It isn’t obvious to the naked eye, but the San Joaquin Valley is sinking, and it’s slowly destroying key parts of the agricultural infrastructure as it goes. Each year, as farmers and ranchers pump water from the aquifer underlying the Valley to supply their crops, the water they remove leaves gaps in the miles-deep, sponge-like […]
Since the end of World War II – when hundreds of thousands of US soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen returned to their homeland and the free secondary education offered to them under the GI Bill – the main emphasis for post-high school education for all students in America has been on building a pathway to […]
Small Valley communities are drying up. The latest town to find itself waterless is Tooleville, east of Exeter on Highway 65. In the middle of July, with temperatures soaring and the intense Valley summer in full swing, residents of the town found the well they rely on was delivering just a dribble where it was […]
Hospitals in Kings and Tulare counties are bleeding money in the wake of the COVID pandemic, with the area’s major healthcare providers – Adventist Health, Kaweah Health and Sierra View Medical Center – all operating well into the red in 2023, according to publicly available budget data. The local trend is very much in line […]
Author’s note: The following story is based in part on my recent experience helping a close friend attempt to navigate her way through suddenly finding herself homeless in the midst of a severe mental-health crisis. The names of key individuals described and quoted in the story have been changed to protect their privacy. The events […]
This article was updated June 27, 2022 to include Oxitec’s response. A mosquito infected with the potentially deadly West Nile virus (WNV) was captured last week in a trap in southwest Visalia, the first identified this year. Cases of WNV-infected mosquitoes in the Delta Mosquito Vector Control District (DMVCD) – the local agency tasked with […]
Author’s note: The following story is based in part on my recent experience helping a close friend attempt to navigate her way through suddenly finding herself homeless in the midst of a severe mental-health crisis. The names of key individuals described and quoted in the story have been changed to protect their privacy. The events […]
Author’s note: The following story is based in part on my recent experience helping a close friend attempt to navigate her way through suddenly finding herself homeless in the midst of a severe mental-health crisis. The names of key individuals described and quoted in the story have been changed to protect their privacy. The events […]
Last week, an official and dire-sounding warning about high nitrate levels in the city of Exeter’s water supply began appearing on social media sites, and with them came comments rife with speculation, fearful reactions and visions of impending doom. The water situation in the midsize foothill town, however, is not as dangerous or widespread as […]
It was cold the morning of December 29, 2021. It certainly wasn’t the coldest Christmas week the South Valley has seen, with light rains falling on and off that day. The chill could have been much worse, and for Tulare dairywoman Janie DeRaadt, it was. It’s a day that will be frozen in time for […]