Author: John

Trump wants to lower grocery prices

Markets have another idea

President  Trump ran on a ‘day-one’ plan to lower grocery prices. Good luck with that.
Here is what producers and markets expect in 2025, not including potential tariff war-related effects. Suffice to say – they are not expecting lower prices.


On Friday “the University of Michigan consumer survey showed that respondents expect inflation a year from now to be 4.3%, a 1 percentage point jump from January and the highest since November 2023.Worries over inflation dovetailed with lower optimism overall, as the headline index fell to 67.8, a one-month drop of 4.6% and an 11.8% move lower from the same month a year ago,” CNBC reported.


Even without consumer sentiment, here is what the market expects in 2025 for the price of goods you fill your shopping cart with.


 Cattle industry outlook: Beef prices continued their upward trend in 2024, averaging $8.01/lb., the second-highest demand level in history. While demand may ease slightly in 2025, retail prices are still expected to rise to an average of $8.25/lb. 

Coffee: This week Arabica coffee futures continued to soar, breaching $4 per pound, a new record high since the 1970s, driven by speculative buying and persistent supply concerns.The price is up almost 60% just since Trump was elected. Arabica prices have been supported by an anticipated sharp output decline in Brazil, the world’s top producer, following an extended dry spell in 2024 that impacted the latest harvest.Info from Trading Economics.


Here is a one year chart of coffee prices.

This week corn futures rose toward $4.90 per bushel, approaching their highest level in over a year of $497 seen January 29th, driven by tight global supply and strong export figures. Corn is a key ingredient in many food products, including tortillas, breakfast cereals, snacks, and beverages, including alcoholic beverages like vodka, bourbon, whiskey, and beer , to  produce ethanol, a renewable biofuel that is blended with gasoline  and  importantly the primary energy ingredient in livestock feed affecting everything from milk,egg and meat prices.


Milk prices have increased 1.60 USD/CWT or 8.55% since the beginning of 2025, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Today at over $20 per cwt, prices were down around $16 last spring.


Egg prices are at an all time high in 2025 and expected to go higher as bird flu has wiped out millions  of hens and cut the US egg supply.Egg prices are predicted to increase 20.3 percent in 2025 says USDA.


Lean Hogs increased 5.75 USd/Lb or 7.07% ( 87 per pound) since the beginning of 2025. Trading Economics expects hogs to sell for $93.06 in 12 months time.


Salmon prices are heading higher  in 2025. When Trump was elected Nov 6 salmon prices  were at $78per kg but now they are  just under $100 and expected to go to $138 in a year’s time. Prices are higher because the world is running out of wild salmon due to overfishing. There are a limited number of fish in the sea. 


Tariff impacts
So what  happens if tariffs with Canada and Mexico move forward?
One new report says “Avocados. Baked goods. Canola oil. Beer and tequila.Those are just a few items Americans can expect to cost more because of proposed threatened tariffs on goods coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. After campaign promises to lower grocery prices for Americans who have seen more than a 20% rate of increase since early 2020, the pending tariffs put that vow in jeopardy. These tariffs came with a caveat from President Trump stating that Americans will feel “some pain.” A significant amount of fresh agricultural imports, meats, and other processed foods to the U.S. come from Canada and Mexico.”


Gas prices How about the other hot button issue of the last campaign -oil and gas prices?

This week gasoline futures rose toward $2.10 per gallon (wholesale) in February, about 10 cents higher than a month ago, tracking higher oil prices and expectations of tighter global supply. The US escalated sanctions on Iran earlier in the week, potentially restricting its oil flows, while Saudi Aramco sharply raised March crude prices (the guys that Trump asked to lower them) driven by rising demand from China and India, as well as supply disruptions from Russia. Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service is expected to ban gasoline exports for at least a month to stabilize wholesale prices, adding further pressure on the oil market.What about” drill baby drill? Turns out we now have a domestic rig count that is 37 oil rigs lower than the industry had a year ago.

