Yesterday, the Democrats in both houses laid out their plans for we manage one of the most critical issues in the state in the era of climate change: the San Joaquin Valley/Sacramento delta water issues.  Rather than focusing on specific projects, Sen. Lois Wolk and others are looking to build a structure that can be a trusted arbiter as we look to divide what little water we have to a slew of purposes.

The legislation, which is to be fleshed out in a conference committee when lawmakers return to Sacramento later this month, does not specifically authorize any projects. Rather, it creates the Delta Stewardship Council, which would have the authority to pursue delta restoration work and a “water conveyance facility.”

Four of the council’s seven members would be appointed by the governor and two by the Legislature. The seventh would be the chair of the Delta Protection Commission.

The bills call for water conservation and delta protections. They would also set in motion a potentially explosive examination of water rights in the delta watershed.

“Neither the delta ecosystem nor the state’s water needs have been well served by decades of benign neglect,” said Silicon Valley Sen. Joe Simitian, author of one of five bills in the package and chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. “The system of governance is broken and the system of conveyance is broken.”  (LA Times 8/6/09)

How critical is this issue? Well, let’s start with what we know:

• The Valley floor is sinking. Because we have taken too much water from the groundwater supply, the San Joaquin Valley has actually fallen several feet in some areas. The picture to the right is from Mendota back in 1977. It has gotten worse since. The USGS performed a study on subsidence back in 1999 showing some really bad side effects other than just the lowering valley floor.  After the floor falls, the aquifer permanently loses storage capacity, making the provisioning of water to crops even more difficult.

• Crops are dying in the fields. In some places, farmers are simply leaving their feilds fallow as there is not enough water to bring them to maturity. However, where you have longstanding crops, like fruit trees, the consequences of a couple really bad water years last much longer.

• Endangered species are being slowly killed off in the Delta. The Delta was once home to a number of species found nowhere else. However, as we have increasingly relied on pumping, we have not only killed many of them as they went through our pumps, we have also changed the salinity of the Delta, creating a slight, but important, change in the environment.

• The decreasing water flows to our creeks and rivers threatens our fisheries.

• Climate change will bring increased flooding and droughts.

• Apparently people need water to survive in cities.

These are, of course, only a few of the problems that we are facing with respect to water. And as it stands, there are a lot of parties involved, federal, state, and municipal water districts. And the chain of command is rather sketchy.  Few are looking at the region as a whole rather than just their little portion. If this package of bills gets through, at least that will change.

But one thing that should be made clear to every Californian is that water is prescious.  We should not waste a single drop. Despite the fact that consumer usage accounts for only around 20% of overall usage, we need to ensure that we aren’t using more than we absolutely need. While water is a fundamental right of living, and should be kept cheap, we should understand just how much value it truly has. One of the bills in this package, AB 49 would require 20% conservation from all users. This is a laudable goal as we move forward into a changing climate.

The package of bills isn’t a complete solution for all of our water woes, but it is a good step in the right direction, especially for the Delta.  However, we cannot sit back and just figure the Legislature is on this. Sure, they are working on the issue, but we need to keep up pressure on our leaders to enact sensible comprehensive legislation that deals with how California thrives in a changing climate in the 21st Century.

You can check out the full package at the Senate’s atrocious website. (Seriously Senate people, this is supposed to be California, the innovation state. Can’t we get a website from this century?)

From today’s Beyond Chron.

As in a variety of politically contentious arenas, approaches to water supply range from progressive to conservative. The former side demands water conservation and free-flowing rivers, while the latter wants more dams and limitless development. Odd, then, that one of the most liberal areas of California would find itself teetering on the edge of the far right of this spectrum. East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) wants an expensive, destructive dam expansion in the Sierra Nevada foothills to address a currently non-existent lack of water. Their reason? So the region can keep building up its unaffordable bedroom communities, and new residents can keep wasting cheap water like they lived in Seattle during a monsoon.

