Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
April 13, 2009
1. Top Item–
'March for Water' takes a page from Cesar Chavez
The Sacramento
Marchers draw attention to lack of water
The
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'March for Water' takes a page from Cesar Chavez
The Sacramento
By E.J. Schultz
They have rallied and lobbied, pleading for more water to revive the
Now, hoping to bring national attention to their cause, members of the Latino Water Coalition will lead a four-day "California March for Water," scheduled to begin Tuesday in Mendota and end near Los Banos.
If all goes as planned, thousands of farmworkers, farmers, college students and others will make the trek, covering portions of Highway 33 and Interstate 5 and ending at the San Luis Reservoir on Friday.
Organizers make no bones about it – they want to evoke memories of Cesar Chavez and his legendary marches for farmworker rights in the 1960s and '70s.
"Mexicans know what a march means," said Mario Santoyo, a member of the coalition. "It means that they're willing to sacrifice for a cause."
But these are different times, for sure.
Chavez led boycotts of growers in his drive to unionize farmworkers. The Latino Water Coalition, which includes Latino business and civic leaders, works in concert with growers. Together they lobby for state money for dams and canals and the lifting of pumping restrictions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that were imposed to comply with environmental laws.
The cutbacks and drought have forced growers to leave land uncultivated, leaving farmworkers without jobs.
The march "is kind of a union between the farmworkers and the farmers because they're both hit," said Santoyo, an assistant general manager at Friant Water Users Authority, which represents east Valley growers.
The union Chavez founded – the United Farm Workers – is not participating in the march and declined to comment. Another group that advocates for farmworkers questioned how much of the coalition's message is being driven by farmers, not farmworkers.
"This is not being organized from the ground up, as far as I can tell, (and) it's hard for us to participate for that reason," said Laurel Firestone, who heads the
The march is the biggest undertaking yet of the coalition, formed in 2006 at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's urging. The group registered for nonprofit status in December.
The governor has been trying to broker a multibillion-dollar water bond deal since early 2007. But he and the coalition have run into resistance from Democrats, most of whom have sided with environmentalists, who support pumping restrictions and oppose new dams.
Environmentalists were careful not to criticize the march, but they said the coalition's goals are misplaced.
Organizers said they are expecting up to 3,000 people to march the first day and a few hundred the following two days.
The event will cost an estimated $60,000, which is mostly being picked up by donations from area farmers and businesses. #
http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/1775078.html
Marchers draw attention to lack of water
It's bound to be a strange sight for speeding motorists: Hundreds or even thousands of people dressed in blue and walking alongside Interstate 5 on their way from Mendota to the San Luis Reservoir.
That's the vision organizers have for the March for Water, a four-day trek beginning Tuesday to protest the lack of irrigation water in the parched western half of the
Drought and environmental cutbacks in water deliveries from the Sacramento River Delta will terminate 60,000 ag jobs and lead to $1.6 billion in lost revenue in the coming months, according to a
The reason? Three years of below-average precipitation and a court ruling in 2007 that curtails pumping deliveries to many Westside growers in order to protect the endangered Delta smelt fish.
That has left virtually everybody in the ag industry angry and frustrated.
And motivated to march.
Though next week's event is spearheaded by the California Latino Water Coalition to protest unemployment as high as 40 percent in some Westside communities, many others in the industry have gladly jumped on the bandwagon.
The event may be going on in
Brooks Farms happens to be in the Westlands Water District, which learned earlier this year that is would be getting no surface water deliveries from the federal Central Valley Project.
Like other farmers in the same predicament, Phil Brooks, Rhonda Brook's husband, left much of his land empty and unplanted to use the well water on his valuable almond trees.
Thirty-plus years of farming in her family made participation in the march seem natural for Rhonda.
She plans to support the marchers with food and water.
"I mean, the whole nation is eventually going to be affected by this. I'm not just thinking of my family, but the whole ag industry and anybody that's affiliated with it," she said.
When Westlands officials warned the district's growers in February that they wouldn't be getting any water, Waymire was long gone, having shifted his farming operation to central Kings County where the well water is better and the water situation is less precarious.
"We just figured the risk of ever having a zero allocation was too great," he said.
Now, Waymire does consulting for Westside growers trying to buy water on the open market.
He said he plans to stay with the march all four days as work permits.
"I'm going to have my laptop with me. We've got to go and just help each other. To me, this is for the Valley," he said.
The march strikes an emotional nerve for PIedad Ayala, a Clovis-based farm labor contractor who grew up in Avenal and has crews working in
Except the number of his people with work has shriveled along with the drought.
"It's pretty sad that we have to go through this. Zero percent water for our farmers? Come on. Where is our government? I really don't get it," he said.
Ayala said construction workers unable to find jobs are coming back to the fields only to find that there aren't many openings there either.
"Give us the water back. As soon as they turn the pumps on, I can get back to my day job," Ayala said.#
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2009/04/11/news/doc49e03fe32fb48796108537.txt
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