CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2016, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2016, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“BULLET TRAIN WILL MAKE ‘BROWNEST CUT’ BITE HARDER”
Back in 2007, when then-Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger desperately cast about for ways to cut the deficit-ridden state
budget, he suddenly slashed $27.8 million from the a program that preserved
agricultural lands, leaving a mere token $1,000 for it in a $90 billion general
fund spending plan.
Now that cut in so-called Williamson
Act contracts, dubbed the “brownest cut of all” at the time since it came from
a governor with very green pretensions, seems about to do more environmental
damage than ever, in large part because of a new business plan adopted by the
state High Speed Rail Authority.
Schwarzenegger’s cut left 16.4 million acres of
farmland exposed to potential development, land formerly protected by contracts
between counties and landowners previously committed to keep farming their
acreage in exchange for a property tax break funded by the state.
The cut has already had a measurable
impact, but the bullet train authority’s latest action figures to accelerate
things.
Here’s a bit of what’s already
happened, based on figures developed by Conservation Science Partners, a
non-profit in the Sierra Nevada mountain town of Truckee:
During the decade from 2001 to 2011, only partially
covered by Schwarzenegger’s Williamson Act cut, which has been continued by
current Gov. Jerry Brown, California lost 785 square miles of farmland to
development, equal to 502,000 acres at 640 acres per square mile. That was a
higher percentage than in any other Western state, and no one knows how much
more has been eaten by urban sprawl since 2011.
By the end of that year, fully 19.5
percent of California’s total land mass was developed, the highest percentage
of any Western state.
The springtime plan for a bullet train
construction U-turn can do nothing but exacerbate this trend, the brownest item
in California’s modern budget history.
Just how brown? One 2003 study from
Purdue University showed that every acre
of farmland in Purdue’s home state of Indiana pulled an estimated 0.107 tons of
carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air each year. That’s for all types of farmland,
including pastures, vineyards, rice and cotton fields, orchards and more.
This is a lowball figure based on
Indiana lands, which unlike California open spaces, sprout nothing green during
the winter to take carbon from the air. Even under those less-than-ideal
conditions, the math works out to a total of 1.754 million tons of carbon
absorbed yearly by the 16.4 million present and former Williamson Act acres.
That’s more than is saved by any man-made tactic, including expensive
cap-and-trade programs. The act was named for 1960s-era Republican legislator
John Williamson, who dreamed it up.
Now consider the latest high speed
rail plan, which sees the first bullet trains running between Bakersfield and
San Jose, and not between Merced and Los Angeles, as previously planned.
The change means early bullet trains
will likely carry more commuters than other passengers. With estimated travel
times of an hour or less between Fresno and San Jose, Silicon Valley workers
who can’t afford sky-high real estate prices in cities like Los Gatos and Palo
Alto could get to work fairly quickly via the bullet train and connecting
Caltrain routes or corporate buses.
This solves problems for a lot of
people, while potentially creating enormous urban sprawl on current farmland.
For the High Speed Rail Authority, it could assure a full passenger load,
something that’s been very uncertain from the original conception of this
massive project. That could help the authority lure private investors who so
far have not put up a nickel.
For high-tech companies, it resolves
the problem of finding affordable housing for employees, because land is
exponentially cheaper in Central Valley locales like Merced, Chowchilla and
Madera, all hard by the bullet train route. It would let them expand near their
headquarters, rather than putting new plants in cheap-land states like Texas
and Arizona.
For farmers whose Williamson Act
contracts have either expired or are about to, it could mean big money when
developers move in even before all the tracks are laid.
But ill effects are obvious, too.
There will be far less sequestration of greenhouse gases when housing tracts
eat up farmland. Urban sprawl could spread as never before.
All because of two governors who have
billed themselves the greenest ever, anywhere, and their hand-picked
appointees.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
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