Chris Hurd has been farming in the San Joaquin Valley for the past 23 years.  Today, his family’s 1,500 acres approximately 25 miles southwest of Firebaugh grows almonds, pistachios, and vegetables – mostly beans and onions.  All of it depends on water from the Central Valley Project (CVP).

The CVP, a federal water system approved by Congress in 1937 to help develop irrigation and municipal water supplies in arid parts of California, captures water from the Sierra Nevada in Northern California, stores it in a series of reservoirs and delivers it to farms and cities for irrigation, municipal and industrial uses throughout the state.  One third of California’s farmland – roughly three million acres – relies on the CVP for critical water supplies.  The CVP furnishes municipal and industrial water for about one million households and generates clean hydroelectricity to meet the needs of about 2 million Californians.  The CVP also provides more than 800,000 acre feet of water each year for fish and wildlife protection and habitat restoration and makes another 410,000 acre feet available to state and federal wildlife refuges and wetlands.

For family farmers like Chris Hurd and his son Kevin, the last 15 years have been a gut-wrenching roller coaster ride of water delivery disruptions and shortages. Most have not been caused by drought or the weather.  Rather, they have been the result of an ongoing political debate over state and national priorities and policies related to environmental protection, endangered species and the appropriate uses of developed water supplies.

Firebaugh-area farmer Chris Hurd

For the past 15 years or so, Hurd and other CVP farmers have seen their water supplies reduced each year to anywhere from a mere 25 percent to an average of less than 70 percent.  These shortages make it increasingly expensive to pump or buy the additional water necessary to keep his farm productive.

“We’ve adapted to these reduced supplies by becoming very efficient in how we use water, by installing drip irrigation systems and computerized water systems.  Many of us in the Valley are getting 90 percent efficiency ratings on the water we use, which used to be unheard of.  But it all comes at a very high price.