Marvin Meyers interview

Item

Transcript of Marvin Meyers interview

Title

eng Marvin Meyers interview

Description

eng West side farmer who has adapted to fewer water deliveries by building his own underground water storage system and wetlands.

Creator

eng Meyers, Marvin
eng Holyoke, Thomas

Relation

eng Water Archive Oral Histories

Coverage

eng California State University, Fresno

Date

eng 3/20/2015

Format

eng Microsoft Word document, 17 pages

Identifier

eng SCMS_waoh_00051

extracted text

>> Thomas Holyoke: We are talking to Marvin Meyers today. Let's just
start with a little bit of biographical history. Where are you originally
from?
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, I was actually born in Los Angeles, California.
And I left there after I went to Pierce School of Agriculture for 2 years
then I came to Fresno State because I wanted to get out of the LA area
and pursue my degree in agriculture. Actually, I was focusing on animal
husbandry. But when I got to Fresno State, I decided to have more focus
on agronomy and different types of farming. And so that's what I did. I
graduated in '56, got drafted in the Army in January of '57 and spent a
couple years in active duty. Had quite an experience in the Army. My,
when I got drafted in January of '57, I went to Fort Ord for boot camp.
And while I was there, they interviewed some of us for about our college
education. So I explained to them what I had been doing and went through
infantry training and was on the way to Korea. And they pulled me off the
boat and told me that you're going to Washington DC. And I couldn't
figure out why am I going to DC? Well, I was chosen to be on one of the
atom bomb tests, radiation. And they sent me to Walter Reed Medical
Hospital and then on to Bethesda to irradiate pigs. And they knew that we
knew the normal metabolism of pigs, so we were to study the effects of
different amounts of roentgen, radiation. To see and study the symptoms
of these animals as they passed on. So we did that and then we went,
there was 25 college graduates throughout this country of all ag animal
husbandry. And then they went and took me to, we went to Nevada test site
in Nevada. And they had brought in thousands of land-raised specied pigs
which are the white skinned. Similarly to humans as you probably know.
The digestive system is the same as humans and the skin and so et cetera.
So we developed, it was a bomb that could be shot out of a bazooka and
they wanted to know how far away the shooter had to be from ground zero.
So we spent several months over there designing slings to put the pigs
in. They could weigh over 90 pounds. And so we put them in the slings and
we put them in armored cars, machine gun nests, everything you could
think of, pill boxes. And then there was thousands of us involved in
this. And without going into detail, you know, different guys had to go
to ground zero were highly at risk for sterilization, et cetera. So they,
it was interesting, they the married guys that had kids had to go to
ground zero and et cetera. All the way out 800 yards. And the single
guys, they were at the edge, far out. And so I was one of the chief of
the, we had a group, different groups. And it was a circular area a
thousand yards apart with same different things to put, put these animals
in. So we carried them, we'd put them in a sling live. Had Geiger
counters and tape recorders in them. I don't know what the tape recorder
did, but they had doctors come and put them in them. And then we'd take
these animals and put them out into those placements. And then the bomb
would go off and then we immediately drove in during the fallout, it was
a hot bomb. And then we would gather where the animals that we put where
we put them and took them back out and placed them in a another duplicate
circular. And then we were charged with, we were charged to study those
animals on hour symptoms. Ground zero, there was nothing left. And then
100 yards, 200, 300, so on. And the ones that, you know, about 300 yards
out, 400 yards out, they were alive but they were hot. And we would take
them back and put them in the circle and document everything that we saw.
That was that project. When I left that project, that was quite

