STOCKTON, CA - Readers of the Stockton Record received a four- page ad in Monday's paper which steps up the state's water war.

The ad was paid for by an organization called Families Protecting The Valley.  The group is made up of farmers from south of Merced County.
Although the group's goal seems to be reducing the amount of treated wastewater that goes into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from cities like Sacramento, Stockton, and Fairfield, critics aren't buying it.

"It's very cleverly put together.  We give them credit for being clever, but not for accuracy.  What they're going to do is harm the delta," said San Joaquin Farm Bureau Director Bruce Blodgett.

Blodgett said the real effort of farm groups in the southern half of the state is the creation of a peripheral canal.  He accused groups like Families Protecting the Valley of claiming fish kills in the delta are due to pollution rather than exports.  He claimed, as did Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of the group Restore the Delta, that if those groups can make exporting water seem harmless, that clears the path to export even more via a canal.

"Their ultimate goal is to build a canal.  They want to divert attention from how exports affect the delta," said Barrigan-Parrilla.

She and Blodgett both claimed a canal around the delta would severely harm that body of water.
"This has always been a freshwater system.  They want it to be a saltwater marsh.  That will harm the entire state when that happens," said Blodgett.

"It (canal) would take our last fresh source out of the delta, leaving us with stagnant polluted waters that would never meet standards," said Barrigan-Parrilla.
A spokesman for Families Protecting the Valley denied the group's main goal was a canal, but instead a cleaner delta.  The group also put newspaper ads on the issue in the Contra Costa Times newspaper last week.

by tdaly@news10.net
News10/KXTV

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