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The New York Times article below highlights the drought in Texas in the "operational backyard" of STW Resources (OTCQB:STWS).
As noted below, "Drought’s grip on California grabs all the headlines. But from Texas to Arizona to Colorado, the entire West is under siege by changing weather patterns that have shrunk snowpacks, raised temperatures, spurred evaporation and reduced reservoirs to record lows."
A key point made by the article references a farmer who speaks to the drawbacks of using brackish groundwater--a problem that STWS can solve.
"He makes up the deficit with two inches of treated water from the city sewage plant and a deluge of salty groundwater, brought up by once-abandoned wells that his grandfather dug, and that he has brought back to life.
The brackish water poisons the plants even as it saves them, cutting his yield by as much as a fifth. “It hurts germination, plant vigor, growth, root vigor, water absorption — everything negative that can happen to a plant,” he said.
Then again, the alternative is worse."
For your information.
U.S. | The Parched West |??NYT Now
Mighty Rio Grande Now a Trickle Under Siege
By MICHAEL WINES
APRIL 12, 2015
FABENS, Tex. — On maps, the mighty Rio Grande meanders 1,900 miles, from southern Colorado’s San Juan Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico. But on the ground, farms and cities drink all but a trickle before it reaches the canal that irrigates Bobby Skov’s farm outside El Paso, hundreds of miles from the gulf.
Now, shriveled by the historic drought that has consumed California and most of the Southwest, that trickle has become a moist breath.
“It’s been progressively worse” since the early 2000s, Mr. Skov said during a pickup-truck tour of his spread last week, but he said his farm would muddle through — if the trend did not continue. “The jury’s out on that,” he said.
Drought’s grip on California grabs all the headlines. But from Texas to Arizona to Colorado, the entire West is under siege by changing weather patterns that have shrunk snowpacks, raised temperatures, spurred evaporation and reduced reservoirs to record lows.
In a region that has replumbed entire river systems to build cities and farms where they would not otherwise flourish, the drought is a historic challenge, and perhaps an enduring one. Many scientists say this is the harbinger of the permanently drier and hotter West that global warming will deliver later this century. If so, the water-rationing order issued this month by Gov. Jerry Brown of California could be merely a sign of things to come.
Photo
As the Rio Grande continues to get drier, the farmer Bobby Skov, center, now fallows a fifth of his fields. Credit Max Whittaker for The New York Times
Arizona, a party to a Colorado River water-sharing compact among seven states, already is bracing for a first-ever reduction in its allotment within a couple of years should the river’s main reservoir, Lake Mead, continue falling beneath its current historic low.
Since coming to office two years ago, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has elevated water management in the West to an agency priority. “The challenge is systemic and persistent across the West,” Michael Connor, the deputy secretary of the interior, said in an interview. “We need better infrastructure, better operation arrangements, better ways to share water and move water.”
The perils of drought are on ample display along the Rio Grande, where a rising thirst has tested farmers, fueled environmental battles over vanishing fish and pushed a water-rights dispute between Texas and New Mexico to the Supreme Court.
But you can also see glimmers of hope. Albuquerque, the biggest New Mexico city along the Rio Grande, has cut its water consumption by a quarter in 20 years even as its population has grown by a third. Irrigation districts and farmers — which consume perhaps seven of every 10 gallons of river water — are turning to technology and ingenuity to make use of every drop of water given them.
John Fleck, a journalist and scholar at the University of New Mexico Water Resources Program who is finishing a book on the Colorado River, said no one should dismiss the gravity of the West’s plight. But neither is it necessarily ruination.
“This whole running-out-of-water thing isn’t really doom,” he said. “When water gets short, farmers get very clever.”
An untamed, flash-flooding home to sturgeon and eels a century ago, much of the Rio Grande today is little more than a magnificently engineered pipe — diverted, straightened, dammed, bled by canals, linked by tunnel to the Colorado River basin in the north, surrendering its last trickle in the south to a ditch that supplies farmers near El Paso. Only miles later do Mexican tributaries renew its journey to the gulf. Its raison d’être is to sustain the booming society along its banks.
Mr. Skov, 44, is at the very end of that pipe. The canal that supplies his farm intercepts the Rio Grande near downtown El Paso, and flows through the city zoo. From parts of his 1,500 acres where he tends pecan trees and grows onions and alfalfa, he jokes, he could hit a nine-iron across the barren Rio Grande channel into Mexico.
In a perfect world, his crops could consume up to four feet of water in a growing season, and in flush times 15 years ago, the canal gave him most of that. “We’d double-crop — do onions and come back with corn after that,” he said. “We used to grow a lot of chiles, a lot of jalapeños. When water was abundant you could do a variety of things.”
That is a pleasant memory. Today Mr. Skov fallows a fifth of his fields, and canal water that once flowed from March to October arrives in June and vanishes as early as August. He makes up the deficit with two inches of treated water from the city sewage plant and a deluge of salty groundwater, brought up by once-abandoned wells that his grandfather dug, and that he has brought back to life.
The brackish water poisons the plants even as it saves them, cutting his yield by as much as a fifth. “It hurts germination, plant vigor, growth, root vigor, water absorption — everything negative that can happen to a plant,” he said.
Then again, the alternative is worse.
Across the West, the water shortages plaguing farmers and townspeople alike share many of the same causes. Like the Sacramento River in California and the Colorado River in the Rockies, the Rio Grande gets much of its flow from melting mountain snow — and snowpacks are getting smaller, and melting faster.
(GRAPHIC ACCESSIBLE AT : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/us/mighty-rio-grande-now-a-trickle-under-siege.html?_r=0)
Graphic
A Long Drought on a Long River
Drought around the nearly 2,000 mile long Rio Grande has dried reservoirs and forced the region to find new water sources.
OPEN Graphic
Rising temperatures are the reason. The federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages much water in the West, reported in 2013 that average temperatures in the upper Rio Grande, in Colorado and New Mexico, rose almost 2.8 degrees during the 40 years ending in 2011 — and could rise an additional four to six degrees by 2100.
The 40-year increase, twice the global average, was beyond anything seen in the last 11,300 years. Future warming “has the potential to cause significant environmental harm and change the region’s hydrology,” the bureau’s analysis stated.
A warming climate turns some snow into rain and increases the evaporation and melting rate of what snow remains. And as drought worsens, dust and soot from parched soil and burning forests coat the snow and absorb sunlight, turbocharging the melting.
This month, federal forecasters pegged the runoff from mountain snowpack feeding the Rio Grande’s northern stretches at roughly half the average logged in the final two decades of the 20th century.
“The last four or five years running, we’ve had a weak snowpack, early melting and really dry spring weather,” said Mr. Fleck, the journalist and scholar. “The spring runoff usually peaks in early May. I think it may have peaked in March this year.”