interesting. I was thinking, oh, I'm going back to DC and I only got
another 8 months to go. They sent me to Minnesota. Well, actually, they
sent me to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology where I was instructed
to train primates to be put them in a capsule and send them into the
stratosphere to see how much cosmic radiation they would get. That was an
interesting job. They ended up using rhesus primates. And they put a
frame in on their head and they drilled the skull and ran wire through
and then hooked it to the other side and to put in a motion plate in this
unit. And as they went into the stratosphere, it could document the hits
of cosmic radiation to the brain. So we trained these animals to do that
and to put them in a designed capsule made out of titanium. Taught them
how to drink, to eat, they were in a cage, so they had free movement of
the arms. But, and drink water out of a straw. So we went to, ended up at
International Falls which is the Earth's least gravity, gravitational
pull. But that didn't work because the winds were bad. So we ended up in
the Crosby Iron Mines which is a deep, deep pit. And winds and research
said get a balloon, giant balloon. It was attached to a 2 DA track
Caterpillar tractors to hold it down. When we got everything in, ready to
go and a lot of doctors and scientists came and hooked up goldfish and
vegetables and everything to see what space would do. And we sent it up.
And we had a chase plane which is a DC4. With full of equipment. And as
it got up to 110,000 feet, the jet stream shoot off the top of the
balloon. So somehow it, and it collapsed around the parachute. And we've,
this was quite a deal. It was a free fall and it fell into Canada. Well
we were military, so we couldn't go chasing into Canada, we had to get
permission. So we went into, we finally got permission. We, into Canada
and put out a bulletin on the radio telling anybody that saw it don't
touch it. And a farmer called and said he found it. So we found it, we
got in, and there it was and it had gotten into a bunch of trees. And it
had somewhat cushioned the fall. It did split the capsule. But when I got
there and looked down, the animal was alive. And so got him out, and done
with that project. They had done this project a couple years earlier, and
they had dissected the brains and did all that stuff. But interesting
when on the way back to Washington, I had talked to my commanding officer
and said, "Sir, you can't kill this monkey." "Why not," he says. "Do you
know of any living creature that fell 110,000 feet free fall and lived"?
"Yeah, yeah, well, you know, that's the government's paying for this
project and I can't do that". Well, anyway, after about 2 weeks of
pleading, I got them not to kill it. And they put it in the zoo,
Washington Zoo, saying the only living creature known to man that lived
on a freefall of 110,000. So that was interesting. I got out of the Army,
came back to California. Well actually, came back to California and
helped build the first chair at China Peak.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Really?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, one of my friends had a job, got a job for me,
run a jackhammer. So anything out of the Army, you know. So after that, I
decided through urging of my parents that I should get a real job. And so
I went to work for Swift and Company as a lamb buyer trainee. And they
sent me to St Louis, Missouri.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just interrupt you for a second. Who is Swift and
Company?

>> Marvin Meyers: They used to be meat packing company. They're defunct
now. Like, you know, with some of the meat packing company, but it was a
big, big company. So I went to DC and, I mean, I went to St Louis and
learned how to buy-- buy lambs. I had good instructors, but I didn't like
St Louis, so I. When I had graduated from school, this chemical
fertilizer company had interviewed me, but wouldn't hire me because there
was no guarantee that after I did my service time that I would come back
if they trained me. Before I went in, no guarantee that I'd come back and
go to work for them. So I decided to call them up and say, "Can do you
have a job"? They said, "Well, we need to talk to you again". I said,
"Well, I'm in St Louis and I can only get out during the Thanksgiving
holiday". So I didn't have a lot of money, I was pretty broke. Got
married, had a son. And so I had enough to buy a round trip ticket to
Fresno. And so I flew, had an interview. They said, we'll let you know. I
said, no, you got to let me know now because I don't have enough money to
come back. So they hired me on the spot. And so I gave Swift my 2 week
notice, sent my family out, parents helped on a plane. And I drove like
the Grapes of Wrath, drove to California, and got that job. I did that
for quite a long time. I can't remember how many years, 4, 5, 6 years.
And then one of the crop dusters that I was working with told me I ought
to start my own company. So I did. I went to my growers and the growers
said, "Yeah, you know, you're the guy we depend on". So I got credit and
I got some chemical companies to supply me with product. And I did that
for quite a long time, and I branched out. But after in the mid 80s, it
was time for me to move on. I got sold the company, and I had bought some
land on the west side. It didn't have any water at that time. However, I
knew water was coming through the Aqueduct. And it was in a San Louis
water district that is a CVP contractor. And the land is absolute premium
land for any crop you want to grow on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where is this land at?
>> Marvin Meyers: San Luis, west of I5, right along I5. West of Fresno
County. Can I get a drink of water?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Sure.
>> Marvin Meyers: Sorry.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is it near, I'm wondering if the land is near any of
the towns out there just for reference? Like is it near Mendota?
>> Marvin Meyers: West of Mendota.
>> Thomas Holyoke: West of Mendota.
>> Marvin Meyers: About 10, 15 miles. It's junction area of highway 33
and Russell Avenue. It's fantastic soil.
>> Thomas Holyoke: This is in the 1980s, you said?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah. Actually, I bought the land back in the '70s
just-- just to hold on to it. Eighties is when I sold the company. But in

