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Tapping into anger: Powerful Central Valley water district challenges friends and foes in campaign to turn on the Delta spigot

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 1, 2010 at 8:02 am

dust bowlYesterday, the Sacramento Bee ran a story on Westlands Water District, which was a reprint of an article published by High Country News earlier in January. I did not post the link because I had already posted the story when it first ran at High Country News. It is my policy not to repost articles I have previously posted (at least not intentionally).

When the story ran on Aquafornia on January 12, it was my top out-click for the day. It’s a great story, and I’m glad to see Matt Jenkin’s work and the High Country News get the exposure they & the story deserve. So, just in case you missed it, here’s the story once again, appearing in yesterday’s Sacramento Bee:

“On Sept. 17, the famously hypertensive Fox News commentator Sean Hannity rolled into the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, satellite truck in tow. Months earlier, the federal government had announced that it was slashing water deliveries to local farmers, after it became clear that a 2-year-old drought would grind on for another year.

Central Valley farms are muscular emblems of American-style production agriculture, growing everything from tomatoes for Heinz ketchup to organic spinach for Amy’s-brand pizzas and vegetable pot pies. The farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley are confederated as the Westlands Water District, the largest irrigation district in the United States, which has a reputation for bare-knuckle combativeness. But Westlands has fared badly in the face of both the drought and water-pumping restrictions to protect a threatened fish called the Delta smelt. Last year, farmers in the Westlands district received only 10 percent of the water they hold federal contracts for, forcing them to leave roughly 156,000 acres – about a quarter of the district – unplanted.

Hannity and many others quickly blamed the crisis on the Endangered Species Act. … “

Read more from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

February 1, 2010 · Filed Under Westlands Water District

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