In California’s Westlands Water District in the San Joaquin Valley, a sign in a dried almond crop blames Congress for a “Dust Bowl.”
“Famously hypertensive.” That’s how Matt Jenkins of High County News describes Sean Hannity, who blamed the San Joaquin Valley water shortages on the Endangered Species Act (“Tapping into Anger”; Forum, Jan. 31).
What’s really “hyper,” however, is the ESA dictates themselves: By starving farms and communities of water, they’re hyper-outrageous.
Federal regulators ordered dramatic cuts in pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Central and Southern California, in a strategy to keep the endangered Delta smelt afloat. At least 500,000 acre-feet of water (163 billion gallons) were withheld last year. More pumping restrictions were proposed for other ESA-protected fish.
Jenkins points to precipitation levels as a major culprit in the state’s water woes; environmental rules, he writes, account for only a quarter of reduced Delta water exports, if that much. Still, where’s the sense in intentionally holding back water when people are already struggling with a natural drought? Isn’t that like applying leeches to a patient who’s losing blood?
The article frames the legal and policy dust-up over water as mainly a showdown between the feds and the Westlands Water District. This might surprise the scores of other water districts and water agencies that have also been seared by the regulatory drought.
For instance, Stanislaus County farmer Jim Jasper, who is represented by Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys in a challenge to the smelt regulations, is a member of the Del Puerto Water District. If ESA water restrictions aren’t lifted, he fears his 60-year-old family farming business won’t survive. Nearly 150 employees would be jobless.
Meanwhile, a “Delta smelt tax” is being levied on millions of Southern Californians who are served by the Metropolitan Water District. The district increased water charges to member agencies by nearly 20 percent in 2009, in large part due to the pumping restrictions.
Can we take solace from knowing that the fish-before-people regs at least help the environment? Only by ignoring awkward facts. The dust from dry fields may be dirtying the air, and land has sunk as more groundwater is tapped. “How could this not affect the human environment?” asked Fresno-based Federal Judge Oliver Wanger, who is presiding over the Delta smelt lawsuits. “It has had catastrophic effects.”
Oh, yes – the Delta smelt aren’t recovering, either, according to state surveys.
Whatever you think of Sean Hannity, give him credit for highlighting a side of the “green” agenda that is often ignored: It can turn lush fields brown and plow jobs under.