the '70s, water came in in 19, I'm sorry, not '70s. Nineties, 90s. In
'90, no, that's not right. In the '70s. Yeah, in the '70s, in 1977 was,
then, the worst drought year we ever had, there was zero rainfall. There
was just any no water. At that time, though, in San Louis water district
had 3 improvement districts. The land that I had purchased is improved
addition number 2. That was the first year that it had water. And so they
sent water down the ditch. There was plenty of water in the reservoirs,
the government, I think, gave us 50 percent of our water supply. But the
water came down the ditch, but it was such a new ditch. The seepage,
almost half the water disappeared before it got to where our outlet. That
was a tough year. We grew a lot of cotton in those days. And we irrigated
with sprinklers. There was some flood irrigating. But in those days, in
those days. No, you know, the years that I bought that land and when that
drought was, I had owned that ground and that was in the '70s, I'm sorry,
I get my dates screwed up. I'm 80 years old so [laughter]. So then that
was a tough year. In two thousa-- in 1978 was an El Nino year. And we had
flooding, lots of water everywhere. And it was just the opposite of the
drought year. And cotton grew to be Jack and the Beanstalk. Nobody could
kill it, to foliate it. It just would grow, grow, grow, and we stopped
irrigating. But it was a small farm in those days. I think 3 or 400
acres. There were a lot of absentee owners that I started leasing ground
from. And, eventually, they would sell it to me, little parcels.
Twenties, 40s, 60s. And I put together a pretty good sized farm over
time. And during those years, I had a Hispanic foreman, dedicated guy,
and myself and a few guys to move lines and drive tractor. You know,
cotton was good then, grew a lot of cotton. We didn't have any water
shortage problems. Since we built that ditch, we've lined it, and we save
a lot of evapotranspiration and seepage. So we started, we grew a lot of
cotton. We were funded by, eventually funded by a cotton company. They
liked our quality. We were selling to Japan who wanted premium quality.
And so we bragged about our fields that you could eat off our field
because they were so clean. They were real sticklers over contamination.
So we had bought a lot of equipment and then I brought my son in. He
wanted to farm with me. And that helped. He was a very smart, mechanical
kid, preventive maintenance on equipment instead of act and react, we
didn't have any downtime when Greg came on.
>> Thomas Holyoke: If I may interrupt. Just sort of the beginning of your
farming time back in the 1970s when you bought the land out there, you
said you were in, what was, what was the name of the irrigation district?
>> Marvin Meyers: San Luis Water District. Not San Luis Canal Company
which is an exchange contractor. This is San Luis Water District, 55,000
acres.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And they contract with the Bureau of Reclamation for
water.
>> Marvin Meyers: Correct. Just like Westlands.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Was it, at the time was there any issues or problems
with being able to get water contracts with the Bureau? The 1970s was
tumultuous as I understand.

