By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Governor declares drought state of emergency
drought emergency
Governor Jerry Brown announces Drought State of Emergency with Natural Resources Agency Secretary John Laird, Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin, Water Resources Control Board Chair Felicia Marcus and Governors Office of Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci during a press conference today in San Francisco. - photo by Photo courtesy of Justin Short, Office of the Governor
Cara Hallam
Updated: Jan 17, 2014, 8:11 PM
Published: Jan 17, 2014, 8:13 PM

As California continues to struggle through one of the driest years on record with ongoing water shortages and extreme drought conditions, Gov. Jerry Brown has proclaimed a State of Emergency.
Directing state officials to take all necessary actions to prepare for the severe dry conditions, the Drought State of Emergency declaration aims to assist farms and communities that have been economically impacted by the ongoing drought.
"We can't make it rain, but we can be much better prepared for the terrible consequences that California's drought now threatens, including dramatically less water for our farms and communities and increased fires in both urban and rural areas," said Gov. Brown during a press conference. "I've declared this emergency and I'm calling all Californians to conserve water in every way possible."
The governor has directed state agencies to use less water to ensure that the state can respond if Californians face drinking water shortages. Additionally, Gov. Brown has requested agencies throughout the state to hire more firefighters in light of the dry conditions, while also initiating an expanded water conservation public awareness campaign.
Water officials throughout the state have reported that California's river and reservoirs are significantly below record lows. As of Jan. 13, Don Pedro Reservoir was reported as being at 51 percent of its total capacity, nearly 26 percent less than its historical average. Current reservoir levels are reported as lower than the previous record low levels in 1977, the same year of the last federal drought declaration.
Manual and electronic readings record the snowpack's statewide water content at about 20 percent of normal average for this time of year. Additionally, the Department of Water Resources announced the historically lowest initial State Water Project allocation of five percent for water year 2014. According to the DWR, three years of dry conditions in the state, coupled with 14 years of consecutive dry conditions in the Colorado River Basin, has depleted the carryover storage in reservoirs for the Central Valley and State Water projects to historically low levels.
In response to the ongoing drought, state legislators have focused their attention to the severely dry conditions, joining together in an effort to encourage all Californians to conserve water while also calling for assistance from the federal government.
"Today's declaration is long overdue," said Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Turlock). "I continue to urge President Obama and Governor Brown to improve California's water storage and conveyance by providing additional storage and adding flexibility to burdensome regulations that shut off water to Valley communities."
Rep. Denham shared that he has introduced legislation to improve water storage conditions in the Central Valley, adding that the state must put water to productive use for farmers and families rather than allowing the scarce resource to wash away into the Pacific Ocean.
Other lawmakers including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Rep. Jim Costa have also encouraged President Obama to form a federal drought task force capable of coordinating a swift, decisive cross-agency response to the ongoing water crisis facing California.
"We request that you immediately appoint a federal drought task force and appoint a federal drought coordinator to parallel efforts at the state level," said the letter addressed to the President. "The ongoing dry conditions call for immediate, measurable actions from federal agencies to complement the work being done at the state level to address the water supply challenges that face California."
Gov. Brown's Drought State of Emergency follows a series of actions the administration has taken to ensure that the state is prepared for record dry conditions. In May 2013, Gov. Brown issued an executive order directing state water officials to expedite the review and processing of voluntary transfers of water and water rights. In December, the governor formed a Drought Task Force to review expected water allocations, California's preparedness for water scarcity and whether conditions merited a drought declaration.
Early last week, Gov. Brown also visited the Central Valley to speak with growers and others impacted by the dry conditions.
"As we face one of the driest years in California's history, we must take immediate action. There is too much at stake," said Sen. Anthony Cannella (R-Ceres). "Lack of water means a loss of jobs, a shrinking food supply, and threatens the integrity of our drinking water. As a member of the bipartisan coalition of legislators calling upon Governor Brown to issue a drought declaration late last year, I applaud the Governor for recognizing the dire situation we all face and am committed to working with him, my colleagues in the legislature to develop short and long term solutions to ensure we provide water to those that need it most."
As part of the declaration, state agencies will be responsible for executing the state water conservation campaign, Save Our Water, led by the Department of Water Resources. The campaign aims to make all Californians aware of the drought, while encouraging them to reduce their water usage by 20 percent. Californians can learn ways to reduce water usage by visiting www.saveourh20.org
Additionally, the declaration orders that:
• Local urban water supplies and municipalities implement their local water shortage contingency plans immediately to avoid outright restrictions that could become necessary later in the drought season;
• State agencies implement water use reduction plans for all state facilities, including a moratorium on new, non-essential landscaping projects at state facilities and on state highways and roads;
• Expedite the processing of water transfers; streamline water transfers and exchanges between water uses within the areas of the State Water Project and Central Valley Project;
• Accelerate funding for water supply enhancement projects;
• The State Water Board to consider modifying requirements for reservoir releases or diversion limitations;
• The State Drinking Water Program work with local agencies to find communities that may run out of drinking water while providing technical and financial assistance to them;
• The California Department of Food and Agriculture to launch a one-stop website providing timely updates on the drought, connecting farms to state and federal programs;
• The Department of Fish and Wildlife to evaluate and mange the changing impacts of drought on threatened or endangered species, while working with the Fish and Game Commission to determine whether restricting fishing in certain areas will become necessary and prudent as drought persists;
• Department of Water Resources to take action to protect water quality and supply in the Delta, including installation of temporary barriers or water supply connections as needed;
• California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to hire additional seasonal firefighters to suppress wildfires during time of elevated fire risk;
• Drought Task Force to develop a plan to provide emergency food supplies, financial assistance, and unemployment services in communities that suffer high levels of unemployment from the drought; and
• Monitor drought impacts on a daily basis and advise the Governor and his administration of any further actions that may be necessary if drought conditions worsen.

