Both sides had a role in creating water loss

Published online on Sunday, Sep. 27, 2009

To hear all the shouting over the lack of water for farms on the San Joaquin Valley's west side, you'd think this problem was created solely by Democrats catering to their environmental friends. But the Republicans also played a major role in diverting farm water to environmental uses.

In 1992, then-President George H.W. Bush signed the Miller-Bradley bill to reform the Central Valley Project. Bush did this even after coming to Fresno and promising farmers that he would veto the bill when it got to his desk.

California agricultural interests vehemently opposed the bill inspired by their political nemesis, Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. Farmers said it would devastate the state's agricultural industry. Bush signed the measure, which also included water projects for other Western states, just days before the 1992 presidential election.

We're still feeling the damage of that bill 17 years later. The legislation set aside about 1.2 million acre-feet of CVP water every year for environmental restoration, wildlife refuges and rivers. That's a significant loss of water to farmers, and set the foundation for the water losses farmers are experiencing today.

Farmers have every right to blame the environmental movement for their plight, but the Miller-Bradley reform was supported by both parties. For example, the bill passed 83-8 in the U.S. Senate prior to it being signed by Bush.

Republicans blame the Endangered Species Act for causing the diversion of even more water for environmental purposes, and they are correct. But what they don't say is they had the power to change the bill, and didn't. For six years when George W. Bush was president, the Republicans held both houses of Congress but let the ESA stand.

This demonstrates why it's so difficult for farmers to make their case nationally for more water. They may call environmentalists wackos -- or communists in the case of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia -- but nationally the environmental movement is a lot more accepted than you'd think listening to Fresno talk radio.

That's why I believe the strategy of demonizing environmentalists isn't working. The agricultural community needs to stop framing this issue as "fish vs. people" and explain to Americans that they need water to grow the nation's food so they aren't forced to buy their food overseas.

Farm supporters flirt with this issue with signs that say, "If you like foreign oil, you'll love foreign food." But they aren't committed to that as a strategy. Their dislike for the environmental movement seems to trump good political sense on this issue.

I'm also stunned that farmers don't point out they were environmentalists before the movement was cool. They should be explaining how they must protect their land to make crops grow year after year.

What's a better environmental choice? Growing crops on productive land or paving it over for shopping centers?

But farmers would rather slug it out with environmentalists than point out the many things they have in common. So they trot out the tired "fish vs. people" argument.

I agree that the balance in this debate has been shifted to the environmental side because of the Miller-Bradley bill, the ESA and recent court decisions. But the Republicans went along with the bills when they could have blocked them or made changes.

It's time that Valley agriculture revamp their political strategy. Make a convincing case to Americans that they are better off having their food grown on American soil. It sure beats the flawed tactics that have allowed environmental opponents to control the flow of water.