We have all heard so much media coverage of the water crisis in the West San Joaquin Valley. Somewhere in all of that you generally hear mentioned the California Latino Water Coalition, a group of mainly gringos working for Steward Resnick who pay bus loads of farm workers to show up a demonstrations.
Did you ever wonder where the United Farm Workers was? I did, because the were not there.
Now, the UFW has taken a stand and it is right in the headline. UFW President Arturo Rodriquez has an OpEd in the Feb. 22 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Expensive water: $11 billion, or $800 million in annual debt payments for the next 30 years. That's how much Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's water bond will cost California's taxpayers and their children to subsidize the agricultural industry for decades to come.Read more at the Chronicle.
Gov. Schwarzenegger obviously agrees that water is valuable and essential to human life. Yet, every time a farmworker dies from heat-related illness or dehydration, we're told that the state can't afford the cost of enforcing the laws to protect him or her.
The water bond that was recently approved by our lawmakers will give agricultural companies billions more in subsidized water. The state treasurer has asked the right question: Why aren't these giant ag industry operators paying for their water like everyone else?
Then let's all make sure that we are the ones who have the knowledge and the courage to tell the truth about this, and do it at every opportunity. There will be no Green Justice in California until we start acting like every person is important.
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