Fresno- Zimbabwe???

[Trajan]

I thought this was taken care of when the local congressman was bribed with more water for his vote for Obama care?
Nancy, where are you?


Fresno, Zimbabwe

Posted 12/28/2010 06:43 PM ET

Environmentalism: Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. So why is that city preoccupied with winning a $1 million prize to stave off hunger?

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry. Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.

Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It's all driving the economy to collapse.

In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November's unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

Other Central Valley cities such as Hanford-Corcoran, Merced, Modesto, Stockton and Visalia-Porterville have similar jobless numbers, the highest in the country. The Wal-Mart Foundation notes that "24.1% of families in this community (Fresno) cannot afford regular meals compared to a national average of 9.2%."


more at-
Fresno, Zimbabwe - Investors.com

 

[JWBooth]

The once verdant Central Valley is going to return to the desert it once was before the coming of irrigation if these fools continue to have their way.

Another recent article, which references my childhood home of Parlier, also describes the decline in the Valley:
Two Californias - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online

 

[Old Rocks]

Hmmm...... And how long have the people in California had warnings concerning the availability of irragation and drinking water? How about the areas where the soil is beginning to salt up? This is not a problem that a congressman or senator is going to be able to fix.

 

[Trajan]

Hmmm...... And how long have the people in California had warnings concerning the availability of irragation and drinking water? How about the areas where the soil is beginning to salt up? This is not a problem that a congressman or senator is going to be able to fix.

ah gov. can't help them?

who shut water off?

 

[Old Rocks]

Those that demanded that the government supply 100 gal of water for agriculture, and one hundred gallons of water for urban use, out of a tank that only contains 150 gals of water shut the water off. When demand is much higher than supply, everybody loses.

 

[Trajan]

The once verdant Central Valley is going to return to the desert it once was before the coming of irrigation if these fools continue to have their way.

Another recent article, which references my childhood home of Parlier, also describes the decline in the Valley:
Two Californias - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online

I had to snip a few of his views-...thx;

First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming — to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California, for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.

On the western side of the Central Valley, the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas — which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment — have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself — from almonds to raisins — has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.


snip-
Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms — the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don’t think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly — with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world’s richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?

California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.

and....


In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.

By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don’t editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?



Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic — there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of “diversity,” but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income — whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.


much more at-
Two Californias - Victor Davis Hanson - National Review Online

 

[Trajan]

Those that demanded that the government supply 100 gal of water for agriculture, and one hundred gallons of water for urban use, out of a tank that only contains 150 gals of water shut the water off. When demand is much higher than supply, everybody loses.

if you are inferring the water was shit off due to 'shortages' that does not appear to be the case.

 

[Wry Catcher]

I thought this was taken care of when the local congressman was bribed with more water for his vote for Obama care?
Nancy, where are you?


Fresno, Zimbabwe

Posted 12/28/2010 06:43 PM ET

Environmentalism: Fresno, Calif., stands as the de facto capital of California's mighty Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. So why is that city preoccupied with winning a $1 million prize to stave off hunger?

Local newspapers and Fresno County officials are trying to rally Facebook users to vote for Fresno in a corporate contest sponsored by Wal-Mart for $1 million in charity food donations for the hungry. Fresno, a city of 505,000, has taken the national lead because 24.1% of Fresno's families are going hungry.

Civic spirit is good, but something big is wrong here. Fresno is the agricultural capital of America. More food per acre in more variety can be grown in the fertile Central Valley surrounding this community than on any other land in America — perhaps in the world.

Yet far from being a paradise, Fresno is starting to resemble Zimbabwe or 1930s Ukraine, a victim of a famine machine that is entirely man-made, not by red communists this time, but by greens.

State and federal officials, driven by the agenda of environmental extremists, have made it extremely difficult for the valley's farms, introducing costly environmental regulations and cutting off critical water supplies to save the Delta smelt, a bait fish. It's all driving the economy to collapse.

In the southwest part of the Central Valley, water allotments as low as 10% of normal have created a visible dust bowl. The knock-on effect can be seen in cities like Fresno, where November's unemployment among the packers, cannery workers and professional fields that make agriculture productive stands at 16.9%.

Other Central Valley cities such as Hanford-Corcoran, Merced, Modesto, Stockton and Visalia-Porterville have similar jobless numbers, the highest in the country. The Wal-Mart Foundation notes that "24.1% of families in this community (Fresno) cannot afford regular meals compared to a national average of 9.2%."


more at-
Fresno, Zimbabwe - Investors.com

So what's your solution Nero? Agra-business has drained the San Joagiun River and still wants more water. Water which is polluted by the chemicals used in growing that eventually seeps into the ground water and into the bodies of people who drink water.
Anyone who drives 5 or 99 through the Cental Valley sees huge sprinkler systems drawing water from the California canal diverted from the Delta spraying water into the air and on the crops. Drip systems, which cost money, would save billions of gallons of water. Explain to me why big farma will not install such a system.