It is likely to get worse. While acknowledging that climate forecasts are inherently uncertain, the reclamation bureau’s 2013 analysis concluded that the Rio Grande could lose roughly a third of its water by this century’s end.
In theory, the Rio Grande is engineered and managed to absorb such a whammy with as little misery as possible for the three million people who rely on it. In practice, some users have a comparative embarrassment of water, while others like Mr. Skov are water paupers.
Photo
Oscar Escapita nets minnows in the Rio Grande in Radium Springs, N. M. Credit Max Whittaker for The New York Times
The rules for sharing the Rio Grande are even more complex than its plumbing. Irrigation districts, governments and tribal authorities, among others, all have rights to water, and some have reservoirs devoted more or less exclusively to their use.
Some even band together: In the 1970s, Albuquerque and other New Mexico cities teamed with irrigators and the federal reclamation bureau to tunnel beneath the Continental Divide, diverting 28 billion gallons of water from a Colorado River tributary to a Rio Grande reservoir every year.
Yet the biggest agreement of all, the 1938 Rio Grande Compact among Colorado, New Mexico and Texas, shows just how fraught the divvying-up process can be.
The ménage has seldom been happy; for years, Colorado reneged on its obligation to deliver Rio Grande water downstream. But the thorniest issue of all is how the accord divides Elephant Butte Reservoir, New Mexico’s largest, between New Mexico and Texas.
Most of the reservoir’s water belongs to one of New Mexico’s biggest users of the Rio Grande — the Elephant Butte Irrigation District — and to the Texas irrigation district that parcels out river water to farmers like Mr. Skov, and to El Paso itself.
New Mexico manages the reservoir according to an agreed-on formula. In wet years, upstream users allow more water to flow past them to fill it up. In dry years, they keep more of the water to themselves, and let downstream users survive off what was stored during rainy periods.
That works perfectly in a climate where wet and dry years alternate. But over a dozen years of drought, the effect has been perverse; upstream users have more water, while at one point in 2013, Elephant Butte Reservoir shrank to 3 percent of its capacity.
###
Nice,
Won't be long imo and stws will be recognized on a much larger scale by the street.
THe companies rev;s are exploding and they have a lot going on.
What a great opportunity to be able to get in before many of these projects see results.
GLTA Longs
Welcome,
IMO a solid company with growing rev's and a first in class tech in a soon to be very hot industry.
GLTU
" In only one short year from now all this will be looked back on and laughed about as ELTP, Nasrat and team reach their's and our GOALS..GLTA"
Agree!!
Not posting much here, although the company is steaming forward the stock is pretty boring, for the moment.
...and companies like STW Resources (STWS) that help municipalities solve their water shortage problem stand to benefit. The highest profile state with water shortages is California, but cities in other states are challenged to meet the water needs of their residents. STWS based in Midland, Texas, is actively involved in water drilling and reclamation, including desalination.
Southern California to cut water wholesale deliveries by 15 percent
Reuters
By Daina Beth Solomon
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Southern California's water wholesaler voted on Tuesday to cut its deliveries to cities and communities by 15 percent as the state clamps down on water usage amid a devastating four-year drought.
The Metropolitan Water District's plan aims to put cities in the greater Los Angeles area in compliance with an order by Governor Jerry Brown to reduce water use by 25 percent, the first mandatory statewide reduction in California history.
Beginning in July, two-dozen member agencies will be fined up to four times their regular rates for demanding excess water. Those penalties will range from $1,480 to $2,960 per acre-foot of water.
The cutbacks are expected to last a year, with opportunities each month to amend the system. A formal reconsideration is scheduled for December, during the rainy season.
If Brown's statewide plan succeeds, businesses and residents will use only three-quarters of the amount they used in 2013. The savings would amount to some 1.5 million acre-feet of water in the next nine months, just as the state snowpack is at its lowest level on record.
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) has imposed its own restrictions only four times since 1977. The last instance was in 2008, when Southern California succeeded in reaching a 10 percent reduction goal. Officials are optimistic local agencies will again meet their targets.
"I have a lot of faith that Southern Californians will rally toward this,” MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger said, adding, “It’s not time to panic.”
Some board members had pushed for a higher cutback rate of 20 percent – a difference of 100,000 acre-feet, or 326,000 gallons (1.2 million liters). Just one acre-foot can provide for two average households a year.
“We’re spending down our savings account and hoping to win the lottery to pay it back,” board member Judy Abdo, who represents Santa Monica, said at Tuesday's meeting.
But the agency voted for the lower amount, deeming it a manageable target. The current plan will conserve about 300,000 acre-feet of water.
Kightlinger said the water supply drop combined with incentives to conserve – such as rebates to rip out thirsty lawns – will help Southern California reach its state target of a 25 percent cutback.
It will be up to retailers to decide if they need to hike consumer rates to discourage use and deflect penalties, officials added.
"Looks like buyers are creeping in"
When volume comes in, stws will explode. imo
They are in the right place at the right time.
I will bet this will happen when we see a report on the first water well. Folks will start to use their calculators and see that stws will have a very nice stream of money for many many years to come.
GLTA Longs
Looks like we might hit .93 sooner rather than later.
L2 is pretty thin
GLTU
Hey Sharpel,
If/when we break the 200dma, where do you see the next major resistance?
Nice to see a little over half the average daily volume sitting on the bid.
Just a wild guess, I think as we get close to the report back from the Capitan Reef Aquifer near Fort Stockton wells, that both volume and price will increase. Usually in the smaller market cap companies friends will speak with friends about developments. In stws, that has less 4 million public float the stock price may move before news. Just a guess and only my opinion.
GLTA Longs
This is a good overview of the water shortage problem and possible
solutions. Video is through Yahoo News.
http://news.yahoo.com/california-s-water-crisis-drought-katie-couric-explains-182006167.html
BTW I do not believe that there is man made global warning.
The earth has and will run through cycles of warm, cold, wet, dry.
It takes only a minute of research, if one did not already know, water related investments are drawing a lot of attention. I think STWS will do very well both long and short term, but I also think that there is a good chance that water related stocks will experience irrational exuberance like weed just did. We shall see, either way I am very comfortable with a sizable position here.
GLTA Longs
" all this media attention on water shortages and water reclamation will get more investors looking at smaller companies like STWS"
I agree!!! Be interesting to see if w break through the 200day on the next move. if so I think 2.00 is very attainable.
Drought Watch 2015 http://blogs.kqed.org/science/series/california-drought-watch/?=science_widget
We’re collecting all of our California drought coverage here, starting with the current state of the drought, then providing the background and rounding up all the stories we’ve produced.
How Bad Is It?
