A fishy tale about California water
Sep 27, 2009
Published online in the Fresno Bee
Sunday, Sep. 27, 2009
By Victor Davis Hanson
California is in an uproar over water.
Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the Delta to improve marine ecology.
The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing.
Environmentalists counter that the real cause of the cutoff is an ongoing drought. They argue there are too many claims on too little fresh water with no margin of safety in dry years like this one. The problem is not just saving tiny Delta smelt or salmon, but a larger one of living within our means and not polluting our fragile ecosystem.
Emotion colors the arguments of both sides. The west side is not yet a "dust bowl," as claimed on Fox News, and San Francisco Bay and the Delta will not turn stagnant, as some environmentalists fret. The majority of west-side land is still farmed, and the bay is far cleaner than it was decades ago.
The crisis is not over an entire valley, but instead a sizable part of it without regular irrigation deliveries. For those farmers and workers whose livelihoods depend on that parched acreage, the result is undeniably catastrophic.
All this should remind us that Americans have developed a bad habit of avoiding tough choices. Californians could build more dams and more canals, and farm with adequate irrigation, but that would mean fewer natural flowing rivers, fewer fish and saltier deltas.
Few, though, will honestly acknowledge, "I want 10,000 acres of almonds, but I realize that will mean a slightly saltier delta and less marine life," or, on the flip side, "I vote for more Delta smelt but understand that will mean fewer tomatoes."
Instead of making these bad/worse decisions, we dream on about a natural California, with plenty of rain, stuffed with 36 million affluent residents (most of them crammed near Los Angeles or San Francisco).
Amnesiac federal officials and judges likewise are just as unrealistic.
The problems with fish in San Francisco Bay Area water are not just because fresh river water is being sent to San Joaquin Valley farms.
Northern Californians -- sewer districts, businesses and developers -- also are dumping more treated wastewater and run-off into the Delta and bay, and more fresh water is thus needed to flush it out. Yet it seems easier to cut short a few thousand farmers and farm workers than to order millions of Northern Californians to alter their habits.
It was also the federal government in the first place that, rightly or wrongly, built the dams, canals and pumps to provide the vast water transfers for farming. Once upon a time, the government saw public benefit in turning arid land into green productive farms.
So naturally the federal government also provided the crop and irrigation subsidies to encourage a few individuals to create a vast corporate agribusiness out of former alkali wasteland of the valley's west side. Now that its old dream of new productive farms, plentiful food and thousands of new jobs is realized, a different sort of bureaucracy and judiciary has the luxury to renege and question whether the investment was ever worth it.
Californians and Americans, of course, will still eat no matter what happens to this water, as they still drive. But if we do not produce our own food and fuel, someone else will do it for us.
That means we will have to earn -- or borrow -- the necessary cash payments from somewhere to ensure our present standard of living. Good luck with that. Currently the United States is running a $2 trillion annual deficit and a $32-billion-a-month trade deficit. California itself is trying to recover from a recent $42 billion annual budget shortfall.
Unless we cut our population or our appetites, each acre of food we idle in the United States -- just like every barrel of oil we don't pump -- means that we will import what we take for granted from somewhere else.
We can be sure that even if we find the money to pay those who sell us our imported food and fuel, they will produce it in a lot messier fashion than we can ever imagine -- ensuring a poorer America and a dirtier planet all at once.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON IS A CLASSICIST AND HISTORIAN AT THE HOOVER INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY. YOU CAN REACH HIM BY VISITING AUTHOR@VICTORHANSON.COM. HIS COLUMN APPEARS SUNDAYS.
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There's not much that I can add to this article. Mr. Hansen makes his conclusions clear; Either plan and build, profit & grow, or surrender to a dwindling of our national vitality, influence, and worth.
Or even worse, become a Totalitarian society that dictates how many children its citizens "may" have, and what sex they will be. And that will only be the start of the "decrees."
The "Environmentalists" decry the management attitude of the true conservationist, and invariably advocate the deprivation of
someone else to achieve their desires. All one need do is look at their willful ignorance of Delta municipalities continued dumping of partially treated sewage into the Delta. Their attitude uniformly reflects the same attitude that has made recent wildfires so devastating, the denial of intelligent and sustainable management.
This self serving attitude is "countered" in their captive press most often by such mealy mouthed drivel as was recently written by Jim Boren of the Fresno Bee:
Republicans' role in water crisis
Sep 26, 2009
Published in the Merced Sun-Star
Saturday September 26, 2009
To hear all the shouting over the lack of water for farms on the San Joaquin Valley's Westside, you'd think this problem was created solely by Democrats catering to their environmental friends. But the Republicans also played a major role in diverting farm water to environmental uses.
In 1992, then-President George H.W. Bush signed the Miller-Bradley bill to reform the Central Valley Project. Bush did this even after coming to Fresno and promising farmers that he would veto the bill when it got to his desk.
California agricultural interests vehemently opposed the bill inspired by their political nemesis, Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
Farmers said it would devastate the state's agricultural industry. Bush signed the measure, which also included water projects for other Western states, just days before the 1992 presidential election.
