Wasting Rainfall

Both the San Francisco Chronicle and the Associated Press have been reporting this week that we are NOT refilling our reservoirs with the recent rains. Federal regulators are concerned about----wait for it---the Delta Smelt. So let me get this straight, AFTER TWO YEARS OF DROUGHT RESTRICTIONS we are finally getting some needed rainfall and THE FEDS ARE LETTING THE WATER RUN OUT INTO THE OCEAN!!!

This just proves what I have been saying, they want all the water.
We cannot pump to fill the reservoirs in the summer because the fish need the water.
We cannot pump to fill the reservoirs in the Spring because the fish need the water.
Now we cannot pump to fill the reservoirs in the winter because the fish need the water.
Does it make sense yet when people say we have a man made drought?

One of the main points in my book, "Ten Reasons: Finding Balance on Environmental Issues", is that we need a healthy economy and a healthy environment. Now we have neither. Instead of finding solutions to our problems, they just clamp down.

Here is a portion from "Ten Reasons"

Ten Reasons-Reason 7-Solutions

#7-I’ll start believing environmentalists when they start offering solutions. What I usually see is a presentation of a problem and then they jump up and down and tell us to stop it. For example, they will tell us how bad over population is. Then tell us to stop it. What kind of solution is that? It would be nice if the solutions made sense. One suggestion they had about dust on dirt roads was to water the dirt roads every day. Do you know how many miles of dirt roads there are in Fresno County? Do you know how much water that would take? Do you know how many of those roads have no traffic at all during the day? That wasn’t much of solution. Watering the roads we use makes a lot more sense. But, the farmers had to suggest that, the enviros didn’t figure that one out.

            My experience working with the environmental community is they are not

interested in problem solving.

            As I have shared elsewhere, my introduction to the environmental community was

a Sierra Club meeting in San Diego when I was sixteen. [remember this was years before

I started farming.] The sum of the meeting was as follows, “Well, we beat the nuclear

guys on that issue, who do we go after next?” It is not that I am getting old and I can’t

remember, I never found out what issue they beat the nuclear guys on. The whole point of

the meeting was, “where is our next victim?” Even as a starry-eyed idealist ready to enlist

in the cause I was repulsed by this approach, and I was out of there. I will gladly work for

a cause I believe in, but I don’t go around picking fights to throw my weight around.

            Another experience was working with a Bay Area environmental group. In a side

bar conversation I tried to engage David Behar of the Bay Institute about how to solve

water supply problems to benefit both the environment and the farmers. Behar’s

comment was, “This is a Zero-Sum game.” He felt that if one side wins the other side

must lose. Can you see how this perspective automatically limits our ability to solve

problems?  Right off the bat he has eliminated one of the most powerful tools for solving

problems; The Win-Win. Or, as Fisher, Ury and Patton put it in their classic, Getting to

Yes!, “Seek Options for Mutual Gain” (Fisher, Ury and Patton 56). This experience

confirmed once again that the enviros not only do not want to “Seek options for mutual

gain”, they are not interested in problem solving at all.

            In Reason Three I talk about my experience on a Technical Advisory Committee

for the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. Each of the technical

experts on the committee was locked in to his or her specialty. The salt guys didn’t want

to consider any solutions until the salt issue was solved. The fertilizer guys didn’t want to

consider any solutions until all the fertilizer issues were solved. I think you get the idea.

THE ENVIROS HAVE NO RESPONSIBILITY TO PRODUCE ANYTHING-

            Another reason I think we see a lack of solutions from the enviros is they don’t

have any responsibility to produce anything. When your prime directive is to protect the

environment at all costs everything else can fall to the way side.

            You and I have to produce something or provide a service to support our families

All the things we have in our lives do not magically appear. For example, the coffee you

drank this morning came from beans grown overseas. They had to be nurtured, harvested,

roasted, ground and shipped thousands of miles to get to your home. All of this does not

happen by magic or by accident. It takes a lot of work, a lot of planning, a lot of effort

and that is just for one cup of coffee. How about the rest of the food you ate today?  Or,

the clothes you wear. [I, for one, would love to visit half the places my clothes have been

to.]     

            Our environmental friends and neighbors feel zero responsibility in the production

of the necessities of life. Their over-riding primary goal is protection of the environment.

It is a noble goal, but it has no balance.

[If you want to read more, you can find copies of Ten Reasons on Amazon.com or at the Book Barn in Clovis, CA.]