Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged on thousands of demonstrators Friday on the final leg of a four-day march across California’s agricultural basin designed to draw attention to surging unemployment caused by water shortages in the state’s rural middle.
Framed by a half-empty reservoir perched above miles of dry cropland, the governor told farmers and farmworkers that he was doing all he could to bring more water to the region this growing season, a message that did little to console several Republican legislators frustrated over his handling of the water cutbacks.
“Farmworkers are losing their jobs because crops are not being planted, and in towns across our Central Valley, our unemployment is going skyrocketing,” Schwarzenegger told the crowd of about 8,000. “It is not just because of the world economy being down, it is self-inflicted wounds because we can’t get our act together and create a water infrastructure that is for 38 million people.”
California farmers have had to leave large swaths of land unplanted due to a three-year drought, coupled with reduced pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to safeguard a native fish.
