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Dying on the Vine: As another water war rages, the west side of California’s storied San Joaquin Valley waits for relief that may not come

Posted by: Maven on August 25, 2009 at 7:37 am

From Newsweek:

“Playing cards and a small wad of dollar bills sit on a pool table at Los Kiki, a dusty pool hall at the end of the main drag in Mendota, Calif. A breeze blows through a broken window, past six men hunched over the table, beer bottles in their hands. It is middle of a Wednesday afternoon. A year ago, they would have been out planting and pruning in the vast fields of grapes, tomatoes, onions, and nut trees that fan out from the city limits. But this year, many of those fields are lying fallow, and the men at Los Kiki are out of work.

“Before, it was good. There were jobs eight months, 10 months out of the year. Now, nothing,” says Luis Cortez, 52. Others nod in agreement. Cortez says he has worked just three days all year.

Mendota touts itself as the cantaloupe capital of the world, but its de facto motto is far less optimistic. “No water, no work” is the refrain repeated everywhere here in the western reaches of the San Joaquin Valley. The unemployment rate in this 10,000-person town was an unfathomable 38 percent in July (including documented and undocumented workers). Nearly all those who have lost their jobs are farm workers, who often straddle the poverty line even in boom times. The result is a cruel irony: in the region that produces more food than anywhere else in the country, food lines have become regular fixtures, drawing hundreds, sometimes thousands. …”

Read more from Newsweek by clicking here.

August 25, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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