Better Science?

It’s great to be back writing Borrego Farm Corner again after a brief absence. Thanks to those of you who told me you missed seeing it.

Let me begin by saying that I’m glad the Borrego Water District partnered with the state Department of Water Resources to charge a panel of groundwater scientists to develop a plan for continued study of the Borrego aquifer. Last fall Representative Duncan Hunter asked BWD lobbyists how they knew there was a problem with the aquifer. The fact that no one was able to provide a convincing answer clearly highlighted to the BWD Board the need for more research.

So the BWD’s project is a positive step, and while the results may never be more than theoretical—that’s the nature of science—we may eventually gain a fuller understanding of the aquifer on which to base better water management decisions in the decades to come.

Here’s the problem. Even without the convincing evidence we are told we now need, a small clique of folks in Borrego who either have vested interests in controlling Borrego’s water or who have apparently never met a government regulation they didn’t like have already been busy for several years trying to incite alarm about a so-called water crisis in Borrego allegedly caused by local farmers. They have engaged in a campaign of half truths and sometimes personal attacks against farmers.

I believe that it has been unconscionably dishonest of the “government regulation clique” to scheme to undermine the integrity of local farmers and their right to pursue their livelihood in the valley without having adequate evidence that damage has been caused. Trying to use regulation to force someone from their property is not a trivial matter, and it should concern the entire community, not just farmers.

At the September 26, 2007 meeting of the BWD Board, Tim Ross of the Department of Water Resources (and a member of the BWD’s panel of scientists) argued persuasively that Borrego “produces some of the finest of California agriculture” and that farms have a legitimate long-term role in the valley. I agree.

Replacing Farms with Houses

I encourage everyone to read Alison Williams’ August 11, 2007 Los Angeles Times article about water in the Borrego Valley, “A Resort Town Thirsts for Solutions.” Granted, Williams’ article has its shortcomings, but it makes one very important point.

Williams unfortunately perpetuates recycled and misleading information about the health of Borrego’s aquifer, for example the myth that the aquifer only has a useful life of 30 years. Furthermore, Williams’ article places an alarmist emphasis on a recent speculative remark made by the Department of Water Resources’ Tim Ross about the MW-5 monitoring well on the southern edge of the Borrego groundwater basin. The Borrego Sun made this same mistake a couple of months ago in an article Steven Smiley has rightly called “sensationalized” and “misleading.”

Finally, while falling into the familiar trap of blaming valley farms for a water crisis that in fact cannot be convincingly shown to exist, Williams only quotes one of Borrego’s farmers. Most of the other people quoted are committed antagonists of valley farms. The article is not adequately balanced.

Williams is dead right on one point however, and this is primarily why her article has merit. For the first time, to my knowledge, a journalist has finally recognized and acknowledged what is really going on behind the effort to run Borrego’s farmers out of the valley. The goal is not primarily to save water at all, but rather to transfer ownership and control of water from valley farms to residential developers and to the Borrego Water District. It’s about money and power, not conservation, “merely replacing farmland with houses,” as Williams’ article puts it. That’s just not a good idea.