Coalition Calls for Restoration of Delta Flows to Recover Salmon

There is in fact a quite simple physical solution to the water crisis in CA that would restore the salmon, delta smelt and in general river health while also maintaining San Joaquin farmlands. The only crucial yet simple step needed is to convert San Joaquin farms to drought tolerant crops, no more thirsty iceberg lettuce nor fruit trees that are not adapted to the hot dry climate of this region..

One possible option that would provide nutritional food to humans at low water input is high protein and drought adapted tepary beans, grown for centuries by indigenous peoples in the dry climates of the Sonoran desert without needing to add hardly one drop of extra irrigation water, only the captured runoff from seasonal storms. Tepary beans have evolved to grow in regular drought conditions as we find in the Sonoran desert and the arid San Joaquin valley..

Remaking the agricultural landscape into drought tolerant crops like tepary beans is the only real option for the salmon's survival, no other magical solutions like Arnold's peripheral canal would help restore the river's flows like simple water conservation would. Using a peripheral canal to steal water from the rivers and give to San Joaquin agribusiness isn't much different from the pumps, other than the canal would open up more areas of the delta to saltwater intrusion..

If the agribusiness landowners will not convert their crops to drought tolerant varieties voluntarily, they will need to be reminded by activist squatters that saving endangered species from extinction trumps their desires for short term profits and their unwillingness to covert to more sensible drought tolerant crops as matches with this dry region..

Perhaps a campesino style land occupation of San Joaquin farms would help encourage the reluctant agribusiness corporations to convert to drought tolerants before the salmon become extinct from our rivers!!

Other farmers have shown time again their ability to succeed in dryland farming with drought tolerants, and they need to be given the chance to use the land and make more with less water available. If the current landowners of the San Joaquin agribusiness corporations cannot practice their trade without causing the extinction of the river's vital salmon populations due to constant excessive water demands, then they will need to withdraw their presence from the land they currently claim as their "property" and allow farmers willing and able to grow crops like tepary beans with less water needed..

Maricopa, AZ is one place where farmers have once again voluntarily converted to growing tepary beans in large scale quantities;

"Water is a limiting factor for this crop. Too much water will produce an excess of vegetation which can be used as a forage crop but a very small amount of beans. The beans can produce a decent crop with as little as three irrigations. Production up to 2000 pounds of beans per acre can be obtained when the plants are not stressed for water. This crop in 2004 required about 48 inches of applied water to produce 2000 pounds of beans per acre.

Studies by the University of Arizona in 1911 show bean yields of spring planted tepary beans of 2000 and up to 3000 pounds per acre on irrigated farmland in the Yuma valley. Dryland farming of tepary beans in McNeil, Arizona (1909 and 1910) would produce 300 to 500 pounds of beans per acre. Supplemental irrigation of about 4 acre-inches of water would boost production to 750 pounds of beans per acre. Unfortunately, there is no documentation of the actual amount of rainwater or total irrigation water applied during these early agricultural trials."

more info @;
http://azteparybeans.com/basic-information/the-history-of-tepary-beans/

and;
http://azteparybeans.com/basic-information/tepary-bean-development/