from Restore the Delta

Drought and the March for Water in the Central Valley

The truth about the people vs. fish argument

April 21, 2009 -- Last week a march for water was held in the Central Valley. Farmers and farm workers, impacted by restrictions in water being pumped from the Delta to their communities, called for more water to be exported from the Delta.

Various reporters have called Restore the Delta, looking for a sound bite that would serve to heighten the conflict. We think that our response has disappointed the search for something sensational to print.

Restore the Delta maintains that this false argument of people versus fish has been framed incorrectly by leaders in the Central Valley, like US Representative Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), who has called for a reprieve of the Endangered Species Act and Governor's Schwarzenegger's resignation due to his handling of the water scenario in California.

Around 1995, the Delta Protection Commission estimated that over 6,000 jobs were tied to recreational fishing within the Delta. We know that somewhere between 12,000 and 23,000 jobs in California are tied to commercial fishing, which has been beaten down over the last two years by the closing of the Chinook salmon fishery that passes through the Delta. These two economies are estimated by sources in the fishing industry to be at an estimated value of $ 1.5 billion annually. Commercial fishing, like family farming in the Delta, is a legacy industry in California. California families who fished for generations are enduring great economic hardship as a result of the collapse of Delta fisheries.

The 500,000 acres of farmland in the Delta is divided between the five Delta counties (San Joaquin, Solano, Contra Costa, Sacramento, and Yolo). A rough estimate from one of the Delta County Agricultural Extension Offices three years ago (before the rise in crop prices) put direct Delta agriculture revenues at $500,000, 000 per year. A modest multiplier of six (which accounts for money made in subsequent related agricultural industries) would put related Delta agricultural revenues at $ 3 billion annually. As in other farming regions in California, thousands of farm workers, both permanent and seasonal, work on Delta farms. With increased exports, or new conveyance that would permanently reroute Delta fresh water flows to the export pumps, Delta agriculture would fail to thrive.

Pitting the needs of one farm worker community against another is wrong. Environmental justice advocates, who address environmental impacts on the poor and people of color, do not advocate for the benefit of one environmental justice community against the needs of other environmental justice communities. Solving the economic challenges of farm worker communities in the Central Valley and the Delta must be done in a compassionate and moral way so as to recognize the dignity of the work that farm workers perform in the present, while providing them with new opportunities to become productive members of a diverse middle class California economy. In addition, numerous workers in the fishing and recreation industries are workers of color who must also be protected by environmental justice advocacy.

Turning up the pumps and increasing exports, will just shift the economic hardship from one part of the state to another. The problem of over extended water deliveries is historical in its nature. When the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project were constructed, growers in the Southern Part of the State agreed that they would only be able to take excess Delta water during wet periods. These same growers, who consolidated lands in order to expand their holdings, decided to replace seasonal crops, such as lettuce and tomatoes, with permanent crops, such as almonds and vineyards. Now that we have hit one of California's regular dry periods, they are demanding water at the expense of Delta fisheries and Delta farming communities.

Moreover, throughout California, as farming has become more and more mechanized, the need for farmer workers has decreased. While the farm worker communities of the Central Valley have experienced increased unemployment during this drought, their communities have seen increasing unemployment for quite some time now, as fewer hands have been needed to work on farms. Political leaders and growers in the southern part of the state have not shown great concern for the economic needs of their neighboring farm worker communities until the present - now that the day of reckoning for water exports has come.

The peripheral canal, like turning up the pumps, is also not the answer. It cannot make more water. It will just reroute water to growers who have junior water rights at the expense of Delta communities.

California's water management problems, harming working people (farmers, fishermen, and farm workers alike), are not the result of fish being more important than people. Our water management problems result from the failure of the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau of Reclamation to manage California's water supply in accordance with law when more water was available.  Complicit in this scenario is the State Water Resource Control Board with its history of granting water rights at a value of 8.5 times greater than water physically available in the Delta.

What is needed is reform of State and Federal water agencies. The Department of Water Resources should not continue managing the State Water Project. The State Water Resources Control Board should have its enforcement powers separated from its ability to create water codes.

What is also needed are new strategies for creating new sources of water so that our brothers and sisters in the Central Valley will have enough water to support their communities' needs. Restore the Delta again calls for Federal, State, and local political leaders to create programs that will support regional self sufficiency.  Let's harness our technology and our state's brain trust to figure out how to use floodplains during wet periods in order to recharge the Central Valley groundwater basin. Then using solar technology, we can pump water for agricultural needs during dry times.

The people of the Delta and the Central Valley are all part of the same state economy. We are interdependent. And because the people of the Delta are California residents, we will continue to voice our support for the development of regional water supplies that will support all Californians. The question is whether agricultural communities outside of the Delta will recognize this interdependence? Or will they simply continue demanding Delta water at the expense of Delta farmers, Delta workers, and California's fishermen?