CA Farm Water Coalition 2

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto of an environmental protection bill came as a surprise to many environmentalists and a relief to farmers and ranchers.

While SB 1 was written to preserve endangered species protections against the current administration’s efforts to roll back water, air quality and other standards in California, agricultural groups were worried it would restrict water supplies.

The California Farm Water Coalition was among those who lobbied against the bill. Executive Director Mike Wade says they will continue to promote agricultural water rights.

“The California Farm Water Coalition is in its 30th year. We have been around since 1989. Our mission has been to educate consumers, the media, elected representatives about irrigate agriculture in our great Golden State.

We do public education efforts to help consumers make the connection between our farm waters and our food supply. No one has as broad a representation as we do. We have members from Redding to the Imperial Valley. Our outreach efforts stretch all over California and particularly into the heart of southern California and the Bay Area.

Farming groups have opposed pieces of the Endangered Species Act, saying it would prevent them from pumping more water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta east of San Francisco delivering it to farms and water districts in the Central Valley.

Our efforts to education consumers help tell agriculture’s story and it helps build support for the work that farms and ranches and dairies and nurseries do around the state to help supply people with the food and fiber that they want.

The LA Times says the SB1 is the continuation of an old water war that the Governor thinks he can solve with voluntary negotiations between valley folks and environmentalists. But irrigation districts threatened to pull out of the talks if Newsom signed SB 1. So he vetoed it.