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| Lupine and Poppies above Pine Flat Reservoir |
It's funny how the presentation of
facts can be interpreted as hostile criticism. Consider the
following:
From time immemorial, snow melt
has coursed down the slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, merging
with rivers that flowed out through the delta and the bay into the
ocean. The rivers periodically flooded the valley, overflowing into
wetlands teeming with life. Much of the water in the wetlands would
seep down into aquifers below, creating underground lakes of
fresh water.
Over a hundred years ago, farmers
began draining the wetlands and cultivating the land. In the early
twentieth century, farmers began over drafting the groundwater, so
the government built dams and canals that killed most of the rivers,
diverting about eighty percent of the water to farmers, who continued
to grow many water-intensive crops in a region with chronic drought
conditions.
Even with all of the dams in California (about 1,400), farmers continue to over draft the groundwater, and the land continues to subside. Due to political clout, farmers in
California, unlike in most other states, successfully avoided
groundwater regulations until a few years ago. Wetlands are down to about four percent of their historical
levels. Tainted by toxic chemicals, irrigation water percolates into
the aquifers even as farmers did deeper wells to access what's left
of the fresh groundwater.
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| Native American Village Site at Confluence of Kings River and Sycamore Creek: Bottom of Pine Flat Reservoir in Drought Conditions |
One vast ecosystem
extending from the foothills of the mountains to the San Francisco
Bay is gone, and many plants and animals are threatened or
endangered. Beds of ancient rivers have remained dry for decades even
as water streams through diversion canals. The groundwater is
becoming more and more polluted due to pesticides, herbicides,
fertilizers and defoliants. Many fields will be fallowed and some
farming communities will very likely become ghost towns in the near
future due to over pumping of groundwater.
In the mountains, dams have
destroyed many of the rivers' habitats. Near urban areas, few places
remain that allow public access to pristine stretches of California's
rivers. Due to over drafting of groundwater and the Valley's chronic
drought conditions, farmers in the past two decades have fought for more
dams on public lands. The public will pay the lion's share for them
if they are built even as the public loses public parks and access to pristine
stretches of river.
As an environmentalist, I realize
that this factual description can easily look like hostile criticism.
My goal, however, is to work for sustainable industries and
communities. When I began as an activist, I often witnessed how
elected officials at public hearings vilified environmentalists, calling them
anti-American or communist or anti-business, suggesting that
citizens working for sustainable communities were actually
nonconformist wackos, unpatriotic, irresponsible, unreliable and
unemployable.
In Requiem
for the American Dream (available on Netflix), noted linguist and
activist Noam Chomsky points out that in totalitarian societies this
strategy has often been used to demonize and marginalize anyone who
criticizes concentrated power. He states, “These concepts only
arise in a culture, where, if you criticize state power, and by
state, I mean, more generally, not just government, but
state-corporate power—if you criticize concentrated power, you're
against the society, you're against the people. And it's quite
striking that it's used in the United States. In fact, we're the only
democratic society where this concept isn't ridiculed, and it's a
sign of elements of the elite culture which are quite ugly.”
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| No Man's Land: Pounding Stone in Friant Dam's Inundation Zone |
In a recent
editorial in The Fresno Bee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, and The Bee's editorial staff both
resemble in no small way commissars who vilify any citizen who
criticizes concentrated power. (Commissar: an official in a
totalitarian government whose duties include political
indoctrination, detection of political deviation and implementation
of punishment to make its populace conform.) According to The Fresno
Bee's editorial staff, Rep. Nunes in a “sophisticated” critique “cites
environmental groups' hostility to farming as being a factor in the
state's long history of failing to do the obvious and build more
reservoirs and dams to hold more water from the Sierra snow pack.”
Even as agribusiness maintains concentrated power through its
influence on politicians, The Fresno Bee lauds a politician for using
an ugly and distinctively unsophisticated totalitarian strategy to
demean and marginalize citizens' groups working for a sustainable
future.
Conservationists and environmentalist fight to protect what little is
left, not from hostility but for the common good. The Bee and Rep.
Nunes fail to recognize that there's a world of difference between
criticizing unsustainable practices and being hostile. At this
crucial time, the ag industry can maintain an openness to more
sustainable ways of doing business for everyone's benefit or perpetuate the same destructive
practices while, like many tyrants, relying on "commissars" to intimidate and villify people who disagree.
Unfortunately, both Rep. Nunes and The Fresno Bee have chosen to use
a strategy of the elite culture which is quite ugly.
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