"We taught the entire world how to grow crops," said Tom Stefanopoulos, owner of Stamoules Produce, bitterly. "But this is the first time we've had to compete with fish."
Stefanopoulos, who owns one of the largest farms in the Westlands district, has planted fewer seasonal row crops this year, but hasn't lost any of his precious pistachio trees. But a neighboring farm, lacking water, left its plum orchard to die. Weeds and dead branches now litter the ground next to Stamoules' field of sweet corn.
Valley farmers aren't the only ones suffering. Increasingly, when it come to water, one industry's livelihood is another's loss.
The more water that's pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta, which stretches from Yolo County near Sacramento to the lower parts of San Joaquin County, the more that wildlife from the area is harmed, said C. Mark Rockwell, California representative of the Endangered Species Coalition. There hasn't been a commercial or recreational salmon fishing season in California or in certain parts of Oregon in the last two years, he said.
Pulling water from the delta also lets more seawater in from the San Francisco Bay, sullying farms near Sacramento, said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of advocacy group Restore the Delta.
"There really isn't enough water to go around, particularly in a drought year," Rockwell said.
Fights will probably escalate in the face of global warming, said Juliet Christian-Smith, a senior research associate at the Pacific Institute.
"We have a new climate reality, and our old structure for allocating water will not work for the future," she said. "Fish are just one sign of an ecosystem that's collapsing."
Officials have discussed a variety of long- and short-term fixes, including transferring water from other areas, installing gates to protect the smelt and increasing the statewide storage of water.
But Del Bosque and other farmers said they couldn't survive even one more year of stingy water allocation. Some are considering quitting the business. Field hands too are looking to other industries. But there aren't many options now that the region's construction boom has gone bust.
Valley farmworker Cecilia Reyes said some of her neighbors drive from Fresno County to places as far as Bakersfield, Hollister and Gilroy to look for work, returning at night to be with their families.
Reyes, a slight woman clad in a baseball cap emblazoned with the word "Angel," a handkerchief and long sleeves, said she felt lucky that she recently had found three days' work weeding tomato fields. "I hope there's more work this year," she said in Spanish. "If there's not, I don't know what I'll do."
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alana.semuels@latimes.com
