A somewhat long read but an excellent article. Do your best to muddle through.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... son?page=1
(MOD Edit: Changed the title and fixed the link)
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A somewhat long read but an excellent article. Do your best to muddle through.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... son?page=1
(MOD Edit: Changed the title and fixed the link)
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalIndependent
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... son?page=1
Thanks for the URL assist!
Here's the article:
Two Californias
Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley.
The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.
Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). 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.
It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?
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.
In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here — composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children’s plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.
We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a “counter business.â€
I have been thru the central valley and he was being real nice about the real way it is. It is Mexico. It is a socialist haven where the only money makers are govt employed!
I wish there were photos.
This interesting article has been duped 3 times so bringing bttt.
I will get some posted when I get a chance... I am working In Clovis Ca,just outside of Fresno.... He was being "very nice" Indeed.... This Is a third world rat-hole :!: :twisted:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ratbstard
Clovis is and has always been a conservative town. Getting to the 99 is where it gets scary!Quote:
Originally Posted by topsecret10
Yep :!: :lol: :twisted:Quote:
Originally Posted by TakingBackSoCal
Maybe some of us Californians need a new career. Like producing a documentary. We could get together and start touring and filming these sites.
What makes me really mad is I just built a new 30x40 shop/garage in San Joaquin County and they have a ordinance that all of your total outbuildings cannot have more square footage than your house. So we cannot get a final until we demo another outbuilding and we had to have a permit for demo which cost $120.00. Another example of a double standard.
It has been my contention for some time that at least an hour long documentary needs to be produced and aired in prime time television, exposing the conditions in the article posted by Mayday. Moving across the U.S., I doubt you could cram the destruction in an hour of this once great country by illegal aliens. California is probably the worst scenario, but these neighborhoods are being played out across the U.S......A documentary would bring reality to the nation of this grave situation.Quote:
Originally Posted by MontereySherry
Just remember who benefits from the attempt to save fish by stopping irrigation in California. None other thean Pelosi's husband who is a mucky muck with Starkist.
What you cannot see, feel or hear, you cannot respond to.
It's not California, but hell it happening everywhere faster than people think!
http://www.youtube.com/user/MarquisdeLafayett
I miss Ol' Marquis and the blue and white!
He is always fun to hang with!
As much as I liked that video I was disappointed to see Marquis is now trying to make money off his site. JMO
"I wish I looked good enough for the camera!" :D
Opp! wrong place, sorry!
http://www.immigrationworksusa.org/
RELATED
San Diego bucks national trend in home prices
Despite a recent dip in home prices, San Diego was among only four cities nationwide to record increasing prices between October 2009 and this past October . . .
The other cities where housing prices increased Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-222958.html
Does Governor Schwarzenegger know what is going on in Central Vallley?
He's probably to busy packing and looking for a new place to live to notice. 8)Quote:
Originally Posted by sophi
That was a good article. The author was both honest and objective, yet the story lacks a larger reality as the bicycle and his limited routing covers a small area even though it goes from one side of the valley to the other. The San Joaquin Valley is huge. Just a guess, 300 miles long by 100 wide at some points?
I have traveled much of that valley. As an old farm boy one could get jealous by the fertile soils and the everlasting sunshine and growing conditions. Then.....reality strikes, it is California, the taxes, politics, and the PC attitudes are a bit much for some farm boys. I wish those the best that are trying to save their state. It is a beautiful state,...but time is ticking.
Anyone ever been to Huron in the valley? This is a border town 350 miles north of the border.
A documentary should be done. Even it would be limited in scope compared to the realities of size.
If I can figure out how to post pictures then I could add some clarity to the water problems in the western regions of the valley.
West-siders hope for more irrigation water
Posted at 10:40 PM on Sunday, Dec. 26, 2010
By Mark Grossi / The Fresno Bee Share5
â–*Season off to good start as storms feed reservoirs
What a difference a year makes for water supply. Battered by November storms, the growing Sierra Nevada snowpack and major reservoir storage haven't looked this healthy in at least four years.
Only a year after experiencing an extended drought, the state is starting to prepare for possible flooding.
"The November storms have saturated the soils and streams are flowing again," said state hydrology chief Jon Ericson, based in Sacramento. "It's quite a start."
â–*Federal judge finds major flaws in smelt plan
Federal judge finds major flaws in smelt plan
A federal judge in Fresno on Tuesday invalidated key parts of a much-debated plan to protect the threatened delta smelt. The ruling likely will force the federal government to rewrite the plan for the second time in less than four years.
U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger's 225-page decision found that while pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta hurt the smelt, the restrictions that were set up to protect the fish were not justified.
Wanger's ruling also said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn't follow its own regulations, which require the agency to study whether the pumping reductions are economically and technologically feasible.
â–*Federal judge orders rewrite of delta smelt plan
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rewrite parts of its plan to protect a tiny, threatened fish that lives in California's freshwater delta.
U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger said in a 225-page opinion that portions of the guidelines meant to protect the delta smelt and manage water flows from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta violated the law.
