Friant
& Westlands Near Deal
End Of San Joaquin River Brawl?
San Joaquin Valley - The Valley’s biggest family feud may have run its course. The chairs of both Westlands Water District and Friant Water Users agree - after years of accusations, head banging in the press and litigating - they’re talking again.
A few years ago Westlands Water District general manager Tom Birmingham made a trip to Visalia offering the olive branch to Westland’s sometimes rival - the Friant Water Users and their board of directors.
Mr. Birmingham laid out the bleak scenario of land retirement on the west side of the valley and how Westlands needed the support of other California water districts like Friant to get the state and federal help they need to accomplish it.
Today that plan is up to 200,000 acres that would be fallowed to allow the growers left in Westlands to survive on their allocation of federal water.
Despite that hopeful one-day interlude in Visalia - the East Side and West Side cousin water districts have been anything but peaceful or even cordial since.
After that in what Friant considered a stab in the back, Westlands made a claim against Friant water supply, water from the San Joaquin River in August 2000 to the State Water Resources Control Board.
According to their application, that still stands today, the district seeks an average of 530,000 acre feet per year from the river - eating up more than two thirds of the water that typically flows down the Friant Kern canal to irrigate about a million east side acres every year. Tulare County farmers are a major beneficiary.
Friant lashed out at Westlands attempt at a “water grab” in front of every forum and city council in the Valley in the summer of 2000 suggesting the Westlands board broke the Brown Act in their attempt to appropriate water from the San Joaquin River under the Area of Origin Statutes contrasting Westlands - some 600 mostly large acreage growers to themselves - 15,000 mostly small farmers along the valley’s East Side.
Westland’s action - some say an act of desperation - has clouded every move by Westlands to gain recognition, public support and funding for their problem, now 2 and ½ years later.
Like bar fighters rolling out into the city streets, that fight has spilled over in all sorts of public forums and gatherings and echoed all the way to Washington.
Friant board president Kole Upton says it got to the point in Washington that “they just told us we have better things to do than to play referee to you guys,” and told them to come see them when they had something worked out.
This past year efforts to fund a multi billion allocation for CalFed benefitting the entire state were tripped up at least in part over the dispute between Westlands and Friant with the East Side district lobbying in Washington that no “assurance” of a 70% supply for Westlands be included in the legislation since that could mean taking water from Friant. CalFed legislation died last year.
As of a few months ago there is a new board at Westlands, a new chair and perhaps a new attitude.
In recent weeks Senator Dianne Feinstein has made it clear she would carry the ball for another effort to get more modest CalFed legislation funded. But Friant criticized the latest plan for funding a federal buyout of about 100 Westlands farmers for $107 million joining with over 50 House members opposing the Department of Interior plan that had been floated recently. That proposal would have taken the money out of the environmental fund that all federal water contractors pay into.
That puts all the districts in the position of having to pay Westlands for the US government’s failure to provide drainage to Westlands. Friant was vehemently opposed to this payment plan that now “seems dead” says Friant general manager Dan Fults - after some heavy lobbying.
“The consensus now is that all of California has to be united to get this CalFed legislation passed,” says Fults, perhaps with a $800 million expenditure rather than last year’s $2.5 billion measure.
With a new board in place at Westlands, Fults says there may be some room to talk. “I know a couple of these guys,” says Fults.
Friant’s Kole Upton told the Voice this week that “I serve with Westland board chairman Dan Errotabere on the California Wheat Commission and they approached us.” He says the goal now “is to see if we can’t put all this behind us.” Errotabere agrees that “although our talks are very preliminary, I’m hopeful something can be worked out.” Errotabere cited a phrase often used by CalFed supporters to improve both reliability of ag water and the environment suggesting now Westlands’ approach would be to figure out a way to “get better together.” He says Westlands needs to see some stability in its water supply.
“We at Friant will fight to protect our rights but we can be a pretty cooperative group, too,” says Fults.
Sources say in fact there is a draft deal in the works that would mean Westlands withdraws its petition for San Joaquin River water pledging as the did recently in the LNAS dispute to work mutually to solve the supply problems rather than fight and litigate.
The matter is likely to come to the Friant board in February if the documents are finalized, says the source, as well as the Westlands board with some sort of joint announcement.
Birmingham would be able to dig up that olive branch he held out some years ago and prospects for federal funding for projects both districts need would be improved.
Fults says CalFed is important to Friant because it offers federal support to continue the feasibility study of expanding storage on the upper San Joaquin River plus it provides more certainty to the Delta water supply “so they won’t be looking at our water.” The legislation would also promote “more conjunctive use” groundwater storage. The project’s beneficial effect on the Delta would help Westlands, says Fults because it would provide more certainty they would be able to pump their supply of federal water that comes through the Delta.
