[env-trinity] Guest Opinion: Environmental group makes more false claims about ag water

[tstokely at trinityalps.net]

WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT ISSUES: 

Guest Opinion: Environmental group makes more false claims about ag 
water 

Bakersfield Californian - 10/18/05 

By Jean Sagouspe, president of Westlands Water District 



As president of Westlands Water District and vice chairman of a cotton 
marketing cooperative in Bakersfield, it is time to speak up about this 
group on behalf of all farmers. The Environmental Working Group, an 
organization with a long history of anti-farming activities, has 
published another so-called "investigation" filled with false statements 
about farm water in California. 

EWG believes farmers in the San Joaquin Valley should receive less water 
and pay much more for it. The net effect of this would be fewer farmers 
growing less food, making California more dependent on foreign-grown 
food. That is an agenda every Californian should be worried about -- not 
only those of us in Fresno and Kern counties who work the land. 

The latest EWG attack takes aim at proposed new contracts for water from 
the federal Central Valley Project. These contracts, which are vitally 
important to farmers, communities and businesses throughout California, 
contain many provisions that are mandated by legislation supported and 
praised by groups like the EWG. 

The most outrageous of the EWG claims is that Westlands will receive 
more water under the proposed contract than it receives currently. For 
the past 40 years, the 600 family farming operations in Westlands have 
been entitled to receive 1.15 million acre-feet of water annually, 
subject to drought and environmental regulations. 

Under the new contract, Westlands will be entitled to receive exactly 
the same amount of water subject still to drought and environmental 
regulations. 

Another EWG falsehood is that because Westlands has not received its 
full CVP entitlement in recent years, it should not receive a full 
allocation in the future. 

Under the existing contract, Westlands farmers leave thousands of acres 
fallowed every year because they do not receive enough water to farm 
them. Even if Westlands received all of its CVP water, there would still 
not be enough to farm all of the lands in the district. 

Finally, the EWG makes the claim that farmers in Westlands waste water. 
Again, the facts tell a far different story. Because water is so 
precious in the district, Westlands' farmers have pioneered innovative 
and effective water conservation practices and technologies. 

Today, they regularly achieve water efficiencies of 85 percent or better 
-- a rating that is the envy of farmers throughout the world. 

The constant attacks from groups like EWG are draining and 
disappointing. Farmers in Westlands have in recent years done many of 
the things the environmental community asked for. We: 

- Grow more crops with less water. 

- Till the soil less and use fewer pesticides. 

- Manage our water so not a drop runs off into any stream or river. 

- Pay more for our water every year. 

The fallacies put forth by the EWG dramatically degrade the credibility 
of the environmental community as a whole. 



Because this organization is so cavalier with the truth, other 
environmental groups should be worried they are doing a disservice to 
environmental advocacy. # 

http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=10D527 
62229F3478&p_docnum=4 




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