 

[High_Gravity]

Fresno is expensive as hell to live in, but they need loans for food? makes no sense.

 

[Old Rocks]

California faces 'grimmest water situation ever' | Environment | The Guardian

Lester Snow, director of the California department of water resources, told reporters that the state faced its most severe drought since at least the early 1990s. "We may be at the start of the worst California drought in modern history," Snow said. "It's imperative for Californians to conserve water immediately, at home and in their businesses."

The reality, however, is that Californians have been slow to reduce their water consumption. Central Valley farmer John Harris said that he had laid off about two-thirds of his workforce and had stopped cultivating most vegetables in order to concentrate on permanent crops. But despite overhauling his irrigation system, he remained critically short of water, a situation most people ignored, he said.

"Maybe when people turn on the shower and nothing comes out, that will be the final wake-up call, but agriculture will have taken devastating losses by the time that happens," he told agricultural publication Ag Alert.

While Chu warns that he can't see how California's cities could survive, their residents are steeped in a culture of challenging nature. Back in 1952, as drought reduced water levels, pulp science fiction writer Robert Heinlein wrote: "Angelenos committed communal suicide by watering lawns as usual ... The taps remained open, trickling away the life blood of the desert paradise."

 

[High_Gravity]

California sounds like the next Yemen.

 

[Old Rocks]

California Water Crisis - Ag Alert

Ag Alert Coverage
June 9, 2010

Water managers weigh implications of order
June 2, 2010

Klamath farmers face ‘worrisome’ water situation
May 26, 2010

Water, taxes head CFBF Washington agenda
Commentary: Innovation will help to meet Central Valley water needs
April 28, 2010

'Access letter' heats up debate about frost water
April 14, 2010

'Rolling stumping' could be in future for avocado trees
April 7, 2010

Feinstein outlines approaches to deal with water losses

 

[Revere]

Water is at the top of the list of catastrophes that government has been to blame for in California.

 

[Old Rocks]

Really fucking dumb, Revere. If you want to solve the water problem, you charge what the real cost of the water is. Now if you state that the government is wrong for charging less to the farmers and people in the cities of California, you have a case. However, we have all benefited from that, in the form of cheaper food prices. Now the debt that the subsidisation of the farming has created is coming due. We and all pay it, or we can let the farms all go bust, and suffer the consequences, nationwide.

 

[Trajan]

California Water Crisis - Ag Alert

Ag Alert Coverage
June 9, 2010

Water managers weigh implications of order
June 2, 2010

Klamath farmers face ‘worrisome’ water situation
May 26, 2010

Water, taxes head CFBF Washington agenda
Commentary: Innovation will help to meet Central Valley water needs
April 28, 2010

'Access letter' heats up debate about frost water
April 14, 2010

'Rolling stumping' could be in future for avocado trees
April 7, 2010

Feinstein outlines approaches to deal with water losses

your case, that this event surrounding the valleys agri. bus's ongoing short of water, due to a SHORTAGE of water AVAILABLE overall, doesn't....hold water...pun intended.



March 31, 2009
Below is a complete transcript of the story from the March 28 World News Saturday on ABC:

DAN HARRIS: In California, the problem is not too much wet weather, but not enough of it. A drought combined with the bad economy have delivered a one-two punch to the Central Valley, where much of the nation's food is grown. 100,000 acres went unplanted last year, and this year, it could be 750,000 acres. Economists say that will mean $1.5 billion in lost income and the elimination of 40,000 jobs. Lisa Fletcher is in California tonight.

LISA FLETCHER: In just a glance, you know something is very wrong.

PETE RAMIREZ, CROP DUSTER: It's like a desert. A couple of years ago, it was all farmland and everybody had a job.

THEDA LAWRENCE, MENDOTA: What are the people gonna do? How are they gonna eat whenever there's no farming?

FLETCHER: A quarter of the nation's fruits and vegetables are grown here in California's Central Valley. But the farmers here have been hit with two crises at the same time. They're in their third year of severe drought. And now, they must also cope with the worst recession in a generation. That has driven unemployment to staggering levels – 35 percent in some places, numbers that recall the Great Depression. And for the first time ever, farmers may be completely cut off from one of their sources of water. Farmers don't have access to this water that runs right through the center of their farmland. It is being allocated to the delta smelt, a little fish protected by the Endangered Species Act. Conservationists say the smelt are dying in the irrigation pumps, so a judge ruled they must be shut off for much of the growing season. That hits almond farmers, like Shawn Coburn, particularly hard. Ninety percent of the nation's almonds come from this valley, and almond trees need a lot of water.

SHAWN COBURN, ALMOND FARMER: If you have a crop that needs water year in and year out, you, it either dies, or you try to find a way to keep it alive.

FLETCHER: So Coburn is spending $600,000 to dig a new well, and he hopes to buy himself some time.