Smokes To Fund
Health Care
Visalia Getting
New Specialists
Visalia - Tulare County’s Proposition 10 Commission voted this week to give a boost to medical care in Tulare County by voting to devote 50% of its annual budget for local needs. The decision to fund programs that would benefit children in Tulare County was made by Tulare County Medical Society director Steve Beargeon. “We expect that half of the $6 to $6.25 million the agency receives each year to be devoted to easing the medical crisis in Tulare County,” Beargeon told the Voice.
That includes funding for hospital care for the low income that includes a high number of children the legislation covers. Monies from a 50 cent a pack on tobacco sales goes to the commission.
Beargeon says the commission passed a second motion to hire a health professional to develop a package of needs and programs that the funds could be steered toward.
The issue came out of the Rural Health Care Summit efforts underway in the county seeking a way to provide medical care to the poor, that includes hospitals where there is a lack of specialists available to treat the indigent.
Local hospital and Family Health Care Network have promised to work on bringing in new physicians to this underserved area and have been looking for additional ways to ensure the physicians are there particularly when emergency care is necessary.
Kaweah Delta CEO Lindsay Mann says the hospital subsidizes pediatric care to children 0-5 and their mothers to the tune of $2.5 million annually already and that funding from Prop. 10 would enable the hospital to free up money to pay to ensure a physician is there when someone needs it.
Lack of surgeons, orthopedic and neurosurgeons here are particularly a problem that effects children and the entire community. Dr. Vicky Gerken, a KDDH surgeon, called the report the commission would agree to funding to help bring in more physicians “great news.”
In addition to physician recruitment there is a plan to work to increase enrollment in the Healthy Families program that would benefit children in Tulare County by giving them and their families coverage with an insurance plan.
The Rural Health Summit Task Force is scheduled to meet February 24th and will hear a report of the funding.
In a related story, Lindsay Mann says the effort by the medical community to bring in more specialists is bearing fruit. Visalia will get two new general surgeons this Spring with the coming of Dr. Rebeca Zulim who will open a private practice here in March. Dr. Michael Jay, also a surgeon, will join the Visalia Medical Clinic. Visalia Medical Clinic has also signed a gastroenterologist - Dr. Jafri - as well as an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Bahagia who will also join VMC. Also two urologists will open Visalia offices from Hanford - Dr. Dan Limbert and Dr. Jeffrey Csiszar. In a major development Dr. Dan Boken, an infectious disease specialist (we have no one now) will locate in Visalia along with his wife who is an OB-Gyn - Dr. Lori Anne Marconi - the elder Dr. Marconi’s daughter. In addition, the hospital is interviewing a vascular surgeon and a neurosurgeon currently with income guarantees as part of the package, says Mann.
Local Citrus Nurseries Face Possible
Quarantine Next Year
Tulare County - Many of Tulare County’s citrus nurseries face a possible new restriction on shipment of their trees out of the area if the state imposes a new quarantine fearing the spread of the tristeza virus.
A petition to impose new restrictions was filed with CDFA last summer by the Central California Tristeza Virus Eradication Agency. The petition asks the state to impose the restrictions on citrus nurseries within the Tulare County Pest Control District - a large portion of Tulare County that does not participate in the Tristeza Agency. The agency suggested the timetable to restrict shipments begin in August 2004 giving nurseries time to consider their options.
Options they may need to consider are moving out of the district, away from citrus groves or implementing a testing program in order to ship trees to Kern, Fresno and southern Tulare county where there is an active suppression effort.
That suppression has been in the form of extensive monitoring and testing on citrus groves and removal of infected trees. Beginning in 1995 the Central Valley program mandating the removal of trees whether a grower wanted it or not prompted years of litigation by a number of farming groups that in the end were unsuccessful.
But two of the five districts in the joint powers agreement pulled out including the Tulare County Pest Control District that covers citrus from Fresno County south to near Strathmore. Since they opted out of the program to fight tristeza virus there has no monitoring nor has there been any eradication effort with the Tulare County Pest Control District. Now the nurseries in that district - 22 by one count and perhaps half a dozen major operations - will bear the cost of possible new regulation in order to ship to customers in unaffected or suppression areas.
Nurserymen suggest they will comply with a state mandate but hope “the state examines all the options,” says Roger Smith owner of Exeter based Tree Source. Jason Knight who owns Naranjo Nursery in Woodlake wonders how he can afford to comply with draft rules that would mean he has to relocate half a mile from a citrus orchard to ensure he is free from the tristeza virus.
“They are telling us that if you are located within a half mile of a citrus orchard the nursery has to test the orchard and pay to remove it if it is infected.” Knight says he feels it will take grower participation to fight the problem - not just the nurseryman. The high cost of testing the citrus trees and other costs the program could provide an advantage for a shipper outside the pest control district, he fears.
