Moving 32 beds out of the main hospital on floor 3-West likely sometime this year will allow a remodeling of that space for another cardiac cath lab as well as expansion of the operating room for the heart surgery group, says Mann.  “The growth in the heart programs has been phenomenal,” says Mann with almost 500 patients cared for last year.  The remodeling would be both internal, he says, and an addition of a new wing north into the courtyard area of the hospital west of Floral, he says.  The upshot is that there would be additional square feet added to the downtown campus.

As to the move to the old Visalia Community space, the beds “are fully licensed and ready to go,” says Mann having been recently remodeled.  “We want to fully consult with our medical staff before announcing that this will go forward,” he says.  Transition patients are recovering from their hospital stay but require lower levels of care than the sicker patient that the hospital plans to concentrate at the main downtown campus.  The Court St. complex also has a 19 bed senior care center that will remain.

Regarding where the new hospital might be located, Mann says the city of Visalia will be asked to suggest sites that the hospital will evaluate for cost and other factors.  “With a plan to open in 10 years - the time table is fairly immediate,” says Mann.

The district has been considering how best to expand its care both short term and long.  Regarding the long term the hospital has pressure from the state regarding the upgraded seismic standards need to be in place by 2030.  The cost of remodeling the downtown hospital to that standard is considered too high.  In addition the cost of adding on to the downtown hospital may be more than starting a new campus.  The idea of a new campus was controversial in that the district had purchased property at Caldwell and Lovers Lane - outside the city’s urban growth boundary.  That location was also criticized by the County and downtown supporters.  Now with word that the hospital board will work cooperatively with the city to find alternate locations - that issue may be put to rest.

Sites that have been mentioned include the existing city hall, vacant land at Center west of Ben Maddox, along Ben Maddox and another unknown site.

Last year’s orange freeze is turning into this year’s orange fizz as Tulare County’s number 2 crop faces record low prices below the cost of production.  It may be Orange Blossom Festival time in Tulare County’s foothill orange belt district, but this year few growers are celebrating.  California Citrus Mutual director of industry relations Shirley Batchman says this year’s crop was late in maturing, tended to have a glut of small size fruit and faced extremely tough competition from Spanish Clementine fruit on the east coast, a huge market for our citrus.

It’s the low prices in recent weeks that have really pulled the rug out of the market.   Prices paid to farmers for navel oranges have plummeted to 10 cents a pound and lower in mid March compared to 18 cents a pound in January according to the Western Growers Association (WGA).  Meanwhile supermarkets have marked up the oranges they paid 10 cents a pound for to $1.07 lb.  The WGA survey shows LA supermarkets sold oranges in January for an average of 84 cents a pound even though they paid nearly double (18 cents) per pound to growers.  The price spread in mid March is 970% in Los Angeles.  Meanwhile the WGA survey shows the average price in NY City was 57 cents in March even though the fruit had to be shipped back east.  Retailers raised the price of oranges last year when fruit was hard to come by because of the freeze, but now in 2000 with the extreme cold spell just a memory, the retail price has gone higher.

The 10 cents a pound farmers are getting paid this year compares to an average of about 22 cents a pound growers received in 1997 and 23 cents in Tulare County growers got in 1998 before the big freeze.

Batchman says the price figured in cartons are for the large fancy oranges.  This year farmers are getting $6 to $8 a carton compared to $10 to $11 per carton in the pre-freeze year of 1998.  “It is an industry average to figure the break even point is about $7 per carton,” she says.

The big markups by retailers put orange growers in the same boat as many other farmers who grow a variety of commodities across the nation who have complained loudly recently that they are seeing less of the food dollar spent by the consumer even as middle men and handlers increase their share.  Late last month farmers led by the National Farmers Union offered 2000 farmers who attended a picnic across the street from the U.S. Capitol an $8 multi dish meal with the farmer’s share - only 39 cents.  Several examples: a box of cereal, which retails for $3.71, yet the farmer receives 4.6 cents.  A $1.39 loaf of bread gave the farmer 5 cents, a $4.39 sirloin steak gave the farmer 68 cents, and a pound of Cheddar cheese, with a retail price of $5.91, carried a farmer price of just $1.05.