It’s bad. After heavy rains raised hopes in December, what should have been the heart of the rainy season then turned into the driest January-March period on record. Firmly into the fourth year of drought, one of the state’s top water regulators calls it “the most serious challenge our generation has ever faced.”
Scientists agree that record-high temperatures have exacerbated the current drought, sapping moisture from the soil and preventing snow from building up the “frozen reservoir” in the Sierra. On April 1, officials were dismayed to find the most puny Sierra snowpack on record, with water content estimated at just five percent of the long-term average. Governor Jerry Brown used the occasion to issue a first-ever executive order mandating statewide reductions in water use.
More than two-thirds of California remains in “extreme” drought, with more than 40 percent of the state in “exceptional” drought, the most extreme category according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Share Your Story
We’re collecting and sharing photos, graphics, water-saving tips and, yes, the occasional haiku, on our Tumblr blog, State of Drought.
Click the image for a description of each drought category.
This animation shows California’s drought through its development, from January, 2011, through early December, 2014, as expressed by NOAA’s U.S. Drought Monitor. (Olivia Hubert-Allen/KQED)
Background
2013 is in the books as California’s driest calendar year on record and the years 2011 to 2014 were the driest three-year period recorded (using the federal government’s July-June “water year”).
Gov. Brown declared an official statewide drought in January of 2013, calling for a voluntary statewide reduction in water consumption. The drought declaration outlines 20 steps, some mandatory, some merely advisory, to deal with water shortages that have begun to affect many communities.
In July, regulators issued the first statewide water restrictions, which carry potential fines of up to $500 per day for repeat violators. Most local water agencies have responded in some way; more than eight-in-ten have put “mandatory” water restrictions in place.
State figures show a fairly steady increase in urban conservation levels. State water regulators and local suppliers have launched a media campaign to reduce water use, especially outdoors.
The state’s $45 billion agricultural sector has taken severe cuts in state and federal water supplies. State and federal water managers set planned allocations from the state’s two largest water delivery projects at zero for the first time ever, while vowing to maintain supplies vital to “health and safety.”
Despite heavy rains in December of 2013, many of the state’s key reservoirs remain at historically low levels.
Below is the lead story on the Drudge report.
The water market is huge and garnering more attention by the day, STWS will also be getting more attention in the near future as investors eyes look to water stocks.News stories on water issues are getting released, it seems by the minute.
California delta's water mysteriously missing amid drought
Apr 11, 11:24 AM (ET)
By SCOTT SMITH
(AP) In this photo taken Friday March 27, 2015, farmer Rudy Mussi inspects one of the...
Full Image
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FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — As California struggles with a devastating drought, huge amounts of water are mysteriously vanishing from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — and the prime suspects are farmers whose families have tilled fertile soil there for generations.
A state investigation was launched following complaints from two large agencies that supply water to arid farmland in the Central Valley and to millions of residents as far south as San Diego.
Delta farmers don't deny using as much water as they need. But they say they're not stealing it because their history of living at the water's edge gives them that right. Still, they have been asked to report how much water they're pumping and to prove their legal rights to it.
At issue is California's century-old water rights system that has been based on self-reporting and little oversight, historically giving senior water rights holders the ability to use as much water as they need, even in drought. Gov. Jerry Brown has said that if drought continues this system built into California's legal framework will probably need to be examined.
(AP) In this photo taken Friday March 27, 2015, low-flow water emitter sits on some of...
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Delta farmer Rudy Mussi says he has senior water rights, putting him in line ahead of those with lower ranking, or junior, water rights.
"If there's surplus water, hey, I don't mind sharing it," Mussi said. "I don't want anybody with junior water rights leapfrogging my senior water rights just because they have more money and more political clout."
The fight pitting farmer against farmer is playing out in the Delta, the hub of the state's water system. With no indication of the drought easing, heightened attention is being placed on dwindling water throughout the state, which produces nearly half of the fruits, nuts and vegetables grown in the U.S.
A large inland estuary east of San Francisco, the Delta is fed by rivers of freshwater flowing down from the Sierra Nevada and northern mountain ranges. Located at sea level, it consists of large tracts of farmland separated by rivers that are subject to tidal ebbs and flows.
Most of the freshwater washes out to the Pacific Ocean through the San Francisco Bay. Some is pumped — or diverted — by Delta farmers to irrigate their crops, and some is sent south though canals to Central Valley farmers and to 25 million people statewide.
(AP) In this photo taken Friday March 27, 2015, farmer Rudy Mussi poses at one of his...
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The drought now in its fourth year has put Delta water under close scrutiny. Twice last year state officials feared salty bay water was backing up into the Delta, threatening water quality. There was not enough fresh water to keep out saltwater.
In June, the state released water stored for farmers and communities from Lake Oroville to combat the saltwater intrusion.
Nancy Vogel, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Water Resources, said "thousands of acre-feet of water a day for a couple of weeks" were released into the Delta. An acre-foot is roughly enough water to supply a household of four for a year.
The fact that the state had to resort to using so much from storage raised questions about where the water was going. That in turn prompted a joint letter by the Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation calling for an investigation into how much water Delta farmers are taking — and whether the amount exceeds their rights to it.
"We don't know if there were illegal diversions going on at this time," said Vogel, leaving it up to officials at the State Water Resources Control Board to determine. "Right now, a large information gap exists."
(AP) In this photo taken Friday March 27, 2015, farmer Rudy Mussi poses at one of his...
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Some 450 farmers who hold 1,061 water rights in the Delta and the Sacramento and San Joaquin river watersheds were told to report their water diversions, and Katherine Mrowka, state water board enforcement manager, said a vast majority responded.
State officials are sorting through the information that will help them determine whether any are exceeding their water rights and who should be subject to restrictions.
"In this drought period, water accounting is more important to ensure that the water is being used for its intended purpose," said U.S. Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Louis Moore.
Mussi, a second-generation Delta farmer whose family grows tomatoes, wheat, corn, grapes and almonds on 4,500 acres west of Stockton, said Central Valley farmers have long known that in dry years they would get little or no water from state and federal water projects and would need to rely heavily on groundwater.
"All of a sudden they're trying to turn their water into a permanent system and ours temporary," Mussi said. "It's just not going to work."
Shawn Coburn farms 1,500 acres along the San Joaquin River in Firebaugh about 100 miles south of the Delta. As a senior rights holder, he figures he will receive 45 percent or less of the water he expected from the federal water project. On another 1,500 acres where he is a junior water rights holder, he will receive no surface water for a second consecutive year.
"I don't like to pick on other farmers, even if it wasn't a drought year," said Coburn. "The only difference is I don't have a pipe in the Delta I can suck willy-nilly whenever I want."