The Proposal

Next month, EBMUD will hold hearings on a proposal to drop a new 400 foot dam onto the Mokelumne River, about 30 miles northeast of Stockton. The dam would replace the current 345-foot Pardee Dam, resulting in an increase of enough storage capacity to serve a city roughly the size of Portland.

Some impacts would come quickly. Millions of gallons that currently find their way into the delta would be redirected, hastening the area’s ecological collapse. Miles of river recently declared eligible for Wild and Scenic status by the federal government would be drowned, ending the steady stream of recreationalists that regularly kayak down the river. And the Middle Bar Bridge, built near the turn of the century and recently restored to the tune of more than $650,000, would be cut down and removed.

But dam construction would also have consequences that would take a while to bubble to the surface. A cash-strapped state would be constructing an extremely expensive project while cutting essential services to a broad spectrum of people. The river’s tourism industry, as well as the state’s salmon fishing industry, would take a severe hit during brutal economic times. And a place close to the hearts of thousands of Northern California residents would be eliminated.

Considering all the havok replacement of the Pardee Dam would wreak, you’d think EBMUD would have an air-tight, life-or-death argument for proposing such a project. But in California, water and logic rarely go hand in hand.

The ‘Need’

One reason a utility district like EBMUD would seek out more water would be spiking demand, an upward trend so steep that no amount of conservation could ever hope to catch it. Yet oddly enough, water use in the District declined from 1970 to 2005, from 220 million gallons a day to 205. Scratch that idea.

Another would be that no new sources of water remain available, striking fear in the heart of the District that dependence on only one source of water (EBMUD gets 90 percent of its water from the Mokelumne) could lead to disaster. Yet with the $500 million Freeport Water Project recently completed, the District now gets up to 100 million gallons a day from the Sacramento River during dry years, representing a major new source should anything happen to their current system. Scratch that idea too.

The only remaining reasonable reason would be fear of a drought, a desperate attempt to ensure that whatever ills wrought by climate change and strange weather patterns would not catastrophically affect the District’s water supply. Yet here may lie the most confusing aspect of the proposed project – making the dam bigger doesn’t guarantee more supply during an extended drought. During many years, the Mokelumne is unable to utilize the capacity of even the existing Pardee Dam. This means that when a drought starts, the chances that the expanded reservoir will be full are slim at best. Such a scenario would leave the extra water supposedly provided by the new dam lost to the dust.

Given no reasonable reasons for the new dam, it’s best to look elsewhere.

The Real Reasons

EBMUD itself outlined a slew of alternatives to the new dam in their Water Supply Management Program, alternatives which could ensure a reliable and safe water supply for the region for many years to come. Water recycling, expanded conservation strategies, and pricing systems to reduce demand all represent avenues towards the goal of a stable East Bay.

The problem with many of these options involves the sacrifice they require from water users. Past attempts to charge heavy water users their fair share – or at least enough so they start reducing the amount they use – sparked claims from EBMUD that residents and businesses would revolt, either packing up and leaving or refusing to pay for their water.

This tactic will strike many as eerily familar, as it mirrors an argument often used by conservatives to battle proposed tax increases that primarily affect the wealthy. A rate increase on big water users in the East Bay would be just that. Such an increase could achieve its goals without increasing rates in low-income communites like Richmond at all, as these areas use the least amount of water in the region. The increases would, however, disproportionately impact single family ranchettes on the eastern edge of the region. Apparently, the District knows which side their bread is buttered on.

Rate increases and other conservation strategies could also be drastically curtailed if the District didn’t believe the area would see extensive growth. Yet in its Water Supply Management Program, the District estimated a growth rate of more than double the current rate for the region. The estimate is too inflated to be merely an attempt at conservative estimates – instead, the District remains intent on ensuring it won’t stand in the way of progress.

If past events are any indicator, that ‘progress’ will involve more water-sucking single-family homes on the outskirts of the District.

