News
OP-ED: Cargill-Redwood City water grab
By Philip Erro
An essential element of Cargill’s proposed development in Redwood City is the diversion of millions of gallons of water from the Bakersfield area to Redwood City. Cargill is offering Redwood City enough water to enable the city to increase its population by 33 percent...
But instead of opting for Cargill’s version of sprawl in Redwood City wetlands and marshes, we could restore those wetlands over time and use the water Redwood City already has more effectively to enable population growth.
I am a resident of Redwood City, but I am a native of Fresno and own an almond orchard in Fresno County. My almond orchard consumes about 600 acre-feet of water to produce 450,000 pounds of almonds (An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover an acre one foot deep, and is the approximate annual water use of a suburban household). The 8,400 acre-feet of water that Cargill proposes to take from Kern County would produce six million pounds of almonds per year — enough for a handful of almonds a day for every San Mateo County resident for 134 days.
But almonds aside, water is the lifeblood for cities and counties. The 8,400 acre-feet is enough water for 6,000 households. Why should the city of Bakersfield and Kern County be deprived of that revenue so Redwood City can benefit from them? What is the rationale to justify this water grab and resulting fiscal impact on Kern County?
The state of California faces a limited if not fixed water supply. We dedicated the first half of the last century building dams and canals, but we have learned in recent decades of the many negative ecological effects of this approach. We have to think of ways of using our existing water supply more efficiently to support reasonable population growth.
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As Redwood City residents, I believe we need to opt for water conservation and smart growth, and reject the false lure of Cargill’s “growth water” for our city. The Cargill option would cause extreme ecological damage in our Bay wetlands and fiscal privation of our fellow communities in Kern County. The Cargill marsh sprawl model would destroy wetlands habitat and wrest water away from other California urban and rural water users. We can grow city and county tax revenue here with smart, vertical growth without inflicting local environmental damage and fiscal injury in Kern County.
Philip Erro is a third generation Fresno County farmer, past president of the San Joaquin Valley Resource Conservation and Development Council and past president and current director of the Westside Resource Conservation District. His greatest conservation concern is the wise use of California’s water.