Leslie Caviglia who is the administrator of the California Citrus Nursery Society says nurserymen need at least two years to plan ahead but she says her members are “resigned to some sort of restrictions” providing they are scientifically based. She says the state has not set a date for public hearings to formalize if and when the restrictions will go into effect. In fact the pest control division at CDFA has their hands full with other pest problems including Newcastle disease and bovine TB.
CDFA official Steve Brown confirms the department is working on the petition and says “it won’t be long” until the department has formulated a position whether to support some higher level of quarantine at which time some public meeting would be held.
State law classified tristeza virus as a Class A pest and mandates removal of the infected trees because it serves as a source of the virus including threatening adjacent citrus. The Agency has shown since its inception in the mid 90s that where it has been allowed to cut trees it has reduced the incidence of tristeza in citrus groves from as high as 5% in Kern County where it was tested to .086% in the late 2002 testing. But that has meant the removal of thousands of trees in the three district areas.
The citrus tristeza virus is spread by common aphids prompting the UC Lindcove station - located within the untreated Tulare County Pest Control District - to put up netting over their citrus groves to keep the bugs from infecting their trees.
While the legal battles by growers objecting to the mandatory cutting of the trees by the agency on constitutional grounds seem like old news. This week the Tulare County Superior Court ruled in favor of the agency suit brought by another Tulare County farmer objecting to some testing around the border of the district to see if the tristeza problem was migrating to the untreated area. The agency discontinued the testing in 1999 when it found that the cross border problem was not a large one. But the growers still object to the testing and Judge Gerald Sevier ruled for the agency this week.
Tristeza is documented to kill trees planted to some root stock but many growers say their trees can tolerate the virus and want to wait and see. There is evidence that the virus may play a hand in smaller fruit size which if true is certainly bad for the industry.
Industry officials like Caviglia says the conventional wisdom is that tristeza is likely increasing within the TCPCD but at what rate and to what consequence no one knows. Still, like bovine TB, Newcastle disease, olive fruit fly and a score of other pestilence infecting Tulare County agriculture - the industry finds itself as both the victim and the carrier of the problem.
World Goes Nuts For California Almonds
San Joaquin Valley - It’s not that the Valley can’t produce enough food, it is a matter of selling it. In the global economy many of the Valley’s traditional high value crops remain mired in low prices and steep competition. But a clear winner in the bunch remains almonds - and to a lesser degree other nut crops - that remain profitable even with huge crops.
On January 9 the Almond Board of California released the good news that handlers had received a record 1.043 billion pounds of almonds as of December 31, 2002 eclipsing the former record year from 99-00 of 830 million pounds. On average over 98.5% of the crop is received by December of each crop year.
The Almond Board reported surging international exports up 30% over the same month last year in December and a 17% increase in US sales.
Unlike other crops, almonds grown in California have few competitors worldwide and none with as high quality nuts, industry sources say. California produces some 75% of the world’s supply. The almond was brought to California in the mid 1700s from Spain, but the industry didn’t take off until after the turn of the century in the Central Valley. The moderate dry climate proved to be perfect for growing nuts and cross breeding techniques have helped farmers double their yield from trees just in the past 20 years.
Just a few years ago industry cooperative Blue Diamond sounded a cautionary note that the industry was getting into a surplus situation with a rapid expansion in almond acreage up and down the state. The move followed the planting of grape vineyards as well - a trend that has had far more dire consequences for the grape industry with California facing dozens of major low-cost competitors.
There are over 500,000 acres in the Central Valley devoted to almonds with Kern and Fresno counties the highest producers. Statewide it is the 10th most valuable crop at $838 million in 2001. Tulare County has more than 17,000 acres of almonds planted.
With more than two thirds of the state’s crop exported - much of that goes to the European Union although exports to Japan increased 14% this past year. Exports typically offer a better chance of higher margins compared to some commodities that sell most of their product domestically.
What has made the almond business in California so hot is that even as per acre production has increased and as total tonnage steadily increased so has demand, now expected to rise to nearly 120 million pounds annually. Farmers are getting nearly 1900 pounds of almonds per acre yield compared to 1000 pounds average in 1980, according to the California Almond Board.
All California’s competitors in the world market are small, like Australia - the only non Mediterranean country that produces almonds with a total production of around 20 million pounds compared to 1 billion for California. Spain is the next largest after the US with some 165 million pounds produced.
Blue Diamond Almonds - a grower cooperative owned by two thirds of the state’s almond growers - said its US retail profits rose 63% while food service increased 106%.
