(NOTE - This article was copied from SFIMC website, and is reposted here with added comments since this relates to the San Joaquin Valley region, closer to L.A. than S.F. We all need to consider making serious changes with our farmlands, especially in the San Joaquin Valley.)

original article @;

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/03/03/18574813.php

The California Water Wars: Not A Conflict Between Fish and People

by Dan Bacher

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Department of Water Resources and corporate agribusiness have continually tried to frame the battle over restoring the California Delta and Central Valley rivers as one of “fish versus people.”

This false dichotomy was exemplified by an article published in the Sacramento Bee, “Delta cutbacks put Valley farm town on edge,” by Susan Ferris on Monday, March 2.

The reporter interviewed people in the agricultural industry in Mendota on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side discussing their fears over unemployment, due to cuts in irrigation water deliveries from the Delta that are being blamed on court ordered reductions in water exports to save salmon and Delta smelt. These fears are real, due to poor planning by the state and federal governments, who drained Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs to record low levels over the past two below-normal water years rather than conserving water like they should have.

"They're worrying about the fish but not about the humans' life," said Jose Ruiz, 42, a foreman at a vegetable firm in Mendota, as quoted by Ferriss.

Unfortunately, this characterization of the battle to save the Delta as a one of “people versus fish” couldn’t be further from the truth. Because of massive exports of water to the Westlands Water District and Kern County and the Governor’s plan to build a peripheral canal to divert even more water, thousands of jobs are threatened as they never have been before!

These include thousands of jobs in the recreational and commercial fishing industries, the tourist industries of coastal and Sacramento Valley communities, and on Delta and Sacramento Valley farms.

This is not an issue of “fish versus people versus fish” nor “fish versus jobs.” The battle to save the Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, really comes down to a conflict between a future based on sustainable fishing, farming and recreation or a future based on corporate agribusiness irrigating toxic, drainage impaired land that should have never been farmed at the expense of Delta and Sacramento Valley farms and healthy fisheries.

Recreational and commercial fishing in California are largely dependent upon the health of the California Delta since the Central Valley Chinook salmon run, the driver of West Coast salmon fisheries, migrates through the estuary both as juveniles going out to the ocean and as adults coming back to the rivers to spawn. The Bay-Delta estuary also supports an array of species, including native species such as California halibut, herring, Dungeness crab, delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, white sturgeon, green sturgeon and starry flounder, as well as introduced fish including striped bass, black bass, and white catfish.

Another Year of Salmon Fishing Closures Loom

The recent biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service stated that Delta pumping and Central Valley dam operations pose “jeopardy” to the continued existence of Central Valley salmon, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales.

The closure of salmon fishing in ocean waters off California and Oregon in 2009 was economically devastating to coastal communities. The shutdown of recreational salmon fishing on Central Valley rivers, with the exception of a two-month season on a short stretch of the Sacramento, was equally devastating to Sacramento Valley communities.

The states of Washington, Oregon and California estimated damages to the fishing industry to total $290 million last year because of the ocean and river salmon closures. This prompted the Governors of California, Oregon and Washington to request a federal disaster declaration that then Secretary Carlos Gutierrez issued in May. Congress allocated $170 million in disaster relief to fishermen and fishing related businesses so that they could make boat payments, insurance payments, mortgage payments and keep food on the table.

The forecast this year is for another very poor return of Sacramento fall Chinook but a healthy return of Klamath River fall Chinook, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), the federal body that crafts West Coast salmon and groundfish seasons every year. Only 66,264 adult fall Chinooks returned to the Sacramento River basin in 2008, the lowest spawning escapement on record. It is expected that commercial and recreational salmon fishing in the ocean off California and Oregon will be closed again this year.

The 2009 forecast for Sacramento River Fall Chinook is 122,196 absent any fishing. “This is at the bottom end of the spawning escapement goal range of 122,000‐180,000 adult natural spawning and hatchery fish,” according to a statement from the PFMC. “The 2009 forecast compares to the 2008 forecast of 54,600. While roughly twice the abundance of last year’s unprecedented low, this would be the third lowest return since 1992-3.”

“This is grim news for the State of California,” emphasized Council Chairman Don Hansen. “We won’t be able to talk about this without using the word ‘disaster.’ There has been a tremendous appeal from people in Fort Bragg, California for at least some sort of Chinook season to target the healthy Klamath runs in 2009, and people on the central Oregon coast have been asking for a fishery on just hatchery‐origin coho. But that was before this forecast was released.”

