Dennis Cardoza: Editorial flat out wrong

Your editorial Monday regarding Sen. Dianne Feinstein's Emergency Temporary Water Supply Amendment is flat out wrong.

It is unfortunate that the Sun-Star would take any kind of position against increasing the flow of water to our region's farmers during such dire and drastic times.

The Feinstein amendment is a temporary emergency measure meant to provide our farms and cities with minimal water deliveries.

Thankfully, above-average rainfall and snowpack conditions mean that we have enough water in the system to provide for these minimal deliveries and also provide enough water for fisheries in the delta.

I worked closely with Sen. Feinstein on this amendment, which serves as a temporary stopgap measure until the National Academies of Science releases its recommendations on solutions to challenges in the delta.

Last year, the combination of drought conditions and regulations resulted in a 10 percent water supply for farms on the Westside of the San Joaquin Valley, causing hundreds of thousands of acres of prime farmland to be fallowed and unemployment to reach rates as high as 40 percent in some of our communities.

Despite the recent winter storms we will see near zero water allocations this year as well because of the "regulatory drought."

A federal court acted responsibly two weeks ago when it lifted restrictions on pumping, saying that under current rain and weather conditions lifting the restrictions on pumping would have a minimal impact on the salmon, while failing to ease restrictions could cause substantial and irreparable harm to farmers.

Unfortunately, the parties were back in court again when federal agencies again ordered pumping restrictions, this time because four delta smelt had been killed.

These same agencies killed more than 260 delta smelt during recent surveys of fish populations. It is absurd that we are willing to shut down San Joaquin Valley agriculture -- which supplies our nation with healthy fruits, vegetables and nuts -- over four fish.

This is clear evidence as to why the Feinstein amendment is needed.

Pumping water out of the delta has been blamed as the single culprit in the decline of the fisheries.

In 1992, water deliveries for the Central Valley Water Project were permanently reduced to provide water to the environment.

In 2007, water deliveries were reduced even further, resulting in an additional 1.3 million acre-feet of water being released to the ocean. This is enough water to fill more than half of the San Luis Reservoir.

Yet, instead of improving the fish numbers, delta smelt and salmon numbers are at an all-time low. Farmers tell me that what makes their sacrifice so hard to accept is that the restrictions are not having the desired effect of improving the fish numbers, and I agree.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results: this is exactly what we are doing with our water management system in California.

The "corporate farmer" has been an easy target of the environmental movement's quest to protect the fish, but the reality is that they are going after third and fourth-generation family farmers, the local tractor dealer, the farmworker and the local business owner. And they are not even helping the fish.

Blindly sending more water out to the ocean will cause further economic havoc in our state at a time when we can least afford it.

It is time that we figure out what is really going on in the delta.

Preliminary studies show that other factors are playing a role in the decline of the species -- non-native fish that feed on endangered species, urban runoff that is laced with pesticides, ammonia from Sacramento wastewater plants that don't meet the same standards that San Joaquin Valley wastewater treatment plants must meet, unpermitted and unscreened water diversions in the delta, lack of an abundant food supply, oil refineries and a power plant in the Bay Area.

We need to know how these other "stressors" are impacting the species, and they must be held accountable for their impacts.

Special interest groups have declared war on the Feinstein amendment.

If the environmentalists were really concerned about the health of the delta ecosystem and the fish, they would declare war on Bay Area power plant and oil refinery discharges, Sacramento wastewater discharges and striped bass predation.

The San Joaquin Valley farmer is an easy target for well-funded national environmental interest groups, but taking on sports fishing interests and challenging industry by Bay Area and Sacramento members of Congress would be going after one of their own and break an unholy alliance.

We need to restore sanity to our state's water management system. Getting farmers minimal water supplies so they can grow our crops, particularly during this period of plentiful water supplies, is the right thing to do.

It is also the right thing to do to hold all activities accountable for the damage to the delta ecosystem -- whether from the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley or Sacramento.

Dennis Cardoza represents the 18th congressional district.