Issue Position: Agriculture

Issue Position

ONE MILLION ACRES OF FERTILE SAN JOAQUIN FARM LAND GONE TO WASTE:

Jack Stewart reported in April 2016: "Meanwhile, despite declining storage capacity, trillions of gallons of water have been flushed through California rivers in recent years to protect fish. In the Sacramento--San Joaquin River Delta alone, more than 1.4 trillion gallons of water have been redirected out to sea since 2008 in a failing effort to save the endangered Delta Smelt -- water that once flowed to Central Valley farms, the San Francisco Bay area, and Southern California. Although biologists now say the smelt will soon be extinct, federal officials have announced that water will continue being flushed through the delta, despite the devastating social and economic impact on valley farms and communities, where unemployment is now twice the statewide average largely because of forced water cutbacks. As a result, nearly a million acres of the most fertile farmland in the world have been taken out of production, orchards are being bulldozed, and fields that once grew food and provided jobs lie fallow. State officials recently announced that more water will be delivered to the valley this year, but it will still be less than half of what's needed."

In 2011 precipitation in the Golden State was 145 percent above average. With dams, reservoirs and a complicated, highly-regulated water delivery system, common-sense would dictate some of that water be saved for dry years like this. But in 2012, 800,000 acre feet of melted snow pack -- or 800,000 football fields of water -- flowed straight into the ocean, instead of storage tanks or farmers' fields. It's not that farmers didn't need the additional water; California farmers haven't received their full water allocations since punitive environmental regulations were enacted in 2006. Nearly half of U.S.-produced fruits, vegetables, and nuts coming from California, the rest of the nation is also seeing the effects of our misguided water policies.

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