Badlands Journal

Experience has taught me to live by the old Russian proverb, "Hope for the best but expect the worst." This is a particularly sound strategy for politics, where ideal outcomes are seldom realized. Sometimes, though, I'm pleasantly surprised -- something good emerges from unexpected quarters. That's the case with a recent science-based report from the staff of the State Water Board that identifies the real culprit in the collapse of the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta: excessive exports of fresh water.

For decades, California's water barons - mainly corporate agriculture operators in the western San Joaquin Valley - have called the shots in the state capitol, and the water has flowed to them in lavish amounts.

Farmers from other regions, urban residents, California salmon and the people who depend on salmon for their livelihoods have all suffered from this grossly inequitable distribution. Most pointedly, the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta - in conjunction with San Francisco Bay, the biggest and richest estuary on the west coast of the Americas - is teetering on collapse because of fresh water diversions to "Westside" agribusiness bigwigs.

So the Water Board's report was deeply appreciated (indeed it was somewhat unexpected given two earlier flow recommendations made by the board during the past two decades were suppressed at the behest of Westside growers). It provides some hope for our devastated Bay-Delta estuary, struggling Delta farmers, our beleaguered salmon and the impoverished fishing communities along the North Coast.

For years, Big Ag has tried to obfuscate the issue with pie charts and graphs that "show" the Delta's collapse is pegged to invasive species, urban run-off, leaky sewage pipes - everything except water exports. The State Water Board's report rebuts this duplicitous drivel clearly and simply: Delta restoration will require 75 percent of the water that typically flows down the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River watersheds. This will mean reducing water exports by half.

Big Ag already is squawking, deeming the report a "theoretical exercise" that has no bearing in the real world. Such strictures, they claim, would devastate family farms. To that I say -- well, horse manure.

Most "farms" of the western San Joaquin are massive agribusiness complexes that churn out megatons of federally-subsidized crops with subsidized water. Years ago, a friend of mine observed that "the welfare queens have nothing on the cotton kings" when it comes to swilling at the public trough. It was true then, and it's true now. Water use in the western San Joaquin Valley is extravagant - to a large degree, unregulated. Improving water use efficiency and employing better crop strategies would allow agribusiness to accommodate itself to the new and necessary reality.

On the other hand, there are family farms in the Delta - small holdings passed from generation to generation. They have been decimated by the relentless exporting of their water to the imperious barons of the Southland. And the same is true for our salmon fishermen. They have been ruined by years of fishing closures. And these closures, it must be noted, were driven by low salmon numbers caused by - you guessed it - water diversions. North Coast communities that were prosperous with family-wage fishing jobs a decade ago now struggle to hold on to even minimum-wage jobs - all so the water barons can continue to pump cash into their already engorged coffers.

Finally, we need to scotch the Big Lie that Big Ag and their minions are spreading about the likely impacts of the Water Board report. They're already saying California cities will face apocalyptic water shortages if flows to the south state are reduced. I have to admire their gall even while I despise their reflexive mendacity. California's cities account for only 20 percent of the state's water use. Moreover, our cities have led the way in improving water use efficiency and developing sustainable sources for water, including wastewater recycling, desalinization plants - even cisterns. California's agribusiness colossus, on the other hand, accounts for 80 percent of state water use and has done relatively little to improve use efficiency, instead expending its energy and funds on relentless lobbying in Sacramento and Washington.

Where do we go from here? The Water Board has stepped up and done the right thing, and we must back them up. One thing we can do is return the Kern Water Bank to public ownership. This massive water bank was developed with public funds. But after an abstruse sweetheart deal, it ended up in the hands of Beverly Hills billionaire and Central Valley corporate farmer Stuart Resnick. With the Kern Water Bank reclaimed as a public asset, we will have made a big step toward the fair and responsible management of state water.

We should also demand that the state's junior water rights holders - including giant Westside farming entities such as the Westlands Water District - take their rightful place in line for water. By legal precedent, they should be the first to endure cuts in water deliveries. Taxpayers subsidize water deliveries to Westlands. Meanwhile, their biggest crop - tomatoes - is a glut on the market. Seventy-five percent of their second-biggest crop - almonds - is shipped overseas and the biggest chunk goes to China. I would like to note parenthetically that there is no surplus of wild salmon. It is in high demand in domestic markets, selling for around $20 a pound.

Adding injury to insult, the irrigation of Westland's selenium-rich lands has led to the contamination of state waterways. Selenium is a dire threat to wildlife and fisheries, and Westlands is the primary engine for its dissemination in Delta waters. It's bad enough that Westlands is making obscene profits at taxpayer expense - but it's an outrage that we're paying them to poison us.

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ANOTHER VIEW

Chico News & Review-7/22/10
Editorial

Think back a year or so, to last summer, when San Joaquin Valley farmers were predicting economic disaster because of reduced water allotments. That’s when Fox News blowhard Sean Hannity descended on Fresno County’s west side to accuse federal officials and environmentalists of turning the region into a modern dust bowl to protect “a two-inch fish,” the Delta smelt.

In his zeal to condemn environmentalists and federal officials and make wealthy westside corporate agribusinesses happy, Hannity conveniently ignored the impact Delta pumping schedules had on the recreational and commercial fishing industries in Northern California. So much water had been pulled from the Delta to send southward that the salmon fishery collapsed, and the salmon harvest was essentially wiped out, putting thousands of fishermen out of business.

Yes, the drought hurt the valley. Westside towns like Mendota and Huron that are populated mostly by farm workers were hit especially hard. And Fresno County farm revenues were indeed down last year but by only 4.5 percent, according to the county’s annual crop report, issued in mid-June. The county produced $5.4 billion in receipts, exceeding $5 billion for the third year in a row.

This year there’s been more water, and life has gotten better in the San Joaquin Valley. The real problem in 2009 was the drought, not environmentalists or federal officials, as Hannity so grandiosely charged. And the real long-term victims were not the westside growers, or even their employees, who today are back at work, but rather the fishermen along the coast, who must contend with depleted fisheries for years to come because of the ability of the powerful ag industry to divert water southward.#

http://www.newsreview.com/chico/content?oid=1458596
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Patrick Porgans is one of the top watchdogs, if not the top watchdog, of the State Water Resources Control Board and has been a thorn in the side of that inept agency for at least 25 years.  He has a certain “style” in his approach to the Board and you have to know him to appreciate his sense of humor.  He does not tolerate fools gladly.  When he describes himself as a servant of God he means that all of his efforts to get the water board to do its job usually go unpaid.  His latest broadside at the Board is a doozy.  To read it, CLICK here: http://lloydgcarter.com/files_lgc/Porgans letter to SWRCB.doc.docx  READ MORE »