The Future of Water in California

The idea that California can continue to allow relentless growth by trying to squeeze out more water from already over-appropriated rivers represents a step back in thinking of several decades. EBMUD and communities throughout the state must start thinking more creatively and rationally about how to ensure a sustainable future.

Ending growth entirely isn’t necessary. High-denisty housing, built in areas already served by infrastructure and with the latest water conservation technology, would increase water demand by a fraction of that of new suburban development.

But hard decisions must be made. Residents of the East Bay and elsewhere can’t keep expecting to use water like our supply will never end. It’s the duty of our elected boards and public agencies to put in place strategies now that ensure our survival through whatever tempests may come our way. Friends of the River and a variety of other environmental organizations are organizing efforts to stop the expansion of Pardee Dam. But in a world where decision-makers take full responsibility for their actions, EBMUD would have never had the audacity to propose it in the first place.

Water is at the heart of the Central Valley’s daily life, and the southern part of that, the San Joaquin Valley, is always desperately looking for water.  In the middle of the century, the SJ Valley received a bunch of water from the feds and a few state water projects. That allowed the groundwater to work its way back, but the last 45 years have been bad as the water projects have gradually drawn water away from the agricultural purposes and to fishing and urban water priorities.

The result was a process of tapping ground water, leaving the Valley to slowly sink. And since 1961, the results have been quite severe:

California’s San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. That’s enough water for 60 Folsom reservoirs.

*  *  *

According to the study, groundwater pumping continues to cause the valley floor to sink, a problem known as subsidence. This threatens the stability of surface structures such as the California Aqueduct, which delivers drinking water to more than 20 million people.

* * *

One consequence has been land subsidence over vast areas of the San Joaquin Valley. The most severe drop is about 29 feet near Mendota, which occurred before the canals were built, said Al Steele, an engineering geologist at the state Department of Water Resources in Fresno. (SacBee 7/13/09)

Of course, if the Aqueduct goes, at least the South of the state will begin to pay a lot more attention to the issue.  Much of the water for SoCal comes directly through the Aqueduct.

Our use of resources over the last half century has left in a very poor position to deal with our current drought. Unless we get some rain or come up with some solutions, the future of farming, and of life in general, in the Central Valley looks increasingly bleak.  

Mendota isn’t really that atypical of a Central Valley town. It’s not that much different than anywhere else in the region. It is slightly more dependent on agriculture than the big population centers in Bakersfield and Fresno, but so are many of the smaller towns in the Valley.

And Mendota has been hit hard. It has now come to be something of a symbol for the greater plight of the Central Valley. And all of the strange contradictions that lie at the heart of this region. The Valley is running out of water. Over the last 100 years, the Central Valley has grown to become the leading producer of fruit and vegetables in the country by using subsidized irrigated water from the state and federal governments.  The water is drying up as there is pressure to conserve endangered species as well as from a powerful 3-year drought.

A few months back, McClatchy’s article looked at the terrible employment numbers and the desperate situation in this small town.  The LA Times returns and goes over the same grounds with this town where unemployment is nearing 40%:

Farmers have idled half a million acres of once-productive ground and are laying off legions of farmhands. That’s sending joblessness soaring in a region already plagued by chronic poverty. … Lost farm revenue will top $900 million in the San Joaquin Valley this year, said UC Davis economist Richard Howitt, who estimates that water woes will cost the recession-battered region an additional 30,000 jobs in 2009.

Desperation is rippling through agricultural communities such as Mendota, 35 miles west of Fresno, where an estimated 39% of the labor force is jobless. It’s a stunning figure even for this battered community of about 10,000 people, which has long been accustomed to double-digit unemployment rates. (LAT 7/6/09)

Yet the question is always of water in Fresno County and the region.  As Arnold Schwarzenegger came to find out when he held a town hall there, the farmers and the farmworkers want the water back pronto. The problem is that Mendota is situated in what used to be an extension of the California desert. The Central Valley wasn’t really so green until we greened it with an intricate network of water diversions and piped in federal water.  The interesting thing is that while the government was building this infrastructure in the region, a growing conflict was burgeoning: Ted Nugent style “we don’t want the government to do anything” with a sense of entitlement to the water.  From the Times article:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month asked President Obama to declare Fresno County a disaster area to boost federal aid. But that’s not what the farmers say they want. At a recent town hall meeting in Fresno, while some women in the audience knitted, men in baseball caps and T-shirts shouted down officials from the Interior Department: “We don’t want welfare, we want water.”