He said the Council process will consider the pros and cons of this issue “thoroughly” at their meetings in March and April.

Klamath River fall Chinook are forecast to be at a level of 81,000 fish prior to any fishing, compared to a natural spawner floor of 35,000 and a goal of 41,700 to produce the maximum sustainable number of fish.

California - Number One In Commercial Fishing and Number Three in Recreational Fishing

The ridiculousness of portraying the California Water Wars as a conflict between “fish and jobs” becomes even more apparent when one considers the data contained in a new economic report released by the National Marine Fisheries Service that lists California as the number one state for commercial fishing jobs and income and number three state for recreational fishing.

The report says U.S. commercial and recreational fishing generated more than $185 billion in sales and supported more than two million jobs in 2006. The commercial fishing industry generated $103 billion in sales, $44 billion in income and supported 1.5 million jobs in 2006, the most recent year included in the report, “Fisheries Economics of the United States, 2006,” which covers 1997 to 2006. Recreational fishing generated $82 billion in sales, $24 billion in income, and supported 534,000 jobs in 2006.

The highest amount of sales generated by the commercial fishing industry were in California ($9.8 billion), Florida ($5.2 billion), Massachusetts ($4.4 billion), Washington ($3.8 billion), and Alaska ($3 billion). The most jobs were generated in California (179,000), Florida (103,000), Massachusetts (83,000), Washington (75,000) and Texas (47,000).

Recreational fishing generated its highest economic effect in total sales and jobs generated in Florida ($7.6 billion sales, 131,000 jobs); Texas ($2.2 billion sales, 34,000 jobs); California ($1.9 billion sales, 23,000 jobs); North Carolina ($1.2 billion sales, 24,000 jobs); and Louisiana ($1.2 billion sales, 27,000 jobs).

Fisheries Economics of the United States, 2006 is available online at: http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st5/index.html

Is the cost of destroying the thousands of jobs provided to the economy by California and Oregon fisheries, the tourist industry, and Delta and Sacramento Valley farms worth providing subsidized water to corporate agribusiness to irrigate toxic, drainage impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley?

South Delta farmer Alex Hildebrand put the current Delta fish and water quality declines and the effort to build a peripheral canal into the historical perspective of the rise and collapse of civilizations in his recent speech at the Restore the Delta symposium in Lodi.

“Societies rise, flourish and eventually crash because they misuse their water,” said Hildebrand. “As those ancient civilizations fell, they trashed their environment."

For more information about what you can do to save Central valley salmon, southern resident killer whales and the Delta, go to http://www.calsport.org, http://www.water4fish.org and http://www.restorethedelta.org.



Added Comment;

§The California Water Wars: Not A Conflict Between Fish and People

by David

Wednesday Mar 4th, 2009 8:33 PM

The water party is over we are in trouble. Everyone needs to cut back and put in play strong water politics. We need to have a 3rd party monitor the cities and the water waste. They tell us we need to save water yet we pump millions of gallons out to sea everyday, lets convert it into greywater for outdoor cleaning and watering. We need the fish and we need the humans. I have made it a passion of mine to find ways to conserve. I have even invented a Dual Flush Conversion Kit for standard toilets to allow people to save water without a major money outlay. A average family can save a swimming pool of water each year…now that is green or in this case BLUE. If anyone would like to save the fish buy a dual flush retrofit and save their water. Water is the next oil, do we want to import that to, or design our cities and homes better? Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should use devices like SelectAFlush as a front line tool to help solve this water crises fast. At a retail price of less than $40.00 can you imagine how many toilets can be converted to dual flush at a bulk wholesale price? I think the fish would support this as well. The SelectAFlush blog also contains some great ways to save water. I feel the plan should include dual flush conversion kits as they save a major amount of water but do not impact our dump with old toilets.

http://www.dualflushkit.com

Added Comment;

§Tepary Beans; Water, Jobs, Farms & Fish

by High Time 4 Drought Tolerant Crops!

Tuesday Mar 10th, 2009 12:20 PM

What if there were a crop that San Joaquin farmers could grow that wouldn't require as large amounts of water inputs, thus saving fish AND farmworker jobs??