Study suggests expansion of Visalia industrial park lands adjacent to the airport and maybe west of 99

The Visalia City Council heard your presentation by 4-Creeks consultants suggesting expansion of industrial park zoning west of 198 adjacent the airport as well as west of 99 around the city wastewater treatment plant. Currently the industrial park is east of 198 concentrated in the northwest corner of the city.

The council voted 5-0 to take the next step to move the project forward that will require a full environmental impact report.

Asked about the suggestions, Mayor Brett Taylor said he was in general in favor of expansion of industrial lands but not so much west of 99 where the city has the sewer farm surrounded by farmland.

The report offered that the city should site a 248 acre solar farm to provide more renewable power to the community. The site would be around the wastewater treatment plant where the consultant also is suggesting the city consider new industrial zoning.

Land west of 99 owned by the city adds up to 1,475 acres that can be potentially developable, says the study. Again that idea may not move forward.

There does seem to be support for setting up a so-called “reserve” industrial area adjacent to the airport and south of Caldwell stretching down to the highway 99 freeway. The report points to the major overhaul of the Caldwell interchange underway over the next 3-4 years.

The reserve area could be around 405 acres. Staff will have to suggest a trigger for opening this land.It will be years before new zoning is in place.

The study makes the case that the city needs more available industrial land to meet demand, suggesting there is a low inventory of available space and empty land.

The report calculates we have 389 parcels totaling 3,543 acres with 945 acres remaining vacant.

As to demand “Visalia could see a demand for up to 6.4 million square feet of industrial space by 2033.”

But the study does not seem to acknowledge that there are active industrial projects lined up to build at least that much right now. That includes the vacant CapRock 1.2 mil/sf spec “building 3” on Plaza that has sat empty since completion last July and a new 3.7 million square feet industrial park north of Riggin and west of Shirk going through a final EIR now.

At the same time industrial building activity in the past year has slowed to a crawl in Visalia and across California.Now the city may lose the 635,000sf JoAnn fabrics distribution center the company told Mayor Taylor in a letter recently.

Consider that Visalia saw 1.1 mil sf of industrial space added in 2019, 2.4 mil in 2020,1.5 mil in 2021,1.6 mil in 2022 and 1.9 mil in 2023 but now saw just 330,000sf of industrial space added in 2024. Things have slowed down.

Nevertheless, councilmember Brian Poochigian seems to speak for all council members that the city needs to plan ahead and adding more space in the future could attract new business to town – smaller entrepreneurial industrial projects that could find the airport area location attractive.

caption: Visaia is expected to add over 400 acres of industrial zoning around the airport

Ag outlook: Planting more crops may not help


Now the shadow of a trade war

Farmers are wary of trade wars. With demand issues staring at them, they are already under pressure to reduce crop acreage in 2025 and now they fear exports will face a new hurdle this year with a trade war underway.

Already farmers are pulling trees and vines faster than planting new ones. They will tell you it’s lack of water. But demand and oversupply are also big factors.

Case in point this new year are wine grapes with trade group Allied Grape Growers again pleading with growers to pull 50,000 acres from the ground before the season starts with 40,000 of those acres suggested to be pulled from the interior- the Central Valley region.

Allied’s president Jeff Bitter has offered a bitter truth that supply needs to be pared to meet the decline in demand in wine consumption, he told growers at their January meeting.

But it’s not just wine grapes. Several of the Central Valley’s big nut crops are mostly under price pressure as well with an oversupply in both almonds and walnuts that requires more trees to come out.

California’s total almond acreage dropped again in 2024, making three years in a row that acreage has decreased, something that has not happened since at least 1995, according to a winter report from Land IQ to the Almond Board of California.

Total acreage dropped by about 40,000 acres from 1.56 million acres in the last crop year to just over 1.52 million in 2024.

Walnut prices have forced a similar trend, says a report. “From September 2023 to August 2024, growers in the Golden State have removed approximately 18,000 acres with nearly 10,000 more acres under high stress and abandoned. While this is a slowdown from the previous year, this is still a high removal rate, continuing the decline in producing bearing acres, which now stand at 370,000 acres.”

