Good News for Oakdale Irrigation District Farmers

Oakdale Irrigation District Farmers:
2015 Water Allotments Raised to 40 Inches

A couple of beneficial spring storms combined with cool weather and strong water conservation led to good news Tuesday morning for farmers in the Oakdale Irrigation District: A small bump in the amount of water they will receive in the fourth year of drought.

OID directors voted 4-0, with Al Bairos absent, to raise this year’s allocation to 40 inches from 36. When the irrigation season began in March, OID told irrigators to expect 30 inches this year – the first time in its 105-year history it has put limits in place.

Directors also declined to rescind a decision they made in April to deliver 10 inches of water to Tier 2 customers.

General Manager Steve Knell said small storms in April and May provided an unexpected bonus: enough water to keep soil moisture high in the valley, plus additional runoff into Sierra reservoirs. He told directors that 2.8 inches of rain fell above Donnells and Beardsley Lakes, which had plenty of room to capture it.

He said the rain comes on top of positive efforts by OID’s 2,900 agricultural customers to use less water. The combination has the district to easily meet its goal of pushing at least 10,000 acre-feet of “saved” water into New Melones Reservoir. OID is on target to conserve about 17,000 acre-feet, Knell said.

“When you ask constituents to step up in this district, they do it,” he said.

The 40 inches OID’s irrigators will receive compares to 36 inches for those in the South San Joaquin Irrigation District and is more than double what farmers in the Modesto and Turlock districts will get this summer.

“Forty inches is an abundance of water,” said Brian Lemons, who grows almonds and walnuts.

Still, the implications of the drought were on the minds of OID’s staff and board.

Knell said the district is discussing various 2016 water scenarios with the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which manages New Melones. And Director Frank Clark warned about the financial implications of the drought on the district, which has dug into its reserves to use $17 million to balance its budget the past two years.

“If these dry years continue and you have no income from hydro production and you have no excess water to sell and you keep drawing down from reserves, it looks bleak,” Clark said. “We could be looking at … raising irrigation rates.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:15-07:00June 2nd, 2015|

A Call for Common Sense Water Management

California Water Management Dilemma

By Lawrence H. Easterling, Jr.

Larry Easterling makes a comment at a recent pistachio growers meeting.

We are witnessing the dismantling of the California water conveyance system that supplies drinking water for 25 million California residents and four million acres of prime farmland in the San Joaquin Valley.

Our water resources are being “Withheld” from the very people of this state who have shown what “Free Enterprise” can do not only for the well-being of all in California, but the entire nation. Unfortunately, several major environmental groups and complacent politicians are killing the freedoms that have been the bulwark of success in California. Let me explain.

Water is our most valuable renewable resource and Mother Nature gives it to California in copious amounts during most years. What we do with that water—water management—is critical to the future of the Golden State.

On average, 200.0 million acre-feet of water a year blankets our state. One acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons of water. Of that precipitation, 75% originates north of the Sacramento River. The other 25% falls in central and southern California.

The water that is not manageable by us is 120.0 million acre-feet. Some of it evaporates, but most of it settles into the ground, fills lakes, and what remains heads for the Pacific Ocean. The balance of the water is called “directable” surface water (80,000,000 acre-feet) and this is where we have the opportunity to put it to its best and proper use.

By 2005, according to the Department of Water Resources, 48% of that directable water went to the environment, 41% to agriculture and the remaining 11% to rural areas. This balance of such a precious resource seemed at the time to be equitable to all parties, thanks to the ingenuity of our forefathers in the 20^th century. Their foresight gave us a water conveyance system second to none in the entire world.

California’s water conveyance system had four major objectives:

To provide reliable water deliveries to 25 million people to avoid water shortages that would otherwise exist and continually plague two-thirds of the California population.
To support four million acres in central California of what the National Geographic Magazine proclaimed to be the most productive farmland in the world.
To reinforce our natural environment.
To recharge our groundwater supplies.

