Preservation & Water Recharge
“Partner Up”
Land Purchase Could Expand Kaweah Oaks

Visalia - Efforts to preserve about 110 acres of native land east of Visalia near the Kaweah Oaks Preserve were given a big boost this week when Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District agreed to buy a portion - 80 acres of the Paregian Property along Highway 198.

"We've had our eye on the land for a long time," says Bruce George, general manager of the conservation district who says they sought the land as a good place to recharge the district's aquifers in wet years. "The sandy soil along Deep Creek" makes an ideal location to spread water.

That works for the native vegetation that has depended on periodic flooding to maintain its vitality. The acreage, literally across the street from Kaweah Oaks Preserve, is a part of the oak forest that once dominated this region. While saying they were not ready to talk specifics, Carol Combs who heads the Sierra Los Tulares Land Trust says "we hope to partner" with the water district to preserve and maintain the oaks woodland area - in essence expanding the preserve lands.

The land trust owns and manages Kaweah Oaks Preserve and two other local preserves in Tulare County. It is not clear whether additional acreage of the Paregian spread may be purchased in the near future, sources say. The groups have been working for the last year on a purchase of the 234 acre piece that has 79 acres of walnuts and 36 acres of field crop land in addition to the native pasture. The place is three miles east of Visalia, well known to travelers along 198 because of its scenic beauty graced by big oaks. The seller has been asking $1.85 million for all the land.

Deep Creek, a tributary of the Kaweah, crosses both the Kaweah Oaks and the Paregian property providing a direct connection between the two pieces that would likely feature a trail system for public access similar to Kaweah Oaks if a management agreement can be reached.

Partnering up to both restore natural landscapes and recharge our water table has been a key strategy in recent years in the greater Kaweah Delta area. It is the basis of the infamous Tulare Irrigation District dispute when the water district attempted to line an earthen canal that courses through this same area only to get strong opposition from property owners, environmentalists and farmers east of Visalia.

A coalition made up of little old ladies standing in the way of TID bulldozers side by side with red faced Farm Bureau types and tree hugging enviros, successfully fought the project in court and got the city of Visalia involved.

The lands east of Visalia are its source of water too, resulting in a brokered deal to compensate TID for the water they lose when it percolates into the ground water. But beyond the compensation issue, water engineer Dennis Keller points out that the city of Visalia is "now an aggressive payer in purchasing water" for the area as a CVP contractor. Like TID each can buy water from the Central Valley Project and bring it into the Kaweah Delta area helping to replenish the ground water. "We need to do more than maintain the status quo since our water table is going down," says Keller who advises the KDWCD.

Now the Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District who until now gets all its water from the Kaweah River will work to become a CVP contractor too, says Keller. "We're in the early stage" of making that application he says.

In December the city will finalize the TID agreements if the council approves a new fee on all water users to help pay for new water to come into the city (hearing December 17th).

The city has also been aggressive in purchasing lands it can sink water in including two new large parcels east of Visalia in the past month. "We'll partner with the city on both projects," says Bruce George. The city purchased 100 acres of the Blain property off 156 and a smaller piece along two creeks closer to town.

Helping to spur preservation of lands in tandem with water conservation, the expansion of the Kaweah Dam expected to begin in December, has mandated the KDWD buy some "mitigation" lands of the natural habitat and wildlife they uproot.

In addition, the KDWCD has maintained about 5000 acres of ponding basins to recharge water. In the past year. George says that number of recharge acres probably increased by 500 acres including this Paregian deal. Keller says the district will also recharge on Cameron Creek that also goes through the Paregian property in exchange for leases with the Ron Paregian family. Paregian hopes to continue to farm the orchards on the remaining land.

Kaweah Oaks has been scouring their own ground for the elusive elderberry beetle that is an endangered species in riparian areas. CalTrans, who has a construction project, they too need to mitigate - including the expansion of the bridge over the Kaweah near Cutler Park - might pay into a fund that could be used to buy a 17 acre plum grove north of the preserve. Trust board members fear the plum orchard could succumb to ranchette homes overlooking the preserve.

Private developers often kick into habitat restoration projects when they take away natural lands.

Up in Goshen the County Redevelopment Agency will have to do just that for a big new street project on Betty Dr. because most of Goshen is kit fox habitat.