Budget Cuts At VUSD
New Development Faces Higher Fees
Visalia - Depending on how the state budget cuts come out, Visalia Unified School District is facing a possible $3 to 5 million cut in their budget says board member Mike Lane. That will impact people, fears Lane, since 87% of the district funds go to personnel.
Lane says one place the district is looking at is its ambitious classroom reduction program in 3rd and 4th grade - perhaps 200 classrooms in the district where the class size has been reduced to 20. Lane says they are lobbying the state superintendent to allow the cap rate to rise and still participate in the program because of the statewide budget crisis. Adding a few more kids to each classroom could cut the district’s budget but unfortunately would also require some to lose their job. Lane says the district is also looking at a 18% increase in health insurance suggesting that “something’s got to give” when costs go up and revenue goes down. Lane says the district is targeting a January 27th study session of the board to discuss budget options form 6 to 8 p.m. at the district offices.
Meanwhile, VUSD is proposing increasing the amount builders pay per square foot on new home construction to help fund new elementary schools, says Lane. Builders pay $2.14 per sq. ft. now and the district’s facilities committee had initially proposed raising that amount to $4.60 per sq. ft. or even double that if some current state funding is cut off. Meanwhile, the local Building Industry Association has hired a Sacramento consultant to study the district’s plan and has come up with what he feels new development ought to pay per sq. ft. - $1.93 per sq. ft.
If this sounds like another major face off between the builders and district as we had for years in this town, board member Lane suggests it won’t happen.
“New development has to pay its way but we don’t want housing in the city to become unaffordable,” says Lane, “we’re not out to gouge the building industry and they know that.” In fact a builder says their relationship with the district is good and there appears to be a willingness to talk.
But assistant superintendent Mark Fulmer told the Voice this week that the district is working with the BIA on a lower figure - higher than it currently is but not a doubling of the fee. He says the district plans to present the report on developer fees to the board at an upcoming board meeting in the next few weeks.
“The district has seen 5% growth in the past few years,” remarks Lane and the town has had record new housing permits. While the builders fee provided about $2 million in funding a year to the district, a new elementary school costs $7 million. Builder fees, says Lane, is part of a three legged stool the district needs made up of state funding and locally passed bond funds. Lane says the city is working on expanding urban development boundaries next year and the district will be watching what that means for new schools.
It’s been the BIA’s contention that growth is happening in the district in part from new construction but also from the existing population having babies. Fulmer says the facilities report will detail which portion of growth is cause for new construction.
In the end the increased cost of building fees are passed on to consumers adding thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home.
In a related matter the City of Visalia has been collecting a new subdivision building fee that has added up to over $800,000 currently in excess of what the city needs to fund the building inspection department. N ow the local BIA is suggesting some or all of that come back to them since the city has not been using it.
Walmart Plans Filed With City of Hanford
Hanford - Plans for a Walmart Supercenter detailed ahead of time in the last issue of the Valley Voice were filed this week - Tuesday, January 21 according to city planner John Stowe. The plans were submitted by a development partnership RHA Hanford LLC of Walnut Creek. The store is located on 12th Ave. across the street from the Hanford Mall. The new Walmart is across the street from a proposed new Target store.
Stowe says the project involves a 25.5 acre shopping center with a 206,000 sq. ft. Walmart store - a Walmart gas station out front and three pads likely to be retail or restaurant space for lease. Stowe says the big project - the largest retail building in the county - would move through the regulatory process by first undergoing a full EIR requiring a 4 to 6 month study. The matter could be submitted to the planning commission on to the city council and would of course involve public hearings.
Stowe says the city is concerned about Walmart plans for the existing smaller storefront. But Walmart spokesman Peter Kanelos told the Voice the company would “re-tenant” the space.
Walmart owns their store grounds. While there is speculation that Walmart could use this space - 126,000 sq. ft. - to site a Sam’s Club - Walmart’s warehouse store chain - one source says that is unlikely and predicts the storefront will be sold.
There is a Sam’s Club in Fresno competing against rival Costco. But the smaller size of the Hanford market and the fact that Walmart continues to work on their retail concept at Sam’s Club suggests a move into Hanford is unlikely.
Kanelos says the new Supercenter that includes a full line of groceries to be sold in the same store as general merchandise would likely open in Spring 2004.
“We’ll have over 500 associates” working at the new store, says Kanelos.
Kanelos says this is the 5th Supercenter announced by the nation’s number one retailer in California. Last year they announced they would build 40 such stores in the state over the next few years. Kanelos says other than Hanford only in Delano does the company have current plans to nail down a location for a new store - reportedly the likely location at County Line Rd.
Besides Hanford and Delano the Voice is following the possible new Supercenter plans in Visalia, Porterville, Dinuba, Reedley area and Lemoore.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
January 22, 2003
