Fresno activist (citizen) reports from Water form. I look forward to his GOP water forum report

[annm4peace]

Fresno activists attended the Fresno water forum last week and we will be present at the GOP Forum next week, as well as one we recommend in Antioch this Saturday, January 23, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. We are organizing here for our own forum on March 13.

The water forum last week was a one-sided promotion of the 2010 statewide water bond. It was co-sponsored by the City of Fresno, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) and the California Latino Water Coalition.

Many of the leading players other than the Governor gave speeches, including boosters Rep. Jim Costa, Sen. Abel Maldonado, Assemblymembers Juan Arambula and Anna Caballero, County Supervisor Phil Larsen and representatives from the Westlands, Kern and Friant water agencies. Maldonado turned a bit bizarre when he attempted to mimic the Governor's Austrian accent, purporting to speak for the Governor. I tape recorded the proceedings and can transcribe them in any order folks would like to see. Send me your recommendations.

Paul Rodriguez of the Latino Water Coalition delivered the keynote. He told his story about how his mother, a grower in Orange Cove (eastside San Joaquin Valley, south of Fresno) was the reason for his involvement in this issue. Interesting fact: the irrigation district in Orange Cove reported 90-plus percent of their water deliveries were made to farms last year.


Rodriguez's false implication, that his mother had had her water deliveries cut, highlights a natural fault line within the agriculture world of the San Joaquin Valley. A potential conflict lies between the interests of family farms east of Highway 99, which are top-priority for Central Valley Project water, and the Westlands and other westside growers with marginal lands and, historically, low-priority, "end-of-the-line" water rights (delivered only in the wettest water years). Recent, successful attempts by these powerful Agribusiness interests to get their hands on a reliable water supply -- the mantra of the recent Fresno hearing -- would place them in direct competition with smaller, eastside family farms were there not to be an expansion of the total water available to San Joaquin Valley farmers ... at the expense of the Delta farmers and Delta habitat.

Some of us prepared questions critical of the frame, but only one of us stepped up to the microphone. We will organize better next time.

I ran across Congressman Jim Costa and his District Director, Kathy Eide, at the Democratic Party's voter registration canvass the next day. I identified myself as active in the Sierra Club in Fresno. She promised to meet with our Sierra Club representatives (a first) and Jim identified several pro-environmental measures he had sponsored or worked to pass, including the San Joaquin River Conservancy and restoration. Bridge-building at work.

[JDPriestly]

1. What do you know about water desalination?

Here in L.A., we are also on water rationing. I expect it to get worse as urban areas in California continue to issue building permits as water reservoirs are depleted. The few inches of rain we got this week are not nearly enough.

I realize that Fresno is way inland. But would it help if those of us who live in the South used less viaduct water?

What do you think of water desalination? Is it just too impractical? Too expensive? Or could it help?