Yes the wells in the Capitan Reef Aquifer, will provide a very nice long term flow of capital into the company. IMO things are setting up here very nicely for both short and long term.
The stock seems to be holding around 50 day, do you see this as a new base?
GLTU
"Any one of these potential projects would double the stock price, imo. Now the key is converting possibilities into realities. But they seem to be working on a lot of fronts all at once. "
Just give me ONE project! And "Hello $2.00!"
I would agree, I have a feeling there are a lot more investors watching than most would think.
The correct trigger will cause imo many to buy in.
GLTA Longs
IMO stws has a very competitive, if not first in class tech in a very large and growing market world wide. IMO stws is a under the radar gem that will yield very nice returns for a long time to come.
By Dan Denning & Chris Mayer
A “watershed moment” has arrived!…Literally. One of the most dynamic and profitable themes for the rest of this decade will be investing in water. Purifying, filtering, transporting, storing and bottling water will become increasingly important global businesses.
Three months ago I wrote to you from Colorado, on the edge of the Great American Desert. This month, I’m writing to you from another arid region, Australia. Yes, there’s water in the tropical north. But most of the Australian landscape is as dry as Carry Nations.
Investing in Water: Water Is Taken For Granted
Americans seem to believe. We often take it for granted. But most of the world’s residents do not…and for good reason. 97% of the world’s water is non-potable salt water, which leaves only 3% that could be consumed by humans…and most of that “water” is trapped in glaciers and icecaps.
Clean, fresh water is not nearly as plentiful as most
In mid-December, the premiers of Quebec and Ontario, along with the governors of eight U.S. states, signed a pact that will ban all large-scale water diversions from the Great Lakes basin. That will prevent fully 20% of the total fresh surface water of the Earth being exported by pipeline to thirsty states like California, Arizona, or Nevada. The eight states that border the Great Lakes – Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin – have seen the future. And the future is that fresh surface water is going to be more and more valuable as it gets more and more scarce.
http://dailyreckoning.com/investing-in-water/
Just reread the update,
A lot going on.
IMO there is a pretty huge upside both short and long term.
GLTA investors
http://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=nmona&article=66288487
STW Resources Releases Shareholder Update on Water-Related Activities
Print
Alert
STW Resources Holding Corp (USOTC:STWS)
Intraday Stock Chart
Today : Wednesday 8 April 2015
Click Here for more STW Resources Holding Corp Charts.
Joint Ventures and Relationships Build on Company’s Focus on Water Reclamation, Water Desalination, and Remediation
STW Resources Holding Corp, an integrated provider of water management, including water reclamation and remediation, and oilfield services, announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary, STW Water Process & Technologies, LLC (STW Water) has made major progress in different potential water-related projects in Texas, California, and Oklahoma.
STW Water recently executed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with a major reverse osmosis (RO) manufacturer that has been instrumental in designing and building reverse osmosis facilities around the world. The RO Company is interested in incorporating STW’s zero liquid discharge Salttech system inline with their systems. The Salttech system will recover approximately 95-97% of the fresh water from the highly salty brine reject that is the by-product of reverse osmosis systems. Generally, this concentrated brine reject is disposed of by returning it back to the ocean and local waterways. There is an environmental concern that this brine reject can damage the ecosystem of these waterways. With STW’s technology designed and incorporated into the system, there will be no potentially environmentally harmful side effects since there will be no need to dispose any reject into these waterways. This company, along with STW, will be bidding on ocean desalination projects in United States coastline cities. STW is also working on several projects that will utilize STW’s hybrid high-brackish reverse osmosis unit that recovers up to 85+% fresh water, followed by the patented ZLD system capable of achieving 95-97% fresh water recovery and 3-5% solid waste consisting of salt crystals and minerals. The Salttech system can economically process water, and requires no filtration or chemicals. Until now, the price of desalinated water projects has been prohibitively expensive, but STW’s project comes in at approximately $1,100-$1,350 per acre-foot of water which when comparing cost and output STW’s solution is less than today’s desalination technology.
STW has also been invited to perform a pilot demonstration on its recently licensed “Toilet-to-Tap” technology with two major cities in Texas. STW will be following the protocol required by the regulatory authorities. Starting in the second quarter, STW, in conjunction with Sunstone Water Group, will be initiating pilot projects, subject to the oversight of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). These demos will exhibit the efficacy of the system and to also gain acceptance and approval for use commercially in municipalities. Although “toilet-to-tap” processing is not new, there has not been a very serious commitment from industry to pursue it. Understandably, it has been slow to achieve public acceptance. But, because of the drought situations and fresh water shortages in several parts of the United States and other areas of the world, it will become a necessary option for the water industry to develop going forward. The technology being piloted is Sunstone technology and can be applied to process municipal wastewater to potable drinking water.
Additionally, STW Resources will make this innovative technology available for use in disaster relief and recovery. The system can be easily transported in shipping containers for fast and efficient deployment. Sunstone’s technology increases STW’s arsenal of water treatment technologies in keeping with the company’s business model of being a source for remediating all types of water. The Sunstone technology is currently operating in many countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. STW Water will be taking the lead for deployment of the process in the U.S.
Alan Murphy, President of STW Water, has performed and overseen pilots for several different technologies over the past few years. He has been involved with the design, installation, construction, and maintenance of many of the reverse osmosis systems in operation in Texas today. Although there are several technologies on the market for this specialized type of water treatment, Sunstone has developed and patented a system that is far advanced technologically than most all other systems available.
STW has been added to a short list of approved vendors for a municipal water project in Oklahoma that will consist of processing brackish water for human use and possibly utilizing our “toilet-to-tap” technology as soon as it has been approved by the TCEQ. The project is for a town of approximately 23,000 citizens that is on the verge of running out of fresh water. Unfortunately, the water shortage problem is becoming the number one problem for many communities across the drought stricken areas in the U.S. today.
Alan Murphy, President of STW Water, said, “We are being contacted almost daily by different municipalities and other interested municipalities in Oklahoma, Texas, and California that are in need of new water resources. The Sunstone technology is capable of processing and cleaning contaminated municipal wastewater to specs that are cleaner than the bottled water that is bought in stores every day. Our Salttech Zero Liquid Discharge technology is being sought after by regulatory and environmental agencies as well as municipalities that are in need of fresh water but also have extensive reserves of salty ocean and/or brackish water available to them. One plus is that they are also environmentally concerned about what to do with the concentrated saline by-product and we have the ‘green’ solution to their concerns. This completely environmentally friendly water processing system has a number of technological advancements over the other conventional evaporative thermal distillation and reverse osmosis systems including the ability to produce a solid discharge that is easily used or sold, generating a substantially higher percentage of clean drinking water per gallon of brackish or ocean water, 60% more compact compared to other alternatives, no chemicals, no membranes, and requires little operator attention 24/7 (highly automated), and flexible enough to be in fixed or mobile in its presentation depending on the amount of salt water influent. This system eliminates the need for deep well waste water injections, evaporation ponds and other recognized methods for disposing of concentrated brine waste from desalination activities. DyVaR is the first system designed for highly saline water that does not scale. DyVaR is also very energy efficient using up to 50% less energy as compared to other conventional systems. With the extremely high rate of 95-97% of fresh water recovery from salt water, the total process required to achieve optimum results is considerably reduced. Conventional reverse osmosis needs to process approximately 50 million gallons of seawater per day to recover approximately 22.5 million gallons of fresh water, whereas the DyVaR needs to process only about 23.7 million gallons per day to retrieve the same amount.
