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http://online.wsj.com/articles/political-diary-will-voters-roll-the-dice-1403799135
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday predicted that fruit and vegetable prices will rise by 5% to 6% this year due largely to lower production in California's Central Valley. While California has just suffered one of its driest years on records, extreme environmental policies deserve much of the blame for the forecasted spike.
California produces more than half of the country's fruits and vegetables, including the bulk of its lettuce, berries and tomatoes. Federal water regulators this year slashed farmers' water allocations to zero due to a prolonged bout of dry weather. As a result, farmers had to triage their crops and pump groundwater. Many reserved their limited groundwater supply for high-value nuts and fruit trees, scaling back production of row crops.
All in all, California farmers fallowed about 500,000 acres of land this year. But here's the thing: much of this land could have been productive had the state stored up more water from wet years and not flushed 800,000 acre-feet into the San Francisco Bay last winter and an additional 445,000 acre-feet this spring to safeguard the endangered delta smelt. That's enough for roughly three million households to live on and to irrigate 600,000 acres of land.
The problem is that federal regulators, prodded by environmental groups, have ruled that pumping at the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta threatens the smelt. Ergo, under the Endangered Species Act, the three-inch fish must be protected at almost any economic cost. After 300 smelt were ensnared in the pumps last winter, regulators ordered that a deluge of melted snowpack—which threatened to flood northern California reservoirs—be discharged into the ocean rather than exported to farmers in the Valley.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday predicted that fruit and vegetable prices will rise by 5% to 6% this year due largely to lower production in California's Central Valley. While California has just suffered one of its driest years on records, extreme environmental policies deserve much of the blame for the forecasted spike.
California produces more than half of the country's fruits and vegetables, including the bulk of its lettuce, berries and tomatoes. Federal water regulators this year slashed farmers' water allocations to zero due to a prolonged bout of dry weather. As a result, farmers had to triage their crops and pump groundwater. Many reserved their limited groundwater supply for high-value nuts and fruit trees, scaling back production of row crops.
All in all, California farmers fallowed about 500,000 acres of land this year. But here's the thing: much of this land could have been productive had the state stored up more water from wet years and not flushed 800,000 acre-feet into the San Francisco Bay last winter and an additional 445,000 acre-feet this spring to safeguard the endangered delta smelt. That's enough for roughly three million households to live on and to irrigate 600,000 acres of land.
The problem is that federal regulators, prodded by environmental groups, have ruled that pumping at the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta threatens the smelt. Ergo, under the Endangered Species Act, the three-inch fish must be protected at almost any economic cost. After 300 smelt were ensnared in the pumps last winter, regulators ordered that a deluge of melted snowpack—which threatened to flood northern California reservoirs—be discharged into the ocean rather than exported to farmers in the Valley.