Unfortunately, this has been and will be blamed on the Endangered Species Act, but even if we went through and ensured that every last Delta smelt was dead and pulverized, there simply isn’t as much water as there used to be.  The last 100 years were particularly wet, and as we see climate change take its toll the future is uncertain. Will rainfall revert to the norm leaving the Central Valley a desert once again? Will the snowpack dissipate to such a level as to make runoff too early to capture?

These are just some of the questions, but at the same time, while many choose to term it differently, farmers are looking for a bailout.  It’s not undeserved, they are hard working people who need help, but whether we put billions into their pockets or into water infrastructure it is still the government action that is the key.  Sorry, Mr. Nugent, perhaps you should stick to the guitar.

But at this point the state simply doesn’t have the resources to begin new massive water projects. While there are some bonds outstanding, they are insufficient and not tasked to this particular question. Those bonds focus more on serving the water needs of the urban populations.  But as the far Right seeks to drown the government in a bathtub, the water they are using to fill it up is coming from the Central Valley.

(The California EFCA would provide easier access to unions for farmworkers. It will pass out of the legislature, the question is whether Arnold will sign it. He should. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Another Reason for the California Employee Free Choice Act

Supposedly we have the water available, we have the shade available, we have bathrooms available but dare not use them for fear of being fired. It was as if we had none at all.

— Rigoberto Ramirez, Blueberry worker

We’ve shared stories with you about farm workers who’ve had no water to drink. Now we want to tell you about workers who do have water, but don’t have the opportunity to drink it because of the pressure put on them by the companies they work for. Please read their stories and then take action to help them by sending Gov. Schwarzenegger and your legislators an e-mail today.

YOU CAN TAKE ACTION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR FARMWORKERS!

The following is from a May 26th complaint the UFW filed on behalf of workers at Munger Farms, where 3 farm labor contractors employ more than 40 crews and 1,000 workers to harvest blueberries. Pickers are working hourly, but have a huge quota of 5 boxes a day–which forces them to work through their breaks, not drink water or go to the bathroom for fear of losing their jobs. This is not an imaginary fear. It happened to about 60 workers on May 26. The workers were promised 3 days of work. They were fired after one day before they even had the chance to acclimatize themselves to the brutal pace demanded. Here is the story of an experienced blueberry picker, Guillermo Cruz:

We started working at 8 am and we were asked to pick 5 boxes of blueberries for the day which is a total of 65 pounds of blueberries. I did everything that I could to meet the quota. Company supervisors were constantly on top of us and yelling at us if we dropped any blueberries on the ground which made us very nervous and confused on what to do. Workers could not afford to go to drink water or even go to the restroom because of the tremendous fear of losing their jobs. Some workers even worked through their lunch breaks to try to meet the quota. The company would not even allow us to take our third break. Many workers were running and going as fast as they could to try to meet the goal. I was one of the few that was able to make 4 boxes and could not understand why I would be fired if I had done everything in my power to meet the quota. The time we worked we saw crews of 60 workers going and coming because of the tremendous pressure to meet the quota and the company was firing workers every day.

Some of the workers are still waiting for their pay checks.

KERO Ch 23, 6/1/2009 UFW Prepared To Press Charges – UFW Representatives May File Against Munger Farms

DELANO, Calif. — Last week, dozens of blueberry pickers were protesting against unfair working conditions in Delano. Monday night the United Farm Workers Union said that they are ready to press charges against the berry farmers. Dozens of field workers said they were fired and never paid. MORE

This is not the only incident. On May 26, the UFW filed charges on behalf of Giumarra vineyard worker Francisco Farfan. Francisco was suspended and sent home for the day after the foreman said Francisco had gone too many times to drink water. He was keeping up with the workload demanded. It was hotter than 100 degrees that day. Francisco believes he was suspended for taking safety measures that did not impede his work performance and to which he is legally entitled.