Dennis Keller says plenty more partnerships between farmers and environmentalists could happen if the US Fish and Wildlife Service would interpret the Endangered Species Act to allow an "incidental" take under certain circumstances. KDWCD did a "demonstration project" at their 38 acre Oaks Basin near Rd. 156 in which the land - meant to sink water for the district - was also restored with natural vegetation rather than those typically engineered ponding basins with steep sides you see in lots of places.

"Water districts are after all, farmers," explains Keller who would be concerned if they offered land for a natural recharge basin that was revegitated only to have an endangered species cross the fence back into their farming land. "We sought safe harbor for an incidental take" in that situation and while the state Fish and Game went along the federal Fish and Wildlife said no."

Keller says they will soon report to Congress the results of the failure of the demonstration project "otherwise we could be doing these revegetation projects all over the place," believes the Visalia engineer.

In Visalia itself, the town is going green, rallying behind an ambitious plan to restore and trail Visalia's natural waterways in part because it too will restore habitat and recharge water. Also on West 198 the city is considering alternative plans for the scenic corridor all calling for a large natural setback along the highway and creek restoration with native vegetation - particularly oaks, the town's claim to fame.

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AgriCenter To Boost Security
For Farm Show

Tulare - With three months until the big Farm Show, AgriCenter officials have been working to respond to the September 11 terrorist actions and the effect that has had on all large scale events. “I met for two hours with Tulare police and fire people going over security plans this week,” says Gary Shultz the show’s general manager.

“We want to get the message out to visitors that the show will go on as big or bigger than last year and that people should feel safe when attending the event,” he says.

Shultz visited Georgia recently for an event that had only 30 days until showtime to gear up what is called enhanced security measures after the tragedy. “We were able to watch what they did,” says Shultz. The AgriCenter already has a big crew of paid security and Shultz says they plan to go over the company’s hiring practices and background checks to insure they will get good people.

This February’s show is expected to have over 1450 visitors - similar to last year.

To boost the message that this show is on schedule, the AgriCenter said an unanticipated direct mailing of 64,000 pieces sent out early to ensure people remain aware of the show. In addition, they sent 70,000 magazines.

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Citrus Economics
Bulldozing the Valencias

by Trudy Wischemann

“By the time you statisticians know the numbers, what I’m trying to tell you in advance about will be history, and you’ll be too late.”

Lindsay - “Trouble ahead, trouble behind..” Those words from an old song from the ‘60’s seem to fit the story of small-scale orange and olive growers around my town of Lindsay. They fit the town’s story as well, although no one here wants to hear that. But we’ve got trouble, not unlike many of the other small farm towns in this valley.

The story is easiest to tell from the point of view of valencias. For years, valencias have been declining in consumer popularity in favor of the navel, the orange without seeds. But the valencia becomes ripe after the navel harvest is over, and the balance between navels and valencias has built packinghouse towns in which seasonal labor isn’t so seasonal.

Picking and packing, in a good year, can last 10 or even 11 months, providing the kind of job stability necessary for families to become stable themselves, send the kids to the same school all year, even make it to graduation. The winter work in the navels provides employment at a time of year when there isn’t much other work, so citrus belt towns are unique and precious in terms of providing possibility: the possibility of not dangling from that bottom rung of the agricultural ladder, the possibility of moving up, if not into farming, then at least into some other sector of the economy.

This year many growers “pushed” (meaning “ripped out” or “bulldozed”) their valencia groves around our town. They did so, for the most part, because they can’t afford to farm them anymore. Last year, with a heavy crop, some growers got a bill from the packinghouse instead of a check: the costs of picking and packing were higher than the price they got for those cartons of oranges, and these costs fell on top of all the other costs of production. This year wasn’t much better, and the navel prices aren’t enough to make up for it.

After three bad years in a row, many growers are just one season away from throwing in the towel or going under. To some, pushing their valencias looked like the only way to survive.

No one yet knows the number of acres that have been pushed, or how many acres will be replanted, but California Citrus Mutual’s general manager Joel Nelson expects the number to exceed 1000 acres.

