C-WIN Responds to The Washington Post

C-WIN Executive Director Carolee Krieger responds to this article by reporter Scott Wilson published on March 22, 2022.

C-WIN’s letter to the editor was published online on April 1, 2022 and in print on April 2, 2022.

To the Editor:

The incisive article on the impacts of California’s drought accurately captured the dire situation now facing San Joaquin Valley growers and farmworker communities. But a bigger, more nuanced story needs to be told.

Agriculture in the valley is industrial in scale, dominated by large corporate entities and predicated on control of state and federal project water. San Joaquin agribusiness is not a forlorn victim. It is a prime mover in the current tragedy.

Agriculture — primarily industrial agriculture — uses 80 percent of California’s developed water while contributing about 2 percent to the state’s economy. And much of that water is used on “impaired” lands in the San Joaquin Valley.

Western San Joaquin Valley soils are heavily laced with toxic selenium. Farmers irrigate their crops with state and federal project water delivered from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This water is slightly brackish, and salt accumulates around the root zone of irrigated crops through the course of each growing season. This salt must be periodically flushed with more project water, taking both salt and selenium with it. The resulting “drain water” subsequently flows down the San Joaquin River and back to the delta, imperiling fish and wildlife.

Water is a public trust resource. It ultimately belongs to the people, not a handful of powerful agribusiness magnates. More dams won’t solve California’s water crisis, but taking impaired lands out of production and reforming state water policy will.

Carolee Krieger, Santa Barbara, Calif.
The writer is executive director of the California Water Impact Network.