be stayed, and was told no.

 

(AP) – The Missouri Senate has confirmed the director of the Department of Health and Senior Services.

Gail Vasterling had been serving as the agency’s acting director since December 2012, but needed Senate confirmation to remain the job. She took over for Margaret Donnelly, who left the post for a job teaching health law at Saint Louis University.

Vasterling also previously served as the agency’s deputy director and spent two years as a deputy counsel in the governor’s office.

She also spent one year as general counsel for the Department of Corrections during Nixon’s administration and was in the attorney general’s office from 1994 to 2008, when Nixon was attorney general.

(AP) — A Missouri woman who as a teenager wrote that killing a young neighbor girl was an “ahmazing” thrill is now asking a judge to overturn her guilty plea.

Alyssa Bustamante testified in court Thursday that she wouldn’t have pleaded guilty to the 2009 slaying of 9-year-old Elizabeth Olten if she’d known about a pending U.S. Supreme Court case involving juvenile murder defendants.

Bustamante had been facing a first-degree murder charge punishable by life without parole. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in January 2012 and was sentenced to life with the chance of parole.

The Supreme Court later ruled that mandatory life prison sentences for juveniles were unconstitutional.

Bustamante’s new attorney is citing that case as a reason to undo the plea agreement.

 

By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service

The Kansas Department of Corrections is working with local law enforcement officials on a plan that would help county jail keepers bill Medicaid for a portion of their inmates’ health care costs.

The move could save Kansas jails between $1.2 million and $2.4 million a year, said Viola Riggin, director of health care services at the Kansas Department of Corrections.

The state already has a system for billing Medicaid to cover the relatively few prisoners in state lock-ups who are eligible for the coverage. The plan would allow the counties to tap the state’s expertise in that area.

“KDoC has access to Medicaid for a limited number of patients; those who are over 64 or under 19, those who are severely disabled, and for women, those who are pregnant,” Riggin said.

Medicaid reimbursements for state prisoners cover about $750,000 of the department’s health care costs each year, she said.
Most of the department’s health care costs are covered by the state’s $49.3 million contract with Correct Care Solutions, Inc., a Tennessee-based company that provides prison health services.

KDoC is responsible for providing health care to approximately 9,500 inmates in 14 correctional facilities across the state.

County jails, Riggin said, also could be billing Medicaid for services to eligible inmates. But the jails often lack staff and expertise to handling the program’s complicated billing procedures.

KDoC, Riggin said, is looking for ways to expand its current Medicaid contract to include the county jails.

The arrangement, she said, would be similar to an existing department’s program that allows local jails to buy prescription drugs for inmates through KDoC, which purchases at discount in large quantities.

Riggin said the expanded Medicaid plan should be up and running by July 1. It does not require legislative approval, officials said, though agency managers have included several legislators in their discussions.

The planning, she said, has involved the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, which is the state’s lead Medicaid agency, the Kansas Association of Counties and the Kansas Sheriff’s Association.

“This would help all of the jails in Kansas reduce some of the costs that they incur in treating the inmates who are in their custody,” said Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning, head of the sheriff association’s legislative committee.

Johnson County is the state’s most populous and Denning said his department is large enough to bill Medicaid on its own.

“But what happens now,” he said, “is that most sheriffs can’t afford to take on the responsibility of paying for these individuals’ medical bills. So what they’ll do when they go out to pick somebody up, they’ll take them to the (hospital) emergency room first, wait until they’re treated, and then make an arrest. That’s just not a good way of doing things.”

That arrangement, he said, has the effect of shifting much of the jails’ would-be medical costs for the inmates onto the hospitals.

Denning is the brother of State Sen. Jim Denning, an Overland Park Republican.

DETROIT (AP) — Toyota has told North American dealers to stop selling six popular models because the seat fabric doesn’t meet flammability standards.

Company spokesman John Hanson says one soft material beneath the seat covers doesn’t comply. No fires or injuries have been reported. Toyota is still totaling how many vehicles are affected, but it will be in the thousands.

The move affects Camry, Avalon, Sienna and Tacoma models from the 2013 and 2014 model years. Also covered are Corollas and Tundras from 2014.

It’s not clear what will happen with vehicles that have already been sold. Hanson says Toyota has reported the problem to U.S. safety regulators, who will decide if the vehicles must be recalled.

The Camry is the top-selling car in the U.S., with more than 408,000 sold last year.

 

(AP) – Special Olympics Missouri is raising funds as it considers moving its headquarters and athletic training facility from Jefferson City to near Columbia.

If the project is successful, the Training for Life Campus would be the first statewide athletic training campus for people with intellectual disabilities.

Special Olympics Missouri has not made a decision but is considering building at the Central Missouri Events Center at the Boone County fairground.

The Missouri Development Finance Board approved a tax-incentive program that will allow donors to use $1.75 million in tax credits toward the project.

The capital campaign’s goal is $12.5 million. Supporters envision a 44,000-square-foot facility for year-round training and health screenings for about 17,000 athletes, their coaches and volunteers.