“We are wasting our precious fresh water resources every minute of every day when we could be reusing it. We have the technology to clean and process nearly every type of contaminated water for reuse now. Everyone needs to realize that water is our most precious commodity and that it needs to be conserved in every way possible.”
Another water project coming online very soon is the West Texas Water Project. STW will be drilling wells into a 4,000-foot plus reservoir to produce the water for transport to other municipalities and beneficial end users around west Texas. Texas is facing an unprecedented drought, and now a new report is predicting a decades long ‘mega drought’ later this century. The City of Fort Stockton, Texas has leased STW the rights—for 30 years, plus possible extensions—to drill and produce the extensive water reserves from the Capitan Reef Aquifer. Key independent third-party hydro-geological reports say the reservoir could possibly produce in excess of 100+ million gallons per day for over 100 years, without affecting the integrity of the reservoir. STW will utilize its proprietary hybrid reverse osmosis technology to process this water for municipal use.
STW Resources expects to be booking revenue from this project in the second to third quarter of this year.
According to one independent third-party report, STW is tapping into potentially 14 million-acre feet of water—or about 5.6 trillion gallons
In the first phase, the project will drill up to 11 production wells and expected to pump over 10 million gallons of water per day
Another very important and promising relationship is being established with a water-related engineering firm in California. This currently undisclosed firm has been involved with water projects for approximately 20 years and recently contacted STW Water to possibly forge a relationship with STW Water so they can introduce the company’s technologies to parched Southern California. STW officials will be attending the Water Reuse association in Huntington Beach, California in early May and will be meeting with this firm to further solidify a relationship with them.
What does the Elliott wave say we will touch on the down side?
Be interested to see if it does.
"Any forecasts? "
When it turns, it will turn hard and quickly break last years high.
Elite is growing be leaps and bounds, very much under the radar.
GLTA Longs
Its been out a little while, It was emailed to shareholders, dated March 30th .
WATER MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
& OILFIELD SERVICES
CORPORATE NEWSLETTER OTCQB: STWS
A Brief Note From Our CEO
The first quarter of this year has been a highly productive one at STW Resources Holding Corp, across each of our three subsidiaries in the water management and oilfield services. As other energy industry players are struggling to survive amid falling oil prices, we are making significant strides forward both with our innovative water processing/reclamation operations and our pipeline construction/maintenance services. Notably, but by no means exclusively, the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 have seen some significant gains for us, among them:
• We are looking at full commercialization within six months of our breakthrough water processing technologies.
• In January, we signed an initial $2.9-million contract to build, operate and maintain a comprehensive system of water processing facilities for a large, integrated NYSE-listed oil and gas company with operations across the giant Permian Basin in Texas.
• We are preparing for double growth this year of our subsidiary, STW Pipeline Maintenance and Construction, through an expansion of services and an increased scope of new construction.
• Last year saw us enter into long-term maintenance contracts that produced over $15 million in the first 12 months, while we also significantly reduced overhead to achieve positive net cash flow and profitability.
• Our pipeline safety record has remained impeccable.
Throughout, we have remained loyal to our belief that technological innovations are the key to growth, and we continue to lead our company to fast-track growth, integrating our midstream operations in an ambitious de-risking strategy, vigilantly maintaining a healthy balance sheet and successfully shielding investors from the vulnerabilities of the commodities market.
We have accomplished much of this through a strong focus on maintenance of some of the hundreds of thousands of miles of aging pipelines crisscrossing Texas—pipelines that have endless anomalies, which means endless demand for repair; as well as on building new connectors for which there is almost an equal level of demand.
We are connecting newly drilled wells from the past 3-5 years. Perhaps above all, however, our focus on the precious element of water—both for local communities and the oil and gas industry—has poised us for major gains and positioned us as an intuitive, innovative and environmentally sensitive company that has enormous traction in an area of the market in which demand is nearly infinite.
There is a never-ending need for more fresh water both for municipalities and industrial use. We are commercializing our advanced water processing technologies in these sectors.
We look forward to what the remainder of the year brings, and are excited at the prospect of bringing even more previously inaccessible potable water to the citizens of drought-stricken Texas, to those oil and gas companies who cannot continue the shale boom without it, and to other industries who could otherwise not operate in the dry state.
Thank you for joining us on this exciting adventure, and we hope you enjoy the newsletter.
Stanley T. Weiner
CEO and Chairman of the Board
Water—Our Most Precious Commodity
We have been honored over the course of the past year to be described by Texans as the local company who will help provide the solution for the dry state’s droughts by accessing previously unused sources of water and successfully processing new brackish sources into potable water.
We are overwhelmed at the support that has poured in from all sides in this endeavor—from local authorities who desperately need more drinking water for communities and other industries that need water in order to bring new manufacturing to Texas…, to oil and gas companies who need more supplies for operations and production activities. We are also receiving interested calls from other states that are in need of new water sources.
Texas is already facing unprecedented drought, and now a new report is predicting a decades-long ‘mega drought’ later this century.
Particularly given the urgency of the situation, the past year has been a very exciting one, beginning with the contracting of our first water processing project in Midland, Texas, in the Permian Basin in 2014 for installation and deployment in 2015.
Mentone, Texas, which is the first installation of our Salttech Technology in the United States, has been a resounding success for showing the efficacy of the technology. Here, the technologically advanced Dutch-developed Salttech DyVaR Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) water processing technology, for which we have the exclusive license in the US, Canada, Mexico and Central America, is providing Mentone with as much drinking water as it needs—and far more than it ever could have imagined.
This is also an important technology for oil and gas companies, as it will save them money on their drilling activities by reclaiming their drilling and fracking water, while also serving as a conservation method to conserve our precious fresh water for municipal and agricultural needs.
A New Water Deal with a $25-billion Oil & Gas Company
Water-starved Texas is a highly competitive playing field and the competition between oil companies and other users of water is intense. The shale boom and the hydraulic fracturing revolution have exponentially raised the stakes in this competition as demand for water has soared.
