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Water Privateering on the Westside San Joaquin Valley

by Kathryn Gray

August 27, 2009 -- The next time you're driving on California's  Highway 5, and you see a grove of dead trees sporting those, "Congress Created Dustbowl" signs, hold off reaching for your hankie. If you're watching a Fox News feed of farm workers who were paid a day's wages  for "protesting" at a Democratic Congressman's office, wielding commercially produced signs, and chanting, "Agua now," sit back and do a reality check.  And if you've read about the Pacific Legal Foundation's petition to call in the "God Squad" to dump the Endangered Species Act, and get those pumps on to save beleaguered Westside San Joaquin valley farms, stop and hum your bible school hymn,  "All creatures great and small... the good Lord made them all..."
 
The demonstration you're seeing on Fox was staged, one way or another. The Delta pumps Pacific Legal Foundation has been having a prolonged constitutional hissy fit about have been turned on since July 1st. The "God Squad" petition is nothing but a sham attempt to get the Federal Government to consign yet more species, this time several fish which support the entire Pacific Coast Salmon fishery, to extinction.

And those very dead trees?  Chances are that deceased almond grove belongs to a farmer who's crying all the way to the bank.
 
Yesterday, the Hanford Sentinel broke the news that Sandridge Partners, a Westside "family farm", was planning on selling 14,000 acre-feet of Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta water a year to the Mojave Water Agency, San Bernardino County, for a mind boggling 5,500 dollars an acre-foot.
 
This deal will yield another 77 million dollars to already multimillionaire "family farmers". Sandridge Partners is owned by the Vidovich family of Silicon Valley, a family who already amassed a considerable fortune turning Silicon Valley orchards into housing tracts. More recently, according to the Environmental Working Group, as detailed in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle,  Sandridge Partners was the biggest 2008 recipient in the entire nation for federal subsidies for thirsty cotton, wheat, and peanuts for their farms in three San Joaquin Valley counties. Think of them as Kern County's Welfare Kings.
 
Should our eyes glaze over? Is this just another example of Pork du Jour, this time slightly Selenium laced? Absolutely not!  Right now there are 5 bills on a rush job in Sacramento, which were ostensibly written to deal with Sacramento Delta water and environmental issues. Of the package, two bills stand out, SB -1 authored by  Senator Joe Simitian and AB-1 authored by Assemblyman Jared Huffman.

In reality, these bills, which seek to enact Governor Schwarzenegger’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan, are a giant red herring, not aimed at protecting the very frail Delta, or helping small family farms in the Delta and other parts of the state, but are instead directed at aggrandizing the rights of junior Westside water rights holders, and developers in Southern California.
 
The Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta is "the next Katrina" according to Senator Joe Simitian, Palo Alto, an early and vociferous proponent of a revitalized Peripheral Canal. The somewhat endearing, but also alarmingly naïf former NRDC attorney Jared Huffman, assemblyman for Marin County, seems to truly believe that his bill, which will allow Governor Schwarzenegger to stack a committee to okay the Peripheral Canal, will pull the Delta and the Pacific Coast Salmon fishery back from the brink of doom.
 
These two unlikely Northern California legislators are the face of the new water buffaloes; instead of driving us to the desert in Cadillacs, so old school, it's all now a Toyota Prius Desert, where environmental greenwash is the order of the day. Their proposed legislation makes water for desert agriculture a co-equal goal with the Public Trust Doctrine which saved Mono Lake from being drained to the dregs by the Metropolitan Water District. The MWD has proven to be a smooth suitor for yet more Sacramento San Joaquin Delta water, ably abetted by the even greedier Los Angeles Times.
 
To make matters worse, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, (BDCP), aka Big Dumb Canal Plan, that they seek to enact had "environmental" groups sign on early. A sad situation considering a Five Delta Counties representative testified at an August 25th Legislative hearing that agreeing to the necessity of an "alternate conveyance"(aka Peripheral Canal) was a "litmus test" for being allowed to join BDCP.
 
This (dis)honor roll of BDCP "enviro" participants includes:  Bay Institute, Environmental Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife, and Nature Conservancy. In addition, the Natural Resource Defense Council's Barry Nelson has been active in supporting the "Delta Fix"  legislation, including testifying on behalf of Jared Huffman's bill.
 
But back to Green Acres, and when we say green, we mean money. The very able PR Groups pushing new dams and a peripheral canal in California have perfected the "Dustbowl" theme. From Newsweek to BBC, they've all suddenly discovered the plight of farm workers, and marvel at unemployment statistics that actually haven't budged in decades.

They ignore the inconvenient truth, that since many farm workers are illegal aliens, they are reluctant or unable to join farm labor unions that could offer them protection from abuses, better access to clean drinking water, and better working conditions in the central valley. 

By the way, better working conditions encompasses not dropping dead from heat exhaustion because your employer has made you work or has not provided shade in deadly 100+  degree temperatures. Six farm workers died from heat exhaustion in 2008.
 
Senator Joe Simitian, Assemblyman Jared Huffman, and all those who are maniacally attempting to push their "Delta Fix" bills through in the waning days of this California legislative session endlessly recite, regarding the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta, that the "status quo is not acceptable."  In reality, their legislation does nothing but support more of the same. Them thats got, like Sandridge Partners, shall get. Them thats not, like farm workers and salmon, shall lose.
 
Water privatization moves forward, and the inequities of California water law, where water supposedly belongs to the people, are ignored to make sure big money interests, whether corporate farms or developers, prosper. The real family farmers, whether in the San Joaquin Valley or the rest of the state, are left staring at a world of hurt where lips service is paid to Agriculture, and water is sold to the highest bidder.
 
And the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta? Let's hope it's not "sic transit gloria mundi", (And so the glory of this world shall fade) but if the water privateers, abetted by Senator Simitian and Assemblyman Huffman, and their chorus of greenwashers have their way, the largest estuary on the West Coast will die to ensure California water is sold at the highest price, to the highest bidder, with the proceeds pocketed by "family farms" and developers.