Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 2, 2009
1. Top Items–
Thousands rally to protest water cuts in Fresno
S.F. Chronicle
Rally for water rights hits downtown Fresno
The Fresno Bee
GOP ads link Dems to Valley water crisis
The Fresno Bee
Water pumping restrictions to protect Delta smelt end
The Sacramento Bee
NV irrigation district loses motion in fraud case
Hanford Sentinel
Dangerous bacteria closes Mendocino Coast beach
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
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Thousands rally to protest water cuts in Fresno
S.F. Chronicle-7/2/0-9
By Tracie Cone (Associated Press)
Thousands of farmers, farmworkers and their supporters rallied at City Hall on Wednesday, calling on federal officials to ease regulations that have cut water supplies to the nation's most prolific growing region.
"Water makes the difference between the Garden of Eden and Death Valley," said comedian Paul Rodriguez, who acts as a spokesman for the Latino Water Coalition, a group lobbying for changes in water delivery policy regarding the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The noon rally was organized by the grower-funded group, which also organized an April march from Mendota (Fresno County) to the San Luis Reservoir hoping to draw national attention to the issue.
On Wednesday, nearly 4,000 people carrying professionally printed signs proclaiming, "No water, no jobs, no hope, no future," marched through downtown. One man who declined to give us name said his Kettleman City (Kings County) employer had driven him and other workers there and were paying them for their time. Another woman said she came with 50 other employees of a Tulare agriculture contractor for free, to protect their jobs.
Speakers stressed the importance of San Joaquin Valley agriculture, which they said produces more than half of the domestically grown U.S. food supply.
"If you like foreign oil, you'll love foreign food," some signs read.
The rally came on the heels of a visit Sunday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who assigned his chief deputy to stay in California to work full-time on solving the delta's many problems.
Growers, with the help of congressional delegates from the region, have asked officials to ease federal protections for threatened fish that have drastically reduced supplies pumped into the state's vast canal system. Federal agencies have ordered reduced pumping in the delta when the delta smelt are spawning in the area, leaving nearly empty the San Luis Reservoir that stores water for farmers and Southern California municipal users.
Farmers on the west side of Fresno County, the top-producing agriculture county in the U.S., will receive 10 percent of their federal water allocation this year as a result of cutbacks and drought that has led to idled land and layoffs.
Environmental activists and fishing groups say that without protections for the delta, the fishing industry will continue to suffer, as will the ocean species that depend on those fish for survival.
A.G. Kawamura, the director of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, said he came to march because "without a water system that has predictability," the state's agriculture infrastructure will collapse.
Farmer Joe Del Bosque, who owns 2,500 acres in western Madera County, said he had planted only half of his land this year because he doesn't have a well to supplement this year's water allocation.
"I don't know what I'm going to do," he said. "I'm completely dependent on surface water."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/02/BAIS18HJP8.DTL
Rally for water rights hits downtown Fresno
The Fresno Bee-7/1/09
By Robert Rodriguez
Ron Schafer and Alice Powlick aren't farmers or farmworkers. They are middle-school teachers who came to Wednesday's water rally in downtown Fresno on behalf of their students.
The teachers joined several thousand who jammed the front of City Hall to plead with the state and federal governments to provide the Valley with more irrigation water. Mike Lukens, city of Fresno spokesman, estimated the crowd at between 3,500 to 4,000 at its peak.
More than a dozen speakers, including Congressmen Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, and George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, blamed environmental protections along with a third dry year for the shortage of water for Valley farmers.
Schafer and Powlick say they see the ripple effects of the drought in their southeast Fresno classrooms.
"We hear the students talk about their parents being out work because of the drought," Schafer said. "And it is hard for them."
Powlick, a self-described "bleeding-heart liberal," said she doesn't agree with federal protections for smelt, a tiny fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a major artery for Valley irrigation water.
The massive water pumps at the southern end of the delta have been slowed and sometimes stopped so the fish wouldn't be sucked in and killed.
"I believe in the Endangered Species Act," Powlick said, "but when it comes to having food and keeping our kids in school, that easily wins over a fish."
After the noon rally, the diverse crowd of demonstrators marched for several blocks around downtown. Many carried signs that said: "If you like foreign oil, you'll like foreign food" and "Farm + Water = Jobs."
"We are marching because we need people to understand that without water, we don't have jobs," said farmworker Rosa Hernandez, of Firebaugh, who said she worked four days last month.
Other workers -- including Rigoberto Ybarra, an irrigator from the Five Points area -- are working fewer days a week. He said he was lucky his boss paid him to attend Wednesday's rally.
"Right now, we are all using money we have saved so we can pay our bills," Ybarra said. "Nobody has money to save this year."
The rally is the latest in a series of demonstrations that included a four-day march in April that began in Mendota and ended at the base of the San Luis Reservoir.
This year, farmers in the Westlands Water District, one of the largest farming regions in the state, received 10% of their federal water allocation. Many farmers said they were forced to fallow thousands of acres and lay off hundreds of workers.
Tim Riley, operations manager for Midland Tractor in Madera, sees the fallout of the drought at his store. Sales are down because farmers don't have the income to buy new equipment.
"I don't think people understand that this isn't just a problem for farmers. This affects a lot of different people," Riley said.
Among those in the audience was west side farmer Mark Borba, who said it is important to keep pressure on federal and state officials to make changes that balance the needs of all California water users.
"Some of these things are in place and can be done, but what is lacking is the political will," Borba said.
Among the short-term solutions Borba supports is a proposal to submerge massive barriers in the channels of the delta to protect threatened fish, such as smelt.