With these removals, walnut growers are more hopeful prices will climb back above $1 per pound from the red ink levels of 30 to 40 cents a pound seen in recent years,

Also under pressure this year are processing tomatoes, a major crop in Kings and Fresno Counties. The most recent USDA report shows acreage of processing tomatoes at just 200,000 acres this year compared to 300,000 acres as recently as 2015. Expected this year production will be lowest in 20 years as processors reduce their contracted demand.Local processors Olam and DelMonte have closed their doors and won’t need product.

The region’s top industry – dairy farmers are being told a major processor Leprino Cheese is closing one of two mozzarella plants here and the huge cream buyer is banking on more supply coming from Texas – not the Central Valley.The local dairy industry counters that they need an adequate water supply or production will wither.

Shadow of trade war

Not helping the outlook for our crops are the potential tariff impacts of a trade war now underway with China today, a big buyer of Central Valley crops as well as fears Mr Trump will add Canada and Mexico, our largest trade partners.

President Trump has now imposed a new 10% increase in tariffs on goods coming from China and already China has struck back impacting around $1 billion in ag products we send to China.

The ag trade group Western Growers commented this week saying ” China…. a significant fresh produce importer, is the No. 2 importer of American tree nuts. Imposition of tariffs with our key trading partners in this manner and at these levels will almost certainly result in retaliatory tariffs that harm American growers.

While we appreciate the border security issues apparently motivating the Trump Administration, rival growers of specialty crops outside of the U.S. will move quickly to seize the new business opportunities created by these tariffs to sell into the Canadian, Mexican and Chinese marketplaces. Their success in doing so could permanently displace American growers from these key markets. This is the same pattern that emerged during the imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods during the first Trump Administration.”

They have seen what happened last time.

A recent report notes that in 2018, President Trump levied tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to help U.S. steel and aluminum producers.China then retaliated by raising tariffs on U.S. products, including hiking the tax on American almonds from 10% to 25%.“China was our number one export market when the tariffs went into effect,” said Clarice Turner, chief executive of the Almond Board of California.It’s now fallen to number four. Last fiscal year, China imported about 37% fewer California almonds than it did the year tariffs hit. That period coincides with average prices dropping from over $2.50/lb to $1.60/lb and the dollar value dropping from $5.6 billion to $3.9 billion using USDA figures.

Significantly China is an important destination for California milk products, particularly milk powder and butter made in the Central Valley. China is the world’s largest dairy importer and the third largest destination for U.S. dairy exports.

We don’t want to lose market share to other world competitors. A Cornell study says “Mexico, Canada, and China are pivotal to the U.S. dairy export landscape, accounting collectively for over half of the nation’s dairy exports by value annually. History has shown us the risks associated with trade instability. For instance, retaliatory tariffs from China alone resulted in an approximate $2.6 billion in lost revenues for U.S. dairy farms from 2019 to 2021. This underscores the potential financial hazards that could lie ahead.”

On the domestic front, dairy operators are also worried about a potential cutback in school lunch programs.

How important is China as an export destination? Tulare County’s most recent crop report says 68% of the county’s pistachio exports go to China and almost 20% of oranges.

Some 22% of King’s farm exports go to China.

Research on trade war cited by the LA Times in December said”farming areas in the Central Valley and Southern California are especially vulnerable to economic damage. They projected that five counties — Fresno, Kern, Tulare, Merced and Imperial — probably would bear the brunt of the losses in a trade war, accounting for 53% of the estimated total losses. A majority of voters in each of those five counties voted for Trump in the election.”

photo California Almond Board

More rain and snow for Mid State

Feb5,2025NWS Hanford: The next winter storm and heavy foothills rainfall is set for Thursday into Friday with up to 1 to 3 feet of snow again for the Sierra Nevada and rainfall amounts form 3/4 of an inch to up
to four inches of rain locally. Forecasts suggests two more storms coming Feb/12- 14 and 17th

Lake Shasta gets 8 inches of rain Lake Shasta waters lapped 30 feet from its top after an atmospheric river dropped more than 8 inches of rain in the area since last Friday — and a new storm is expected to bring more rain to the region.Last weekend’s rainstorm pushed Lake Shasta levels up almost four feet between last Friday and Sunday, according to California Department of Water Resources data.Here’s how full Lake Shasta and other North State lakes were at the start of the week, and how much more rain Lake Shasta could get.How high are Lake Shasta water levels?As of Monday, Lake Shasta levels sat at 1,037 feet above sea level — up 5 feet from the previous day, according to the state. The lake has gone up nearly 10 feet since last Friday, Jan. 31.