Some distinctions should be made here as to how much directable water we are actually concerned about. At full capacity, the two California water conveyance systems—the State Water Project (SWP) and the federal Central Valley Project (CVP)—deliver water from northern California to southern and central California. Each system, the CVP and the SWP, has the capacity to each deliver 4.0 million acre-feet water each year. However, this water delivery capacity has never been tested. The record shows that in the years prior to 2005, the average total delivery COMBINED for both projects was 5.4 million acre-feet per year. The ultimate users of this water went to agriculture (60%) and the rural population (40%).

The volume of water available, on average, from the Sacramento River, including the San Joaquin River, is 30.3 million acre-feet. It is from this volume of water that the 5.4 million acre-feet are sent south.

In 2007, several environmental organizations led by Natural Resources Defense Council took the Department of Water Resources to court to compel the court to enforce the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The court ruling to enforce this law declared that the giant water export pumps that raise the water from the Delta into the California Aqueduct were cut back because it was suspect that the pumps were killing too many delta smelt, an endangered species.

Even in flood years restricted pumping has reduced the water flow to a fraction of the contracted normal flow. Henceforth, since 2007, our water deliveries to urban and agricultural areas have been severely compromised.

The enforcement of these laws is now negating the four major functions of the giant California water conveyance system outlined with the possible exception of the natural environment. Now mind you, this water comes from northern California where 75% of the rain in California falls, averaging over 50 inches a year. Central and southern California “average” less than 15 inches a year.

During the seven years from 2007 through 2014, average deliveries to farms have been reduced to less than one acre-foot per year. Most agricultural crops require 3 ½ acre-feet of water per year. Today, without recourse, these farms are left with barely enough water to keep their plants alive. As for the hardship visited upon 25 million consumers, the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) in southern California is a good example.

The MWD services 19 million accounts, and prior to 2007, was receiving 40% of its water from the SWP. That water source has now only been able to supply approximately 10% of their needs. Consequently, due to seeking other sources to replace their water losses, rate increases to their customers over the years 2007 to 2014 have doubled. On top of all these setbacks, Mother Nature now has shown us her own drought versus our manufactured water crisis. All the way through this synthetic drought, the average rate of precipitation at the source of our water in northern California has been 45 inches each year.

In order to survive, those of us who must have an adequate supply of water to sustain us have been forced to pump more groundwater and/or purchase water from farmers who idle farmland and transfer their water to areas severely threatened with water shortages. For some of those lucky enough to find water for sale, the cost of water has become a severe financial burden. Where farms in the Central Valley were, prior to 2007, paying just under $100 per acre-foot, today if a willing seller can be found, the price can range anywhere from $1,000 to over $2,000 per acre-foot. In many such cases, water costs can exceed all other cultural costs combined. Likewise, the aquifer has dropped every year since 2007 due to frantic attempts by farmers to supplement the critical loss of surface water.

WHAT MUST BE DONE:

The effects of water deprivation over an eight-year period by a man-made drought capped by one of nature’s real droughts, is wrecking havoc with the nation’s food supply. The state of California is now in the grips of the Law of Diminishing Returns and is incapable of averting a disaster due to environmental regulations. Consequently, this country’s NATIONAL SECURITY is being compromised. CONGRESS MUST ACT NOW before further damage is done. These actions need to be taken:

1. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) must be excluded from jurisdiction over the pumps, which move northern water to central and southern California. The pumps are presently operating at about 15% of their capacity. This measure should be permanent and under the management of the Department of Water Resources (DWR).

2. The Endangered Species Act needs to be revised in order to “protect all species”, including humans, from collateral damage due to methods employed to save one species that results in severe damage to other species. This would be implemented through a biological opinion that would INCLUDE a list of all species that would be adversely affected by the METHOD employed to protect one specific species. This measure would make right just one of the irregularities in this flawed law, which attracts litigation like bees to honey. The law does not need to be struck down, simply rewritten to safeguard “all” species, including human beings.

3. California’s magnificent water distribution and conveyance system has no peer in this world. It is a remarkable feat of engineering admired by those who have come from far and near to marvel at its accomplishment. Yet, by environmental fiat, it has been reduced to a token of its capabilities. “Directable” water in California originally ceded one-third of its 80,000,000 acre-feet to the environment.

