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March 2017 WINES&VINES 17 WINE INDUSTRY NEWS this may not be true of other soil types. Markus Niggli, winemaker at Lodi's 4,000-case Borra Vineyards, works with 165 acres of vines planted on 8-12 different soil types. "Sandy loam absorbs nicely; wherever there's clay, you don't want to be," he said. His Viognier vines near the Mokelumne River were 6 feet under water in mid- February and had been inundated for three weeks. "At this point it doesn't hurt. We haven't pruned, except for the Zinfandel, but we're coming close to bud break." With precipitation relentlessly falling and the river still near the tops of the levees, there was no- where to pump the water out. And as time marched on, it became more difficult to maintain vine- yards. Niggli said he didn't know how multiple years of drought af- fected less-established vineyards, where he said the soil was "like concrete." With ample water, he expects the roots will grow deeper. Niggli said that while normally he'd see bud break the second or third week of March, he hopes the stormy winter will cause a delay. On Feb. 8, the California De- partment of Water Resources (DWR) released a statement shar- ing that NASA mapping had dis- covered land was sinking rapidly in certain areas of the San Joaquin Valley, putting aqueducts and flood control structures at risk. DWR director William Croyle said, "The rates of San Joaquin Valley subsidence documented since 2014 by NASA are troubling and unsustainable. Subsidence has long plagued certain regions of California. But the current rates jeopardize infrastructure s e r v i n g m i l l i o n s o f p e o p l e . Groundwater pumping now puts at risk the very system that brings water to the San Joaquin Valley. The situation is untenable." He added that DWR is con- ducting its own study of the ef- fects of subsidence along the 444-mile California Aqueduct and other state water projects, hoping to identify potential ac- tions to remediate damage and focused triage. "Long-term subsidence already has destroyed thousands of public and private groundwater well cas- ings in the San Joaquin Valley. Over time, subsidence can perma- nently reduce the underground aquifer's water-storage capacity," he warned. —Jane Firstenfeld Ann-Marie Koth and Phil Silver kayak through the Kerner block of Mokelumne Glen Vineyards in the Mokelumne River Sub-AVA of Lodi. BRETT KOTH MIKE ANAGNOS