The opinion covered six cases filed separately by agriculture interests, environmental groups and urban water districts against federal wildlife, land and water managers over plans meant to safeguard the dwindling species, called a biological opinion.
â–*EDITORIAL: Smelt ruling is reasonable
The highly contentious battle over apportioning California's limited water supply has lately been fought in a federal courtroom. That's because too few of the interested parties want to find a workable compromise, leaving a federal judge to interpret the rules for water allocations.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger issued another crucial decision that offered some clarification to the complex problem.
In a 225-page decision, Wanger said that while pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta hurt federally protected smelt, the restrictions were not justified. He also said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn't follow its own regulations, which require the agency to study whether the pumping reductions are economically and technologically feasible.
â–*Salmon hearing in Fresno wraps up
U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger on Friday wrapped up a two-day hearing on a federal management plan for endangered salmon species that is being challenged by agricultural and urban water users.
Wanger did not issue a ruling Friday.
Many of the legal issues being argued in U.S. District Court in Fresno are similar in nature to a management plan for the threatened delta smelt.
Huge December storms and a federal court ruling have given west Valley farmers the best Christmas gift in years -- hope for more irrigation water next summer.
San Luis Reservoir on the west side is forecast to be full of Northern California water for the first time since 2006. West-side farm water supply next summer might be 55% of what growers want, a noticeable improvement from the 45% allotment this year.
The court decision -- rejecting parts of a protection plan for threatened fish -- gives water officials the chance to file legal action to keep Northern California pumps going if authorities order a slowdown this month for delta smelt.
But those developments don't give farmers what they really need: more water pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta during spring and early summer. San Luis Reservoir does not hold nearly enough water for both state and federal customers, so it must be replenished with more delta pumping as the reservoir is drawn down in warmer weather.
Pumping cutbacks on the federal Central Valley Project -- up to 80% cutbacks in some months -- probably will continue in warmer weather to protect dying populations of smelt and salmon.
"Between now and June, there is still uncertainty for our water supply," said Dan Nelson, executive director of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, representing growers who irrigate 1.1 million acres of west-side land from Tracy to Kettleman City.
The largest customer is Westlands Water District, but there are 21 other similar farm customers on the west side. They face annual cutbacks in water supply even in wet years because water pumping has been linked to dwindling populations of delta fish.
Pumping restrictions coincide with fish movement, and the most critical months begin right now as smelt move through the delta to prepare for spawning.
Though part of the government protection plan for smelt has been rejected, the plan remains in effect until a remedy is determined. That process won't begin until early January in federal court.
Under the current plan, pumping could be curtailed over the next few days in response to turbidity or muddied water, which often occurs when there is a lot of flow.
Water officials could then ask a federal judge to temporarily ease the restrictions.
Turbidity in the delta is not bad for smelt, said ecologist Jon Rosenfield of the Bay Institute, an advocacy group in San Francisco. The fish can hide from predators in murky water.
But, if the turbidity draws the fish near the pumps in the south delta, they could be sucked in and killed.
West-side water officials say it's possible there's enough water in the delta this year to skip these early restrictions. But Rosenfield said federal wildlife officials need to be cautious.
He said the pumps have been damaging to smelt, salmon and many other kinds of fish.
"The conditions are better now than they were last year," Rosenfield said. "But we're talking about the delta smelt, a fish species that has lost more than 95% of its population. We need to protect them."
On Jan. 1, federal wildlife authorities are obligated to begin protections for another fish -- salmon. Water pumping will be curtailed based on flows going through two delta channels, known as Old River and Middle River. Both are tributaries to the San Joaquin River.
The water flow in Old and Middle rivers actually reverses and moves toward the federal and state pumping plants when the pumps are on. Biologists say migrating salmon can become confused and wind up swimming to their deaths at the pumps.
But in years when the San Joaquin is flowing higher -- as it is this year -- the problem is eased, said water resources engineer Tom Boardman, who works for the San Luis & Delta-Mendota group.
The San Joaquin feeds more water into the pumps, allowing the Sacramento River -- and the salmon -- to flow more toward the ocean, he said.
"With continued high flows in the San Joaquin, we might be able to hold pumping levels as they are right now at full capacity," Boardman said.
Long-range weather forecasts say winter rain and snow should remain above average for Northern California. But it might not make a big difference for west-siders.
In late February and early March, delta smelt begin to spawn. If they are discovered too close to the south delta pumps, wildlife authorities must again limit water exports to San Luis Reservoir.
From April 1 to the end of May, federal officials must trim water pumping by 80% for endangered salmon, unless the San Joaquin is still flowing high, water officials said.
But even if the San Joaquin runs higher in spring, the pumps can be ratcheted up only in small increments to make sure the salmon are protected.
In June, there are sometimes further cutbacks if smelt appear near the pumps. That means less water goes to San Luis Reservoir, which dips as the temperature spikes and farmers increase irrigation.
"The best we can do is try to keep the reservoir as high as possible for as long as possible," Nelson said.
The reporter can be reached at mgrossi@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6316.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/12/26/221 ... z19TSmy3Ch