[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 5/20/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

May 20, 2009

 

1.   Top Item–

 

 

Drought is the cause of economic suffering

Sacramento Bee – 05/20/09

By Amarpreet S. Dhaliwal and Robert Silva

 

Amarpreet S. Dhaliwal is mayor of the city of San Joaquin. Robert Silva is mayor of Mendota.

Central Valley farmworkers – a large share of whom are Latino – have worked with farmers and business people for decades to make California the world's major producer of fruits, vegetables, nuts and other commodities. The agriculture industry is a major producer of California jobs as well as food.

 

History and firsthand experience tell us that when there is water there also are jobs and prosperity.

 

However, this year we face devastating drought conditions and hyper-unemployment, greatly intensified by court-ordered water cutbacks. We have been vocal about the primary cause of our hardship: drought.

 

At the same time, we also are being attacked by those who would like nothing more than for us to just shut up, accept our terrible conditions and take our place quietly on the sidelines. Recently, an associate professor at the University of the Pacific in Stockton released an economic forecast that said high unemployment in the Central Valley was not caused by the drought. Incredibly, he went on to suggest that farm payrolls are somehow a jobs bonanza.

 

As mayors representing two cities in which farming is the dominant industry, we know this is not true. More important, we and tens of thousands of our constituents will not allow these so called "forecasts" to be unquestionably assumed to be credible while our towns are parched out of existence for lack of water.

It is a fact: We have been hit hard by terrible drought conditions and it is impacting our economy.

 

Unemployment in Fresno County is 17 percent, the highest in a decade and a full six percentage points higher than one year ago. In some towns – such as our cities of Mendota and San Joaquin – the unemployment rate is at least 40 percent and approaching 50 percent.

 

Reciting data does not adequately describe the hardship of unemployment caused by drought. Times are particularly difficult for those on the bottom rung of the economic ladder – those who do not have the means to withstand a prolonged downturn. Talking to real people in our cities makes it clear there is much firsthand, eyewitness evidence of the hardship caused by man-made drought.

 

It is overwhelming for many people to see, much less endure, such conditions. Recent food handouts in Mendota and nearby Firebaugh drew lines more than a half-mile long. Dozens of people recently camped out or arrived in the middle of the night to line up for a handful of short-term jobs. People wait for hours outside grocery stores, not to buy food but to accept produce that's thrown out because it is too old to sell. Ironically, many lawns are overgrown with weeds because it is the only vegetation that can grow without water.

 

Now add to this misery "economic forecasts" that suggest the unemployment rate, which has put a stranglehold on our state, has somehow skipped farming. And the business forecaster from the University of the Pacific was given 800 words in The Sacramento Bee and Fresno Bee to say the impact of drought on employment was overblown.

 

To suggest that our jobless residents are not impacted by the drought conditions is an outrageous, outright fallacy. What's more, these reports are harmful to the people suffering most – unemployed farmworkers. It takes nothing more than a look at employment data for the whole state compared with farm communities in and around Fresno to completely discredit this argument.

 

So we invite those who believe the drought is not at the center of the remarkable hardship we are facing to come see firsthand. On your way, drive through thousands of fallowed acres and stumped fields. Pass by pumping stations that are locked up. Notice the ponds, streams and other water features that are bone-dry. Drive into towns that are becoming dust bowls.

 

Get out of your car and explain to local residents why they don't need any more water. Describe your statistical model that shows there are plenty of jobs even though they have been unable to find work. Explain why our family and friends aren't worth helping by building water infrastructure that would provide short-term employment and long-term environmental and farming benefit. Then, look children in the eye, and tell them that they are not really hungry.

 

This is the intense and very personal reality we face every day. While debates go on in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C., and academics write disparaging forecasts, fish are given 100 percent of their water allocation. Much of the San Joaquin Valley is receiving zero to 10 percent of its allocation because of man-made drought. Millions of federal dollars are doled out for projects that help fish; zero dollars go to protect California residents hit by this drought.

 

Claims that unemployment is not connected to drought are, in our opinion, a challenge to our honesty. That is why we have to stand up and describe the reality of the situation in defiance of those who would prefer that we just go away. We will not let someone unfairly label us because we are Latinos and are not from some privileged class. We will demand a seat at the table when it comes to water rights. We will travel to Sacramento or Washington to make our cases. We will continue to march for water. #

http://www.sacbee.com/1190/story/1866219.html

 

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