We're still feeling the damage of that bill 17 years later. The legislation set aside about 1.2 million acre-feet of CVP water every year for environmental restoration, wildlife refuges and rivers. That's a significant loss of water to farmers, and set the foundation for the water losses farmers are experiencing today.
Farmers have every right to blame the environmental movement for their plight, but the Miller-Bradley reform was supported by both parties. For example, the bill passed 83-8 in the U.S. Senate prior to it being signed by Bush.
Republicans blame the Endangered Species Act for causing the diversion of even more water for environmental purposes, and they are correct. But what they don't say is they had the power to change the bill, and didn't. For six years when George W. Bush was president, the Republicans held both houses of Congress but let the ESA stand.
This demonstrates why it's so difficult for farmers to make their case nationally for more water. They may call environmentalists wackos -- or communists in the case of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia -- but nationally the environmental movement is a lot more accepted than you'd think listening to Valley talk radio.
That's why I believe the strategy of demonizing environmentalists isn't working. The agricultural community needs to stop framing this issue as "fish vs. people" and explain to Americans that they need water to grow the nation's food so they aren't forced to buy their food overseas.
Farm supporters flirt with this issue with signs that say, "If you like foreign oil, you'll love foreign food." But they aren't committed to that as a strategy. Their dislike for the environmental movement seems to trump good political sense on this issue.
I'm also stunned that farmers don't point out they were environmentalists before the movement was cool. They should be explaining how they must protect their land to make crops grow year after year.
What's a better environmental choice? Growing crops on productive land or paving it over for shopping centers?
But farmers would rather slug it out with environmentalists than point out the many things they have in common. So they trot out the tired "fish vs. people" argument.
I agree that the balance in this debate has been shifted to the environmental side because of the Miller-Bradley bill, the ESA and recent court decisions. But the Republicans went along with the bills when they could have blocked them or made changes.
It's time that Valley agriculture revamp their political strategy. Make a convincing case to Americans that they are better off having their food grown on American soil. It sure beats the flawed tactics that have allowed environmental opponents to control the flow of water.
Jim Boren is The Fresno Bee's editorial page editor. E-mail him at jboren@fresnobee.com
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The fact that Mr. Boren seems to uniformly side-step is that the Farmers have been poorly served by
both the Democrat & Republican Parties. With the sole exception of Rep. Nunes, Central California Representatives and Senators have done a dismal job of protecting the interests of their constituents. Many, such as our "lifetime" Senators, have fervently voted to
decimate the livelihood of their constituents, attempting to placate their true constituents. Mr. Boren attitude seems to be "Well, what
do you expect Democrat's to do?"
Why does it take a lay fellow such as myself, nearly yelling in the face of a Concord City Councilman, to get him to address the "domino effect" that is taking place due to the self serving actions of Rep. George Miller? He already
knew that every farm job lost affects at least
8 additional NObama County jobs.
However, he'd missed the inevitable effects that would pose upon
his own locality.
The realization that dawned upon his face was astonishing, when, after his "We should have more hearings on storage," I made the truthful statement that silenced him: "We have been debating more storage since before 1973, when I debated it in High School Ecology class.
WHEN DO WE MAKE A DECISION TO BUILD?!?"
The time for funding studies and debate is past. Decisions must be made. Dams & canals must be built. Telling us we can't grow, and the unstated "
Sorry, you'll just have to move!" isn't an answer.
Absurdly, Mr. Boren preaches that both sides join, yet attempts to evade any commitment to the cause of Agriculture. Sadly, I've yet to see Mr. Boren out at one of the Water Rallies. He has yet to show the slightest bit of real, substantial support, much less impartially informed reportage.
If he'd been present for the trip to the Concord March, much less the march itself, he'd have seen & heard our efforts to tie together the interests of
ALL Californians, not to mention all Americans. Our appeals to the Union members and paid "activists" were to come and support their own Union brethren whose jobs had been affected and sometimes lost by the regulatory drought.
Our efforts are not about "winning," as though this were a game.
They are aimed at saving our very way of life.
I applaud the honesty and frank discussion of realities that Mr. Hansen engages in, and sadly, must point to Mr. Boren as just another part of the problem. Mr. Boren, let me tell you what we expect Democrat's, Republicans and
ANYONE who runs for, and wins public office to do;
SERVE THE PEOPLE>
We expect and demand that
every Politician will work for
ALL Americans. The people who buy our agricultural products expect
us to give them our best in return for their money. We must make it clear that we expect nothing less from
ALL "public servants."
The feigned and disingenuous outrage of Senator Feinstein is ridiculous and offensive. Her ignorance of the plight of 40,000 NObamans is inexcusable. Her lies are sickening. And the continued "pass" of her captive press make clear that they
are simply willing sycophants.
My last word: Politicians, Press & everyone else, stop acting like children playing dodgeball, and
GROW THE HELL UP! Look about yourself, and stop choosing the easy, selfish solution. Realize that we will diminish and die as a People if we decide not to grow up and improve the lives of
ALL people.
"Water for All" means just that, for
ALL. Dams
can be built, sewage treatment plants
can be built, fish
can thrive, farms
can thrive, and happiness
can be pursued.
And we shall ALL overcome.