Sierra Snow Lab in Tahoe reports as of 2/4/25 they received  16.3″ of new snow at the 8am measurement, as moderate to heavy snowfall rates continue.”We’re expecting another 8-16″ of snow through this evening. The recent rain and snow has brought us up to 93% of median precipitation (up from 78%).”

Promising forecast for next 10 days

Trump orders Army Corps to release water from Kaweah & Success to help LA

“Photo of beautiful water flow that I just opened in California,” President Trump posted on Friday on social media in an apparent reference to the dam releases. “Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory! I only wish they listened to me six years ago — There would have been no fire!”

This past Thursday, the Army Corps released water from two dams in California, Lake Kaweah and Lake Success- in order to “ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires,” said a Corps spokesperson.


 The release is continuing over the weekend according to the Corps website. As of February 1 at 9 AM Kaweah Lake is down nearly 3000 acre feet from January 30- from 40,000s, down to near 37,000af – with that water sent downstream even though farmers don’t irrigate as of February

UPDATE: It is down 4000 acre feet as of Sunday Feb 2

It’s not clear how far the water could flow but the last stop is Tulare lakebed about 30 miles away.

All of the Kaweah River flow is retained in Tulare and Kings counties to supply farmers needing irrigation water in the summer months. None will help LA fire suppression.


None of the Kaweah or Tule river’s flow extends beyond the enclosed  lake basin and certainly doesn’t go to Los Angeles 200 miles away. In fact farmers have made a point of wanting to retain water that flows from their backyards and strongly oppose any effort to export it. Kings County, where the lakebed is, has an ordinance to that effect.

Nevertheless, the LA Times reported that an Army Corps spokesperson tied the releases to Trump’s executive order on Sunday directing all federal agencies to maximize water deliveries and misleadingly blaming state water management for the Los Angeles fires.


“Consistent with the direction in the Executive Order on Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is releasing water from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Success Lake to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires,” Gene Pawlik said in a statement. (Firefighters had contained the Palisades and Eaton fires to 98 and 99 percent as of Friday morning.)


Kaweah water managers decried the release, noting it will do little to fight fires in Los Angeles, but would reduce water storage for Tulare and Kings County farmers, arguably Mr. Trump’s strong constituents.Both counties voted strongly for Mr Trump.


But farmers want  to keep all the surface water they can upstream until irrigation season- months away.


“We need to keep every bit that we have, because this potentially is irrigation water that we have up there,”  Kaweah Watermaster Victor Hernandez said. He said he was still trying to get members of Congress to intervene to slow the releases on Friday, including Reps. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), David Valadao (R-Calif.) and Vince Fong (R-Calif.). None responded to requests for comment.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dramatically increased the amount of water flowing from Kaweah and Tule Rivers into Lake Kaweah and Success Lake on Thursday night at the order of the Trump administration.

Press reports say the order initially called for as much water as possible to flow from the rivers known as “channel capacity,” with only an hour’s notice to local water officials, leaving them scrambling. After local water officials expressed their concerns, the Army Corp of Engineers reduced the amount released although it was still far above normal on Friday morning.

When it comes to these types of releases that are normally done because of flooding, Tulare Irrigation District General Manager Aaron Fukada told SJV Water “Normally, these kinds of flood releases are done with a lot of notification and coordination,” Fukuda said. “I’ve been doing this for 18 years and have never seen something like this.” 