A major highlight of the first quarter of this year has been our first order from a $25-billion NYSE-listed oil and gas company operating in the Permian Basin—a deal that has the approval of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
We are very excited about the deployment of our first Salttech System in the US for a drinking water application set inline behind our custom proprietary hybrid high-brackish reverse osmosis system.
Significantly, this project will not require any
That will reduce the risk, but I loaded in the .60s and some 50s before either were broken last time and got close to a double on trading shares. I have done the same thing in the upper .70s, been buying. We shall see.
Would be surprised to see .60s again, but who knows????
Looking forward to water well reports.
Because of the sector, I feel like exposure should do nothing but increase.
GLTU
Water Investments
A Background and Primer for Water Investments
There is no more water on the earth today than there was hundreds of millions of years ago. There is no less either. We can't make it or destroy it.
And while our planet may be over 70% covered with water, less than 2% of it is freshwater – the stuff we need to survive.
Of that tiny 2%, some water is perpetually tied up as atmospheric moisture or as frozen saturated soil (permafrost) that we can never use. Put another way, if all the world's water were in a one-gallon jug, fresh water wouldn't account for even a teaspoon of it!
So if the amount of water has remained the same since the beginning of time, what's the problem?
The simple answer: us.
Or, more specifically, the amount of us – and what we've done to our water supply over the last few hundred years.
You see, water was first formed about 4.5 billion years ago. We've been around for only 60,000 years. But in that time, our population has exploded.
And we've done it rather quickly. It took us all of history to break the 1 billion population barrier at the beginning of the 19th century. Since then, the world's population has grown exponentially to over 6.5 billion. We now add about 75 people every 30 seconds.
That amount of people, coupled with expanding industry, pollution, and the associated problems have led to a Malthusian scenario – to say the least.
If nothing is done, by 2025 nearly two-thirds of the world's population will be water stressed due to greater demands on freshwater resources by burgeoning human populations... the diminishing quality of existing water resources because of pollution... and the additional requirements of servicing our industrial and agricultural growth.
That's less than 20 years away... But lucrative investments in water are already being created today.
The Grim Details: How Demand is Already Severely Outpacing Supply
The world uses 2.1 trillion cubic meters of water every year – the equivalent of draining Lake Superior, the largest lake in the world, twice!
That's 17.5 million gallons of water every second. To put that in perspective, we use 41,000 gallons of oil every second.
But this is only half of what we should be using.
You see, it's generally accepted that 100 liters of water per day, or 36.5 cubic meters per year, is the minimum per person requirement for good health. An additional 730 cubic meters per year is need for agriculture, industry, and energy production for each person.
That brings the minimum accepted per capita water requirement to 766.5 cubic meters.
So with about 7 billion people on the planet, we should be using nearly 5.3 trillion cubic meters of water per year – minimum.
Yet this is simply not the case. Here's why.
North Americans use 1,280 cubic meters
Europeans and Australians use 694 cubic meters
Asians use 535 cubic meters
South Americans use 311 cubic meters
Africans use 186 cubic meters
These numbers paint a pretty grim picture. North America is exceeding the minimum per person requirement by over two thirds. Europe, Australia, and Asia are at least in the ballpark, while South America and Africa aren't even close.
Boiled down to its simplest implications, this scenario shows 1) that we only have enough fresh water capacity to support about half of world demand and 2) nearly 25% of the world's population (1.5 billion) lack adequate water for drinking and sanitation.
Demand is simply already severely outpacing supply, which will drive up prices and foster good returns from water investments.
And if that weren't bad enough, 20 percent more water than is now available will be needed to feed the additional three billion people who will be alive by 2025.
So what are we going to do about it?
onserve, Recycle, and Profit
Unlike with oil, no technological innovation can ever replace water. So, the way I see it, there are two ways to capitalize on the water-supply market.
The first – and most obvious – is to invest in water through utilities. And this might not be a bad way to go.
In fact, in any random five-year period during the last 25 years, water utilities outperformed all other leading industry groups on a total return basis.
But it gets even better. You see, only about 10% of water utilities are publicly traded, with 90% still owned by state and local governments. And that 90% is currently facing vast expenditures to expand their crumbling infrastructure so they can keep up with rising demand.
In the U.S. alone there are serious problems with collapsed storm sewers, storm and wastewater runoff, and an estimated 20% loss from leakage in drinking water systems.
We have 800,000 miles of water pipes and 500,000 miles of sewer pipes. Generally, these pipes are supposed to last fifty years. The most comprehensive research to date suggests the average age of water infrastructure pipes in the U.S. is 43 years.
Just this single piece of data implies that nearly the entire water pipeline system in the US will soon have to be replaced.
To overcome these obstacles, an investment upwards of $1 trillion will need to be made in the next twenty years. That breaks down to a 150% annual increase over current spending amounts of $60 billion annually.
This money would go to overhauling the water and wastewater infrastructure, as well as to increased operations and maintenance costs, and would result in increased efficiency due to due non-leaking pipes, upgraded facilities, and the installation of new technology.
To date, water and sewer bills, taxes, and private business foot the cost for most of the funds needed to build, operate, and maintain water and wastewater systems.
But those sources alone are not meeting the total current amount needed, let alone the increase that will be needed in coming years.
To meet future funding requirements, private firms in the industry will have to play a key role. The pressure of a competitive market, coupled with the introduction of new technology, will help ease the pain of an emerging funding gap.
Because right now the majority of water utilities are owned by states and municipalities, to help generate more funding, many of these utilities are going public. So much so that major investment banks think the number of people served globally by investor-owned water companies is expected to rise 500% over the next 10 years.
With the amount of money that has to come to this sector, water investment opportunities will surely abound.
And with demand for water constantly rising, you can bet those now publicly-traded companies will be charging a premium for their services.
I'd be looking at all major water utilities as an investment vehicle. Not only will their services be appreciating, but most of them pay handsome dividends as well.
And if the demand for water continues to rise at its current pace, utilities aren't the only ones that stand to make some money. So will companies that have come to be known as the "water works" – companies that design and manufacture specialized parts, monitoring devices, and wastewater recycling technology.
You see, if water utilities are going to continue to provide fresh water, they will need more than a little help from these specialized companies.
Without those solutions – and the companies that provide them – water utilities would be hung out to dry. The two are inextricably connected.
These companies are going to make money because no matter how much it costs, there's no substitute for water – period. The laws of supply and demand don't apply here. Only demand rises.
Worth It's Weight in Salt
Desalination technology, among others, will play a huge role in helping to avoid the coming water crisis. But, as of yet, desalination is not cost-competitive with other tactics such as water importation – though the price has declined 60% in the last 15 years, and continues to do so.