JOSE RAMIREZ, CITY MANAGER FOR FIREBAUGH, CALIFORNIA: All our people want here is a job. That's all we want. You let the water flow, food will grow, and jobs will flow after that, and we're in business.

FLETCHER: Lisa Fletcher, ABC News, in California's Central Valley.



Read more: ABC: Judge Cuts Water to California Farmers to Save Endangered Fish | NewsBusters.org




no where here does it speaks to a water shortage as the cause, because because it is not the argument;


Notice the source please;

Every time we get hit with new cutbacks, it's like closing another lane on the water supply freeway. Pretty soon, the only way we'll be able to move water will be by helicopter," said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors. "These are supposed to be reasonable and prudent actions, but we're skeptical they actually adhere to those guidelines."

Over the past two years, public water agencies have faced unprecedented water supply cutbacks. This year, 370,000 acre-feet of water - enough to serve nearly three million people for one year - has been cut to satisfy the requirements of the Delta smelt biological opinion.

Public water agencies throughout the state have filed lawsuits challenging the Delta smelt opinion. Recently, a federal court ruled in favor of Central Valley Project water agencies, ordering the federal fisheries agencies to comply with environmental laws and take into account the harm that the water cutbacks have on people.

"These cuts are crippling on our people and businesses - especially in the Central Valley where farmers are being forced to fallow their land and workers are being laid off," said Moon. "Rather than piecemeal restrictions, we need to balance the needs of the environment and the needs of people with a collective plan for the Delta."

The State Water Contractors' case will be heard in federal court later this year.

Threatened Fish Get a Boost in California Water Struggle

 

[Old Rocks]

Yep. We had this same discussion here in Oregon concerning the Klamath River. Cheney intervened, the farmers got the water, and 30,000 salmon died trying to run in a river too low and too warm to sustain them. And then the fishery was shut down from the Mexican border to the Oregon border.

Before you get on with this 'little fish' story, better see what the whole environmental effect of that fish disappearing will be.

 

[Old Rocks]

The only real solution is that California will have to adopt laws and regulations concerning water that reflect the reality that it is a desert. Without the facing of that reality, it will truly go back to being a desert, and that will be a loss to the whole nation.

 

[Trajan]

Yep. We had this same discussion here in Oregon concerning the Klamath River. Cheney intervened, the farmers got the water, and 30,000 salmon died trying to run in a river too low and too warm to sustain them. And then the fishery was shut down from the Mexican border to the Oregon border.

Before you get on with this 'little fish' story, better see what the whole environmental effect of that fish disappearing will be.

as long as you make it known, take responsibility for and stand up and defend the decision, due to your delta smelt concerns..........

here, let me bring you back to earth- think of the valley Hispanic vote....that'll wake pp DC...oh wait!!!!

what a friggin coincidence that they had a new allocation affected right after they jumped on board the obama-care train....yes, lightening does strike twice in the same place Virginia...



annnnnd ( make sure you check the graph, water is not as scarce as it has been in dryer years...) its not the 'water' per se.


Did Obama buy Congressman’s votes from the Central Valley? California’s need for water may have cost you your constitutional rights.

Kim Priestap-Wizbang.com

Water in California is as valuable as gold. Since there isn’t enough to go around, it has been rationed and supplied only to those whom the government believes need it the most. Unfortunately, the people who live in California’s San Joaquin Valley have had their water turned off in order to protect a tiny fish called the delta smelt. As a result farm land that used to be prime agricultural land are now dust bowls. It devastated the economy as well, driving up the the unemployment rate in some areas to as high as 41 percent. Yet for months on end, President Obama said and did nothing to help the people in the Central Valley.

But now the president’s health care reforms are on the ropes and the San Joaquin Valley’s two blue-dog Democratic congressmen Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa have been reluctant to support the president’s reforms. So imagine everyone’s surprise when the Department of the Interior announced yesterday that it is dramatically increasing the water supply to the valley’s parched lands. And what a coincidence, now the two California congressmen who were once “undecided” are being moved over into the “yes” column:

As a vote approaches on Obama and Pelosi’s government takeover of healthcare, Code Red is now considering two supposedly “undecided” California Democrats, Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, to now be “yes” votes.

The U.S. Department of Interior announced yesterday that it is increasing water allocations for the Central Valley of California, a region that depends on these water allocations to support local agriculture and jobs. The region has recently been starved for water and as a result unemployment has soared. Not surprisingly, Cardoza and Costa had a hand in the announcement.


more at
Votes for Water…A Congressional Sell-Out?

 

[zinadinpeterson]

Environmentalism: Fresno, California, is presented as the de facto capital of the powerful California's Central Valley, the breadbasket of America. So, why this city is concerned about winning a jackpot of $ 1 million to prevent famine? I guess as a national campaign by Fresnos much could be useful, but my point is that a million poor people is like pissing in the sea.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting.