Imperial (222 page)

All remarks by Richard Brogan in this chapter—Interview, Calexico, April 2004.

IID quota cut by 330,400 acre-feet—
Imperial Valley Press,
Wednesday, March 19, 2003.

Advertisement for Cyan-o-Gas—
California Cultivator
, vol. LXIV, no. 14, April 4, 1925, p. 429.

Events of 18 March 2003—
Imperial Valley Press
, Wednesday, March 19, 2003, p. 1 (Rudy Yniguez, staff writer, “Judge orders full water allotment”).

“Very strong likelihood that the defendants breached the Seven Party Agreement”—
Imperial Valley Press
, Monday, March 25, 2003, p. A8 (“WATER: Government raised issue”; continued from p. A1).

“An American community . . . driven to defense of its rights”—William Leslie Davis, p. 152.

Imperial Group filing against IID—Ibid., Wednesday, March 19, 2003, p. A4.

Search of property records for Mike Morgan—This information is placed in a restricted file in my papers in Ohio State University.

Assertions of Mr. Ray Naud—
IVPressonline.com
, from 3/5/03, “Voice: Maldonado’s and Allen’s contribution lists reveal transfer loyalties.”

Richard Brogan’s remarks on a potential dustbowl—When I asked Zulema Rashid whether she thought that the water farmers might someday have their way and then her town, Calexico, might become a ghost town, she vehemently replied, pointing to the international line: “It will all be city. You can see city now all the way from San Diego to Jacumba. So it’s expanding. But there’s still a lot of space here. I don’t think this town will ever be a ghost town.”

“Too late for meangingful review” and associated narrative—IID objection to Part 417 determination, p. 7, fn. 12.

“CVWD has an undisputed lower on-farm efficiency than IID . . .”—Ibid, p. 16.

Predicted results of water reduction; and SWRCB Decision 1600—Ibid., pp. 53, 69.

Stella Mendoza—Interviewed in her kitchen in Brawley, October 2003. Terrie Petree was present.

The meat of the water transfer (September 25, 2003, QSA between Imperial and San Diego)—Munguía, p. 224 (Vicente Sánchez Munguía).

Footnote: “Powering Mexican maquiladoras . . .”—“Today’s IID,” verso, center panel.

“The pact will supply San Diego with about a third of its current water needs . . .”—
Imperial Valley Press
, Sunday, October 12, 2003, p. A6 (“Agencies ink landmark water deal”).

Footnote: Mexican reasonable and beneficial use—Ibid., pp. 176-77 (Stephen P. Mumme and Donna Lybecker).

Footnoted information on Imperial County’s 2003 water obligation to San Diego—
Imperial Valley Press
, Tuesday, October 14, 2003, pp. A1, A6 (Rudy Yniguez, “QSA formally signed, now in effect: WATER: IID must transfer 15,000 acre-feet this year to the San Diego County Water Authority”).

Footnote: “The recent announcement of an armistice in that epic battle . . .”—
New York Times
, Wednesday, October 22, 2003, “Editorials/Letters” section, p. A26 (“Living with Scarcity in California”).

“ . . . reinforced the idea that ‘urban interests’ have established a beachhead in the Imperial Valley . . .”—
Imperial Valley Press
, Sunday, October 12, 2003, “Our Opinion” section, p. A6 (“How now, San Diego?”).

“The water transfer agreement provides ripples of benefit . . .”—San Diego County Water Authority, p. 53.

164. You Might as Well Get Out of the Way (2006)

Kay Brockman Bishop—Interview of 2006.

165. Water Is Here (A View from Arizona) (1985-2007)

Epigraph: “Supplemented by the newly finished All-American Canal . . .”—Imperial Valley Directory (1939), p. 14.

Epigraph: “The unsuspecting traveller who has crossed the Colorado river . . .”—Holmes et al., p. 168 (Mrs. W. H. Ellis, “Moreno Valley”).

“Was mostly agriculture in the 1950s . . .”—Whitehead et al., p. 37 (Anthony J. Brazel and Sandra W. Brazel, Laboratory of Climatology, Arizona State University, Tempe, “Desertification, Desert Dust and Climate: Environmental Problems in Arizona”).