We see some blocks with baby trees, their trunks wrapped with black foam wrappers, their leaves waving valiantly above. We assume they’re navels, and wonder what it will mean to the navel market 5 years from now when these trees start producing. But nobody knows. Conventional economic rationale suggests that, with fewer acres of valencias in production, those growers remaining should get a better price. But the price problem for valencias isn’t being caused by oversupply of that fruit, but more from being squeezed out by navels and the availability of other fruits in that season. Year round supplies of “seasonal fruit” from imports now threaten even the navels: apples and oranges, with their better “shelf life” in cold storage, used to be the staple fresh fruits in our winter lunchboxes. Globalization has ended that stability: who wants an orange or a Red Delicious when you can eat peaches and strawberries and kiwi fruits and grapes year round?

And so, what’s to be done? At the national level we need to look at NAFTA and the new trade policies being promoted. A recent report by Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch (June 2001) called “Down on the Farm: NAFTA’s Seven-Years War on Farmers and Ranchers in the U.S., Canada and Mexico” documents the devastation of those policies on California fruit growers clearly, along with farmers in every other sector of the agricultural economy. It also offers a clear explanation for the flood of immigrants entering, or trying to enter, the U.S.: millions of Mexican corn farmers have been driven off their farms in the last seven years from the dumping of American corn on that market. In the U.S., 33,000 farms have disappeared over the same time period, a rate 6 times higher than the preceding 7 years. “Dwindling incomes for Small Farmers in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, Lost Farms and Rural Crisis is NAFTA’s Legacy,” reads the report’s subtitle.

John Gutierrez, Commissioned Lay Pastor, La Fe congregation, First Presbyterian Church, Lindsay, has been pastor of La Fe for more than 10 years now, and has a great deal of experience with both his congregation and the community. John estimates that he spends 25% of his time preaching and teaching, and 75% doing social services for his membership around issues of employment, housing and immigration. "They say there's a recession coming," he said recently," but I think it's already here for my people.

This year four of my families are in Washington working in the apples right now when normally they would be here, picking oranges." The amount of work has decreased, he noted, not just because of the smaller crops, but also because of the increasing work force. "They just keep coming and coming," he said, tired. "I've already lost some families (to moving) and I'm afraid there will be more." The turnover in his congregation is one of the difficulties of this ministry; the low income and immigrant status is another. But probably the hardest part is watching his people go through all their difficulties and only being able to help in part. Sometimes he thinks about going back to selling insurance because it would be so much easier and so much less time consuming. "I wonder how this affects my family," he says in a worried voice. "But what do I tell my congregation if I leave?”

Ralph John, owner of Strathmore Auto Parts and Hardware asks "What happens when it's no longer profitable to run a packing house here? They can pick up and move, but our whole community falls apart in the process." Both Lindsay and Strathmore have a few less packinghouses now than in the past, but even the suggestion of more shutting down made me shudder, emphasizing the link between the growers and the townsfolk clearly.

The significantly lighter navel crop, however, will mean far less work during the winter; the reduced acreage of valencias means far less work in the spring and summer as well. And the newcomers keep coming. Our food banks and coordinating councils are not adequately stocked or funded; our city’s focus on housing rehabilitation won’t help people if they’re forced to leave to look for work elsewhere.

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Massive Olive Fly Infestation on Badger Hill

by Miles Shuper

Exeter - Valley olive growers have done a pretty good job of controlling the devastating olive fruit fly since the pest was first found in Tulare County in 1999.

But an infestation of fruit in abandoned trees and groves and possibly in backyards and ornamental olive trees has area growers and agricultural offices more than a little concerned.

Dennis Haines, entomologist with the Tulare County Agricultural Commissioners office, said he viewed an extensive infestation of olive flies in trees on Badger Hill near Exeter. Haines said he plans to contact officials of the Badger Hills Estates Home Owners Association to seek cooperation in an eradication effort. There are about 400 to 500 trees on the hill, the site of one of the Valley's more exclusive home clusters. The roadway leading to the hilltop homes is lined with olive trees while others groupings of trees are part of an abandoned commercial grove.

Haines was called to the site after an area olive grower was told of the infestation and later toured the area finding a massive infestation in the fruit. Although the trees have not been cared for, they have been bearing olives. Maggots were found in every piece of fruit or on the ground, he said. The infestation, of course, is caused by a lack of spraying of abandoned trees which still produce olives even without irrigation or other care. Growers of commercial crops are deeply concerned that those infestations could be easily spread.

