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Dan Bacher on the grower's rally and some truth
telling by the United Farmworker's Union

 

Schwarzenegger: Water Conservationist or Big Ag Stooge?

 

Arnold Promotes Canal and Dams At Growers' Rally for Water

 

by Dan Bacher, editor of the Fish Sniffer

April 22, 2009 -- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has acted in a number of roles, ranging from the "Green Governor," to the "Dam Builder," to the "Fish Terminator," during his gubernatorial career. He played yet another role, "Arnold, the Water Conservationist," when he announced the launch of "Save Our Water” public education program by the state Department of Water Resources and Association of California Water Agencies Tuesday. 
 
“In California, water is essential to our jobs, our schools, our families, our environment and our economy," said Schwarzenegger. "With a drought, court-ordered water restrictions and an increasing population, the time for action is now. Making sure Californians have the water we need to keep our economy strong and our people working has never been more critical. This is what the ‘Save our Water’ campaign is all about, and I encourage all Californians to be a part of the solution.” 
 
However, the same Governor who on Tuesday called for increased water conservation joined a "March for Water" last Friday sponsored by corporate agribusiness and the California Latino Water Coalition under the guise of a "farmworker" march. Schwarzenegger used his speech at San Luis Reservoir, the last stop of the march, as another opportunity to push his unsustainable proposal to build a peripheral canal and more dams. 
 
In the eyes of Schwarzenegger and corporate agribusiness, building Temperance Flat and Sites Dams and "improving conveyance" - constructing a peripheral canal - are the "solutions" to a crisis created by massive exports of northern California water to grow cotton and other crops on land that should have never been irrigated, land filled with selenium and other toxic minerals for which no drainage solution has ever been figured out. 
 
The march had three goals, according to the organizers: 
 
• to temporarily and immediately relieve "severe Endangered Species Act standards" that are preventing much needed pumping from the Delta to other regions of California. 
 
• Second, to urge state legislators to agree on one comprehensive water plan to put before voters as a bond measure in the next election. 
 
• Third, to call for public funds for those facing remarkable hardship and federal stimulus dollars to address shovel-ready water infrastructure projects. 
 
“This march is about opening our eyes to the reality of California’s water crisis – and the reality is that farmers do not have a reliable water supply they can count on, farm workers fear losing their jobs because crops are not being planted, and in towns across the Central Valley, unemployment is skyrocketing,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “I am determined to getting a comprehensive solution done once and for all that will update our water infrastructure, increase our water storage and restore our Delta.” 
 
Schwarzenegger claimed that the lack of water "has forced California farmers to abandon or leave unplanted more than 100,000 acres of agricultural land" and total income losses to farmers and other businesses involved in crop production could reach $644 million this year. 
 
The Governor has supported the California Latino Water Coalition, chaired by actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez, since its formation in 2007. The Governor first appeared with the Coalition in April 2007, when the group endorsed a water bond including a canal and new dams, and again last July to highlight his "compromise plan" with Senator Dianne Feinstein, also including new dams and "improved conveyance. 
 
"We cannot ask a tree to wait a week, Governor," said Rodriguez after Schwarzenegger spoke, trying to convey a gloom and doom scenario for west side San Joaquin Valley agribusiness unless water exports from the Delta pumps are increased. "The tree has to have water. Our fields are turning into kindling wood. I know you have the power to do that. Everyone here is on the same side. Now what do we do now?" 
 
 
UFW Refused to Endorse March 
 
Schwarzenegger cynically invoked the memory of Cesar Chavez, founder of the United Farmworkers Union (UFW), at the rally. 
 
"César Chávez knew the power of a good march -- he led by example and he never stopped trying until he found a way," said Schwarzenegger. "And this is exactly what we are going to do. We never will stop until we find a way, find a way together here, because this is the right thing to do, because we need water, we need water, we need water, we need water." 
 
In spite of Schwarzenegger's attempt to invoke Chavez's name at the rally, the UFW and other farmworker advocacy groups didn't endorse or support it. In a press statement, the United Farm Workers described the march as a "grower-sponsored march." 
 
“We don't oppose farmers getting access to more water, but that access should be tied to farm workers’ access to clean drinking water in the fields," according to the UFW. "The State of California continues to fail at protecting that basic right for farmworkers while Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to oppose farm workers winning the right to protect that right themselves. The union is focusing its efforts on immigration reform, the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers and better working conditions for the men and women who pick our fruits and vegetables.” 
 
"In reality, this is not a farmworker march," said UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, as quoted in a New York Times article by Malia Wollan on April 16. "This is a farmer march orchestrated and financed by growers." 
 
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta, maintains that "turning up the pumps and increasing exports," as Central Valley growers, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Latino Water Coalition aim to do, "will just shift the economic hardship from one part of the state to another." 
 
Schwarzenegger and his allies are trying to pit Delta farmworkers against San Joaquin Valley farmworkers - and recreational and commercial fishermen in northern California against Central Valley farmworkers and communities. Powerful corporate agribusiness interests are trying to divide communities that have much in common with one another by promoting a false conflict of "fish versus jobs" in order to ram through water policies that will only benefit rich and powerful growers such as those in Westlands Water District. 
 
"Pitting the needs of one farm worker community against another is wrong," according to Barrigan-Parrilla. "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." 
 
She emphasized. "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."