A year ago the problem was the Big Freeze that wiped out some 80% of the state’s citrus crop.  But this last November growers and industry representatives were optimistic that the crop looked good and trees were healthy.  But consumers had a year of switching to foreign citrus including citrus from Spain.

“I think we lost our shelf space last year when we didn’t have the volume,” says orange grower and banker Jim Holly.  He says California is missing the boat no longer exporting into Europe as we used to.  He says even Israeli oranges are coming into the California market duty free competing against our oranges and underselling us as well.  “We’re providing bases over there to protect them” and this is a part of the defense agreement, he says.

With dry weather in November and December “acid ratios were high” in early season oranges to be marketed during the Holiday turning off some consumers.

By February with lots of rain the oranges sweetened up, but now industry experts say its hard to get the shoppers to return to the oranges again after tasting a tart orange early on in the season.   To make matters worse, a large volume of small oranges have hurt growers returns.  Some growers say they aren’t even bothering to harvest the crop.

With higher prices at the supermarket, growers figure they aren’t getting any help moving their navel crop this year.

Retail consolidation especially in California is partly to blame say some critics.  Produce sections are among the supermarket’s most profitable categories.  In the past year Safeway and Vons, Albertsons and Lucky, Kroger Ralphs and Food 4 Less have merged resulting in fewer buyers and big league players in the produce business says Vern Crowder economist with Bank of America in Fresno. Crowder also points to the fact that there are fewer “windows” left in many crops where growers can expect little competition and therefore higher prices.  Now competition is worldwide and all year long.

Then there is the issue of subsidized competition from Spain this season.  “We know that citrus in the European Union is subsidized to the level of $1 billion a year,” says Batchman.  “We don’t know if that subsidy included fruit that was exported here, be we suspect so,” she says.  “We’re investigating that now.”  Citrus farmer Tokkie Elliot believes the Spanish are “dumping” here - landing fruit here cheaper than the cost of production.

Citrus is the number two crop in Tulare County - the state’s largest producer with some 117,000 acres under production.  Acreage of oranges has increased in part because many orange belt farmers who have alternated their orchards with small plots of cold sensitive olives have or are pulling these small blocks typically replanting with citrus.  Consolidation in the cannery business has meant small parcels of olives have no home as of last season.  Growers have pulled about a thousand acres a year for the past few years in Tulare County.  The price of olives was down.  Last year Early California Foods closed their olive processing facility.

Like its citrus crop, olives receive a high subsidy when they are imported into the U.S. with their only competition, California olives.  If citrus runs the same fate as olives, Tulare County agriculture is in for some tough sledding in coming years.

With importance of oranges to the local economy the ripple effect in the orchards are likely to be felt on Main St. of the local towns, at the car dealerships and restaurants.  With last year being a Freeze impacted year and 2000 the year of the small fruit, the citrus sector joins the County’s number one dairy with lower returns in 99/2000 as well.  There is fear too in the County’s number three crop - grapes- because of a virus - Pierce’s Disease.

Another virus, Tristeza, has affected orange fruit size and quality this year in areas of the County where an industry supported agency is removing infected trees.  Research to be released in coming weeks is reported to show that the virus is affecting grower returns in Tulare County Pest Control District - in the Exeter/Lindsay area where growers have voted for the past few years not to pull infected trees.  The industry is wary if other diseases like citrus canker in Florida - a disease that resulted in the destruction of half a million trees in Florida.

Tokkie Elliot fears that one reason we have small fruit this year is that some growers did not pick their fruit off the trees in the freeze year in time and that tended to make trees produce smaller fruit.  Elliot, an independent packer says Sunkist, who represents 50% of the market, didn’t push as hard this year as they have in the past to get the prices up.

