Farmers trying to build sustainable future

Family Water Alliance is a nonprofit that represents small family farms in the Sacramento Valley. I started out defending loggers and the need to manage our forests 30 years ago. Today, the people who are asking you to “study this more” are the same people that told us we needed more studies to decide whether we should manage our forest. You can tell by our smoke-filled sky how well that worked.

The Tuscan Water District is being formed by local, hardworking people who love the land as much as they love their kids. They’re not the evil corporations that are being portrayed by Debra Lucero and the Butte Water Watch, they are your neighbors and friends. The Tuscan group has been working to gain landowner support since 2015.

More than 1,100 petitions representing 58,000 acres are signed. That is more than 50 percent of the district required to, apply, to Butte Lafco. The Tuscan Water District is following the law and the process and the spirit of Governor Browns Waterfix document. We hope that you will not wait around for the countywide water district that the opponents are proposing.

FWA has worked for three decades to address the problems with water and fish, including completion a fish screen on Butte Creek last year. That is why along with every single neighboring water district, Family Water Alliance supports the Tuscan Water District, because it is local farmers building a sustainable future.

— Nadine Bailey, Colusa