Today, according to the DWR, the environment now takes, not one-third, but 50% of the direct able water, leaving the rest to urban and farming communities. This is not what the original framers envisioned, but under the DWR, its control has been gradually diluted by federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and one of its extensions known as the STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD (SWRCB). THIS FIVE PERSON-BOARD IS STAFFED WITH ENVIRONMENTALISTS, such as their chairwoman, Felicia Marcos, a Governor Brown-appointee, whose professional background includes eight years with the EPA and five years with the radical Natural Resources Defense Council.

The influence of these federal agencies, backed by political power brokers’ lobbyists, has tilted the water distribution of surface water away from its original intended users. In essence, the environmentalists now control California’s surface water; and now, with the passage of the recent 7.5 billion dollar Water Bond, they will control our groundwater as well. If the water agencies do not perform with the desired results, the bottom-line is that final control will go to the SWRCB.

The ship of state now needs to be righted; it is drifting far off course. First of all, the EPA must be brought to heel. For a federal agency, it exerts far too much power. And, in so doing, has completely distorted California’s surface water delivery system. Next, the SWRCB must either be eliminated with FULL CONTROL restored to the Department of Water Resources, or completely reorganized as an ADVISORY BOARD to the DWR where ALL recipients of the surface water system would be represented. A ten-board membership might be in order, with a director and the nine remaining seats divided into three equal parts by experienced personnel in agriculture, city water management, and the environment, i.e., three persons from each classification and residents of northern, central and southern California.

4. Finally, one in every ten workers in California is either directly, or indirectly dependent upon the health of our vast agricultural industry.

It is time to step forward and reveal, with facts and figures, the house of cards that water management in this state has become. Likewise, those 25 million people in southern California, such as the MWD’s 19 million users who once got 40% of their water from the giant conveyance system, deserve to get that water back.

With years of a man-made drought compounded by a natural drought now in the eighth year, there is ample information available through various farm county records to quantify in lost dollars the cumulative effect of, (1) lost production due to forced fallowing of land, (2) water costs that are now ten times what they were prior to 2007, and (3) the heavy burden economically of converting hardworking farm labor to the welfare roles where some Central Valley towns are now approaching 50% unemployment. Combined, these costs will be in the billions of dollars, bloating further our California deficit.

The goal of society has always been to improve the human condition and for one generation to leave a better world for the next. The visionaries of the 20^th century got it right. They delivered in spades to us, the beneficiaries, a modern miracle. It is a water conveyance system like none other to serve all the people of California. Where are those visionaries now? Rather than embrace the gifts of a reliable source of precious water, they proceed to dismantle the entire system. It is because of the system that California feeds the nation. This is not just a California crisis. It is one that will affect the entire nation. Look upon it as a national security threat and demand that our leaders do what is right for the vast majority of this country’s people.

Lawrence H. Easterling, Jr. Administrator, Kettleman Pistachio Growers and Director, American Pistachio Growers

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-08-03T21:05:15-07:00May 18th, 2015|

Ag Stories for Wegmans Customers

Dave Corsi with Wegmans Encourages More Ag Stories to Bridge Gap with Consumers

By Laurie Greene, Editor, California Ag Today

Customers love stories and Agriculture sure has them. What could be better for the bag of broccoli florets, carrots or even pistachios and almonds to have an image of the farmer who grew them?

Ag needs to have this connection with consumers; ag stories help bridge the gap between the growers and consumers.

California Ag Today caught up with Dave Corsi at a recent meeting. Corsi knows something about customers connecting with agriculture; he’s vice president of Produce and Floral at Wegmans, a higher end east coast grocery store chain, which purchases a lot of product from California growers. He said it’s way bigger than farm local and buying local.

“The customer wants to know the face behind the name. It is important for the customer to know who the growers are, and what do they do? What is their food safety philosophy and food safety best practices? What kind of varieties are they growing? What are the flavor profiles of crops they are developing to provide a better experience for our customers?”

“All that is very meaningful. And it doesn’t matter if the farm is ten miles away, three thousand miles away, or even around the world. The customer wants to understand who the person is behind the product being grown,” said Corsi. “That’s the story we love sharing with our customers.”

