[env-trinity] Hanford Sentinel 8 25 09

[Joshua Allen]

Ah, the Hanford Sentinel. I sometimes miss reading the paper of my so-called
"hometown"...but then again, I don't miss it.

Funny though, the Westside farmers are running a new ad campaign. Have you
seen it? It's everywhere posted along roads in the Westlands, specifically
in the I-5 corridor.

I took a picture of this ad last month - and for your pleasure, it's
attached! This was taken at the corner of West Oakland Avenue (in Kings Co
it's called Grangeville Blvd.) and State Route 145 (Fresno Coalinga Road).

Funny thing though, the place didn't look like much of a dustbowel to me.
Actually from Tulare between to the I-5 it looked down right productive
while I was living there from April to just a few weeks ago before moving to
Chico. Corn was even sprouting up in 90 days, which is something I don't
remember seeing growing up! Just unreal... The only place I noticed were
approaching dustbowl status were a few orchards along I-5 that looked like
they were purposely dried up; which after reading this article makes a lot
of sense.

So the question I have is this; "How do I get into this water business of
buying water for pennies on the dollar from the government, say at $50 or
less an acre foot, at taxpayer expense and from someone else's backyard,
nonetheless of course, and then sell it to some other goverenmental agency
for an obscene sum?"

Hey Brian or somebody at the BOR, can you help me figure out how I too can
get rich? I'm really poor, especially being a masters student now, due to
your government's budget cuts, and would like my 60 acres and a mule too!
Plus the water...

God, if only Bernie knew! He'd be out of jail as we speak still getting
rich, with a legal ponzi scheme. But alas, he got too greedy...

Just a little something to make you go, hmmm...




2009/8/26 Byron Leydecker <bwl3 at comcast.net>

>  Westside farmer sells water for $77 million
>
> By Seth Nidever
> snidever at HanfordSentinel.com
>
> *Forget gold.  In Kings County, water gets most of the attention. More
> specifically, it’s the prospect of losing local water rights to outside
> entities that gets everybody’s dander up.
>
> That's why the Kings County Water Commission spent a good chunk of a Monday
> night meeting talking about a Westside landowner who plans to sell 14,000
> acre-feet of water a year to the Mojave Water Agency in San Bernardino
> County for $5,500 per acre-foot.
>
> That’s $77 million of the wet stuff headed out of the county for likely
> urban development (an acre-foot is enough water to supply a typical home for
> a year, according to Wikipedia).
>
> The tradeoff is that the unnamed landowner — a member of a Bay Area company
> called Sandridge Partners, based in Sunnyvale — plans to cut down 2,500
> acres of his almond trees along Interstate 5 near Kettleman City.
>
> Normally, that probably wouldn’t rank high on the concerns of the water
> commission — The land is far away from Hanford, it doesn’t affect Kings
> River water users and it’s California Aqueduct water coming from the
> Sacramento River, anyway.
>
> *
>
> *But the concern is that the pattern could become more common as scarce
> water becomes more valuable as a commodity than as a way of growing crops.
>
> “Higher bidders are bidding for the water and are willing to pay more,”
> said Don Mills, commission member.
>
> Mills said he’d like to stop Sandridge from selling the water, but that
> Kings County “has no legal authority (to stop it).”
>
> Dudley Ridge Water District, where Sandridge’s land is located, has adopted
> a policy divvying its water among member property owners. That gives each
> the right to sell their share.
>
> No representatives from Sandridge Partners or Dudley Ridge Water District
> spoke at Monday’s meeting.
>
> According to Mills, however, Sandridge plans to use part of the $77 million
> to buy groundwater rights on adjacent land in Kings and Tulare counties in
> order to keep at least some of its almond trees alive.
>
> The groundwater might be lower quality, but it is a more reliable water
> supply than Aqueduct water, which has been reduced severely due to drought
> and environmental issues in the Sacramento River delta.
>
> “It’s a matter of economics,” said Mark Gilkey, general manager of the
> Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, in an interview.
>
> Property owners in his water district have done the same thing in the past,
> Gilkey said.
>
> As with most water discussions in Kings County, Monday’s comments quickly
> turned to the topic of new dams — a sore point in Sacramento as Democratic
> legislators balk at new storage projects and Republican lawmakers, along
> with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, say they won’t support anything that
> doesn’t include new dams.
>
> “The answer’s got to be more [water] contracts,” said commission member
> John Howe, adding that the reshuffling of the existing water supply is
> “delaying the inevitable.”*
>
> * *
>
> * *
>
> *Byron Leydecker, JcT*
>
> *Chair, Friends of Trinity River*
>
> *PO Box 2327*
>
> *Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327*
>
> *415 383 4810 land*
>
> *415 519 4810 cell*
>
> *bwl3 at comcast.net***
>
> *bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org **(secondary)***
>
> *http://www.fotr.org <http://fotr.org/> ***
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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