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Monday afternoon update: Salazar doesn’t quench farm thirst for water in California, announces aid to valley agribusiness, but doesn’t endorse canal

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 29, 2009 at 4:51 pm

From the Capital Ag Press:

A who’s-who of San Joaquin Valley agriculture was part of the crowd that packed a Fresno State student union on a blistering Sunday afternoon, June 28, to hear what they hoped would be good news from Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Salazar, dressed in boots and jeans, didn’t deliver any immediate relief to their water woes. Instead, he announced plans for some short-term and long-term fixes for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta so more water could be delivered to farms and communities to the south.

Hundreds of thousands of acres have been fallowed on the west side of the valley this year due to lack of surface water deliveries. The announced allotment is at 10 percent of normal. Unemployment in west side communities is near 40 percent.

Frustration with lack of action was apparent as audience members interrupted speakers shouting, “We don’t want welfare, we want water.” Four valley congressmen attending the meeting also drew loud cheers when they said the time for meetings and talk is over.

From The Packer.com:

Of the California speakers invited to address the officials, the warmest welcome was for Paul Rodriguez, president of the Sacramento-based Latino Water Coalition. The comedian and grower told the federal officials not to be confused by the coalition’s name. Its members include all ethic groups, he said.

“We grow the best produce and we grow patriots,” said Rodriguez, himself a veteran. “But while our young men and women are risking their lives to protect our freedoms abroad, back home, bureaucrats and court rulings are taking from their families the freedom to farm.”

The federal Endangered Species Act is flawed because it ignores the effects on human beings, said Tom Nassif, president and chief executive officer of Western Growers, Irvine, Calif. “Confidence in federal agencies cannot be restored until those agencies begin to make science-based decisions,” he told the officials.

Four members of Congress, Republicans George Radanovich and Devin Nunes and Democrats Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, said the lack of rainfall in California during the past three years is not the only culprit in the irrigation water dilemma. During their comments, each of the lawmakers, all of whom represent chunks of the San Joaquin Valley, used the phrase “regulatory drought.”

They referred to the Endangered Species Act and biological opinions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service that have resulted in reduced exports of water from Northern California to the valley and to Southern California.

Well, if the farmers weren’t impressed by the visit, the environmentalists weren’t either, according to Dan Bacher:

Salazar didn’t outright endorse a peripheral canal and more dams as requested by Valley Congressmen and agribusiness representatives as the solution to their “water supply problems,” nor did he agree to their request to convene the “God Squad” to gut protections for Delta smelt, Chinook salmon, green sturgeon and killer whales mandated under the Endangered Species Act. “Water supply and infrastructure are options that need to be looked at,” Salazar said. “However, we are are not at a point where we are supporting a peripheral canal or new reservoirs.”

He said that he has appointed Deputy Secretary David J Hayes as the lead official to coordinate federal response to California water supply and related environmental issues with the state and stakeholders, including the peripheral canal and Temperance and Sites Reservoirs.

“I’ve assigned the Deputy Secretary to find those solutions,” said Salazar. “I do expect that there will be a significant water supply component to these efforts.”

He also refused to convene the “Gold Squad” as requested by Representatives Nuns, Radanovich, Cardoza and Jim Costa, who slammed the ESA and the Delta smelt and salmon biological opinions for putting “fish over people.”

“To convene the God Squad would be admitting failure in the recovery of these species under the ESA,” said Salazar. “Where the God Squad has been invoked, it just created more litigation and compounded the problems it sought to address.”

He said that the administration must both establish the “certainty” and “realiabity” of water supplies and to fulfill the responsibilities for endangered species, unfortunately invoking the “co-equal” goal rhetoric of water supply and ecoystem restoration that led to the current ecosystem crash in the Delta under CalFed.

To the chagrin of recreational and commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, and environmental justice groups, Salazar, Hayes and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor said they would continue to work through the controversial Bay Delta Conservation Plan that includes a peripheral canal and more dams.

In fact, Salazar pledged “renewed federal involvement and leadership” in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and “federal engagement in water supply issues that extend beyond the scope of the BDCP and the immediate geography of the Bay Delta.”

“Significant progress will be made on the most contentious water supply and environmental issues by the end of 2009, including but not limited to the issues raised by the BDCP,” according to Salazar.

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June 29, 2009 · Filed Under Agriculture, Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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