Two days later the UFW also filed charges on behalf of vineyard workers at Sunrise Agriculture. Again, the about 100 workers there did have water. The problem was they were not allowed to drink the water unless they were on an official break–10 minutes every 4 hrs–or at lunch. These workers also did not have shade to protect them from the sun and were not trained in heat safety as required by law.

Such incidents show that workers need the ability to speak up without being afraid of losing their jobs. It’s why SB789 CA Employee Free Choice Act for Farm Workers is so vital. This bill will make it easier for farm workers to organize, speak up to improve working conditions and help enforce the laws that CA’s government cannot enforce. SB789 passed the CA state senate and will next be heard in the assembly and then go to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Please take action today and tell them to pass SB789, a bill that will give farm workers the power to protect themselves.

Farm workers can not wait. Violations occur every day and little is done. Complaints regarding lack of drinking water, shade and work breaks to make use of these simple but lifesaving measures are an everyday occurrence for farm workers (worker stories). Last year six farm workers died of heat-related causes. Fifteen farm workers have died of heat-related complications since July 2004.

If you get time, this short documentary made late last summer is worth watching.  It’s 20 minutes long.  California’s Harvest of Shame is narrated by Speaker Emeritus Nunez, himself the son of a migrant farm worker, and includes a prologue and epilogue by actor and activist Martin Sheen.

PLEASE TAKE ACTION TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR FARMWORKERS!

I just appeared on KPFA with Eric Klein to talk about the Governor’s proposed budget cuts, along with several experts and stakeholders, including friend of Calitics Anthony Wright of Health Access California.  I agree with him that it’s almost hard to fathom the amount and severity of the cuts proposed for health care, especially at a time with the federal government is moving forward with a “do or die” plan to reform the health care market, increase access and lower costs.  The proposed Governor Hoover cuts would have the exact opposite effect, and the people gravely impacted by this will not have the luxury of waiting around for the Feds to catch up and fill in the gaps.

Two recent CBP fact sheets help break down the Governor’s proposed cuts to Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, in numbers that are easier to grasp. These fact sheets show:

More than 940,000 California children would lose health coverage if the Healthy Families Program is eliminated as the Governor proposes. More than 240,000 children in Los Angeles county alone would be affected. Want to know how many children would be impacted in your county? Check out the fact sheet to see.

In total, more than 1.9 million Californians could lose access to health coverage within three years through proposed reductions to the Medi-Cal Program and elimination of Healthy Families.

As the Governor said himself today, “behind every one of those dollars that we cut there are real faces.”

Kudos to the LA Times, by the way, for allowing the great unmentionable to get printed on their pages – the decisions made in Sacramento will truly be the difference between life and death for many Californians.

Schwarzenegger argues that the state’s declining economy and plummeting tax revenues have boxed California into a corner, forcing deep and historic cuts in the health and welfare programs that form the state’s social safety net. Without those tough measures, he says, California will cartwheel toward insolvency.

But a 10-person legislative budget panel, which is reviewing the governor’s proposals, listened during a long day in a crowded hearing room to scores of people who said their survival depends on programs set to be hit by the budget ax.

They heard from mothers of children with autism, representatives of people on dialysis, poor parents whose children see dentists on the government’s dime, former drug abusers set straight by a state rehab program.

And they heard from a woman named Lynnea Garbutt who has lived with AIDS all of her 24 years.

She has survived with the help of a state program that provides the expensive antiviral drugs she takes. Now, with that program facing elimination, she pleaded with lawmakers to save it — and her life.

“If these cuts take place, you’re not just cutting money from the program — you’re cutting my life,” she told the panel, her voice shaking and tears falling. “I choose to live. Please don’t make me die. My choice is life.”

