Nature Labor and Community in California s Imperial Valley Alan Rudy ISS 310 People and Environment Spring 2002 Thursday January 9 Imperial Valley and Salton Sea Landsat Hydrophotography Imperial County Farms and Average Farm Value 3500 3000 Farms and Farm Value 1940 1972 800 000 700 000 600 000 2500 500 000 2000 400 000 1500 300 000 1000 200 000 500 100 000 0 0 1940 1945 1950 1954 1959 1964 1969 1974 of Farms Avg Value Land Buildings 1939 Map My Problem I m interested in the connections between environmental crises labor struggles and rural development But my research started with the 1991 Silver Leaf whitefly superpest outbreak What do I do Start with evolution of the whitefly and seek connections to labor processes and agricultural development patterns The Whitefly Whitefly comes from intensive cultivation and serial ripening with great crop diversity The Imperial Valley produces 100 crops with a 365 day a year growing season Crops are planted so that one field is harvested one week another the next and another the next there are almost always several ripe succulent or young crops for pests to attack As such extremely high pesticide usage has been the rule ever since the 1950s More Whitefly Whitefly superpest unlike other pests more crop hosts 5X repro rate Esp bad for highly capitalized very disciplined and intensive agricultural systems with Massive landholdings contract inputsmanagement labor Hoover Dam AllAmerican canal intensive drainage system Landholdings Neither the 160 Acre nor the Residency Limitation associated with the Irrigation Act of 1901 has been enforced in the Valley since the completion of the Hoover Dam and All American Canal Massive units of production Not a single farmstead everyone lives in cities across the border or on the coast Contracts No Owner Operators Management Land Preparation Chemical Inputs Labor Processing Marketing Water Infrastructures Irrigation 1901 Flood New Alamo Rivers Salton Sea 19041907 Dam Canal 1929 1939 Drainage 1940s Limitations 1930s against legal advice unenforced 1970s threatened Supreme Court decision Congress rewrites Reclamation Law Labor History Indigenous canal digging land leveling Chinese Japanese Filipino Hindu Mexican exception to 20s immigration laws Multiracial union drives 1929 1934 succession exclusion Violently suppressed Bracero Program 1941 1965 UFW 1968 1982 Community History Mexicali Calexico Holt El Centro Brawley County SPRR IID Struggle IID Swing Johnson Hoover Dam Dam Canal Saves ag kills communities Maquiladoras NAFTA Prisons rejuvenate IV cities Right to Farm ordinance Environmental Problems Supersaline Salton Sea 5 10 000 migrating eared grebes die annually The Sea is a key locale for migratory waterfowl Supersaline Irrigation Water Mexico Selenium saturated sediments Industrial Sewage from Mexicali Massive Devastating pest outbreaks Very low air quality Conditions of Production I James O Connor 1989 Natural Causes Sees three crisis tendencies Overproduction Crisis Fiscal Crisis Environmental Crises Ecological Personal Communal Conditions of Production II Overproduction crisis too much stuff too few markets common to economic cycles Fiscal crisis economic downturn business needs more public R D new efficient infrastructures and to pay fewer taxes BUT people also need more support and protection and to pay lower taxes BUT THE STATE HAS FEWER RESOURCES serve business irk people 1920s 50s 80s 90s serve people irk business 1930s 60s serve both deficit spending debt 1950s 70s Conditions of Production III Nature people and communities are not re produced like commodities Business often treats nature workers and communities as if they are disposable or depreciable commodities Pollution exhaustion and intensive use degrade the health of n p c Unhealthy n p c are less productive and also a source of social movements Conditions of Production IV Environmental labor gender etc and community based social movements generally make demands on the state The state then is always a key player in the relationship between nature and business labor and business and communities and business People Environment and Sustainability Ecological conditions are connected to peoples health and community wellbeing often through the state politics Sustainability then must be about environmental justice as well as the health of ecological communities