>> Marvin Meyers: It was. It was a 960 problem. But, yeah, it was a
trouble. And the only way you couldn't renew a contract. What do is the
environmental community was putting so many restrictions on your contract
you just couldn't do it. That was during endangered species surveys, fish
and wildlife was out surveying all the fields. You know, it was a crazy
era, but what we did is do continuous 1 year contracts, renewing 1 year
contracts. Westlands had just completed 1 long term because they were
going to take on take over the drainage problem that the Bureau has.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Yes.
>> Marvin Meyers: And you know about that
>> Thomas Holyoke: I do know about that. Now your land wasn't impacted
that way?
>> Marvin Meyers: No, no, we're not in, we don't have a drainage problem,
we don't even have any ground water in San Louis. It's sloping, it's up
west of I5 and east of I5, but not, not all the way down into the Valley
floor. So we don't have, we don't have ground water problem, we don't
have any ground water in San Luis. It goes up to Banos, Los Banos. It
goes right up to the San Louis reservoir. ID3 is up there. That's all
becoming M and I, municipal and industrial. More houses are being built
and people want to live there. But, obviously, water you have to dedicate
water. And in order to have a municipal and industrial contract, the
district has to guarantee that they're going to have water in a drought
period. And with no allocated water coming from the bureau for
agriculture, but M and I gets 75 percent of their supply just like the
exchange contractors. So that's the guarantee they get from the
government. But, yeah, they planted a lot of trees and vines in ID3. But
they haven't done as well as they thought they were going to do on that
soil. It's more of a rocky area. When you get down south of Shields
Avenue, then you get into the ID2, ID1. That's Cadillac soil, the best
voile in the Valley, very forgiving.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Just needs some water.
>> Marvin Meyers: We can mess, yeah, a little water helps. But that
district is a good district. I was chairman of that board for many, many
years. And but it's shrinking. Later on in your interview, you may want
to hear what the current situation is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Now 1 little question on that. When you went out
there in the '70s, did, was the Bureau under the impression they'd be
able to supply San Louis irrigation district with their full water
allotment or is this right as the environmental restrictions were
hitting?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, they were subject to shortages, but they
guaranteed 100 supply. I know I had to tell, my banker had to know that I
was in 100 percent. And most years we did until CVPIA came in.
>> Thomas Holyoke: ‘92 yeah.

>> Marvin Meyers: And then all the subsequent restrictions that have been
put on us because we gave them 800,000 acre feet for this sand bed that
time. And then beyond, there's been trinity, there's been so many
different more rigs taking water away that we don't, we don't have hardly
any water even if it was a good year. Most we can actually hope for is 50
percent would be the best ever. And that be, our full allocation is 2.1
acre feet per acre so if you cut it down as 1.1 acre feet per acre if we
had a good year. Then you always gotta try and go out and buy
supplemental water because you don't have it at 1.1 on 50 percent year,
ain’t gonna grow any crop.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is it hard to find supplemental water?
>> Marvin Meyers: It hasn't been till this year. We've been able to go
out and cut deals with people that have non-project water supplies. Like
pre 1914 water, those guys, that's religious, that is the best there is.
We've also been able to go out and find willing sellers from up North.
Even down in the Valley, there are guys that have access water. Water,
they have wells they can pump. And they can put it into Mendota slough
and do a transfer. It hasn't been that difficult. We've been able to
raise probably 75, 80,000 feet of supplemental water. But now those have
run out. No one wants to sell any water because everybody's worried that,
oh, if you have that much water to sell, you don't need, you don't need
your allocation.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] In the 1980s, was there any particular
problems you were experiencing with getting your full water allocations?
>> Marvin Meyers: In the '80s? Well, '83 was El Nino. We had 23 inches of
rain, so we had plenty of water. I don't recall '80 being that bad. We
would get couple feet of water. The only time I recall was in that '77
drought. And then we had that long term drought from '88, '89 to '94
similar to this one. And guys were idling land where they had to idle
land, we didn't have very little. We always got some kind of allotment.
That time, the Bureau had a policy to allow any losses or anything that
they had put aside for losses. Guys that had trees could get that
allocation 5 or 10 percent. But, no, I don't recall having a severe
shortage from the Bureau then. We had been cut back, though. I remember
50 and 40, 50 percent. And then I know we got into 25s and we got to 10
and now we got now we have zero.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the 1990s, you have Central Valley Project
Improvement Act, and that's 1992. I'm curious, was, were you asked to
engage in any kind of political activity as Congress is trying to move
this legislation?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, I went back to DC on behalf of the water users. I
was asked to go back and meet with Congressmen and, you know, pleaded
with them that, you know, this is not a good thing. But, you know, we had
some powerhouse Congressmen and Senators in. I remember talking to
Cranston and he said, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to you, get
out of my office".
>> Thomas Holyoke: Cranston said that to you [laughter]?