This is how Yacht Partier Chuck DeVore responded – move out of the state.  Love it or leave it!

The cuts made to programs like Healthy Families (California’s SCHIP) would eliminate federal matching funds and double or triple the scope of the cuts.  And it would be one thing, by the way, if the Yacht Party simply held the line and said “we can’t afford it.”  But no, they want to spend billions of dollars, only on their own projects instead of saving human lives.

In this article in the San Diego Union Tribune, the same Republicans (and Republican governor) who would eliminate children’s health care and basic services for the neediest Californians, actually want the state to pony up the money for a water bond.

Schwarzenegger, says the article, is still fixated on a whopping $10 billion bond. And Senate Republicans are right there with him:

“Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto, the lead Republican on water issues, agreed. “It’s obviously a tough time to bring it forward, but we can’t wait,” the article notes.

We can’t wait? According to my calculator, If the entire $10 billion was sold together, the interest payment could be in the neighborhood of $660 million annually. That’s $660 million more that would have to come out of  schools, health care, and other items on the chopping block.

Similarly, the Yacht Party cried poor about programs that help people, but made room in the February budget for a huge corporate tax cut.

Everyone who has spent 10 seconds on this recognizes that there’s no good way to use current revenues to provide the basic level of services Californians deserve.  To the extent that I have hope that we will overcome the selfishness of the cruel and the impossibility of navigating a broken system, it comes from people, who are fed up and starving for leadership and change from a government that no longer serves their interests.  To turn the figurative starvation literal, Los Angeles teachers are going on a hunger strike to protest budget cuts.  We’re all hungry, and we’ll be a lot hungrier if Governor Hoover has his way.

For all that talk of progressive politics, I frequently wonder why no true progressive challenges Cardoza (CA-18) or Costa (CA-20).  While this sits in the back of my brain, I was spurred to writing something when I clicked channel down rather than channel up on the remote this AM and landed on CSPAN where Costa was holding forth on the need to set aside the Endangered Species Act to protect the farmers in his district.

Costa predictably follows the line of the Westlands Water District.  This one says that the problems of not having enough water are all the fault of putting the needs of a little minnow called the Delta Smelt ahead of the needs of people.  The only problem with this is that it is a lie.  

Here are the facts:

Based on rainfall, run-off, reserves, the farmers in the Westlands District will not be getting enough water this year. However, the pumps at Tracy have not missed a beat. The water rights of the Westlands District are very junior, which means that everyone else gets their water before Westlands.  Farmers with Senior right in the Sacramento River Valley will get 100% of their water.  Those in the Friant District will get about ~80%.  Westlands gets what they deserve.  Someone had convinced these farmers to stop planing row crops where the land could be fallowed in a dry year and to plant orchards that require continued irrigation whether there is a crop or not.  Bad business plan.

So, what about Cardoza and Costa.  Well, they are part of what some call the Portuguese Mafia, a bi-partisan group of friends who have used their economic power in the dairy industry to control politics in the San Joaquin Valley. Back in 2006, as I sorted out the players in the Pombo race and why a realtor would have a joint fundraiser for Pombo and Cardoza, I was surprised to find the Portuguese Caucus in Congress. Yeah.  Pombo, Cardoza, Costa, Nunes… all Californians from the San Joaquin Valley.

We took care of Pombo. It is time to take care of the other three. Along with Radanovich and McKeon, they form a might wall against real progress.  The Editorial Board of the Badlands Journal understands this.

As Badlands pointed out recently, there is a new young couple among the Valley’s witless Democratic congressmen, the Costoza, replacing the Pomboza, which met a timely demise with the dis-election of former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, in 2006. The swing man in both duos is Rep. Dennis CarAs Badlands pointed out recently, there is a new young couple among the Valley’s witless Democratic congressmen, the Costoza, replacing the Pomboza, which met a timely demise with the dis-election of former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, in 2006. The swing man in both duos is Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Annapolis MD, who still claims to represent the 18th Congressional District of California, which includes three cities with some of the worst foreclosure rates in America, Merced, Modesto and Stockton and one county, Merced, with the second highest unemployment rate in the nation this month.

