Engineered Mosquitoes coming to Central Valley
Tulare County officials hope the region will soon be a testing ground for a new generation of technology, including a genetically modified mosquito, as they try to prevent the kind of disease outbreaks now common in regions of the Caribbean and Central and South America where the species is widespread.
The most immediate mosquito danger in Tulare County comes from a the genus, Culex, a type that typically bites at dawn and dusk and can carry West Nile virus, St. Louis encephalitis, and western equine encephalomyelitis virus, all of which can be fatal. Over the past decade, California has registered more than 4,000 cases of West Nile and at least 220 deaths.
Tulare’s mosquito control districts have poured extensive resources into that battle, including releasing a range of chemicals, maintaining a hatchery for larvae-eating fish, and, most recently, buying a drone to ferry pesticides deep into cornfields. Aedes aegypti, however, is a growing concern, and much harder to combat. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in the area are also broadly resistant to pyrethroids, the family of chemicals most frequently used to kill the adult mosquitoes. Pyrethroids are in heavy use among the area’s agricultural companies, likely contributing to nearly 100% resistance.
So the Tulare agency is interested in the genetically modified mosquito. Their hope is that the engineered mosquitoes reduce the number of wild Aedes aegypti as they interbreed and produce short-lived offspring.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently approved a trial in Tulare of the engineered mosquito, which is made by a company called Oxitec. The company says its latest product releases only male mosquitoes, which unlike females do not bite. The mosquitoes are genetically modified to carry a “self-limiting” gene that is passed on during breeding and theoretically prevents the offspring from surviving to adulthood. They have been released in several places, including Brazil and the Cayman Islands. From Kaiser Health News
Valley Strong Credit Union coming to Hanford
Kern County based Valley Strong Credit Union continues to expand with three locations in the works in Visalia and now a proposed location in Downtown Hanford approved at a city council meeting this month – a request by Valley Strong Credit Union to alter the façade of an existing storefront. The property is designated as a building within the Historic Overlay Zone. The project is located at 216 W. Eighth St.
California in-migration rebounding, earlier estimates were overstated says Think Tank
News stories last year that suggested there was a huge drop in the number of people moving to California may have been overblown after all.
The number of people leaving California for other states appears to have slowed during the last quarter of 2021, while the number of people moving into the state appears to be rebounding, according to new estimates released today by the nonpartisan California Policy Lab (CPL) using credit-bureau data through the end of 2021.
These trends are especially pronounced in the Bay Area counties that originally saw the largest pandemic-era shifts in domestic migration, like San Francisco. CPL also released a corrected version of its December 2021 Pandemic Patterns report, which corrects an error that led CPL to significantly undercount the number of people moving into California since 2020.
“The changes in domestic migration we’ve seen since the pandemic began appear to be slowing and perhaps even reversing,” explains co-author Natalie Holmes, a Research Fellow at the California Policy Lab and a PhD student at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. “In the Bay Area, in particular, exits are down and entrances are up during the last quarter of 2021 – though they remain significantly different than before the pandemic – which suggests that pandemic migration shifts may be weakening.”
The updated brief that CPL released today corrects earlier estimates of entrances. Exits were not affected. CPL’s errata provides more background on the error and a table summarizing the main corrections.
“We are glad to correct the record and release these updated estimates of how many people moved into California since the start of the pandemic,” explains co-author Evan White, Executive Director of the California Policy Lab’s UC Berkeley site. “One of the biggest takeaways from our corrected research is that while domestic migration into California did decrease between the start of the pandemic in 2020, and the end of the third quarter of 2021, it was only an 8% decrease, not the 38% decrease that we had originally estimated.”
Corcoran ID will get new recharge reservoir
The state has funded the Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Agenciy’s Corcoran Irrigation District’s North Reservoir Project that will construct new reservoirs for water storage and recharge basins. The project will directly benefit the Tulare Lake Subbasin by increasing groundwater availability and stability by recharging the aquifer, reducing groundwater pumping, and increasing groundwater quality.
Kings population numbers
The latest population estimate by the state for Kings County shows the county lost about 500 residents in 2022 with a total of 152,023. Only Lemoore showed an increase in population -up by 249. Hanford lost 1682 residents in 2022. Where there was an increase was at King’s correctional facilities with Corcoran prison increasing by 1340 persons and Avenal prison up by 507.
Faraday files financial report
As the company promised, Faraday Future filed their 2021 financial report on May 5 retaining their membership in the Nasdaq stock exchange.Electric vehicle maker Faraday Future Intelligent Electric Inc. released third-quarter financial results for the period ended Sept. 30, 2021, which had been delayed as a result of a previously announced special committee review.
For the quarter, Faraday Future reported a net loss per share of $1.06. In the prior-year period, the company reported a net loss per share of 21 cents. Faraday also said it had operating expenses for the third quarter of $186 million, compared to $18 million in the year-ago period. “The increase is primarily due to an acceleration of costs to bring the Hanford manufacturing facility to full commercial production,” the company said.
Faraday also said Friday it expects to launch production of its flagship FF 91 vehicle in the third quarter of this year.At press time the stock had fallen to $1.78 from a 52-week high of $17.48.
Shipping delays hurt California nut exports
Three out of four containers at U.S. ports are returning to Asia empty.As a result of shipping delays, the California agricultural industry has lost $2.1 billion in exports between May and September 2021, according to a letter to 13 major shipping carriers from California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla.
Nearly 1.4 billion pounds of almonds, requiring more than 30,000 containers, need to be moved between now and July 31, 2022, the letter said. There are similar amounts for walnuts.
Biden could drop China trade tariffs
The Biden administration has suggested they may drop tariffs imposed on China first imposed by the Trump administration. The Biden administration is hopeful the move could ease inflation as well help ag exports. In the past few years California farmers have urged the removal of the tariffs.
Easy Peel citrus to surpass oranges
The sustained popularity of easy-peel citrus varieties should result in them surpassing navel oranges in the next few years as the most consumed fresh citrus in the U.S., according to Rabobank research.“Availability of mandarins in the U.S. increased at a compound annual growth rate of 6% during the past decade to about 7 pounds per person per year. If the trend continues, in the next few years mandarins will surpass oranges as the most-consumed fresh citrus in the U.S. The attractive combination of convenience, healthfulness, and taste will continue driving consumer demand for mandarins in the U.S.”