http://www.rivernewsherald.org/articles2014/water_2-12-2014.html
February 12, 2014
Galen Kusic, Editor
On Monday, Restore the Delta held a teleconference to discuss where all of the water is being distributed from the Delta in California. That water, not surprisingly is going south. More importantly, 55 percent of the water goes to just two water agencies – Westlands Water District and Kern County Water Agency.
Those two agencies alone used more water than Metropolitan Water District and Santa Clara Water Agency combined. While MWD and Santa Clara serve millions of residents for urban drinking water, Westlands and Kern mostly supply water for agriculture. In the breakdown, it shows that most of this water goes to permanent crops like almonds, pistachios, etc. These crops take water year round, instead of using crops that can be interchanged with the seasons.
“The unsustainable business practices of Westlands and Kern, planting permanent crops, like almonds, in areas that are only to receive extra water in wet years, are the problem behind the emergency that this drought has evolved into,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta.
Lloyd Carter, a journalist that has covered Westlands Water District for years spoke about the problematic issues that exist within Westlands. The land itself continues to increase in salt levels, making it nearly impossible to farm in certain areas. Over 100,000 acres have already been taken out of production. The district itself spans 600,000 acres. There are currently thoughts of buying up the land and retiring it from agriculture completely, but that will not happen without a fight – as these large agribusinesses are some of the most lucrative in the world.
“These urban agencies receive a smaller percentage of Delta exports than the big agribusiness growers found in the Westlands Water District and the Kern County Water Agency. It’s time to stop forcing the rest of us to subsidize unsustainable agriculture,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.
The over-allocated California water system is simply too much to continue to export water that is not there to export. With the passing of HR 3964 in the House, it is clear that special interests are pushing hard to get more Delta water and ignore the Endangered Species Act that protects fish from extinction.
“Politically powerful special interests have created an artificial reality constructed on “paper water”,” said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “Tragically, people have mortgaged their futures based on these promises, and are now suffering the consequences.”
The bottom line is that the Department of Water Resources (DWR) sorely mismanaged the allocation and exports of water last year. In April of 2013, records show that reservoirs in Shasta, Oroville and Folsom were all above 100 percent or near full levels. That resulted in 827,000 extra acre-feet of water being pumped from the Delta.
Now, currently the reservoirs are barely peeking back up to extremely low levels. With the recent storm, Folsom is only back to 19 percent of normal. The severe mismanagement and allocation of this precious resource has proved to be the glaring problem that has caused a man-made drought.
On Friday, President Barack Obama will be speaking in Fresno. Restore the Delta encourages Delta residents to go in support of the Delta to show that Central Valley farmers are not the only ones struggling from the drought. It is impacting everyone, but without the truth getting out about where the water is going – it will continue to be mismanaged.