“We’ve found a fruit fly nursery that could infect the rest of the county” says Adin Hester President of Olive Growers Council. “It’s like having our own terrorist group impacting the olive industry. The fact that the groves are elevated about 600 feet makes the spread more likely,” he believes.

“Something has to be done.”

Hester thinks that a concerted campaign of aerial spraying is needed right away. “I hope they show some leadership here,” at the county’s ag department.

Haines doesn't think the find on Badger Hill is unique noting that other abandoned groves as well as other ornamental trees likely are being infested. Haines said officials may have to wait until spring to implement any extensive spraying effort due to the potential of wet weather in the near future. Rain would wash the sprayed materials resulting in less effective control.

Cutting down the trees or using biological controls such as parasites which can destroy the olive fly are other options, Haines explained. Olive trees also can be treated to make them fruitless, he explained but those measures take time and money.

Ivanhoe olive grower Pat Akin and Randy Childress, manager of Woodlake Ranch, a large scale olive producer, expressed concern that if something isn't done immediately the commercial olive producers will face serious infestation problems.

"It doesn't do us any good if we spray and spray our trees and keep the fruit flies under control if abandoned groves and backyard trees go untreated and provide homes for those devastating flies. It is a serious concern," Akin said this week.

Childress agrees citing the costs growers incur in spraying for the flies. "The cost of the materials alone can run into the thousands of dollars for spraying a large grove. That's not even counting the money for labor and equipment," he said.

Haines said that California growers face serious financial problems if the infestations take serious hold since much of the crop is the canning rather than oil. "The olive fly is not such a major concern in Europe and other places since most of their production goes into oil. But when growers find maggots in their canning olives it can have a tremendous impact on the industry, which already has been experiencing hard times in recent years," he said.

There have been other finds in the county, Haines said, especially in the Porterville and Strathmore areas where traps have been yielding numerous olive fruit flies, most of them in backyard trees or other non-commercial trees.

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Best Buy Adds 150 Jobs

Dinuba - Best Buy announced expansion of its current 650,000 sq. ft. distribution center adding another 400,000 sq. ft. valued at $22.5 million. The expansion, to be completed by spring of this coming year, will add 115 jobs, a company news release said.

Construction is scheduled to begin in November 2001 and be completed by spring 2003. Clayco Construction, of St. Louis, Missouri, has been selected as the General Contractor for the project.

The expanded Dinuba facility will support the delivery of technology and entertainment products to Best Buy stores in California, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Oregon and Washington and future expansion in the Northwest.

“As Best Buy continues to grow at a pace of 65 new stores per year, we’re pleased to expand our state-of-the-art Dinuba facility to support our West Coast growth,” said Chas Scheiderer, Best Buy senior vice president of Logistics. “We are proud to be a part of the continued economic growth of the city of Dinuba and the Central Valley region of California and provide additional jobs to the community.”

Minneapolis-based Best Buy Co., Inc. is the nation’s number one specialty retailer of consumer electronics, personal computers, entertainment software and appliances.

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Visalia House2Home Will Shut Down

Visalia - If you haven’t visited the new House2Home store on South Mooney yet - you better hustle over cause they are going out of business already.

After only five months up and running at the Visalia discount store, House2Home will close its doors as its parent company announces liquidation of all its 42 stores. The company who also operated as Home Base store was banking on a new retail approach targeting women customers after its failed Home Base home improvement stores were all closed.

Now there will be a big empty gap in the Costco shopping center. Only weeks ago we heard about the demise of Lumberjack in Visalia as well. Visalia store employees were told of the closure Wednesday, November 7. Over 100 employees will lose their jobs.

House2Home, Inc. (NYSE:HTH) announced that the company and its subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code. The filings were made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana, California. The company intends to file a motion, later today, requesting Bankruptcy Court authorization to liquidate and cease operating all 42 of its House2Home home decorating superstores.

Sales for the company's 42 House2Home stores fell severely following the tragedy of the September 11 terrorist attacks, exacerbating an already difficult retail environment. The company previously reported that second quarter sales for the current year were lower than originally expected, due to moderating growth in the economy and diminishing consumer confidence. The continuing sales decline subsequent to September 11 led to extreme pressure on the company's cash position, a company news release said.

