In what has become a nearly automatic move, Kings County supervisors on Tuesday extended a drought emergency declaration that has been in effect continuously since June 2007. The declaration comes at a critical water time for local farmers, who have been dealing with a second consecutive year of low rainfall and snowfall and a federal court decision last year to cut the pumping of Sacramento River Delta water into the California Aqueduct.

Aqueduct water supplies millions of city residents and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland to the south, including thousands of acres on the west side of Kings County.

Local farmers are growing increasingly concerned that a third year of drought could send the economy into a tailspin.

"If this thing continues, we're going to be in deep doodoo," said Brent Graham, former general manager of the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District in southern Kings County.

Area growers and Kings County's representative in Congress said that it makes sense to keep the emergency declaration going.

"It's been needed, because we're still in jeopardy and we continue to be in jeopardy," said Jim Verboon, a Kings County farmer with 100 acres of walnuts in the Kings River-Excelsior Avenue area.

Because the farm is near the Kings River, it has access to groundwater supplies that many growers in the Westside region of Kings County don't, Verboon indicated.

"Some are going to be a hit a lot harder than I am," Verboon said.

"It's probably accurate to maintain the (emergency resolution)," said Rus Waymire, who has 40 acres of wheat in Kings County.

"Well, it's having an impact on our economy, and I think it's important for them to maintain that," Waymire said. "It's the lifeblood of our economy here."

Waymire said that farmers "have to keep the political pressure on or we're going out of business."

Jim Costa, whose 20th Congressional district includes all of Kings County, expressed support for the supervisors' action.

"We have to continue to press the magnitude of these impacts because it isn't immediately felt in Sacramento and Los Angeles," Costa said.

Costa was on the panel of a congressional hearing that came to Fresno last week to get input on how to fix the Sacramento River Delta issue. The federal court ruling last year that curtailed pumping from the Delta into the California Aqueduct for delivery southward was motivated by a desire to protect the Delta smelt, an endangered fish that was at risk for getting sucked into the pump intakes.

Farms and urban areas both receive aqueduct water.

The solution pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and advocated by many local farmers is to build a canal that would suck river water higher up the Sacramento River above the delta and pump it around to the east, thereby bypassing the sensitive delta ecosystem.

Schwarzenegger also advocates more above-ground reservoirs, a policy position that has run into opposition from conservationists and river enthusiasts.

Verboon and Waymire attended the hearing but did not testify.

Both doubt that the so called "peripheral canal" is going to happen.

Committee chair Grace Napolitano (D-Santa Fe Springs), whose congressional district is in the Los Angeles area, put the emphasis on water conservation, according to Verboon.

Farmers want more surface water storage and a long-term solution to the delta pumping problem.

"I didn't get a good feeling, because they continued to (promote) conservation. Conserve now means taking acreage out of production. That's not good for our area," Waymire said.

"Right now, the easiest thing is for (Sacramento, Stockton and the Bay Area) to just take more water from us. That's the cheapest way for them," Waymire said.

Verboon said that another dry year in 2009 would make this "one of the worst droughts in my lifetime."

"I think as the severity of this crisis continues to mount ... I think the likelihood of (Schwarzenegger's proposals) happening continues to increase," Costa said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2432.

(July 30, 2008)