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Valley Unemployment problem because of a "minnow"? The facts tell otherwise!
by Dr. C. Mark Rockwell, D.C.
Dr. Rockwell is the California State Rep. for the Endangered Species Coalition, and V.P. Conservation, Northern California Council, Federation of Fly Fishers
June 24, 2009 -- Is it really “fish vs. people” as the Governor and Representative Nunes say? To listen to all the rhetoric these days you’d think that people are suffering only because a federal judge and the federal wildlife agencies decided to protect fish. Representative Nunes and our Governor are calling it a regulatory drought and families are suffering as a result. Articles in the L.A. Times and many other papers in
However, the raw data doesn’t tell the story unless you dig into it. So, here are some of the facts from the data that brings some clarity to the issue. Make no mistake; unemployment is a problem in Mendota and
For Mendota (the town given as the worst and where the governor has visited twice to rile against the ESA and his claim of regulation caused unemployment) it shows 38.8% unemployment for May 2009.
For Mendota, the 9 year previous average is 28.1%. Mendota has led
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| Of the 18 most agriculture dependant counties in |
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| Six of the seven with bigger unemployment than |
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| Lastly, when looking at the 2008 unemployment figures and averages, Fresno county has the eighth highest increase in unemployment (2008 to May 2009), meaning seven other counties have worse unemployment change over the last year than Fresno ( Imperial, Colusa, Merced, Sutter, Yuba, Stanislaus, Tulare). Six of these have limited impact from CVP reductions or are not affected at all. |
What this clearly shows is that unemployment is chronic in Mendota (28.1% average), worsened by the drought, as with all other agriculture dependant counties The owners of the big farms there are certainly not sharing their profits well with the labor community that serves them. There is much to be done to improve their plight, and it should not include disaster relief from the tax payers (as requested by the Governor and our Senators).
DWR director Lester Snow testified before Congress nearly two months ago essentially saying if there was no court order to protect fish, there would only be a 5% increase in CVP water to the
An interesting side note regarding subsidies to these farms. In 1978 the tax payer subsidy to the Federal San Luis Unit of the CVP (which supplies water to the west side San Joaquin) was estimated at $770 million or about $1,540.00 per acre (USBR figures.) Today that value would be about $5,227.00 per acre using the Cost of Living Calculator for 2007. Another interesting fact is that people in
Who really gets left holding the proverbial bag? Of course it is the federal taxpayer and the public trust. It is time agri-business took more responsibility for the problem and started to work for a solution, not for the drought but to help the farm workers they sometimes employ. This isn’t “fish vs. people”, it is “fish and people.” Both are suffering in this the third consecutive low water year.
Dr. C. Mark Rockwell, D.C.