 
Costa, Gray propose congressional bill to address critical physician shortage in rural areas
Costa and Gray
San Joaquin Valley congressional members Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, left, and Rep. Adam Gray, D-Merced, are shown discussing their bill H.R. 2106 in a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
Published: Apr 2, 2025, 4:48 AM

BY TIM SHEEHAN

CV Journalism Collaborative

Two San Joaquin Valley congressional representatives have introduced a bill that could help address the vast shortage of doctors in the region, particularly in underserved areas. 

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and Rep. Adam Gray, D-Merced, say the Medical Education Act would, if passed, establish a program of grants to support expanded medical education programs in underserved areas of the nation.

The Valley could be one of the key areas that would benefit from the legislation. California has about 90 primary care doctors per 100,000 residents statewide, the federal Health Resources & Services Administration reported in November 2024. 

That’s more than the ratio in some states, and less than some others. The nationwide ratio is about 84 doctors per 100,000 residents.

But in the San Joaquin Valley, home to about 4.3 million people, doctors are much more scarce – about 47 primary care physicians per 100,000 residents, according to Dr. Tom Utecht, chief medical officer at the Fresno-based Community Health System.

That number is “a little over half of what is necessary to take care of a population,” Utecht said Tuesday in a video press conference. “We have the lowest physicians-per-capita rate in all of California, in the San Joaquin Valley.”

Introduced last month, the Medical Education Act is something of a placeholder for the time being until the Congressional Research Service can weigh in with financial estimates of what is needed in different parts of the country, Costa said. 

A companion version was introduced in March in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-West Virginia, and Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles.

At this point, the legislation does not specify how much money will ultimately be sought or how grants would be structured.

Costa said the shortage of doctors in the region “is combined with language barriers, cultural barriers and distances … and that would really go for rural parts of our country regardless where folks live.”

“If you live in rural areas, it’s just more difficult to have access to good quality health care,” he added.

Costa said the legislation, if it can survive a Republican-controlled House and Senate and a Republican president, “would be transformative because it would invest expanded resources to minority-serving institutions and colleges located in rural and underserved areas to establish schools of medicine and osteopathic medicine.”