>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah. But we had Tony Coelho and we had, you know, good
guys that we could talk to. And, you know 800,000 acre feet we were
figuring if this will get them off our rear end, then we'll, we’ll agree
it to and we did. That was the biggest mistake we ever made because
George Miller won that year. And he, you know, we ended up, from then on,
it was downhill from there because they kept taking more water away in
the '90s. And then it came, that I saw, in the late, mid ‘90s, I am not
going to survive up here unless I find out another source of water. And
there was a lot of people selling and buying water. And at that time, you
know, water was, you know, 100, $200 an acre foot supplemental water. It
was high, but people laugh about it now. So I decided, I got to search
out some method of getting some supplemental water. And that's when I
started studying ground water recharge. I hooked up with some scientist
with Lindorff Scalmanini [phonetic] and one other one. Anyway, to study
what would be my best avenue. And at that time I, Spreckels Sugar Company
near Mendota was selling some land because they were changing companies
and they didn't want the land. That was on the west side of the aqueduct,
I mean of the Mendota pool. So I bought the land, and I started thinking
about, well, if I drill some wells and I can get water, good quality
water out of it, pump it into the Mendota pool and do some kind of an
exchange. Now, the Bureau of Reclamation really liked what I was trying
to do. So we built ponds on the west side, but they would, I had to go
through a clay layer. And it would seal. So I put PVC pipe, perforated
pipe, and it was a septic type, septic type sized hole. And we'd fill up
the pond with supplemental water that I would purchase and put it in. But
they would seal up with sand and silt and [inaudible]. And I had a guy
run around on a boat with an air compressor trying to blow out and it
wasn't working. Wasted a lot of money doing that, but it was the only
game in town. And then I went over to the east side of the Mendota slough
where Spreckels Sugar had land. And I was suspect that there has to be
some areas of water penetration over there. So I, through a long period
of time, politically and otherwise, was able to get permission from
Spreckels to do some pilot boring holes to find out if there was a
profile in there I could put water in. I wasn't thinking about where I'm
going to get the water. I was just thinking about I need to get some
place to do this. The beauty of the Mendota pool, it's a conveyance
facility. It's the confluence of the Delta Mendota Canal, the San Joaquin
River passes through it, and the King's River from the south. So it's a
great place if you can get water from some area, you can convey it to the
pool and put it in the bank. At that time, we had met, my son and I were
working on this project with, I had hired Lindorff Scalmanini, a guy
named Glenn Browning who was brilliant, brilliant guy. And trying to
figure out if, if it was feasible to do this project. At the same time, I
met one of the high end people from Spreckels that really liked what I
was doing. And they had no use for that land out there, they were just
putting waste water out there from the sugar beet processing. So I-- I
got a driller, and we went out and put 80 drilling holes, small drilling
holes to see what the profile was like. And it turned out pretty good.
Now I had to go back to Spreckels and convince them that, hey, this is
would be great area for a water bank. Would you think about selling it to
me? No. Would you lease it on a pilot project? Well they had an
environmental person that was against everything that I was doing, and I
was up against the wall. So it was really, it's an interesting aspect of