"The dramatic and sustained drop in sales that immediately followed the terrorist attacks put an extraordinary strain on cash flow, from which we could not recover," said Herbert Zarkin, chairman and chief executive officer. "We had high hopes for House2Home and still believe that the concept would have been successful under different macro economic circumstances. Unfortunately, several pivotal external factors were working against us. At the time of the September 11 attacks, our borrowings against our credit facility were approaching their peak level with the August completion of the conversion program. This also meant the vast majority of our House2Home stores had been open a very short time prior to the September 11 attacks. We never had the opportunity to build a solid customer base that might have otherwise sustained the business through a difficult period. Finally, all of this took place against the backdrop of a softening economy."

In August of this year, the company completed its corporate transition into the home decorating market, following the competitive difficulties it was facing as a home improvement retailer. The chainwide conversion, which was based on a successful fivestore House2Home pilot program, involved closing all of its 89 former HomeBase home improvement warehouses and converting 42 of those stores into House2Homes.

Once commenced, liquidation of inventory at the 42 stores is estimated to take approximately 13 weeks. The company added that it would retain some portion of its employees through the completion of the liquidation process.

No further details were available concerning the timing of employee terminations. The company currently employs approximately 4,700 people, including employees at its 42 stores and at its Irvine, California, corporate office.

Sales for the third fiscal quarter, ended October 27, 2001, are expected to total approximately $119 million. The company expects to report third quarter financial results in mid to late November.

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Election Roundup
THE WINNERS!

Visalia - Local public trustees were reelected this time around if their administrators kept them out of trouble. That’s the short and long of the Visalia election November 7 where all incumbents running the school board were thrown out of office and all incumbents running for city council were returned for another four years of service by wide margins.

With a miserable 21% turnout in town - the lowest in years - experience was appreciated in the race for city council and scorned in the case of the school board which has had trouble keeping off the front pages for the past few years.

All school trustees who had a hand in hiring and then firing former superintendent Linda Gonzales will now be off the board.

In the city council race current mayor Don Landers was the top vote getter with 6559 votes out of a total of 8552 cast, followed by current planning commissioner Phil Cox at 5615 and vice mayor Jesus Gamboa coming in third with 5394. Far back was newcomer Jose Rigo Trevino who garnered 2204 votes. The rest of the field trailed. (See chart)

“I was pleased I got about 75% of the votes cast,” says Landers.

Council members will pick a mayor for the next four years at their November 19th meeting. Landers is currently mayor and vice mayor Jesus Gamboa may be in line for the position this time around.

On the school board Mike Lane ran unopposed and former board member Jim Qualls narrowly defeated bond oversite member Mike Huggins by 151 votes in a three-way race in Area 3. Chas Felix came in third. Qualls spent lots of time door to door and at shopping centers setting out his message, perhaps making the difference in a race that considered both Huggins and Qualls as critics of the two ousted administrators. Qualls had the baggage however of being a former board member. Qualls blanketed the city with signs while Huggins chose a more low key campaign. The knock against Mike - “too negative” - some said.

In Area 2 educator Rodney Elder had 4663 votes compared to his closest challenger incumbent Chuck Lindahl with 3025 and Sara Soria-Moreno at 1840. Youth worker Juan Guerrero defeated incumbent Rick Wehmueller 5461 to 3886.

Clearly the electorate was of two minds looking for fresh faces on a school board that has been embroiled in controversy until newly appointed superintendent Stan Carrizosa came along.

On the city council they want to stick with the experienced hands who will now wade into some tough issues that have been put off until this election. Those issues are how to deal with the West 198 corridor and whether to approve a large new shopping center south of Packwood Creek on Mooney.

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Food For Less

Tulare - Food For Less parent company Fleming Foods has filed plans for a 62,000 sq. ft. grocery store at a new shopping center at Hillman across Blackstone from the Walmart store. The new shopping center includes a 22,000 sq. ft. drug store. Food For Less has been aggressively moving into towns they had no presence in before, like Porterville where they plan a new store near another Walmart site on Henderson. This week the company applied for and received a conditional use permit from the city of Porterville.

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