The one bright spot for citrus is exports, especially to China.  Sunkist sent their first shipment of 1000 cartons from Long Beach March 27th expected to arrive April 17 in Shanghai.  Over the next five years Sunkist expects to sell $500 million worth of citrus to China - a good amount of that from Tulare County.  That’s down the road - last year they didn’t have the fruit and this year prices are the pits.

Tulare County - Judge Ron Robie has postponed his decision on the adequacy of a revised EIR submitted by Tulare Irrigation District that would allow the district to line nearly 10 miles of earthen canal with concrete - to save water.  The Sacramento judge was expected to make a decision late in March but a move by the city of Visalia to pull their opposition to the plan only days prior and new Friends of the Court filings by environmental groups set the stage for a delay.

The city council of Visalia voted 3 to 2 to withdraw their lawsuit against the project after they joined in the suit with property owners near the canal.  The issue was a divisive one in both the council chambers and the community.  “In my heart I’m still opposed to the project,” says council member Bob Link who voted for pulling the lawsuit anyway.  “Still my head says my vote was the right thing to do.”  “You’d think by all the letters to the editor opposing the city’s action we were taking a chain saw to all those oak trees,” says a defensive mayor Don Landers who also voted to pull the lawsuit.  Both members Wendy Thomason and Jim Harbottle cited the loss of some 200 oaks to the canal as reason enough to not back off the lawsuit.

“The bottom line is that we were protecting our groundwater supply,” says Landers signing agreements with the TID could mean - if the project is built - that the city could get additional groundwater storage east of town.

In a desert area and much of the state the lining of a canal with concrete is the way to go saving precious water from percolating before it reaches farmland or cities.  But this proposed concrete canal runs from near Woodlake through the heart of the Kaweah delta - a riparian remnant of the way much of the area looked before much of the water was diverted and trees cut down.  Property owners along the canal near Venice Hill fear the concrete lining will not just hurt the ecosystem but lower the groundwater - meaning some wells will suck air in drought times.  Groundwater pumping costs could increase in a 5 mile linear area along the canal because the waterway no longer naturally percolates, says the EIR.  The lining of the main intake canal owned by TID could impact an even larger 50 square mile area causing water levels to decline 2 to 12 feet.  Regarding the larger 12 ft. decline  reported in the EIR there are 800 wells in the area that would have to pump deeper - costing them more or go out of service, in the case of small shallow wells (says the report).  An earlier model of the EIR (1997) predicted that the lowering of groundwater would be far more severe - “35 to 40 feet over the long term” compared to existing conditions.  The current EIR suggests the earlier analysis did not take in all the hydraulic considerations.

The issue is a hot one at the Kaweah Oaks Preserve - only 800 ft. at one point from the canal. The non profit group has attempted to stay clear of the controversy but this week - for the first time - the board is being urged to take a look at the project and potentially signing on to sue the project themselves.  “We’re asking the board to sign on with the brief being filed this Friday - April 7th,” says docent Irene Lindsay.  She says an attorney for the environmental groups believes the judge will accept the filing and that other small water districts may sign as well.  Lindsay, a trail guide at Kaweah Oaks, says there are two small subdivisions of houses served by rural water districts that will likely oppose the project in the brief being filed as well.  They are concerned about their costs of pumping and water availability, she says.

Environmental groups including the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club and the California Oaks Foundation have been late comers to the battle but now will file “Friend of Court” briefs with Judge Robie asking the EIR be turned down.   These briefs have far less standing however, than if they had joined the lawsuit earlier.

The city of Visalia’s two outside lawyers advised that in a CEQA lawsuit eventually the judge is likely to approve the project since the mitigation measures will be designed to cover the impacts.  “Our lawyers said we probably won’t prevail,” says Landers and that was a major reason why they decided to go for the agreement that at least provides more water for city and potentially a new surface supply of water.