my future because without it, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.
It was timely and so I talked to, I went to their headquarters in Texas,
sat down with them, explained what I wanted to do. And there were some
going we don't need to mess with it. And, you know, I was sort of in a
stone wall until I met John Dean was the new superintendent of the
Spreckels Sugar Plant in Mendota. At that time, Spreckels started
realizing that the water shortages were affecting their growers growing
sugar bees for them, and so they made a decision that they're gonna close
the plant. Now John Dean had gone to bat for me on this project and got
to the hierarchy and convinced them that they ought to let me go ahead
with it. So I did, I got the full go ahead. In the meantime, I had met
John Keys who is commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. He came out,
liked what we were doing. The local fellow, Michael Jackson, brought him
out. And he said, "I like you guys, what you're trying to do". And we
weren't asking for any money from the government or any taxpayer money.
We had applied for it in prop 13 money and got approved. But when I found
out the baggage that went with it, I said no. So I hocked our farm, we
didn't have much debt. I went to the land bank, hocked it all at 4
percent money. And we developed the project by ourselves. Now, in the
meantime, I had to get all kinds of tests, all kinds of due diligence. I
mean, I had to do environmental work, everything you could think of. And
it took 4 years to do that. But I got the blessing of the Bureau, and
then I got a wonderful note from Gale Norton who happened to be the
Department of Interior. Said, "We, everybody talks about doing what
you're doing, but nobody does anything about it. I wholeheartedly endorse
you". Well it went on down the line where the Bureau was my friend and
they were helping me put this together and getting through all the
environmental work. So I had to do geological surveys and everything, but
we got it done. And it was 2002 we started filling the bank. Well, that
was a good year of water. We had a lot of good years there. So what we
did is there was some flood water. I had a license to put flood water in
the bank, didn't cost me anything. I was buying water from different
people. And reschedule water, I put in the bank. And I started filling.
And lo and behold, I got it up to 35,000 acre feet was the limit that the
Bureau allowed me to put in. Recently, I've gone back to the Bureau and
said my district needs help. You've got to let me expand my bank. And so
through the my scientific people, we agreed that the aquifer could hold
60,000 acre feet in that area. So they allowed me to go to 60 and allowed
me from. I was limited from 6,000 a year extraction to 10,000 a year. And
allowing me to pump in more water to help my district, help my neighbors
that were dying.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So you're no longer storing water just for yourself.
You're storing water for the whole water district.
>> Marvin Meyers: This year, I'm selling water to the district. I have
water because I have a contract with another district up north that is
supplying me with 319, 14 water. And so it's given me some latitude to
pump for the district, extract for the district. This year, it's
critical. And they have come to me and talked to me about being able to
sell ‘em some water. And I don't sell to individuals, I don't do that
because that I tried to help a guy out and this guy come, you helped him,
why didn't you help me? Et cetera, et cetera. So I went to the district
and let them dole it out the way they want to do it. So but it's very

minimal amount of water, I can only extract about 1,000 acre feet a
month. Some months I can get 12 or 1300 like but we're putting like 50
acre feet a day. But as you keep pumping, it goes down. So but the worst
case scenarios about 900 to 1,000 feet a month. So I'm pumping for the
district this year for March and April. And then I'll switch over to
pumping for Meyers, my farm. And we will credit, that credit will go up
into San Louis through an exchange. We pump into the Aqueduct, somebody
downstream uses that water, and the Bureau gives me credit for it in San
Louis reservoir. And I can take my water out on the San Louis Canal where
all my trees are.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I'm curious to know a bit more about how you're
getting the water into the water bank in the first place. You just
putting it on the ground and let it seeping down or is there, is it a
more complicated process?
>> Marvin Meyers: We developed ponds, large ponds. When the water comes
in, water's in the pool that we want to put in the bank. We put a double
screen for any species that would get into the pump. So we keep giant
garter snake which is one of the species that Fish and Wildlife is very
concerned about and any other salmon or anything that got in the pool.
And it goes through a pipeline to a pumping plant that we have. And it
pumps into major, the entry pond which is about 17 acres, almost 20
acres. That is been ripped and have big, it's a very deep pond, and it
has a rock area where the water comes out. And the pipes like, I think 2
feet, 24, 26 inches in diameter, so we can get a lot of water coming out
there, 15,000 gallon per minute well. And the water goes into the ponds
and then we have gates that go from pond to pond in a series. So we can
go all different directions with this water as they fill. What they, I
was approached about doing injection, water injection. And it was very
intriguing, but very expensive. So I decided, no, we'll do filtration.
And we did the testing, and found that it would drink some water. We
didn't know how much, we did ring sampling where you put the water in the
ring and clock it. Anyway, we had these ponds, we built these ponds,
Spreckels had 2 or 3 they hadn't used, so we used those as the first
ones. And we ripped them all deep, deep ripping. And we put the water in
and lo and behold, it started drinking. And we put also 27 monitoring
wells in to be able to monitor, number 1, the base, base of ground water.
We take our baseline numbers for all the different tests you have to take
on water. And then we were able to track the water on levels and we had a
sounder. And then we also took water quality every month. And you could
track where the water was going by the change in water quality. The worst
water quality was the Native ground water. But then as we put good water,
this was from the pools, it came from the reservoir. It came down the DMC
from the Delta. It was good water. So we would track that water and lo
and behold, all those years until 2009 or '10, I was filling, it just
kept filling. And I got bought water, I did this contract with these
people. And they were sending me water. And they liked the contract
because I could take water wet and dry years because I had a place to put
it. A lot of the districts couldn't take water in wet years, they had
nowhere to go with it. And so they liked it because I was guaranteed to
take their water. It used be a 5,000 acre foot contract now it's a 10,000
acre foot contract. And so I was able to send the water to the, if the
district didn't have any room to bring it in, I'd put it in the ground.