“FADE may cause up to one-third . . .”—Ibid., p. 39.

“The relinquishment of agricultural land for urban use . . .”—California State Archives. Margaret C. Felts papers. Box 12: Folder: “1927 POLLUTION.” State of California. Department of Public Works. Division of Engineering and Irrigation. Paul Bailey, State Engineer,
Bulletin No. 12: Summary Report on the Water Resources of California and a Coordinated Plan for Their Development: A Report to the Legislature of 1927
(Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1927). P. 43.

Arizona’s use of entire Colorado River water allotment—DeBuys and Myers, p. 168.

J. Rice: “In days that are forgotten in the history of Arizona . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library Manuscripts Collection. Paul Schuster Taylor, 1895-. Papers, 1895-1984. BANC MSS 84/38. Carton 5. Folder 5:2: “To Make the Desert Bloom Like the Rose, 1969?” Yellow typescript on “The American West” letterhead, entitled “Issue: Colorado Book,” p. 21.

Remark of the Hualapai Indian guide—April 2007.

View of Hoover or Boulder Dam in 2007—From that same April visit.

Footnote: “The only place where the progress of the QSA is followed more closely than in the Imperial Valley ...” —
Imperial Valley Press
, Sunday, July 24, 2005,“Opinion” section, p. A4 (“Learning to Live with Less Water”).

“This is my water . . .”—Luthin, p. 482 (“An Account of Origins: Quechan [Yuma], 1908; Tsuyukweráu, narrator; J. P. Harrington, collector; Yuma creation song about the Colorado River).

Emory’s observations—Op. cit., p. 92 (entry for 18 November 1846).

166. Water Is Here (A View from Imperial) (2003)

“While singlemindedly attacking IID’s alfalfa . . .”—IID
de novo
Part 417 brief, p. 15.

168. Probate (1901-2003)

Epigraph: “Business . . . was his profession . . .”—Wright, p. 123.

California Cultivator
subscriber: “In the years past my father obtained patents to numerous property interests . . .” —Vol. LIV, no. 2, January 10, 1920, p. 68 (“Legal Queries” department).

Interview with Pentecostal family—2003; Larry McCaffery was present.

169. Such a Good Life (2006)

Epigraph: “You corn kernels, you coral seeds . . .”—Joseph and Henderson, p. 82 (Anonymous, “Popul Vuh”). Teresa Cruz Ochoa and her husband José de Jesús Galleta Lamas—Interviewed in their home in Colonia Borges in December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.

170. Still a Great Farming County (2004)

Epigraph: “A thinly populated world of the type I describe . . .”—Asimov, p. 133.

Mr. and Mrs. Claude Finnell—Mrs. Finnell did not give me her name (probably Geraldine). Interviewed in their home in El Centro, 2004. Shannon Mullen was present.

Footnote: Ag Commissioner as “a big deal, in an agricultural county like this”—Richard Brogan, interviewed in Calexico, April 2004. Mr. Brogan also said, and I do not necessarily subscribe to it: “A fellow that would talk to you, one of the cagiest fellows, is Claude Finnell. Well, Claude, after he retired, his job became a lobbbyist for the Metropolitan Water District. Everything that Claude does, he’ll do it slowly, and he’ll look you in the eye . . . I mean, he is silvertongued. He’s paid to meet people such as yourself, people showing interest in the subject. His tentacles are just interwoven in the growth of the farm community here for . . . what? Thirty years.”

Q&A with the “ancient rancher” about the Owens Valley—Pearce, pp. 77, 43, 45.

Finnell’s status with MWD—
Los Angeles Times
, 14 December 1988, p. 3 (Bill Boyarsky, Metro desk, “MWD Breaks Stalemate in Water Purchase Deal”).

Footnote: Finnell’s sugarcane group, ethanol project—
Imperial Valley Press
, Friday, December 7, 2001, no page number since from Internet (Laura Mitchell, “Sugar cane can be profitable crop, field day presenters say”), Friday, March 7, 2003, no page number since from Internet (Rudy Yniguez, “Death won’t delay plans for sugar cane plant”).