The Porterville paper reported The Army Corps of Engineers is “conducting controlled water releases” from the two dams, said Tyler Stalker, a spokesperson for the Corps in Sacramento about the Lake Kaweah Dam and the Richard L. Schafer Dam at Success Lake. “The action is being coordinated with local officials. The releases are within the capacity of the downstream waterways.”

Gene Pawlik, a spokesperson at the Corps’ headquarters in Washington, D.C., told the Los Angeles Times the action was “consistent with the direction” in Trump’s recent executive order to enact “emergency measures to provide water resources” in California.

Is this an example of ‘shock and awe’ and ‘ flooding the zone”?

Chicken Little was right!


Foster Farms closing Valley turkey operations

  • More bird flu cases in California, US and worldwide
  • 2.8 mil Indiana egg ranch hit
  • New bird flu strain found in Merced

Just in time for Easter, expect an on-going egg shortage this season as feathers continue to fly in the nation’s poultry industry. And worldwide. It seems like Chicken Little was right as a strain of the highly infectious “bird flu” wipes out whole flocks of chickens across the U.S. and around the world.

It really does seem like the sky is falling as the storybook tale goes. Just ask a chicken or a farmer.

The state and national poultry industries are reeling this week from the bird flu epidemic that has wiped over 150 million birds across the US putting more stress on the poultry industry already under price pressures.

In California in the past few days, Foster Farms announced the closure of its turkey processing facility in Turlock saying it was “responding to changes in market demand.” The plant is expected to close May 9 resulting in the permanent layoff of 519 employees. The shuttering of the processing plant will spill over on the production side at Valley ranches that will now have no home for their turkeys as well.

California is already a small player in turkey production. In 2023, California produced approximately 197.8 million pounds of turkey, a small fraction of the U.S. total of 6.99 billion pounds.

Zacky Farms went out of business a few years ago.In 2019 Foster Farms completed the acquisition of 19 former Zacky poultry ranches in the Central Valley, as part of Zacky Farms’ bankruptcy settlement proceedings.Those ranches were added to the 40 ranches already owned by Foster Farms that have supplied both turkey and chicken meat.

Meanwhile, this week, two more duck meat poultry operations in Madera and Merced counties had to lay down their flocks as bird flu infected their farms. Already the bird flu has depopulated two thirds of the egg ranches in California as of January.Increasingly eggs will be supplied by out of state hens.Now add turkey to the list.

New strain found in Merced

A new strain of bird flu has been found in the Valley.Called H5N9, has been detected for the first time in the US, raising concerns about how it continues to spread.The strain was discovered at a commercial duck farm in California’s Merced County, and was reported to the World Organization for Animal Health, which maintains a database of animal disease threats.
While H5N9 is not currently considered a serious threat to humans, experts warn that more mutations could increase the risk of bird flu spreading to people in the future.

Scientists are particularly concerned about a process called “reassortment,” The Washington Post reported, where different flu strains mix in infected animals, creating new versions of the virus.

The US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed that the H5N9 strain detected in California is the result of reassortment involving H5N1, the strain that’s already spreading rapidly in the US.

California is not the only place where poultry farms are being targeted by the virus.

National supplier Rose Acres Farms, the second largest egg producer in the US released a statement that it had to detected the highly pathogenic bird flu at its farm in Seymour, Indiana with the elimination of 2.8 million birds

The egg shortage nationwide has driven up the price of your breakfast eggs to about $9 a dozen.

Meanwhile other producers are under pressure. Americans are consuming less turkey than they have in past decades affecting companies who are feeling an industry oversupply like Foster Farms and,Cargill. Cargill just announced it will close their Springdale, Arkansas, turkey plant Aug. 1, laying off 1,100 employees.

Turkey consumption in the United States has been declining in recent years. In 2023, Americans ate an average of 14.8 pounds of turkey per person -an 18% decrease from 1996. For 2024 per capita consumption is expected to fall to 13.9 pounds, says USDA. Farmers are also getting less for their product as the per pound price has dropped to below $1.All this forces more consolidation in the industry.

