June 17, 2008

The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor
State of California
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger:

On behalf of the members of the San Diego County Farm Community, I want to thank you for your leadership in seeking solutions to California’s water supply shortfalls.  We fully support your strategy for new investments in the infrastructure needed to store and convey water.  While that strategy will serve the state in decades to come, we are concerned about the threat that exists today to the viability and future of our farms.

Like many of our fellow farmers throughout the state, we are saddled with mandatory water use restrictions.  To comply with those restrictions, producers are removing viable fruit trees, reducing acreage of field crops, and planting fewer nursery containers.  These actions are tolerable for a season or two, but continued restrictions on access to irrigation water will certainly lead to the demise of many farms.  In addition to your plans for needed infrastructure, we are in desperate need for short term remedies as well.
It has become obvious to us that the restrictions on state and federal pumping in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta must be remedied in order to avoid permanent damage to California’s farmers and their communities.  The good work being done by your Bay-Delta Office to restore the system’s health may come too late for many of our farmers who need water now. 
We respectfully ask that you make it a top priority of your administration to restore pumping capacity in the Delta while the fixes that will take years to accomplish are implemented.  To that end we would even go so far as to ask you to consider the plausibility of calling on President George W. Bush to convene the Endangered Species Committee to weigh the impacts of the current court mandates on pumping.

Thank you for consideration of this matter that is becoming more critical by the day. 

Sincerely,

Chuck Badger
President