The bill would also create an avenue for more historically Black colleges and universities, as well as Hispanic-serving institutions, to establish medical education programs, Costa said.

Gray noted that when he was in the state Legislature, he and colleagues “worked to get hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to expand the UC Merced campus, to ultimately secure the funding to put the first medical education building up on campus.”

Gray added that the UC San Francisco’s medical education program in Fresno “is an important part of creating the (medical) workforce of the future for the valley, but more importantly, solving this access to care issue that plagues Valley communities.”

At UC Merced, director of medical education Dr. Margo Vener said there has been a surge of interest in the university’s program that funnels students through an undergraduate program for their bachelor of science degree through a medical school degree in collaboration with UC San Francisco.

“All the students that we are enrolling are from the Valley and for the Valley, because they want to really make a difference in promoting health in their communities,” Vener said. That, she added, is likely to eventually translate to those would-be doctors to stay in the Valley to practice medicine.

“The data suggests that two factors really strongly influence where physicians stay to practice,” Vener said. “One of them is where they’re from, which, of course, is why we’re recruiting students from the Valley for the Valley just to stay (and) be doctors for their community. And the other factor is where you went to residency. Those are the two biggest drivers.”

That’s something that was underscored by Dr. Kenny Banh, assistant dean of undergraduate education at UCSF Fresno. “Regional campuses such as UC Merced and UCSF Fresno not only grow doctors, but they take those doctors, physicians and medical students from their communities in the region, and train them in those regions to go back to be physicians in those areas,” he said.

While the costs of the Costa-Gray legislation are yet to be determined, Banh said there are also costs associated with doing nothing to expand medical education.

“There’s health care costs, regardless of how we work it, if we don’t invest in having an adequate supply of physicians,” Banh said. “There’s a cost on the human that can’t access care” and doesn’t get to a doctor until a condition is not treatable “or with significantly worse morbidity and mortality outcomes.”

“And that cost is borne by health systems taxpayers, one way or the other,” Banh added.

But even if the Costa-Gray bill were to pass in this congressional session, the payoff of home-grown medical schools producing a bumper crop of physicians in the Valley or other deprived parts of the country would be years down the road.

“I think it’s really important to understand why we need to invest now for our future, because it takes so darn long” for a student to go from being a college freshman to a practicing doctor, surgeon or specialist, UC Merced’s Vener said. 

After a four-year bachelor’s degree, a student must then complete four years of medical school, which in turn is followed by a residency of three to five years.

“Then often people will do a fellowship to become, for example, a cardiologist or a gastroenterologist or something like that,” she added.

“If you start investing in just one student now, it’s going to take such a long time before they really are there to take care of you at that moment when you need them to be your gastroenterologist, your cardiologist, your emergency physician, or, dare I say, your family doctor,” Vener said.

That, she said, is why it’s also necessary to expand residency programs that can attract would-be physicians into the region in hopes that they will remain once they complete their training. “We need those doctors now, and that’s why this effort is important,” Vener said, “because this is what will both inspire people to stay, but also inspire people to really come and embrace the communities and serve them.”

In a related development, state Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria, D-Fresno, recently introduced a bill for the University of California system to develop a comprehensive funding plan for expanding the current SJV Prime+ BS-to-MD partnership between UC San Francisco and UC Merced, with the goal of transitioning the program to a fully independent medical school operated by UC Merced.

“We have seen firsthand the impacts of medical workforce shortages throughout the Central Valley,” Soria said in a prepared statement. “AB 58 would help ensure the Legislature is equipped with the information needed to secure appropriate funding for the medical education provided for our community at UC Merced.”

— Tim Sheehan is the Health Care Reporting Fellow at the nonprofit Central Valley Journalism Collaborative. The fellowship is supported by a grant from the Fresno State Institute for Media and Public Trust. Contact Sheehan at tim@cvlocaljournalism.org.