[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 2/11/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

February 11, 2009

 

2. Supply –

 

Response to drought is dry run for a response to climate change

The San Francisco Chronicle

 

Opinion: Water Exporters Want to End the Endangered Species Act

The California Progress Report

 

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Response to drought is dry run for a response to climate change

The San Francisco Chronicle – 2/11/09

By: Richard Rominger & Michael Dimock

 

Richard Rominger is the former secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Michael R. Dimock is president of Roots of Change, a collaborative supporting development of a sustainable food system in California.

 

California's unfolding drought - now three years running - may prove to be the worst in recorded history. Farms have begun to fail, communities to crumble, food prices to rise and more people are going hungry. How we respond to the drought will offer us a template of how to respond to global climate change.

 

The drought is a national crisis because California produces 50 percent of the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, and a majority of the nation's salad, strawberries and premium wine grapes. State and federal agencies that deliver water to farms up and down the Great Central Valley are preparing to cut deliveries by 85 percent to 100 percent. Coastal communities may begin rationing programs within weeks. Even with 50 percent increases in ground-water pumping, which is clearly not sustainable, the Central Valley alone will lose up to 40,000 jobs and $1.5 billion in income, according to a UC Davis agricultural economist Richard Howitt.

 

Even more disturbing is that rising emotion over water is sparking hostility. Last Thursday in Fresno, a representative of the California Water Impact Network told a television reporter during a debate that saving farmworkers' jobs is a mistake because they are the "least educated people in America ... they turn to lives of crime, they go on welfare, go into drug trafficking ...." This is this blatantly racist, and evokes images of Europe in the 1930s and '40s.

 

Drought or hurricanes are beyond human ability to stop. Thus, the human challenge is to offer effective response. Neither the federal nor state government can mitigate the impacts of this drought without cooperation and balanced consideration of human health, ecological and economic consequences. All levels of government, business and community must engage the challenge and leave behind 30 years of unresolved water wars.

 

So, we ask: Will our leaders maintain a long-term vision as they communicate tough decisions? Will government provide a flexible framework for competing interests to resolve conflict? Despite the pressures, will agricultural, environmental and urban interests think beyond the immediate to arrive at agreements that lead to sustainable supply management?

 

Our answers to these questions lead us to recommend four actions:

 

First, President Obama and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should form a federal-state drought response team that includes new leadership not tied to inflexible organizations and tired thinking about water supply, and that embraces the fact that climate change will set the limits of any future water allocation formulas.

 

Second, the president and governor should direct that team to reframe the discussion:

 

a) Food production in California is a national security priority and simply outsourcing our food supply is not in our national interest.

 

b) Responses must emerge from a primary respect for ecological systems and those who steward the resources within those systems to water and feed us.

 

c) Immediate and long-term responses are required to deal with the impacts and root causes of climate change and drought.

 

d) Urban and rural communities and people of different means must share the burdens that will be required.

 

Third, the secretaries of the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Interior, Tom Vilsack and Ken Salazar, should ensure that their top deputies are tied directly to California's farmers and environmental organizations, because without trusted Californians at the top in Washington, drought response will be much less effective.

 

By taking these suggestions, the state, nation and communities could minimize the pain caused by this drought and evolve methods for responding to climate change.#

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/10/EDKB15RJ1M.DTL

 

Opinion: Water Exporters Want to End the Endangered Species Act

The California Progress Report – 2/11/09
By Dan Bacher

 

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta, today issued an urgent action alert today in response to the introduction of legislation to temporarily suspend the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as it applies to the California Delta pumping facilities during times of drought.

 

The bill will also establish a Delta Smelt conservation hatchery, a bad idea that was defeated in the State Legislature last year, due to opposition by a coalition of environmental organizations, fishing groups and Delta residents.

 

Congressman George Radanovich (R-Mariposa) on February 4 introduced H.R. 856, the California Drought Alleviation Act, to bypass the ESA so exports of Delta water to corporate agribusiness in the Central Valley can be increased during this period of drought, a drought that has been largely engineeered by the draining of northern California reservoirs over the past two years by the state and federal governments. He claimed that California agriculture is a "victim" of economic "eco-terrorism" caused by the ESA.

 

"By allowing the Delta Pumps to operate at increased capacity, the CDAA allows available water to flow to Valley farmers and provides a stimulus to the California economy without costing the taxpayer a dime, Radanovich said in a statement.

 

We cannot allow California agriculture to wither and die because our precious resources are being hijacked by what amounts to economic eco-terrorism in the form of the ESA and the entities that support this damaging law."

 

"Of course, Congressman Radanovich has forgotten the economic eco-terrorism that has been inflicted on commercial fisheries, the Delta sportsfishing economy, and Delta agriculture as a result of years of excessive water exports to support Central Valley agri- business," countered Parrilla.

 

"Even more disturbing is that Congressman Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced), one of the bill's co-sponsors, has forgotten that he represents people who live in the secondary zone of the Delta and that the people he represents in central Stockton are alarmed over the condition of Delta fisheries and what water exports have done to our local Delta economy," said Parrilla.

So, here's how you can help. First, call the eight sponsors of H.R. 856 to express your outrage at their disregard for the economic eco-interests of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Tell them that the business as usual regarding California water policy must end.

 

Direct them to the Restore the Delta website (http://www.restorethedelta.org) and tell them that Regional Water Self- Sufficiency, rather than moving water from Northern California to Southern California, is the best way to meet California's water needs. Tell them that they need to focus on breaking dependence on the Delta to meet the state's water needs. It is the cost effective way, in these difficult economic times, to address our water problems.

 

In addition, contact the following members of the House Natural Resources Committee to express your opposition to H.R. 856.

 

"Let them know that increased Delta exports in a time of drought will deal the final deathblow to Delta fisheries," said Parrilla. "Let them know that the Delta's $2.5 billion economy is dependent on water flowing into the Delta for fisheries and Delta agriculture. Let them know that Delta farms are mainly family farmers also deserving of economic protection."#

 

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2009/02/water_exporters.html

 

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