But property owners near the canal around the Preserve are gathering a war chest for the next lawsuit that will follow they promise.  Sandy Blain and Barbara Hucheson have helped organize P.O.W.E.R. (Preserving Oaks Water Environment Rights) a group that seeks to raise money to file a new suit if the Robie decision is not favorable.  “We fear they will cement other waterways they own or control,” says Hucheson.   She says while Dr. Tom Mitts has carried the ball this far “its not just him but some 84 landowners out there” that are concerned.  She says she understands that if Robie’s decision favors TID “they could start in a matter of weeks” and the group would need an injunction to stop the bulldozers.

Another issue Mitts vows to argue - that some of those waterways are riparian - existing before TID made them canals and property rights go with riparian water rights.  Indeed an 1850 historical volume talks about the network of diverging streams near Venice Hill that characterize the area - the old 4 Creeks district that the Preserve takes its name from.

To protect the 200 oak trees, TID general manager Gerald Hill has offered to reroute a portion of the canal around the oaks - a move that may have some supporters.

Supervisor Bill Maze has raised the issue of water transfers our of the County saying he has asked County staff to prepare a possible ordinance that would disallow sale of groundwater outside the County.  Critics suggest TID’s real motive is to save enough water to sell it to recoup the cost of building this $10 million canal.

Water expert Richard Schafer says because of the increase in expenses of federal water, property owners, water users, Kaweah Water Conservation District should all kick in to compensate TID for the water they are losing in percolation.  But they “shouldn’t line that canal with concrete.”  Efforts to forge a compromise to date have fallen flat although some people are still trying.

Ag water users south of the Sacramento Delta are complaining that the state-federal plan to “fix” California’s water supply delivery system long-term continues to favor fish and environmental restoration over more water supply.  Created in 1994 the Bay-Delta Accord set in motion CALFED - a state-federal partnership - to come up with a consensus that would both restore ecological health to the Delta and provide water quality and quantity benefits to users south of the Delta.  The plan - long debated - is moving toward “crunch time”, according to local officials, as soon as June 2000 as a finalized Record of Decision on the elements for the fix are released.

Last week Friant Water Users who increasingly depend on a favorable decision that would mean more water supply - sent general manager Dick Moss to testify in Washington to a key congressional committee who oversees funding for CALFED.

What Moss told the committee was that water from Friant dam produces 1 million acre feet annually that generates some $4 billion in agricultural production on the Valley’s eastside on farms that average about 100 acres in size in some 25 districts (most of it to Tulare County/see sidebar).  The “firm supply” Class 1 water is delivered to areas of the eastside that have little or no groundwater.
Because of a lawsuit brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council over restoration of the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam CALFED supports now a pilot program on the river to restore a fishery there in lieu of the litigation.  “That provided a chance for both parties to work together,” says Moss.  The restoration work is happening without threatening water users supply to the south.  To carry the plan further Moss says more pumping out of the Delta is required to restore the health of the river.

In the meantime Moss says requirements to save endangered species have increased in recent years so that farmers never have a base line supply of water for environmental restoration.  Since the Bay-Delta Accord there has been “additional regulatory taking of water supplies that changed the principle,” says Moss, “that we all improve together” the farms, cities and the environment.
Moss complains that recently discussions between the Governor’s office and federal authority over the direction that CALFED will take are surrounded in secrecy.  “That concerns us,” says Moss that they “will try to pit one region of the state against the other.”

FWS president Cole Upton - a Madera farmer - says he fears what Governor Davis is hearing is that working through projects like the Madera Ranchos waterbank - a for profit venture to be operated by Azurix, a division of Enron - means the politicians want to take the advise of the environmentalists that there should be no more water storage dams built in the state. That idea doesn’t help capture flood water or protect property. “Waterbanks percolate very slowly,” says Upton who fears “multi national corporations have gotten the ear of politicians.”