Desalinating one acre-foot (326,000 gallons) costs about $800, while importing that same amount costs about $500. In the near future these price points will intersect, making it more economically viable to use this desalination. When that happens, we'll see investment in desalination grow much faster than it already is.
To date, there are already 11,000 desalination facilities in 120 countries worldwide, with a capacity of 4 billion gallons daily, or about 1.5 trillion gallons annually.
And while that may sound impressive, 1.5 trillion gallons is only .26% of world demand!
Plus, most of these facilities are in the Middle East, with only 1,200 in the US – making this truly a young industry with plenty of investment opportunity. There will be plenty more sites being built and coming online, especially in water-scarce coastal regions like California and Florida.
"They could nearly double Elites revenues. "
Bread crumbs compared to ADT's.
It going to be a fun ride, and imo it starts any day now.
GLTU
Oh ya it can bounce back. IMO STWS will do very well as small to medium player in the water market.
Please find below an article in the financial news, 24/7 Wall Street, on the water sector which helps continue to validate the bright future for companies like STW Resources (OTCQB:STWS) in water reclamation and remediation.
World Water Shortage Is the Worst in 15 Years
By Paul Ausick March 23, 2015 8:05 am EDT
24/7 Wall Street
Global demand for fresh water will outpace supply by 40% in 2030 as the world’s population increases and consumption patterns change. Increasing urbanization, the demand for more food (and water for irrigation) and economic growth all create increased demand for water.
A new report issued on Sunday by the United Nations World Water Assessment Program emphasizes the need to meet availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all the world’s people.
Groundwater currently supplies about 50% of the world’s population with drinking water and 43% of all water used for irrigation. As groundwater levels decline, people have begun to tap the aquifers, and now an estimated 20% of the world’s aquifers are over-exploited.
The report notes that by 2050 the world’s population is expected to reach 9.1 billion, with about two-thirds living in cities and an increase in the number living in slums beyond the 30% of all city dwellers currently living in slum conditions. Demand for drinking water and sanitation will rise as the population grows. A 2012 study by the World Health Organization estimated that an investment of $53 billion over a period of five years on drinking water and sanitation programs would return between $5 and $28 for every dollar invested.
Demand from agriculture, which already uses 70% of the world’s fresh water supply, will rise as more food is grown to feed the expanding population. As the world’s economy grows, demand for water to grow crops to feed and water livestock increases as more people eat more meat.
Energy production, which uses another 15% of the world’s fresh water, is expected to raise its demand to 20%. The report noted:
Meeting ever-growing demands for energy will generate increasing stress on freshwater resources with repercussions on other users, such as agriculture and industry.
Demand for water from manufacturing industries is expected to rise by 400% in the first half of the 21st century, with most of the increase coming in emerging economies and developing countries.
The impact of climate change is also noted:
Current projections show that crucial changes in the temporal and spatial distributing of water resources and the frequency and intensity of water-related disasters rise significantly with increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
IMO we will see higher lows for a long period time.
GLTA Longs
Re:Bollinger Bands
Are you watching the BBs, too?
I saw them when you pointed them out. They are really headed sharply towards each other.
"A squeeze candidate is identified when the bandwidth is at a six-month low-low value.
When Bollinger Bands® are far apart, volatility is high, and when they are close together, it is low. A squeeze is triggered when volatility reaches a six-month low and is identified when Bollinger Bands® reach a six-month minimum distance apart."
Overpaid
understatement
200 dma is 1.13, a close above that is very likely today on high volume imo.
That will be the new floor.
GLTA Longs
Water the new oil.
Almost afraid of suggesting it because I don't want to be a pumper, but with the new wells, partnerships ,revs increasing by 800-900% year to year and micro tiny float, 3 dollars is not at all out of the question.
GLTA Longs
The following article appeared in the Fort Stockton Pioneer newspaper.
MPGCD is the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District in Texas. STW Resources is mentioned near the end of the article (highlights added).
MPGCD OKs big water deal
Posted: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 3:30 am
By Bob Beal reporter@fspioneer.com
The Fort Stockton Pioneer
Falcón resigns from board
Seven of the ten members of the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District (MPGCD) board of directors met for five hours in their monthly meeting Tuesday. The board authorized Pecos SS, LLC, to export from Pecos County brackish water for use in oil-and-gas operations. The consolidated MPGCD drilling and production permits will be for 10,000 acre-feet annually, enough to supply a few hundred fracking rigs.
The permitting and export authorization obligates Pecos SS to have pipeline facilities and out-of-county water sales contracts in place within 18 months. The company’s industrial water customers will likely be in the Crane County area. The company would be exporting on an as-needed basis to their customers.
At $0.50 per barrel (42 gallons), 10,000 acre-feet of brackish water is worth about $40 million. MPGCD will collect an export fee of up to $0.0249 (its ad valorem tax rate) per 1000 gallons as allowed by the Texas water code. At the export limit, MPGCD would collect about $83,000 annually. The district would use the revenue to enhance monitoring of county groundwater levels and quality.
Pecos SS will produce the water from wells on a 10,000-acre tract in the northeast part of the county.
The water coming from the Edwards aquifer in that area contains up to 7000 parts per million of total dissolved solids. Water at that level of salinity should be avoided for livestock use.
The Pecos SS, LLC, principals are Gary Harrell, Steve Chapman and Scotty Hart.
John Dorris, board vice president, cast the only dissenting vote. He said, “I believe that is what my constituency would want me to do.” Dorris is one of the two directors who represent Pecos County Precinct 3, which includes Iraan and Sheffield.
MPGCD has two other export authorizations in place. One is for the Upton County Freshwater District to supply the City of McCamey with potable water. That water is coming from three wells, and the well field has been in operation for about 40 years. The other export authorization is for an investor-owned project exporting Capitan Reef water from the Coyanosa area for washing out salt domes used to store natural gas. That authorization originated several years ago.
MPGCD General Manager Paul Weatherby told the board that another company, STW Water Resources, could seek an export authorization in the near future. STW has a lease agreement to drill at the City of Fort Stockton well field along Old Alpine Highway in the Belding area. STW is currently trying to complete an exploration/production well into the Capitan Reef complex there. The company hopes to find a large supply of potable water in that section of the Capitan aquifer.
STW and another consortium of water experts are each studying the feasibility of capturing artesian flows of brackish water from old oil test wells north of the intersection of highways 1053 and 1450. That water is coming from the San Andres aquifer, which largely underlies the Capitan. Any such projects in that area would also likely involve export.
Board vacancy
Ruben Falcón, elected to the 11-member MPGCD board last November, had resigned prior to Tuesday’s meeting. He vacates one of the two positions on the board that represent county Precinct 2, which includes Comanche Creek and Rooney Park. Falcón acquired detailed experience with groundwater issues as a previous mayor of Fort Stockton. The board will fill the vacancy by appointment. Falcón will be sworn in as a City of Fort Stockton council member in May.