He noted that customers are really interested in the knowledge learned from ag stories, “so they can feel more comfortable about their purchase because they know how dedicated our growers are to food safety, traceability, and food quality. They even want to know about the social side of business, such as the growers themselves.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:28:16-07:00May 18th, 2015|

Fresno County 2014 Crop Report May Fall Further than 2013

Fresno Ag Commissioner Les Wright Concerned About Regaining #1 County Status

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Associate Editor

Recently, California Ag Today spoke with Les Wright, Ag Commissioner of Fresno County on how that county is traditionally the highest rated in statewide, and nationwide, in agricultural output of many specialty crops, but water restrictions have bumped the county down a few rungs.

“Fresno County, since 1954, has been the number one agriculture producing county in the world, with two exceptions. The most recent exception was in 2013, documented in our last crop report, when the water shortage was a West Side-only issue,” said Wright.

That year, the East Side received a nearly 50 percent allotment from the Friant Water Authority of the federal Central Valley Project. In 2014 there was a zero allocation for both an East-side and a West-side issue.”

“I’m not sure how 2014 will wash out, but other dynamics are also playing into it. Nut crops are very valuable, and they have high yields, and our Southern neighbors are planting a lot of nuts.”

But Wright said that things are different in surrounding counties. “They don’t have the diversity that Fresno County has. I’m very optimistic that once we get our water allotments back, we’ll be number one again. But until that occurs, I’m not sure where we are going to end up.”

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:30:25-07:00May 3rd, 2015|

AHPA Leadership Urges Members to Support Voluntary Almond Industry PAC

By Laurie Greene, Editor

Almond Hullers & Processors Association (AHPA) Chairman Dick Cunningham and President Kelly Covello urged their membership to support the voluntary California Almond Industry PAC at the association’s 34th Annual AHPA Convention, held on the Big Island in Hawaii over the past three days.

Facing immense challenges such as the slowdown of West Coast ports, air quality laws and regulations, net energy metering (NEM), food quality and safety, worker safety, bees and bee health, wastewater treatment, crop protection regulation, aboveground petroleum storage Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) Plans, competing research priorities and most urgently, unprecedented drought conditions and public misunderstanding and criticism of almond water usage, the Almond Industry aims to create a unified voice for candidate support, political information and education services.

Through a Memorandum of Agreement with the Almond Board of California (ABC), AHPA is able is able contract for a portion of staff time/expertise to assist in AHPA’s advocacy efforts and provide a unified voice for the industry. The ABC educates regulatory agencies and legislators but is prevented by the USDA Federal Marketing Order to advocate for government policy or legislation.

The California Almond Industry PAC will hold a fundraiser in Bakersfield on May 14th, at Imbibe, 4140 Truxtun Avenue, from 5:30-7:00pm, sponsored by Golden Empire Shelling, LLC., Landmark Irrigation, Inc., Pacific Ag Management, Inc., Paramount Farms, and Supreme Almonds of California.

Fundraisers will also be arranged in the Northern and Fresno areas in the upcoming months.

Sponsorship Levels include:

Platinum: $2500
Gold: $1500
Supporter: $500 (includes a guest)

You do not need to be an AHPA member to contribute or attend the event.

For more information, contact (209) 599-5800 or staff@ahpa.net.

California Almond Industry Political Action Committee

California Ag Today2016-05-31T19:30:25-07:00May 1st, 2015|

AFT Research Shows Farmland Conservation can Reduce Greenhouse Gases

A new study from American Farmland Trust’s California Office, titled A New Comparison of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from California Agricultural and Urban Land Use [PDF], shows that urban land uses generate an average of 58 times more greenhouse gases per acre than the production of California’s leading crops.

This means that conserving farmland by preventing its development is an effective strategy for alleviating climate change. The AFT research, spearheaded by Steve Shaffer, AFT’s principal environmental consultant in California, found that emissions from seven crops grown on four million acres of the state’s farmland – including rice, tomatoes, lettuce, almonds, winegrapes, corn and alfalfa – averaged 0.89 tons of CO₂ equivalent per acre, while those from residential, commercial and industrial land uses in 13 California cities averaged 51 tons per acre.

