Feds Agree To Meager California Water Allocation
April 23, 2009 On Tuesday the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BuRec) issued an update of its 2009 water allocation for Central Valley Project water contractors. BuRec issued a 10% allocation, up from the zero allocation it had announced in February.
This week’s announcement generated a mixed response from farmers, farm employees, and rural communities, according to the Fresno County Farm Bureau. Although there’s some benefit from having a 10% surface water allocation this year, frustration levels remain high and growers are far from being out of the woods.
A 10% allocation amounts to about 2.5 inches of water per acre — a typical crop requires about 24 to 36 inches. This allocation will not make a significant difference in the planting of additional crops this year, nor will it generate increased employment opportunities for farm workers, but it will help by lessening some demand on the groundwater aquifer, provide some water for the needed postharvest irrigation in almonds, and provide a limited amount for carryover into next year.
“The meager allocation shows just how misguided the current water policy is in California and how our water system has all but been destroyed,” said Fresno County Farm Bureau President Dan Errotabere, a Riverdale-area diversified grower in an eMailed statement. “To allocate only 10 % water for the production of food and value-added products, jobs and economic activity, while the government provides wildlife refuges with a 100% supply and sends hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of fresh water into the ocean, is short-sighted and thoughtless. Agriculture has long supported a balanced approach to addressing California’s water problems, meeting the needs of all stakeholders — urban, agriculture, and environment. But, where’s the balance now?”
“Since 1992, federal environmental regulations, including the Endangered Species Act, have reallocated more than 3.2 million acre-feet of federal and state project water annually away from agricultural and urban users to the environment,” Errotabere continued. “In just the first three months of this year alone, nearly 300,000 acre-feet of water has been lost to the sea. Clearly, current policies place human needs second to those of fish and wildlife. Every year is going to be a struggle until this state’s and nation’s leadership intervenes to stop this regulatory nightmare and builds the new storage and conveyance facilities that California needs.”
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