Instead Upton and Moss want CALFED to approve funding for more storage on the San Joaquin - increasing the size of Millerton Lake.  Moss is still hopeful that this will remain in the Record of Decision to be announced in a few months.  “I stood with secretary Bruce Babbitt and NRDC’s Hamilton Candee on top of Millerton December 16 and we talked about the future,” says Moss.  In one pregnant moment Babbitt turned to Candee and said “Hal, I think we need new storage to fix this.”  Candee went on to argue that other measures - conservation and groundwater storage ought to be tried first.  But it was clear Babbitt was convinced, says Moss.

With that key support Moss hopes that CALFED support an “environmental bank account” south of the Delta that would be implemented as more water supply is added on the San Joaquin.  The rub: some want the environmental bank account before more supply is added.  The question comes in a drought year how do fish and farmers survive?  Moss believes part of the plan will call for taking more land out of production.  Until we increase supply “it’s going to come out of someone’s hide.”

Moss says the system needs fixing.  He points out that this irrigation season “one million acres of CVP served lands has a 40 percent reduction in supply this year and the projects’ largest municipal contractor has a 25 percent cutback.  This is occurring while all reservoirs are starting the season full and California has been blessed with the wettest six years in a row since record keeping began.  If the Record of Decision results in an unbalanced “ecosystem only” approach, then congressional authority for CALFED should not be extended, says Moss.

What can we watch for?  Will they find more storage - particularly earmarking money for expanding Millerton Lake?

Lindsay-based Friant Water Users manager Dick Moss says he and counterparts from Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Water District have had two preliminary discussions about a possible water swap that might benefit both parties.  The potential for more formal discussion exists “but this thing is very preliminary,” says Moss.

Moss says the big LA water district is looking not so much for quantity from the Friant district but better quality water - not high in impurities or salts.  LA gets State Water Project delivered from above the Delta but the water tends to be high in both salts and impurities, pollution and waste that it is difficult to neutralize.  Met had hoped the CALFED solution would help improve water quality delivered in the state canal but now the slow pace of the decision on an overall water plan “fix” has prompted these local discussions.

Friant water delivered from Millerton Lake and the upper San Joaquin River is delivered as far south as Arvin Edison where LA already has an agreement to store state water in an LA financed groundwater bank.  What Moss admits it a “touchy issue” since it carries the specter of LA sticking a straw into our water supply - might be to allow some sort of swap for federal water - an issue that divided the Friant contractors previously.

“We’re talking about how we might go about studying the issue,” says Moss noting that what Met brings to the table is possibly more water than what they take out of the system - Met has contracts for more state water than they can use sometimes - and money that could be used to build more storage on the San Joaquin - a long-term goal of the Friant system.  Adding more storage on the upper San Joaquin - expanding Millerton - would allow more flood water to be captured for later beneficial use.  That’s the crux of the Friant proposal to the CALFED process.  LA could potentially help finance that - if regulators and the locals approve.

The negative for us could be we get saltier water, says Friant water engineer Dennis Keller.   “We know that all great civilizations have been impacted by the build up of salt,” says Keller who explains that the eastside of the valley doesn’t have a salt problem now - unlike some of the westside.

Keller says water that flows through the Delta often carries pesticides, pollution and other impurities that when it is chlorinized can turn carcinogenic and is expensive to treat by alternative means.
Moss says the issue will be taken up with the Friant directors in coming weeks.

The newspaper reported last week they were in receipt of a letter from an LA attorney, hired by VUSD, charging the paper was carrying out a “campaign...that is not in the best interest of your readers” that the attorney vowed the “District has determined to redress.”

VUSD board members say the matter of sending the letter was taken up at the recent board meeting in closed session noticed as “potential litigation.”  But members of the board say they never authorized Gonzales to hire an attorney and spend tax payers money.  Gonzales says the board allows her to spend up to $15,000 without specific board approval.  Board member Rob Stephenson - one of the three “new” board members voted in in the last election - says he “was left out of the loop” on any discussion to send a letter to the Times Delta.  “When I heard this I hit the roof - and I am still upset,” says Stephenson.  “I want the matter addressed by the full board,” he says.

