Last week, frazzled from sifting LAFCO’s piles of words for a few truths, I jumped in the truck and headed south. The Alpaugh Irrigation District was having its monthly board meeting and I wanted to be there, though I had few facts yet to offer. The truck left home like it was going to a party.
The trip between Lindsay and Alpaugh takes about an hour but crosses 175 years of water history. From Cairns Corner south to Plainview, I skimmed plains once plowed for dry-farmed wheat, now well-watered by the Friant-Kern Canal. Then I moved into the Tule River’s sphere, with its abundant orchards and fields, small houses and barns tucked behind windbreak shade trees.
Just past Cotton Center and Poplar, the mailboxes start to disappear. Entering the floodplain of Deer Creek, the region of homeless farms begins. Endless acres of orchards and vineyards, with nary a barn or house to shelter anyone and no families to care for them; no neighbors, no fruit stands, not even tractor sheds. Except for the towns dotting Hwy 99, the area seems uninhabited until you get to Alpaugh.
Surrounded on all sides by homeless farms, industrial canals and solar installations, Alpaugh is a human oasis. Missing are the standard signs of well-being and wealth that define our notions of “town,” like sidewalks and brick buildings along a main street. Present in Alpaugh is an alternative reality: a community of hand-made homes, marginal businesses meeting local needs plus a post office, county branch library and fire department. The upgraded school is the centerpiece, clearly the town’s pride and joy.
I arrived at the irrigation district office late, having followed more than one slow pickup towing portapotty trailers. As I sat down to listen, I realized how it helped me just to be in their presence, hearing public business conducted by a handful of real farmers and a modest, dedicated staff.
One of the items on the agenda was whether to reestablish water service to a small, 10-acre parcel with a tiny house perched tentatively on its northwest corner. According to the general manager, the place had just sold to a family from Los Osos who want to plant a few acres of bell peppers.
The place had been abandoned years before, cut off from water service for multiple failures to pay the bill. But someone had fixed up the house before putting it on the market, and the question was whether to give this small piece of property another chance. “They’re a nice family,” the general manager stated more than once, advocating for them. After hearing that no infrastructure was required, the board agreed to add this new family farm to their roster.
They reopened the public comment period so I could tell them why I came. I apologized for misapprehending LAFCO’s procedures so that we “got skunked,” but reported that I was still looking for loopholes. They then went into closed session, after which they reported that they weren’t done with the matter either. Stay tuned.
What struck me hard from being there in their little office, just up the street from the town’s main intersection, was the total honesty of the place. This irrigation district knows who they are serving and what matters to them, where their bottom lines are. The people who live there also know what matters, and how hard it can be to get even the bare minimum. I think they also know the value of what they have, even if it doesn’t compare to living in Delano or Earlimart, much less Hanford or Visalia. They know it counts for something, and hold on.
It is this importance of little places— where folks can get rooted, make a living, keep the kids in school— that made me sound the alarm on the annexation. LAFCO approved it as if there was nothing at stake and no one who might suffer consequences. They’re wrong.
Alpaugh is surrounded by ruthless owners of homeless farms who can pump the town’s groundwater right out from underneath them, with no one to take their side, not even their county supervisor. With more land now in water districts, places like Alpaugh are vulnerable to decisions made in less honest board rooms. We need to see their value and stand with them.
Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes. Send her your list of special places c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247. This column is not a news article but the opinion of the writer and does not reflect the views of the Mid Valley Times newspaper.