Well there is, and that crop is tepary bean, an indigenous legume that produces a high protein bean with very little water input required. Tepary beans have evolved in the hot, dry Sonoran desert ecosystem and would also do well in San Joaquin's near desert conditions. Tepary beans are drought tolerant crops that are easily capable of solving CA's water crisis once and for all, if only they were implemented as potential crops for the Central Valley farmers. Any crop can create a market once it is grown and people become aware of the benefits of this plant..

some background on tepary beans;

"A frequent question ECHO receives from people working in the semi-arid tropics is, "It is so dry here! What plants can we grow with so little rain?" The tepary bean, Phaseolus acutifolius, is a promising crop for semi-arid to arid regions with infrequent but heavy rains and extreme heat.

This native plant of the Sonoran desert in western North America has been an important cultivated food of native Americans for over 5,000 years. When planted toward the end of the rainy season, tepary beans may receive sufficient moisture in a few heavy rains early in their growth to mature and produce quickly, even when conditions at the end of their life cycle are extremely hot and dry. Sometimes, when planted in recently water-logged soils of certain types, production is possible without any additional rain. Richard Pratt at Purdue University did yield trials where he compared the effect of drought on teparies and on common beans. As he cut back on water, the yield of common beans decreased steadily, whereas the yield of tepary beans actually increased up to a point before they also eventually dropped off. Tepary beans have good potential to yield when very little other food is available.

The countless landraces and local varieties vary widely in color, seed size, and growth habit, but most yield their high-protein crop just 60-90 days after planting. The leaves and young pods are a leguminous forage nutritionally comparable to alfalfa. Dried pods may also be fed to animals. Plants are bushy to semi-vining on dry land, with more extensive vining and foliage growth when water is plentiful. The seeds and trifoliate leaves are a bit smaller than in the common bean. Because they are extremely resistant to common bacterial blight, which affects other beans in the tropics, they are used in breeding programs to impart this resistance to the (American) common bean Phaseolus vulgaris.

Tepary beans can thrive in areas with as little as 500-600 mm (20-24 in) rain per year, and seed production drops with over 1000 mm/year (40 in). Seeds are generally planted 10-20 cm (4-8 in) deep to utilize the lower water reserves. Plants often receive 3 or 4 irrigations in the early stages of growth. (Continued irrigation can actually lead to increased vegetative growth and lower seed yield.) Teparies prefer well-drained soils and are fairly tolerant of alkaline or saline soils. They may mature more quickly at mid elevations than coastal regions."

further info @;

http://www.echotech.org/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=280&Itemid=304

Furthermore, tepary beans produce the greatest amount of beans with the least amounts of water, overwatering tepary beans actually decreases their yield in beans!!

"Martha Burgess, education director of Native Seeds/ Search, a seed bank and research and education organization here that studies and promotes the use of native desert plant foods, said, for example, that "If tepary bean plants are given lots of water, they produce tons of foliage and few beans," adding, "But if the plants are starved of water, they put their effort into flowers and seeds and produce beans that can have as much protein as soybeans."

"

article @;

http://www.manataka.org/page1513.html

The problem here is not whether or not tepary beans will grow in the San Joaquin without much water, that can be predetermined as evidenced by other nearby regions like Arizona where tepary crops are now being grown. The biggest obstacle is getting the San Joaquin agribusiness corporations to shift their crops from thirsty varieties like cotton, iceberg lettuce and other temperate moist climate crops inappropriate for the desert region willingly and quickly.

The San Joaquin agribusiness corporations are wasting more time and energy trying to fight legal battles to attain ever more water for crops that are not suited for the dry regions, than by simply facing reality and adapting to the ecosystem by growing drought tolerant crops like tepary bean..

So how do people encourage the farm crop shift to drought tolerants in the San Joaquin? If the state won't help provide encouragement to convert crops, then would a campsino style farmland occupation be needed to encourage change?

It is unfair that agribusiness corporations continue the unsustainable practices on the landbase we all share, and why the agribusiness corporations can claim title to the land when they prove themselves unable to provide ecological stewardship with their crops practices. If the habitually wasteful agribusiness corporations of the San Joaquin Valley will not cooperate by converting their crops to drought tolerant tepary beans, than the land needs to be made available to the farmworkers who have studied and are prepared to use the land to grow drought tolerant food crops like tepary beans..

That is the simplest and most logical solution, no peripheral canal, no raising of dams or other interferences in the natural water cycle. Time is now to start working with the water system as is, and that means growing drought tolerant crops in desert regions, including the San Joaquin Valley..