In the Paul Foster reports written for this book (2007), the “Imperial Color Commentary” has this to say about the time between Mr. Finnell’s administration and the present:

“The end of the Harrigan era in the early 1950s and the rise of Claude Finnell as County Ag Commissioner also coincided with standardization of agricultural reporting throughout California . . . I have inflation-adjusted to 2005 dollars in my chart analysis. This data is reasonably consistent over time and readily available. In addition, the Imperial economy of 2005 would be largely recognizable to the 1955 farmer and vice versa. Also, I have generally used five-year moving averages to smooth out annual bumps in the data and make long-term trends more visible. Some of these trends correlate with trends in the national economy; others are more specific to California and Imperial.

“
Ag Trends:
The Ag Trends chart is the simplest to follow and mostly tells the tale we’d expect from what we see of Imperial County today. Field crops (feed grains, pasture grasses, some cash crops) grew in importance from 1950-80, peaked in the late 70s, and have diminished in dollar importance ever since. In addition, some specific grains (wheat, barley, milo) have almost disappeared from the radar screen and been lumped into the category “Other field crops” in the annual ag reports. Except for alfalfa, it’s generally become less risky to buy feed for livestock than to grow the feed yourself, allowing farmers to make opportunistic forays into livestock.

“Livestock (mainly beef) has been more of a roller coaster, but generally the trend has been downward since 1975. The upticks have mainly followed national trends, but within Imperial, livestock traded swapped [
sic
] in position of importance with vegetables and melons in 1985 and has never really recovered. As mentioned earlier, it seems likely that comparative advantage combined with national trends has given this result. Imperial has no clear advantages in feeder cattle and one big disadvantage in the summer: did I mention lately that Imperial is hot? This almost certainly limits weight gain in the summer months (even today they don’t air-condition beef cattle) and hence limits the profitability during that time as well.

“Last, but certainly not least, one can see the rise of vegetable and melon crops through the lens of comparative advantage. Always an important part of the Imperial ag economy, vegetables and melons peaked in the late 1980s, declined through the early 90s, and now seem to occupy a fairly stable place as the leading sector of Imperial’s ag economy.

“A look at the
Ag Pctg Chart
shows that vegetable and melon crops have been a much more volatile component of Imperial’s contribution to overall California ag production. This is primarily because Imperial is geographically isolated from the other major California ag counties, giving it different weather patterns, especially for frosts, heavy rains and other unexpected weather that can ruin crops in say, the Central Valley. When the Central Valley catches a cold snap, Imperial doesn’t get pneumonia, it usually gets a shot of adrenalin from the higher prices its products bring. On the other hand, when Imperial has its rare crop failure, it may get a double-whammy from the fact that the other lettuce/citrus/whatever-producing counties may have had a bumper crop, driving down prices for its diminished harvest. Over time, though, Imperial has had fewer weather events and so benefits on average from its isolation from the rest of agricultural California.

“Other data on the
Ag Pctg Chart
show that Fruit and Nut crops have been a small but very steady contributor, while (as expected) Livestock has diminished in importance (compared to the rest of California) after peaking in the 70s. Field Crops have maintained relative importance probably due to the fact that the rest of California has abandoned them more quickly than Imperial, and the opposite would hold true for why Vegetable and Melon crops have declined relative to the rest of California even as they’ve increased in importance within Imperial. Last but not least, the overall drop in Imperial’s total contribution to the California ag economy since the 1970s (it now dwells consistently near the bottom of the top 10 ag counties) is almost certainly due to its continued reliance on field crops and livestock, areas where it doesn’t have a comparative advantage, and its lack of greater movement toward citrus, grapes, and other crops for which other California counties have increased their production during the same time period. This is only speculation, though, and I have included enough data from the CA state ag department to allow you to draw this conclusion yourself. The data exists, but it would be a fairly big project in itself to do the analysis that would support this conclusion. Let’s just call it a strong hunch that in this case, the slowness of Imperial farmers to move away from crops that they know how to grow (but not especially profitably) to crops they’re less familiar with (but that would make them more money) has likely cost Imperial some [of] its share in overall ag production, based on dollar value.”