The valley that hope forgot - San Joaquin Valley

[Wifezilla]

Anyone else catch this special?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,552081,00.html

 

[andehens]

I did of course, I live in the mountains above the San Joaquin Valley. Its a horrible story, they didn't have time to touch on all of the story. Pelosi and Miller have stopped any attempt to open those pumps, the Marine and Wildlife Biology dept in Washington said that the killer whale might be impacted, yep, I see a lot of those on hwy 99 central inland by a couple of hundred miles. The delta is man made, some little fish has no business in there, hmmmmmm. I wish Hannity would have known enough about the situation to be able to argue with the eco person, the water is not going south, it is going to the ocean. There are miles and miles and miles of fallow farms in the valley, and it will impact the US in the pocket book. The goal I presume is to import food. There were a couple of web sites mentioned on the show, gotwater.org and farmwater.org, one of them shows a picture of people in the foodline with a box of carrots from China. In the beginning all you would hear from Washington was this was caused by the drought, NOT!!! Then after they got the Marine and Wildlife Biology to declare the smelt would impact the killer whale, dear Washington says, they can't do anything. Washington is very aware of this situation, Pelosi has blocked 7 attempts to overturn the ruling on turning off the pumps. This is our "real" government at work.

 

[Wifezilla]

That guy was so obnoxious it really detracted from his arguments. So his assertion was that these delta smelt were necessary for the salmon and that the farmers sold their water rights so it is their own fault...right?

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/0...agency-changes-course-on-delta-sme-10572.html
This says the delta isn't the only place they live.

A WSJ article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204731804574384731898375624.html

 

[TanksHill]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea.

 

[andehens]

yeah, shame on the famers huh, I'm sure they were surprised to find out they put themselves out of business by selling their water rights. He was way out there.
The farmers have held marches, interior secrectary came awhile back, but once they decided that those smelt fed the whales, (really?) and I don't know why that wasn't mentioned, the farmers cause came to a stand still. I also don't understand the axe that Pelosi and Miller are grinding.
It isn't just regular crops, theres orchards that were mature that even if they got water tomorrow, its too late for them. People should be very concerned about this mess, and I wonder if there are other places that are not making the news with similiar happenings.

 

[phoenixmama]

I saw the special. It's situations like this that make me want to when people think that the government has all the answers. And the hostile environmentalist guy that was on made no sense. I guess fisherman are more important than farmers?

 

[ducks4you]

I have seen both the special and Hannity's show about the subject about a month ago. If I am correct, there are a lot of winter vegetables that will NOT be available in February if the water continues to be cut off from these farmers. We USED to have 6 or 7 "breadbaskets" worldwide, NOW we are down to 3, and the United States is one of them. It isn't possible to make up such a loss, and I imagine that food costs are going to go way up, FIRST with fresh fruits and nuts, then a couple of months later, with canned fruits and nuts. This will be the result. Terrorists couldn't have hit us harder.
Where I live, the crops look good, but if we continue to get as much rain during October and November as we have had every month since January, the harvest is going to be mediocre because it's not possible to dry out ALL of EVERYONE's harvest. I know. I used to fill up oats and corn for my horses at a local elevator. The elevator would test and reject grain that wasn't dry enough because it might rot the whole bin.

THERE ARE MANY OTHER WAYS TO BE A GOOD STEWARD TO THE ENVIRONMENT, than to punish the farmers in California. I was so saddened to see people who WANT to work, accepting food because they had none.

 

[ducks4you]

Excuse me--substitute "Vegetables" for "Fruit"

I am SO UPSET about this that I goofed!

 

[Wifezilla]

We USED to have 6 or 7 "breadbaskets" worldwide, NOW we are down to 3, and the United States is one of them. It isn't possible to make up such a loss, and I imagine that food costs are going to go way up, FIRST with fresh fruits and nuts, then a couple of months later, with canned fruits and nuts. This will be the result. Terrorists couldn't have hit us harder.

This is why I am trying so hard to get as much production out of my itty bitty yard as I can. I am turning my oldest son's old room in to an indoor growing room for the winter. I was going to just use it to keep my stevia plant alive but now I am going to try adding lettuce and other easy to grow greens.

 

[andehens]

and politics rears its ugly head, on cspan2 right now, R-Senator DeMint form SC introduced a bill opening the pumps for 1 year while this was worked out, D-Feinstein is furious, this did not go through her group, how dare they, she even said 80% of that water was for Agricultural use, but they are hurting that little fish. Wonder who will get those farms when the farmers lose them?