Ah, the Hanford Sentinel. I sometimes miss reading the paper of my so-called "hometown"...but then again, I don't miss it. <br><br>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. <br>
<br>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).<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>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?" <br>
<br>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...<br>
<br>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... <br><br>Just a little something to make you go, hmmm...<br><br><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">
2009/8/26 Byron Leydecker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net">bwl3@comcast.net</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div link="blue" vlink="purple" lang="EN-US">
<div>
<h3><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Westside farmer sells water for $77 million</span></h3>
<p>By Seth Nidever<br>
<a href="mailto:snidever@HanfordSentinel.com" target="_blank">snidever@HanfordSentinel.com</a></p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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).<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
</span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: 14pt;">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.<br>
<br>
“Higher bidders are bidding for the water and are willing to pay
more,” said Don Mills, commission member.<br>
<br>
Mills said he’d like to stop Sandridge from selling the water, but that
Kings County “has no legal authority (to stop it).”<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
No representatives from Sandridge Partners or Dudley Ridge Water District spoke
at Monday’s meeting.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“It’s a matter of economics,” said Mark Gilkey, general
manager of the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, in an interview.<br>
<br>
Property owners in his water district have done the same thing in the past,
Gilkey said.<br>
<br>
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.<br>
<br>
“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.”</span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b></p>
<p><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"> </span></b></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">PO Box 2327</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">415 383 4810
land</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></p>
<p><b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;"><a href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">bwl3@comcast.net</span></a></span></i></b><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></b></p>
<p><b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;"><a href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;">(secondary)</span></i><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></b></p>
<p><b><i><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: gray;"><a href="http://fotr.org/" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.fotr.org</span></a>
</span></i></b><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></b></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>
</div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
env-trinity mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:env-trinity@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us">env-trinity@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us</a><br>
<a href="http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity" target="_blank">http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>