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An environmental battle is under way today in California between the farmers of the San Joaquin Valley and Delta areas and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The issue at hand is the possibility of a future major drought in the area and the effect such a drought would have on the survival of an endangered species known as the Delta Smelt, a three and one-half inch minnow.

Pacific Legal Foundation's "Save Our Water, Save Our Jobs" petition campaign has been joined by California key civic, business and agricultural leaders. The petition campaign has gathered 12,000 signatures to date, urging President Barack Obama and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to convene a special panel called the "God Squad" to address California's water emergency caused by harsh federal environmental restrictions. The "God Squad" is a panel of seven cabinet officials acting as a committee to intercede in economic emergencies.

California Governor Schwarzenegger refuses to invoke the "God Squad" provision, giving the reason that in the five times it has been attempted, it failed in four. Appeals to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) brought the same result -- a refusal.

The San Joaquin farmers find themselves in a political stalemate. Environmentalists represented by the Fish and Wildlife Commission are holding fast for the most part, though in the past month substantial relief was granted when some 600,000 acre-feet of water were released to the most needy farmers in the region.

The San Joaquin River is not a strong river. It has been known to go dry at times, partly as a result of a dam built on the river in 1949.

San Joaquin farmers might be well advised to take a page from the Klamath River Basin Farmers to the north. Farmers along the southern Oregon-northern California border in the Klamath River Valley faced a similar problem when irrigation to the farms in the region was shut down eight years ago in 2001 on orders from Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton.

Environmentalists had petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to deny irrigation water to the farmers in the Klamath River Basin in order to protect an endangered species of fish known as the Lost River or Short Nose (snubnose) sucker.

The Klamath River, approximately 263 miles long, is a major river along the southern Oregon and California border considered prime habitat for Chinook salmon, Coho salmon and Steelhead trout, none of which is an endangered species.

When the use of water in the Upper Klamath Basin for irrigated agriculture was temporarily cut off in 2001, hundreds of thousands of acres in the Klamath Valley went without irrigation that summer. A wave of civil disobedience swept the valley as hundreds of local farmers using saws and blow torches seized the head gates of the Klamath Lake to feed water into irrigation canals on three occasions in June and July. Bureau of Reclamation officials closed them again, then turned to federal marshals and the FBI to help them keep the gates closed after the local sheriff refused to intervene. As tensions grew in Klamath Valley, Secretary Gale Norton finally ordered the gates to open permanently in 2002.

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