It was wonderful. And I just kept pouring it in the ground and, boom,
boom, boom, boom, got up to 37, 38,000 acre feet in the ground before
this stuff hit, before your drought.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now you had, earlier, you had mentioned I should ask
about the shrinking of the San Louis Water District. What's happening?
>> Marvin Meyers: It's a 55,000 acre district. And it usually has a
contract of about 9, 9 or almost 100,000 acre feet, 110,000 acre foot
contract from the Bureau at full water. Obviously, we'll never see that
again. And a lot of the growers were able to, we had a manager that
really had a good ability to go out and buy non-project water from
willing sellers. Different districts that had plenty of water. And, you
know, it was a money thing or you could sell water and sell it to guys
like San Louis who never really had enough water. And so a lot of guys
planted permanent crops. Now we planted a lot of cotton, a lot of we
planted vegetables, melons, squash. I mean, we were major players in this
business. We had about, we got up to about almost 5,000 acres of cotton,
leased and owned land. And then we grew peas for Bird's Eye Frozen Foods,
we did all, we did it all. Melons for every kind of melon you would think
of. And then we did squash because we met a guy that would like to have
Japanese guy and we started supplying him with squash, string beans,
everything. And it was great because that soil could do it. But after a
while, we could see something happening on shortage of water and the cost
of production. Cotton income was shrinking. So more guys realized that,
so they took it out and they started putting in almonds. And obviously we
did, too. In the 8-- the late '80s, we planted our first almonds. And
eventually, we just sold off all of our cotton equipment and got rid of
it and said we're gonna be in the almond business now on drip. And we got
high tech with weather machines. We put in, what do you call it, the
weather forecasting, neutron probes in the ground. And we could know the
profile of our soil and root system. Because we had no ground water.
Because at that time, you know, the exchange contractors were accusing
the CVP guys for all their seepage ground water raising their ground
water, and polluting it and that's what the lawsuit was all about.
Including the Bureau was causing a drainage problem. So obviously we
showed them that we didn't have any ground water and we took profiles and
so we were on the side of the lawsuit. Westlands was right in the middle
of it. However, we planted a lot of trees about 30,000 acres of trees out
of 55,000 acres. Everybody was a happy camper. And then it started
getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And this year, there's 25,000
acres of trees of which 12,000 of them have zero water and no access to
supplemental water and no water supply and they're drying up. The other
12 or 13,000 of which we have about 4,000 of the, so we're a third of
what they've got left. We have water. A few of the other guys, they have
some water they have bank rolled and have deals they've made with ground
water people that are pumping ground water for exchange. They've been
able to bring water in that way. I know of some very large guys over,
they said if we don't get any help after this year, we're done. They put
away a lot of water, bought water and stashed it in the reservoir and
paid the storage charges. And then they said we'll get through this year
but if we don't have some help. And that's the story in the San Louis
Water District. My district is very worried of survival.