A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and a speaker at the rally, empathized with Valley farmworkers, saying the region has become the home of the frustrated and angry.
Rally organizers, including members of the California Latino Water Coalition, vow to take their battle for water to the streets of Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez, who chairs the coalition, said he will continue to fight on the region's behalf until they get the water they need.
"Unity is our strength," Rodriguez said. "And that's why I know we are going to win this."#
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1510498.html
GOP ads link Dems to Valley water crisis
Radio spots attack Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa
The Fresno Bee-7/1/09
By Michael Doyle (Bee Washington Bureau)
Republican strategists are now roughing up San Joaquin Valley congressional Democrats with radio ads linking them to the region's water woes.
In an aggressive new tack, the National Republican Congressional Committee on Wednesday began running a 60-second radio ad attacking Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno. The ad running throughout the week links the two Democrats to systemic irrigation-water shortages.
"Cardoza and Costa can't persuade Democrat leaders to change radical environmental laws," the ad intones. "So while the congressmen fail ... the Valley goes dry."
The Republican Congressional Committee did not offer further explanation for this particular ad or the targeting. The campaign committee is, however, running a number of ads against Democrats. For instance, this week, the committee also initiated ads attacking 14 other Democrats on energy issues.
The ad's consequences may be hard to track, as the next election is still 17 months away. Both incumbents represent Democratic-leaning districts and neither has attracted a strong Republican challenger in the past.
Factually, the ad omits some crucial context.
The primary law being referred to is the Endangered Species Act. Federal judges including U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush, have ordered water diversions for species protected by the law.
Representing rural districts, with farmers and developers among their regular campaign contributors, Costa and Cardoza have been consistently critical of the current Endangered Species Act.
The two Valley Democrats have also aligned themselves with Valley Republicans on water-related votes and championed myriad water projects.
"I don't believe anyone has done more to advocate the water issue than I have for the past 25 years," Costa said Wednesday.
Cardoza added that the ad was "unmitigated baloney" and said, "We need cool heads to prevail and a whole lot less partisan rhetoric."
Among political strategists, though, attack ads are sometimes employed
not to defeat an incumbent or push a policy but primarily to keep the lawmaker on the defensive.
Two weeks ago, Costa and Cardoza were among 37 House Democrats voting for an unsuccessful amendment that would have blocked a federal decision steering more irrigation water toward animal protection.
The decision issued last month by the National Marine Fisheries Service will cut urban and irrigation water deliveries by between 5% and 7% to protect salmon. Wanger had ordered the agency to prepare its revised "biological opinion" after concluding that a 2004 decision was inadequate.
"When will this stop? When our valley has no more water left for its farmers and its farmworkers?" Costa asked during the June 17 House debate, adding that "this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue."
The author of the California water amendment, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, blasted House Democratic leaders for "destroying the economy of the San Joaquin Valley." Nunes, nonetheless, stressed that Costa and Cardoza are "trying their best to deal with their leadership to try to bring some attention to this problem."
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1511134.html
Water pumping restrictions to protect Delta smelt end
The Sacramento Bee-7/1/09
By Matt Weiser
Federal officials on Tuesday ended seasonal water pumping restrictions intended to protect the threatened Delta smelt.
The end of the water flow limits came in accordance with a biological opinion that governs Delta water export pumping only through June 30. Tuesday's action means water exports this summer no longer will be restricted specifically to protect smelt. The pumping rules don't resume again until winter.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules aim to protect the fingerling smelt when the fish migrate deeper into the Delta in winter to spawn, and then remain in the region as juveniles to feed.
This natural migration makes the fish vulnerable to the massive state and federal water export pumps near Tracy, which reverse natural river flows and suck millions of fish to their deaths every year.
The Delta smelt population has declined steeply since 2000 and may be near extinction. Water agencies say the pumping limits have aggravated California's three-year drought, causing crop fallowing and economic woe in the San Joaquin Valley.
The rules are intended to restore the species and prevent the need for additional restrictions in the future.#
http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/1992700.html
NV irrigation district loses motion in fraud case
Hanford Sentinel-7/2/09
By Scott Sonner
Lawyers for officials of a rural Nevada irrigation district accused of defrauding the government lost a bid Wednesday to force U.S. prosecutors to turn over more documents and grand jury transcripts they claim would help prove their clients' innocence.
But U.S. Magistrate Robert McQuaid Jr. also said he may order more transcripts released in the future if the attorneys for the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District and three of its employees can show more specifically how the material is relevant to their defense.
A federal grand jury in Reno handed up an indictment in December accusing the district and the three men of falsifying records documenting the delivery of water to area farmers and ranchers from 200-05.
http://hanfordsentinel.com/articles/2009/07/02/ap-state-ca/d995ukj82.txt
Dangerous bacteria closes Mendocino Coast beach
Santa Rosa Press Democrat-7/1/09
By Glenda Anderson
Mendocino County health officials are warning swimmers to stay out of the water at Pudding Creek Lagoon, a popular beach just north of the city of Fort Bragg.
Laboratory tests found elevated numbers of illness-causing bacteria in the water, according to an advisory issued Wednesday by Environmental Health Director John Morley.
The source of the coliform bacteria, a fecal contaminant, appears to be wildlife, he said.
The lagoon will be sampled again on July 7 to see whether the bacteria have decreased to a safe level, Morley said.
Information on water quality at Pudding Creek Lagoon and other popular beaches on the Mendocino Coast can be obtained by calling 463-5425.#
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090701/ARTICLES/907019871
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