“If California farmland conversion could be reduced by half (from 39,500 to 19,750 acres per year), within a decade we would avoid the emission of 55 million metric tons of greenhouse gases,” said Shaffer, “That’s equivalent to taking almost 200,000 cars off the road or driving around the Earth’s equator 5 million times,” he added, noting, “Of course, AFT would like to do even better than that.”

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:30:29-07:00February 25th, 2015|

Bayer CropScience Gives $100,000 to Sponsor Project Apis m.’s Honey Bee Forage Program

Every year, more than 1.7 million honey bee colonies are brought to California’s Central Valley to pollinate the vast expanses of almond orchards. Many bees arrive in the fall when little is in bloom to escape their native cold temperatures in anticipation of the world’s largest pollination event.

Prior to and after the almond orchard’s bloom in late winter and spring, there is a shortage of food to help the bees survive. Bees’ food consists of nectar and pollen gathered from blooming plants.

To help address the pre- and post-bloom food challenge, Bayer CropScience is giving $100,000 to Project Apis m., a nonprofit organization dedicated to better bee health through its work with growers. Project Apis m. will use the funds to provide seed mixes to growers in California and Washington who have agreed to plant cover crops for honey bees before and after almond bloom and other key seasons. The project will help build a healthier bee population to support crop pollination nationwide as bee colonies are transported to other states for other growing seasons.

“This initiative is a direct response to the lack of adequate forage needed to keep honey bees healthy and thriving,” said Jim Blome, president and CEO of Bayer CropScience LP North America. “In 2015, Bayer CropScience is committed to research and partnerships that will make a positive impact on honey bees.”

Bayer’s expanded partnership with Project Apis m. will complement its joint field research projects conducted on fence rows near almond orchards at Bayer’s Western Bee Care Technology Station in Fresno, California. Findings from Bayer’s research with Project Apis m. show that forage plantings also can have benefits for growers.

If growers allow forage plantings adjacent to fields, rather than planting from fence row to fence row, they can reduce the loss of irrigation water, better manage soil quality and weeds, and help support wildlife, including pollinators. Local growers and landowners will plant the provided seeds on land with crops and on nearby plots to help ensure direct benefit to them and nearby bee colonies.

“With funding from Bayer, Project Apis m. will be able to work with growers to plant more acres of honey bee habitat right where it can be accessed by honey bees before the almond crop’s first bloom around Valentine’s Day,” said Christi Heintz, executive director of Project Apis m. and liaison to the Almond Board of California’s Bee Task Force. “Additionally, with Bayer’s help from its Fresno Research Station, we know the best plant species and mixes to use to feed bees and save them from starving.”

Project Apis m. will work with almond and other growers to get commitments for cover crops that will be planted in Fall 2015.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:30:30-07:00February 17th, 2015|

Nuts May Prevent Cancer

Nut Consumption May Prevent Cancer

The review, carried out by Marco Falasca, Ilaria Casari and Dr. Tania Maffucci at The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University, found evidence suggesting eating nuts may prevent cancer by providing a protective effect—chemoprevention—in cancers including colorectal, pancreatic and endometrial cancer in women and prostate cancers in men.

It is already well established that increased nut consumption is associated with a reduced risk of major chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus, but the team also identified research showing a significant inverse association between nut consumption and death from cancer. Based on their findings, the authors suggest that nut consumption should be considered as a tool of intervention to reduce the burden of cancer.

The review highlighted a range of components that nuts contain that may contribute to their anticancer properties, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory components as well as a range of phytochemicals, vitamins and micronutrients, plus dietary fiber, of which nuts are a rich source.

Professor Falasca commented, “Although there is strong evidence that nut consumption is related to the prevention of several diseases including cancer, more support is needed to research the mechanism of action and to find a direct correlation. We’re also a step in the right direction to support the claim that we should have nuts as one of our five-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables in order to prevent diseases.”

Globally, cancer is on the rise; the World Health Organization (WHO) reports there were more than 14 million cases of cancer diagnosed and 8.2 million deaths in 2012, up from 12.7 million cases and 7.6 million deaths in 2008. By 2025, more than 19 million cancer diagnoses are predicted. Up to 40% of cancer cases are estimated to be linked to unhealthy lifestyle habits such as smoking, being overweight, alcohol consumption, low fruit and vegetable intake, occupational hazards, and exposure to sun and sunbeds.

