Farmers in the western part of the San Joaquin valley will receive 5% of their water allocation from the Central Valley Project. That's the word from the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
If it’s an April fool’s joke, farmers, water managers and Fresno County leaders aren’t laughing.
After two years of zero percent allocation, the Bureau announced that this year, despite El Nino conditions, many growers on the valley’s west side, will only get five percent of their promised water.
Farmer Sal Parra says the announcement is a gut punch.
“It is kind of like you are dying a slow death. But you want to keep fighting. Who wants to die? You want to preserve. You want to keep strong. And that’s what we are trying to do,” Parra said.
Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes blasted the decision pointing out that the large Northern California reservoirs are in flood stage.
Congressman Jim Costa quickly put out a scathing press release calling the decision ‘Immoral’.
If state and federal agencies had followed my consistent direction and better managed the water in the system, there would have been a different and more positive announcement made today. Instead, as a direct result of the federal agencies failure to act on my recommendations, more land will go fallow, farm workers will be jobless, and the challenges that San Joaquin Valley drought stricken communities face will continue.
But Ron Milligan with the Central Valley Project says moving that water to farms in the south is a challenge, given federal restrictions on pumping water from the Delta.
“Just because the timing of water hitting the Delta and what we can pump in coordination with just the increase of demand from an agricultural stand point, kind of makes it a little hard to direct the traffic,” Milligan said.
The farmers warn that the low allocation threatens not only them but the economic health of the entire valley.