Who pays for the Friant-Kern repairs? It should be farmers, but most likely, taxpayers

A recent Fresno Bee headline read, “Friant-Kern Canal: Trump moves ahead on repairs, but who pays.” If area legislators and ag interests have their way, you can bet the farm that taxpayers will pay a significant portion of the $40 million estimated costs.

The Friant-Kern Canal was built in 1949, a 152-mile-long canal carrying water from Millerton Lake north of Fresno to the Kern River in Bakersfield. The problem is a 30-mile stretch from Porterville to Delano where it has sunk due to land subsidence, caused by overpumping of groundwater, resulting in 60% water lost. Senate Bill 559 (Hurtado, D-Sanger) proposes to build a parallel canal alongside the problem area.

I understand the need to convey water via canals in our Central Valley within a systematic, well-regulated and properly managed system. But there are so many unanswered questions: Why should taxpayers fund and repair debacles created by overdrafting by water districts that should have regulated or sought regulation of this practice? Why were funds not set aside to repair obvious, long-term deterioration? By April 2017 the canal had subsided a total of 12 feet since its completion. An estimated 30 bridges, roads and other area infrastructure are also in peril of extensive damage. Who will pay for this destruction of these public properties?

Many properties served by Friant-Kern are in areas of Fresno, Tulare and Kern counties with very limited access to river water, and the irregularity of rainfall and cycles of drought were well known. Prior to building the canal, wells were already draining the aquifer and subsidence was occurring. California has inexcusably never regulated, monitored or recorded groundwater pumping and water levels. Finally, in 2014 the state approved the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. We have known the destructive results of overdrafting for decades.

All other industries, whether residential or business, are subject to a land-use approval process for new or changing uses. Cities and counties impose limitations, public facilities fees and mitigation measures under authority granted by the Mitigation Fee Act. These standards, restrictions and costs are applied depending on the impacts on existing water, air, traffic, roads, etc. systems triggered by new and changing land uses. The developer of the property is expected to pay for the immediate and future “impacts and/or damages” associated with its use.

Not so with ag — the gains have been private while the costs are public. Therefore, if 1,000 acres of vacant, dry-land pasture, and/or the same of seasonal row crops is converted to almonds, vineyard, etc., a review and approval process should be applied. Water levels for productive wells 20-30 years ago at 50 to 80 feet now require a depth of 1,000 ft. or more. This has damaged the aquifer and depleted the water table not only of neighboring properties but all Californians. As Mark Arax so eloquently stated in his excellent book, The Dreamt Land: “We have burned through Eden in the blink of an eye.”

Whether it be water pollution, overdrafting or air quality, overproduction and endless conversion to water consuming almonds has not only caused the problem; the economic benefits have almost exclusively gone to the top of the food chain. We are the richest agricultural region in the world, yet one of the poorest in the U.S., with the lowest wages in California, the dirtiest air in the country and now the possibility of losing the ability to apply our major industry.

These three counties, partially served by the Friant-Kern Canal, have increased almond acreage from 1,035 (1950/opening of canal) to 532,742 acres in 2018 (approximate figures taken from annual counties’ ag commissioner crop report). This tsunami has grown even more dramatic as water has become scarcer. Between 2010 and 2017/18, less than a decade, when California was devasted by the worst period of drought in its history, these counties increased almond production by 221,532 acres. A majority of this has been controlled by a few multimillionaires. They have even been allowed to sell “excess”, publicly subsided Ag water to new housing developments.

All the while our region runs out of water, poor rural communities suffer from contaminated wells and our air becomes dirtier. When is enough land in agricultural production, and enough almonds, enough?

This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Who pays for the Friant-Kern repairs? It should be farmers, but most likely, taxpayers."