Power of pistachios for cancer prevention

Arianna Carughi, PhD, Nutrition Research Science Advisor for American Pistachio Growers, said: “Pistachios are a nutrient and fiber-rich wholefood and contain a number of bioactive compounds that may be useful at the cellular level. This review highlights the potential of nuts, such as pistachios, as a tool in the fight against cancer and further adds to our understanding of the important contribution that nuts can make to health and wellbeing.”

At 160 calories, one ounce of pistachios contains less than two grams of saturated fat and six grams of protein per serving. Pistachios make the perfect snack and can be included as part of a healthy diet.

Sources: Falasca M, Casari I& Maffucci T. Cancer Chemoprevention With Nuts. J Natl Cancer Inst 2014: 106(9), American Pistachio Growers

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:30:31-07:00February 16th, 2015|

Almond Board Election for Directors Begins

Almond Board Election Under Way; Voting begins January 31st.

Voting in the next Almond Board Election will begin January 31, 2015 to select two independent grower member and alternate positions and two independent handler member and alternate positions. Those elected to these positions will serve as directors for the Almond Board of California (ABC) with the terms beginning on March 1, 2015.

Candidates for the independent grower positions are:

Position One, Member (One-year term): Position One, Alternate:

Dave Phippen, Manteca (petitioner) Brad Klump, Escalon (petitioner)

Position Three, Member (Three-year term): Position Three, Alternate:

Holly A. King, Bakersfield (petitioner) Di Quaresma, Ripon (petitioner)

Caleb Gervase, Escalon (petitioner)

Leon Etchepare, Maxwell (petitioner)

Candidates for the independent handler positions are:

Position Two, Member (Three-year term): Position Two, Alternate:

Dexter Long, Ballico (petitioner) Todd Meyer, Chico (petitioner)

Position Three, Member (One-year term): Position Three, Alternate:

Joel Perkins, Coalinga (petitioner) Dinesh Bajaj, Orland (petitioner)

Ballots and instructions have been mailed to all independent growers and handlers whose names are on file with ABC. If an independent grower or handler does not receive a ballot, one may be obtained from the ABC office at 1150 Ninth Street, Suite 1500, Modesto, CA 95354. The Almond Board must receive ballots by Feb. 12, 2015, in order to be counted.

Additional election information may be obtained by contacting Sue Olson at (209) 343-3224.

As a governing body for the industry, the ABC Board of Directors is comprised of five handler and five grower representatives who set policy and recommend budgets in several major areas including: production research, public relations and advertising, nutrition research, statistical reporting, quality control and food safety.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:30:32-07:00January 31st, 2015|

Supreme Court declines to hear PLF’s challenge to Delta smelt “biop”

Washington, D.C.; January 12, 2015: The U.S. Supreme Court announced TODAY that it will not hear Pacific Legal Foundation’s (PLF’s) challenge to the Delta smelt “biological opinion,” a harsh and unjustified Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulation that has led to dramatic water cutbacks for tens of millions of people — including thousands of farms and businesses — in Central and Southern California.

In appealing the case — Stewart & Jasper Orchards v. Jewell — to the Supreme Court, PLF represented San Joaquin Valley farmers who grow almonds, walnuts, and pistachios, and who have been hit hard by the water cutbacks mandated by the Delta smelt “biop.” PLF represents these clients — as with all PLF clients — without charge.

Statement by PLF Director of Litigation James S. Burling

“We are disappointed that the Court declined to review the federal government’s damaging and unjustified Delta smelt regulations,” said James S. Burling, PLF’s Director of Litigation. “These regulations have harmed farmers and farm workers in the Central Valley, along with tens of millions of Southern Californians, by diverting vast quantities of water away from human use and out to the Pacific Ocean — all to try to improve the habitat of the Delta smelt, a three-inch fish on the Endangered Species Act list. As a result, hundreds of thousands of acres of once-productive farmland have been idled, farm workers have lost their jobs, and farmers are losing their farms. Water users in Southern California have seen rates rise significantly. And the impacts of the state’s record-level drought have been much worse.

