County: Delta controversy creating “disaster”
| Tuesday, May 05 2009 11:00 AM
Last Updated Tuesday, May 05 2009 04:25 PM
Kern County agricultural water districts and their supporters in local government are trying a new tactic in their water war over the San Joaquin/Sacramento Delta.
County Agricultural Commissioner Ruben Arroyo said the county will ask to be designated a disaster zone because ag industry losses due to lack of water will do $600 million damage to the local economy.
Hopefully, he said, the disaster designation would draw cash to offset the losses. The designation would be a little different than ones supervisors have approved in recent years, he said.
Those disasters were caused by natural droughts and freezes, he said, while this time it’s because of legal decisions and legislation limits to the water Kern County can receive — a sort of discretionary drought created by the water battle over the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta.
Around 40,000 acres will be left out of production, according to preliminary estimates from the Kern County Water Agency, Arroyo said. Another 48,000 acres will get limited water.
“People are bulldozing trees,” said Kern County Water Association spokesman Steve Dalke. “You’re having to decide which trees you’re going to keep alive.”
Row crops, he said, won’t happen this year.
Jim Beck of the Kern County Water Agency told supervisors that local ag districts are being given only 25 to 30 percent of their normal allocation of water from the State Water Project — despite the fact that rainfall in the northern Sierra Nevada mountains is 90 to 95 percent of normal.
“It’s bad. It’s really bad,” Beck said.
The cost to buy water has shot up to $450 an acre foot. An acre-foot is the about the amount of water needed to serve one average family for a year.
Dalke said growers unable to afford to irrigate their crops are laying off people and the trickle-down impact of that loss of work is what is creating the $600 million disaster.
Also Tuesday, supervisors passed a 3.5 percent trash fee increase.
The residential rate increase passed in a flash, with nobody raising objections.
But supervisors long debated the proposed 3.5 percent increase in fees paid by businesses and bulk-trash disposers.
Supervisor Jon McQuiston said he's concerned that Kern's prices are outstripping fees at other landfills and he wants to make sure the department cuts expenses before raising costs.
Waste Management Director Doug Landon said his department has made major cuts and the only things left to cut would be reducing public services and the county's ability to comply with state recycling diversion rates.
Some examples of those cuts would include closing the Boron landfill, the Buttonwillow transfer station and ending the metropolitan Bakersfield drop-off program.
Other supervisors supported the increase in fees for businesses.
“I'm going to hold my nose and vote yes,” McQuiston said.
