Water “Disneyland”

FARTHER AFIELD
Tom Willey
T & D Willey Farms

When we relocated our farm north to Madera in 1995, I did so with considerable trepidation around entering a federally managed San Joaquin River watershed and leaving behind the more generous Kings River basin under local control.

The recent 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Elinor Ostrom set me to contemplating how the disparate management of our region’s two river systems reflects her investigations of natural resource management by powerful outside interests vs. local community coalitions.

When dam construction contracts for irrigation and flood control on these two rivers were awarded to separate agencies of the federal government, just before and after WWII, fateful consequences which would play out over many decades may not have been well understood.

The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation was engaged first to build Friant Dam on the San Joaquin, resulting in that federal agency’s control and management of its impounded water to this day.

On the other hand, US Army Corps of Engineers, eager to keep busy after a war, gladly built Pine Flat on the Kings for a simple repayment of costs, turning management of its water resource back to our local community.

Nearly seven decades hence, we suffer a hopelessly bureaucratic water management and distribution system on the San Joaquin subject to congressional meddling and incessant environmental attack over a dewatered streambed.

According to a recent Fresno Bee opinion piece (10/19/09) penned by former Clovis Mayor, Harry Armstrong, local cooperative problem solving is rampant on the Kings.

Though the once magnificent Tulare Lake fed by a less tamed Kings was lost, that river still runs an otherwise normal course supporting a cold-water fishery, acclaimed by sportsmen, just below the dam.

Nobel winner Ostrom’s contention that, under favorable conditions, local communities’ management of vital natural resources can produce more sustainable outcomes than government control or privatization may be well illustrated by our “tale of two rivers.”

Ostrom’s findings and our Kings River’s management contradict the “tragedy of the commons” notion that naked self-interest will necessarily destroy public resources unless a big stick solution is imposed.

I often remind farming friends I left behind in Fresno Irrigation District they live in a water “Disneyland” compared to those of us reliant on federal San Joaquin water. There may be no escaping the bitter dilemma in which we are ensnared up here, but we’d best protect and treasure the cooperative community managing our sister stream to the south. –Tom Willey

COMMENTS

No comments yet on Water “Disneyland”. Be the first to comment!

Post a Comment




Notify me of follow-up comments?

* All fields are required.

To prevent automated spam, please enter the word you see in the image below:

 




Back to Top