“The feds broke their own rules when they concocted these destructive Endangered Species Act regulations, because they ignored the punishing economic impact,” Burling continued. “And the Ninth Circuit was wrong to uphold the water cutbacks, because it relied on an old interpretation of the ESA that gave short shrift to the interests of human beings. If that anti-human interpretation — in the 1978 Supreme Court case of TVA v. Hill — was ever correct, it is obsolete now, after subsequent changes in the ESA. It is high time to formally reverse that ruling.”

“Unfortunately, the High Court will not hear the challenge to the Delta smelt water cutoffs,” Burling said. “But Pacific Legal Foundation is not giving up. We will return again and again to ask the Court to review — and reverse — the perverse and outmoded TVA precedent that is being used to justify policies that are literally anti-human. The protection of imperiled species is important, but so is the protection of jobs and the economy. PLF will continue to fight for that principle until it is fully embraced by the courts and fully implemented by the bureaucracy.”

PLF’s argument: Delta Smelt Regulators Wrongly Ignored Economic Impacts

Listed as “threatened” under the ESA, the smelt is a three-inch fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. In a controversial strategy to help the smelt, federal regulations under the 2008 “biop” sent vast quantities of water to the ocean — instead of storing it behind dams or pumping south for cities, towns, and farms. However, the smelt hasn’t improved — but the economy has suffered, and the effects of the drought have been made worse.

PLF’s legal challenge was based on the fact that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated its own regulations in drafting the Delta smelt biop. The agency ignored the potential harms — even though it was supposed to take economic considerations into account. “The economic impacts have been devastating,” noted Burling. “Pumping restrictions have fallowed hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, and Southern Californians have seen water rates rise by as much as 20 percent. And once the drought set in, the impacts were more severe because of the Delta smelt regulations. By sending vast amounts of water directly to the ocean, the smelt regulations meant there was less water saved in reservoirs for the dry times.”

PLF’s case asked the Supreme Court to help drought-stricken California
by rejecting the Delta smelt biop — and reversing the “anti-human” TVA v. Hill

In 2010, then-U.S. District Court Judge Oliver W. Wanger, of Fresno, struck down the Delta smelt biop, holding that it had been drafted “arbitrarily and capriciously,” with “sloppy science and uni-directional prescriptions that ignore California’s water needs.”

However, this past March, a divided Ninth Circuit panel reversed Wanger’s order that the biop be rewritten. Although the Ninth Circuit acknowledged that the biop is a “chaotic document,” poorly reasoned and written, the court upheld it by citing TVA v. Hill, a controversial 1978 Supreme Court ruling.

TVA v. Hill interpreted the ESA as giving a blank check for onerous species-protection regulations, “whatever the cost” for the interests of human beings. “TVA was always an extreme reading of the ESA,” said Burling. “But it is clearly obsolete now. After TVA, Congress made it crystal clear that regulators must take a balanced approach to ESA regulations, by requiring that any species-protection rules to restrict government projects must be ‘reasonable and prudent.’ The Supreme Court needs to reconsider TVA’s outdated perspective. Unfortunately, the justices declined to use the Delta smelt case as an opportunity to do so. But PLF will continue to litigate, on various fronts, until TVA is reconsidered, and the courts insist on balance and common sense in ESA regulations.”

PLF represents Central Valley farmers

In challenging the Delta smelt biop, PLF attorneys represented three farms in California’s San Joaquin Valley that have been seriously affected, since 2008, by the water cutbacks: Stewart & Jasper Orchards (an almond and walnut farm); Arroyo Farms (an almond farm); and King Pistachio Grove (a pistachio farm). PLF represents the clients in this case — as in all our cases — free of charge.

The case is Stewart & Jasper Orchards v. Jewell. PLF’s petition for certiorari, a video, and a podcast are available at: www.pacificlegal.org.

About Pacific Legal Foundation

Donor-supported Pacific Legal Foundation (www.pacificlegal.org) is a nonprofit public interest watchdog organization that litigates for limited government, property rights, and a balanced approach to environmental regulation, in courts across the country. PLF represents all clients free of charge.

Patrick Cavanaugh2016-05-31T19:30:34-07:00January 13th, 2015|