Bird flu spreads worldwide

Recent reports say during January 2025 Japan reported 14 outbreaks to the World Organization of Animal Health of which one involved a quail farm but with the remainder all table egg flocks. A total of 3.8 million hens have been depopulated through January 27th representing 2.2 percent of the population of approximately 170 million.

South Korea has recorded 29 outbreaks of HPAI among commercial poultry including ducks and laying hens since October 2024. The incidence conforms to the migratory patterns of marine birds and waterfowl, the same dynamic that hit the US.

Canada confirmed 51 cases of HPAI i 2024 requiring depopulation of 14.5 million commercial turkeys, broilers or laying hens. Losses were recorded in British Columbia (8.7 million), Alberta (2.0 million), Quebec (1.4 million) and Ontario (1.1 million).

California egg output down by two thirds

10 million egg layers are gone

Central California dairy herd recovering

The most recent report from USDA says after the effects of bird flu on the California poultry industry, there are only 4.7 million Golden State egg layers left to make your breakfast. Most of the eggs consumed in the state are imported from out of state although the rest of the country has been hit as well.

The California egg laying population was over 14 million a few years ago meaning that nearly 10 million hens have been “depopulated” with many due to the wave of bird flu infections. To stop the infections from the highly contagious virus, all birds must be killed in a flock.

“Two-thirds of egg-laying hens in California have been lost in the recent outbreak,” says CDFA’s Steve Lyle.The virus has also spread to commercial poultry with 61 flocks
having completed or awaiting depopulation.

It is likely to be months before a number of large Central Valley egg producers can get back into business as retail egg prices have climbed to $9 a dozen.

USDA figures show in December, California produced 114 million eggs compared to 350 million in December 2020.

It is not just California either. Nationwide since the bird flu epidemic started in February 2022 some 140.5 million birds have been affected and wiped out.

While the government is monitoring the bird flu epidemic the new Trump administration has put a pause on new agency reporting from the CDC and others.

Impact on dairy farms

The other livestock industry in the Valley impacted by bird flu has been the dairy industry concentrated in the Central Valley.

The California dairy herd has been hit with over 700 dairies suffering the epidemic according to the Milk Producers Council latest newsletter. They say that as of January 7 a total of 718 Central Valley dairies have been infected and that 618 of those remain under quarantine while 100 herds have recovered and been released from the quarantine.

Unlike the poultry industry, dairy cows have suffered from the bird flu sickness, but most have recovered, although production has plummeted. In December production was down almost 7% .But producers expect January milk output should be better. The virus is killed by pasteurizing the milk lough experts warn against raw milk.

There have been 37 human cases of bird flu HPAI reported in California, all but one in dairy employees. All
employee infections have included conjunctivitis (“pink eye”) and some have also included mild
respiratory symptoms.

Pitman plans big chicken ranch

The bird flu has hit meat chicken processors, as well as egg producers. Now Pitman Family Farms is following through on plans to expand an existing poultry farm at 16445 Laurel Avenue in Stratford In Kings County in a public hearing set for February 3. The company based in Sanger plans to increase the number of chickens raised at the ranch from 250,000 to 1.7 million at one time.

Del Monte makes it official

The Del Monte company sent a formal notice Jan 21 to the Kings County Board of Supervisors last week, stating that the facility will close March 28 and that 378 employees will lose their jobs. The notice complies with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, which mandates a 60-day notice period before mass layoffs.Some of the workers were represented by the Teamsters. DelMonte says they are selling the big plant property although no buyers have surfaced.

Tomato tonnage down

In what would be the lowest tonnage in a decade,
USDA reports that as of January, California’s tomato processors have, or will have, contracts for 10.2 million
tons in 2025, which is a decrease of 10% compared to 11.3 million contracted tons forecast in the August 2024 California Processing Tomato Report.

The contracted production for 2025 will come from 200,000 acres, generating an average yield of 51.0 tons per acre. This year’s contracted planted acreage forecast is 12% below the 2024 estimate of 228,000 planted acres under contract in the August forecast.

