Posted on 08/16/2009 5:53:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
From the weekend WSJ. An excerpt:
Crops rot and people stand in line for food while the EPA engineers a drought
San Joaquin Valley, Calif.
In 1931, a severe drought began that within a few years engulfed the Oklahoma panhandle and a third of the Great Plains in a "Dust Bowl." Tens of thousands of people fled the region — many traveling to California along Route 66, which John Steinbeck called "the mother road, the road of flight" in "The Grapes of Wrath."
A lot of the "Okies" settled in the San Joaquin Valley. In the decades that followed, state and federal officials built dams and other irrigation projects that helped turn the valley into some of the world's richest farmland.
But today the San Joaquin Valley is being transformed into a dust bowl. Hundreds of thousands of acres are fallow, while almond and plum trees are being left to die in the scorching sun. Tens of thousands of people have been tossed out of work — the town of Mendota alone has an unemployment rate of about 40% — and the lines for food donations stretch down streets. The reason? There isn't enough water to go around this year, and the Obama administration is drawing up new reasons to divert more of it from farms and people and into the San Francisco Bay.
The valley has traditionally been a place where someone with few belongings, little education and even no ability to speak English could prosper by picking grapes, milking cows, or hoeing cotton fields. The hearty people who came here were Portuguese, Mexican, Armenian, Italian, Basque and Dutch, along with westward-traveling Americans and Okies. More recent arrivals are from El Salvador, Vietnam and India. I am the product of a Portuguese family that came decades ago.
California has the largest water storage and transportation system in the world. With 1,200 miles of canals and nearly 50 reservoirs, the system captures enough water to irrigate about four million acres and provide water to 23 million people. In many cases, as with the San Joaquin Valley, water in this system is sold to communities by the federal government.
Some claim that California is facing a three-year-old drought. But, according to the state's Department of Water Resources, California reservoirs have received 80% of their normal amount of water and precipitation in the northern Sierras has been 95% of its yearly average this year. So why isn't there more water for farms? Because theirs is a regulatory-mandated drought. The 1973 Endangered Species Act requires that the government take steps to save endangered species. In California, that's meant diverting vast sums of water into rivers and streams to protect fish. Those diversions this year have forced federal authorities to decide who to serve — fish or farmers.
Wonder if Pelosi’s Vineyard and Golf Course are getting water?
Pray for America
There was a really hilarious lady on the Hugh Hewitt show a week or so ago, and she said WAY more people are commercial fishermen on that river than are farmers.
This is perhaps the most malevolent current example of tyrannical bureaucracy. The fact that this has occurred in the US is frightening. It’s of little comfort to realize that this began during the Bush administration, and merely continues under Obama.
“The valley has traditionally been a place where someone with few belongings, little education and even no ability to speak English could prosper by picking grapes, milking cows, or hoeing cotton fields. The hearty people who came here were Portuguese, Mexican, Armenian, Italian, Basque and Dutch, along with westward-traveling Americans and Okies. More recent arrivals are from El Salvador, Vietnam and India. I am the product of a Portuguese family that came decades ago. “
Steve Perry of Journey is a product of this. His parents and grandparents immigrated from Portugal together (Parents were already married) and he worked on a turkey farm in the San Joaquin Valley until he joined Journey.
I imagine this is pretty sad for him being raised in this valley and knowing the people and farming and such is suffering. As far as I know, he still lives there.
Where’s that Cricket tape when we need it!
San Fran Nan, Fineswine and Babs Boxofrocks are totally without comment BECAUSE the watermelons will raise holy hell if they say anything against this. ANYONE in the big valley that votes for these clowns is STUPID!!
I hope I don’t hear someone complain about the price of veggies at the store.
You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait until cap and trade goes into effect. The EPA doesn’t give a damn about people.
EPA “Dykes” I mean Dikes. are causin trouble.
But the California envirofreaks have no problem with this:
85,000 Acre California Fire, still burning caused by Mexican Drug Cartels - confirmed!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2317334/posts
I’ve “fought” greenies (in my former profession) for 30 years. I don’t know when folks are going to learn that this movement must be decisively and soundly defeated, defunded and defrocked before we will get any relief whatsoever.
Come on America, CATCH ON! Like the so-called “health care”, it’s about CONTROL, not anything to do with helping the critters. The critters are the means used to get to your hearts, minds and money and then ultimately control your life. Little ol’ ladies in tennis shoes are sometimes the target, sometimes the vehicle, you must know your enemy.
Please someone, convince me otherwise...
Like Stalin with the Kulaks.
The EPA answers to no one.
It was court ordered.
Thank the NRDC...a Soros backed environut group. The litigation they bring each year is astounding.
I can guarantee you that the KNOWN unemployment is 40%.
The illegals who cannot dare to show up and file for unemployment because they were paid off the books push that figure much higher.
I say it is closer to 60+ %.
This will lead to a great number of farm bankruptcies, no equipment loans being paid, which will topple the equipment dealers, even more so than the auto dealers.
Property taxes will NOT be paid, putting more pressure on counties and cities to pay their bills with no money.
Orchards with trees that take at least 5 years to decently produce and do so for as much as 35 years are dead. Vines that produce grapes for raisins, wine, and table grapes are dead. Some of these varieties have a life span of up to 100 years. Again- it takes years to start a new set of vines.
Displaced workers may return to Mexico, but crime in some areas is way over the top. Bakersfield, Calif is struggling with the worst crime in it’s recorded history.
The downward spiral will be tremendous—all over a little fish that has absolutely no commercial value.
I don’t care how much money is thrown at this problem in the future- A tree or a vine only grows at it’s own rate. Selma, Calif is in a county that once had the greatest number of millionares in the county per capita than any other county in the USA.
This is totally disgraceful. The federal judge that made this decision should be run out of town, tarred and feathered on a rail.
There was a really hilarious lady on the Hugh Hewitt show a week or so ago, and she said WAY more people are commercial fishermen on that river than are farmers.”
Don’t know where she lives, but she couldn’t be more wrong.
I’ve heard and read about this, I halfway expect a really pissed-off farmer to do an equivalent of “Shoot and shovel”: dump a load of something that will kill EVERYTHING in the river, all the way to SF Bay, and with all the “endangered” fish gone. . . no reason to divert the water anymore. . .
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