The issue of whether the matter was discussed with the full board is up in the air since the matter was discussed in closed session where details cannot be revealed.  But board member Russ Basset says all members were informed.

Board member Milt Morrison says regarding the letter to the Times Delta complaining about their coverage that “its clear to me that for whatever reason the Times Delta has taken an adversarial stand against the VUSD management.  Where I come from you don’t get respect unless you fight back.”  Still he says that “I don’t interpret what has been done so far as threatening a lawsuit.”  He says that all seven members of the board were informed.

Board member Neissen Foster says “I’ve called for a special meeting to talk about this and to ask for Gonzales’ resignation.”  He says he never authorized retention of a lawyer at a March 21 meeting of the board.  “It seems Linda is thin skinned.  This is an equivalent of an atomic bomb response to them shooting pellets.”

Indeed, the majority members of the board - the four holdovers from the previous election - have united behind Gonzales in this issue as they have on many others, separated by the three new members of the board, Foster, Jones and Stephenson.

Stephenson says he figures the newspaper “has been covering one fiasco after another” and that the newspaper “simply reported the news.”

For the past two years that Gonzales has been superintendent and even before, VUSD has been embroiled in a series of controversy that can’t seem to keep them off the front page of not just the Times Delta but all the papers in the Central Valley.  Stephenson says a “lack of openness“ helped foster this environment and points at this episode in which he was surprised the superintendent would embroil the entire district in a possible lawsuit without his knowledge as just another example.

The letter from an attorney hired by VUSD suggests the Times Delta reporter Elizabeth McAvoy printed that Gonzales “has not accepted any telephone calls from the newspaper when in fact the letter alleges no calls were made according to phone logs of the district.”

The argument is being made that the newspaper printed inaccurate and misleading information.  But, Times Delta Editor Linda Green says the newspaper “has no campaign against Visalia Unified.”  “We have done our best to report the news fairly and accurately,” she says.  Regarding the allegation that the Times Delta reporter did not call the district office asking for a comment from Linda Gonzales, Green says “our reporter did call her office.  I don’t know about the telephone logs.”
Gonzales and some board members felt the story about Jim Vidak’s March 3rd report denying VUSD’s request for financial accountability status was biased.  The Times Delta says the article was fair and says they reported comments from all sides.

This week the Times Delta is sponsoring a spokesperson from the First Amendment Coalition to review the rules of the Brown Act for both journalists and officials.  The group includes media people and attorneys out to protect free speech.

Bassett says despite the letter from the attorney, the district is not contemplating litigation.  “We want them to be fair,” says Bassett.

Ironically, critics of the plan to hire an attorney say the board should get back to education of our children while those that support the pressure on the TD say the effort is undertaken “to protect the children.”

Tulare County - Tulare County has a huge stake in what happens with the great debate over the use of federal irrigation water - its cost and supply.  The issue is not academic.  “Federal water is the very lifeblood of Tulare County,” says water expert R. L.  (Dick) Schafer.

“Without it many of our eastside growing regions would be sucking up salt water from their wells.”  That’s how it was in the 1940s before the Friant Kern Canal was built.  Today the canal brings in about 920,000 acre feet of water a year in a normal year to Tulare County communities and farms.  The total steam flow of all the rivers and creeks - Tulare County’s natural water flow - is only about 600,000 acre feet.  That means almost two-thirds of our supply of water come from this big ditch that connects to this county from the San Joaquin River above Fresno.

The County is by far the largest beneficiary of the canal that brings in about 1.35 million acre feet of water from Madera down to Arvin Edison in Kern County.  In Tulare County Schafer says the Friant Kern waters about 700,000 acres of crops - much of which would dry up and blow away if the water was not forthcoming.

The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher. 

April 5, 2000