Growers say heat shrunk the harvest this season after rains created soggy fields in 2023. Kings and Fresno Counties are the largest producers. In 2022 Kings growers harvested nearly 29,000 acres.

The tomato processing business has been shrinking in recent years and includes the closure of the Kingsburg Del Monte facilities and the shuttering of the Olam tomato plant in Lemoore and now the 670,00sf Del Monte facility in Hanford.

“California has a surplus of processing tomato capacity,” says Central Valley grower Arron Barcellos who sits on an industry board. “We have less of an export market than in the past” he adds, leaving too many processors to fight it out for a share of what is now mostly a domestic market.

If there are too many processors, the state’s growers and processors are saddled with higher input costs and tougher regulation than foreign competitors along with problems like the strong dollar.

Week long AR could boost NorCal water supply

Turning wet in northern California

Concerns over spreading drought across middle California may ease some in the next week with a forecast of an atmospheric river diving into the northern part of the state February 1 -7 with some Central Valley and Sierra spillover toward the end of that period. The rain and snow could boost reservoir supply. Right now Shasta Lake is at 131% of average although January has seen little snow in the Tahoe area.Still the week’s forecast calls for 6-9 inches of precip in the Shasta Lake region.

So it’s not just Southern California that has concerns over this water year. The US Drought Monitor says dry conditions have impacted not just Southern California – with some relief in the past week- but in the Central Valley – now listed as “abnormally dry” after most January rains failed to develop. Hanford has seen only 0.28in in the month of January.

“We are quite a bit behind,” says Kings River watermaster Steve Haugen, adding that ” we’re looking for storms…looking for storms.” As of now Pine Flat is 48% full.

Low canal deliveries?

Ouch: Friant Water says at their January 23rd FWA Board of Directors meeting that initial internal FWA models are showing a disappointing potential 30-40% Class 1 allocation for the 2025/26 WY based on 75-90% exceedance forecasting. The initial allocation will be announced by Reclamation on or about February 20th based on then-current conditions and hydrologic forecasts.

California residents may face “conditions” to get federal wildfire aid

President Trump has said that California will not receive federal aid for recovery from wildfires unless it changes its water policy and voter identification rules.

“I just want voter ID as a start, and I want the water to be released,” Trump told reporters.“After that, I will be the greatest president that California has ever seen.”

Would he really hold up aid with losses estimated at $40 billion?

Reaction has been mixed on the Trump demand. Chair of the Kings County BOS Doug Verboon says he backs the demand that includes eliminating FEMA that” has proven to be “extremely \slow to deliver aid in King County.”Bringing more water to Kings County would be beneficial, he says noting there is alway politics involved over these disputes. He blames Gov Newsom.

In a news interview Central Valley Congressman Tom McClintock said he “absolutely” agreed with conditional federal aid to California.
“No federal aid should pass through the hands of Gavin Newsom or Karen Bass or their agencies,” he said. “They’ve proven themselves to be completely incompetent in managing public lands and completely incapable of making good decisions.”

Other GOP legislators took a more moderate tone not wanting to hold LA fire victims hostage to policy disputes.

CalMatters reported that local “Rep. David Valadao, a moderate Republican who in 2021 voted to impeach Trump, urged speedy disaster relief without mentioning any conditions. “The federal government must act quickly to save lives and homes, and once we know how much federal support California will require to rebuild, it is imperative we move as quickly as possible to deliver aid,” he said in a statement.

Rep. Kevin Kiley, who won re-election by 10 points in November, advocated on the House floor for a federal inquiry into “political failures that enabled this catastrophe” but stressed that it should not “stand in the way of getting immediate relief to the victims.” On Friday, he clarified to KCRA that he would not support tying aid to policy changes unrelated to wildfires. “

Also this week,President Trump has signed an order directing federal agencies to “maximize” water deliveries in California and “override” state policies if necessary.

The California State Water Project in 2024, saw the proposed allocation start at 10 percent and increase to 40 percent. Full allocation years, or 100 percent allocation, are rare with only one such allocation in the past decade in the extremely wet year of 2023 say officials.