If the Democrats don’t challenge the Costoza in the primaries, and it does not look like they will, then I start looking to a Green to run an issue campaign… one for ecological sanity and the future of California.  

UC Merced welcomed First Lady Michelle Obama to its first graduation.  The campus is still developing, with the first class fairly small. The whole campus is about one-tenth of its expected size, but this is already becoming an economic engine for the region, and holds promise to be an anchor in a region that desperately needs the development.

It wasn’t enough to make 5 of the 6 regional congressman to show up. The one who did? Democratic Representative Jerry McNerney. 4 of the 5 apparently had something better to do. Interestingly, Bush Dog Dennis Cardoza wrote the legislation that began UC Merced, but apparently has other commitments.  Devin Nunes had some big-time duties of being the idiot-in-chief:

A fifth, Visalia Republican Devin Nunes, says he is skipping the ceremony because he is unhappy with President Barack Obama and the majority Democrats in Congress.

“The president’s wife is coming to the Valley, and just five miles away you have tens of thousands of people out of work because of the policies of the Democrat Party,” he said. “I’m not going to go there and make nice.” (Fresno Bee 5/15/09

Shorter Nunes: I’m putting my political extremism over the people of my district.

Skipping right past the fact that he is unclear on English usage, let’s focus on the insanity of this statement. This is a major milestone for bringing some sustainable economic development to the region. Nunes is all up in arms regarding the water issues, but frankly Devin, it’s best we start getting used to low water.

In Nunes defense, he has already called on Schwarzenegger to resign over water issues too. He’s an equal opportunity idiot. But to pile on, he also goes ahead and says there is no drought to anybody who will listen, calling it “man-made” because we won’t exterminate the remaining fish in the Delta by turning on the pumps to divert the water. And oh, yeah, Devin, the coastal communities need water to drink too.

Using this event to make an unrelated political statement is offensive to the students who worked to build the community of UC-Merced. But, Nunes has never been one to avoid offense, has he?

The Sierras provide the state with the majority of our water.  So, our annual snowpack data becomes hugely important.  The last few years have been terrible for the ski business as well as our reservoirs. And this year won’t help either:

Across the 400-mile-long mountain range, the snowpack is holding about 81 percent of its usual water content, according to the fourth Sierra snow survey conducted by the Department of Water Resources.

The department’s snow chief, Frank Gehrke, says the snowpack needed to be between 120 percent and 130 percent of average by the beginning of April to replenish the state’s key reservoirs. (SF Chronicle 4/2/09

The impacts of this data will be swift and long-reaching.  Famers are already scheduled to get only 20% of the water they are normally allocated.  Fields will be left to die to an even greater extent than they already are.  We are in very real danger of losing a large portion of our agricultural base in the next 3-5 years. To put it simply, if we do not get substantially above average snowfall next year, small farmers won’t last and even corporate farms will be struggling.

The news is even worse for the southern Sierra, where the snow pack levels hit only 77% of average.  The question of where SoCal’s water comes from in the new environment keeps raising its head.  We have made several attempts at addressing these questions, but so far we have not actually reached any solutions.  Even the special session on water came up with precious little in the way of concrete actions. While we do have some bond money outstanding for water projects, many are years away and perhaps not even feasible any more.

Whether we need additional water storage sites or other techniques inevitably brings up the many complex environmental questions.  How do we preserve endangered species? Do we really want to dam up rivers and prevent additional salmon runs? And will the dams ruin the beauty of some of these regions?

So far nobody has really addressed these questions, and until we do, we are living with an axe over heads.  California can not survive just holding onto our old water infrastrucutre, it will not meet the needs of a stagnant state, let alone growth, with these ever-decreasing snow levels.

Just some more happy news from your friends at Calitics!