LINK: http://www.fortstocktonpioneer.com/community/article_a78e435a-cd9b-11e4-ac2f-0747d67eda94.html
All this media coverage on the water crisis benefits companies like STWS that are in the water sector. There are already WATER ETF's focused on this industry-- http://etfdb.com/type/sector/industrials/water/.
I for one would not be surprised to see STWS included in one of these ETF once it gets to a higher exchange.
There will be more investors considering including "water stocks" such as STW Resources (OTCQB:STWS) in their diversified portfolio. But that is just my opinion
Parched
California farmers plan to sell water instead of crops because they can get more money for it
by Rob Wile
California is now in its fourth year of drought, but it’s not completely out of water yet. Or at least, not all of it is.
While reservoirs in the southern part of the state, along with its central valley, have been heavily depleted, northern reservoirs are down somewhat from historical averages but remain relatively robust.
As a result, the north’s rice farmers find themselves with an odd position. They can plant more rice—or they could skip that part and just sell their irrigation water to hard-up neighbors in the south. The way the math has been working out lately, the state could see a noticeable dip in rice production this year.
(MAP accessible at link below)
This map shows the relatively full reservoirs of northern California. (Source: California Department of Water Resources)
I agree, but they don't have to be the best tech for the company to be very profitable. The market is huge. Water may be the next oil.
I like the volume this am, its churning in here on some very nice volume, over half of what it traded yesterday in 1 hour.
GLTA Longs
Parched
California farmers plan to sell water instead of crops because they can get more money for it
by Rob Wile
California is now in its fourth year of drought, but it’s not completely out of water yet. Or at least, not all of it is.
While reservoirs in the southern part of the state, along with its central valley, have been heavily depleted, northern reservoirs are down somewhat from historical averages but remain relatively robust.
As a result, the north’s rice farmers find themselves with an odd position. They can plant more rice—or they could skip that part and just sell their irrigation water to hard-up neighbors in the south. The way the math has been working out lately, the state could see a noticeable dip in rice production this year.
(MAP accessible at link below)
This map shows the relatively full reservoirs of northern California. (Source: California Department of Water Resources)
Fritz Durst’s farm sits 30 miles northwest of Sacramento near the town of Knights Landing. The closest reservoir, at Folsom Lake (highlighted in green above) is at almost 100 percent of its historical average. So Durst plans to idle one of his five fields and transfer rights to the water that would have irrigated it to the south.
The price he’s been quoted has gone up 30 percent in the past 12 months, to $650 per acre-feet from $500.
“I will probably make slightly more money doing the transfer than I will by actually growing crop,” he said.
Jim Morris, communications manager for the California Rice Commission, a group representing the state’s farmers, said it was too soon to say how many would end up participating in water transfers. Last year, when the drought was slightly less severe, rice production declined 25 percent, although not all of that was tied to water transfers.
“It’s something we’re watching,” he said. “It’s a reflection of four years of drought…there’s just an insufficient amount of water for all needs in the state.”
Many rice farmers, like this one in California’s Sacramento Valley, face the dilemma of planting crops or selling their water. (Photo: USDA)
California’s transfer system was first laid out during a drought in the late ‘70s, when a group of farmers, fearing that the state would simply requisition their water outright, proposed setting up a market system that would allow willing buyers to approach interested sellers.
Today, a constellation of state water districts act on behalf of individual buyers and sellers to work out a price, which has now reached an all-time high.
But it’s a difficult decision for both sides, and not all farmers with access to plentiful water choose to make a sale. Charlie Hoppin, a farmer and former chair of the State Water Board, does not plan to idle any of his crops despite the potential for banking a decent profit. There are too many other businesses and workers in the supply chain — not to mention his own employees — who rely on crops being planted.
“If I go to them and say, ‘I love you all but I’m not growing anything this year, I’m going to sell all our water, get a Winnebago and take my wife to Yellowstone,’ that makes it a difficult decision for me,” he said. “It would be my choice to put those people aside.”
Meanwhile, California officials are trying to downplay the severity of the situation, saying they have responded swiftly to conditions by instituting strict conservation measures. On Tuesday, a state board voted to limit the number of days residents can water their yards, although the L.A. Times says most cities and counties already have such measures in place.
“When people turn on their faucets, water will still come out,” said Jeanine Jones, Interstate Resources Manager for the California Department of Water Resources.
LINK: http://fusion.net/story/105639/california-farmers-plan-to-sell-water-instead-of-crops-because-they-can-get-more-money-for-it/
Some Northern California Farmers Not Planting This Year, Sell Water To Los Angeles At $700 Per Acre Foot
by John Ramos
CBS San Francisco
Video Embedded
March 17, 2015 7:05 PM
YUBA COUNTY (KPIX 5) – The rice industry in the Sacramento Valley is taking a hard hit with the drought. Some farmers are skipping out on their fields this year, because they are cashing in on their water rights.
Many fields will stay dry because farmers will be doing what was once considered unthinkable: selling their water to Southern California.
“In the long term, if we don’t make it available we’re afraid they’ll just take it,” said Charlie Mathews, a fourth generation rice farmer with senior rights to Yuba River water.
He and his fellow growers have agreed to sell 20 percent of their allotment to Los Angeles’s Metropolitan Water District as it desperately searches to add to its dwindling supply.
It’s not really surprising that Southern California is looking for a place to buy water. But what is making news is how much they’ve agreed to pay for it: $700 per acre foot of water.
Just last year, rice farmers were amazed when they were offered $500 per acre foot. This new price means growers will earn a lot more money on the fields they don’t plant, making water itself the real cashcrop in California.
“It’s much more than we ever expected to get. But at the same time, that just shows the desperation of the people that need it,” Mathews said.
The ripple effect of this will be felt around the entire state. If a Bay Area water district needs to buy more water, it will now be competing with Los Angeles to do it.
“They have to pay whatever the last price, the highest price, people will pay,” Mathews said.
LINK with Video: http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/03/17/drought-some-northern-california-farmers-not-planting-sell-water-rights-los-angeles/
"I see where some smart investors who may have bought in at .55 took some off the table after realizing a 50% increase. That is a smart investing practice. "
Me, ya I got t a few at .55, before it moved up.
Am I selling in this range? Nope,
I think we are sitting on a very rare opportunity.
GLTA Longs
Thanks for the story, keeps everything in perspective.
Prayers,
IMO,Tuesdays move was sparked by a info leak of some kind. I would not be surprised to see a really nice development PR'd in the near future.
Now todays move will be sparked by traders and those buying on DD.
Anything under a dollar is steal, both short and long term. imo
GLTA Longs