Jobless rate update
The unemployment rate in Kings County was 8.4 percent in December 2024, up from a revised 7.9 perce November 2024, and below the year-ago estimate of 8.9 percent.

New Hotel planned in Hanford
Hanford’s Planning Commission approved a proposal to build a three-story, 105-room hotel called TownePlace Suites by Marriott. The proposed project is located at 12236 W. Lacey Blvd.
to be reassigned to 1920 W. Lacey Blvd, located next to FoodsCo and across from Planet Fitness.The project required a conditional use permit that passed Jan 28.This is the first Marriott-branded hotel in town.The chain is number three hotel operator by number properties in the US.

Burris Park exhibit of early Kings agriculture

Antique Images from the Collection of Michael J. Semas will be the new exhibit scheduled for the Carnegie Museum of Kings County called “A History of Kings County Agriculture”. The Burris Park Museum has also made contributions to the exhibit that features everyday farm scenes, farmers and farm workers around the turn of the century. The exhibit will open late February.

New clinics on tap for Kaweah Health

Kaweah Health expects to open a number of new facilities in Tulare County this year, says Chief Strategy Officer Marc Mertz. Tops on the list is a new 13,000 square-foot combination primary and specialty clinic that will be opening on Akers in the former Cigna building. Kaweah has leased the space from Tulare County who now owns the Class A office building. Patients will be able to walk into the clinic on the ground floor located right across the hall from another 10,000 square-foot space the hospital leases in the building for office uses.

“We hope to open by June” says Mertz.”We are working on a new name” in order to retire any reference to Cigna

Mertz says one of draws of this site includes the need to add more primary care space in Visalia that he describes as woefully short now.The modern multi-story building – the largest office space in town – will help attract new physicians and graduating resident docs already here, helping to boost the number of physicians in the area, they expect.

The new clinic, besides offering primary and specialty care, will include pre-surgery testing services (Kaweah Admissions and Testing Services, or KATS), a Lab draw and Imaging services. Mertz notes they may add more space in the building with another 30,000sf space available now that Cigna Insurance has completely vacated the 180,000sf complex.

“We should have the ability for us to expand/grow additional clinical space, either by adding Kaweah Health clinics and services, or to sublease space to private community physicians.”

Construction of the space is expected to be underway soon.

Another site Kaweah Health is targeting for expansion is the five-story medical building at 202 W Willow, a half back away from the Downtown hospital.

Services located here or soon will include :
· Retail Pharmacy
· Orthopedic clinic
· New OB/GYN clinic- recently opened
· New pediatric clinic- coming soon
· Outpatient pulmonology clinic (coming in May)
· IQ Surgical Associates- private surgery practice affiliated with Kaweah Health’s surgery residency program and our surgical services
· Kaweah Health Employee Health
· Our trauma administration team
· Small Kaweah Health administrative offices

Then there is construction work to open the new Child and Adolescent Crisis Stabilization Unit located on 3rd St in the north side of Visalia.This is the former Boy Scouts building in Visalia where remodeling work is already underway looking to open by August of this year.

The much needed service will provide 24/7 mental health services for children and youth 21 years and younger.Mertz adds that you could ” Think of it as an advanced urgent care for mental health issues. Patients can be brought in by family members, or EMS.”

The new facility will be operated by Kaweah Health, supported by our Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship program and physicians.

They plan to work collaboratively with Tulare County Behavioral Health. To launch this project,the hospital got funds from a state behavioral health grant that Kaweah Health and the County jointly applied for and was awarded approximately $5 million to purchase the building and develop the services. Ongoing funding will be from the County and patient insurance providers.

Additionally, in Woodlake, Kaweah plans to open a second rural health clinic in the community under construction now on the new roundabout at the entrance to town.

Lastly Kaweah Health still hopes to open a surgery center at the Sequoia Gateway property on Hwy 99 at Caldwell in a partnership with private physicians.

Asked about the fiscal health of the district, Mertz says they are optimistic that in the second half of this fiscal year that ends in late June should be profitable with a positive margin after cutting expenses and planned expansions underway.

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