>> Thomas Holyoke: Where are you personally about survival?
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, you brought it up. It's ironic you bring it up
because it's our discussion with my family, my banker, my attorney, and
other members of the district. They're all saying if I could get out, I'd
get out. But nobody wants to buy it. If I could find a buyer for my land,
I'd sell in a heartbeat. And as far as Meyers Farming, we've discussed
it, I have enough water to supply ourselves for, if we got zero water
supply and my other supplier didn't come through. I could make it for
probably 3 years for the water I have in the bank. Assuming I can get
every last drop out of it. There is losses, you know, EV-- ET losses and
so on. But we'd have to shrink our size slowly, slowly take orchards out
as they get old. I'm worried about my district being able to service us.
There was a joke a few years ago where I had the bank, you may be the
land man standing. No, way. Well, now, that's a serious-- serious
thought. To answer your question, I'm very worried about it. And our
discussion is, "Dad, what are we gonna do"? And I told them, you know
what, we could survive. My attorney has come to me and said I think if
you sell now with your water bank, you got a sellable ranch right now
for, there's a lot of outside money that's trying to come in. And there's
been a lot of outside money buy ranches in the CVP with the attitude, I
guess we'll just idle it and wait till things change. That it seems like
a lot of money out there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who is-- who would be buying this land right now?
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, you should see the land. Pistachios are dying,
some guy from India bought it with cash. All foreign money, no local.
Origin consortiums, doctors, lawyers, all these people have gotten
together and they put up money. Insurance companies, they bought some of
that land knowing there's no, no secure water supply. But they're just
figuring that their land value will increase down the road. I don't
believe that they've got their head in the right place because obviously
if we thought that, we'd be happy campers and stay there. But you asking
direct question, I'm gonna convince my son that if we could sell it, the
whole package, we shouldn't get out. Doesn't have anything to do with me
because I'm on the bottom, I'm on the bottom end of the ring now. I'm
sliding away. I only do what I do for him, for the kids is politics,
water, and legal and regulatory issues, I can handle those. But for his
future and my grandson's future, I don't-- I don’t want to be
pessimistic, but I don't see much future. Victor David Hanson put that
article out and I'm sure you read it, and people picked up on that. That
the 2 cities at both ends of the state, they're the ones that are going
to get all the water, not the guys in the middle. And he said it right.
Because we're sure heading that way.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, that's, it's been that way for a while.
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, guys have been saying there's a conspiracy to get
rid of us, to get rid of agriculture on the west side. We don't need
them, we don't need farming up there because we export everything.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you believe there is such a conspiracy? I've heard
that said, too. And that, you know, it gets.

>> Marvin Meyers: I do.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A lot of people point to people like George Miller,
although he's no longer in Congress.
>> Marvin Meyers: I do. I think in the statewide, I think the legislature
doesn't understand, obviously Brown doesn't understand. Well, look at all
the money we're throwing at you, look at all the things we're doing. No,
no, no. No, I'm sorry. With all the restrictions and all the things that
are coming down on ground water and on surface water, it just seems to me
in the Federal Government and then NRDC and Earth First and all of these,
they seem to rule because the government will listen to them before
they'll even listen to us. We always thought the Endangered Species Act
is a scam, it's a sham. Throwing water at the Delta smelt hasn't solved
any problem. Same thing with the salmon fry. But they won't get rid of
striped bass who ferociously consume the fry and consume smelt and smelt
egg. And Fish and Game has documented this that, you know, when you see a
cluster of eggs, there's a striped bass just consuming all that. But they
ignore it and the pollution and the loss of food in the Delta. From the
refineries dumping waste water or heated water from their process back
into the Delta. You put, but they ignore all that, and that's why I think
it's conspiracy. That's why I just that the government really, doesn't
really care. And I think there is an agenda, you know, that the towns
will prevail. We say economically, a $39 billion of income that comes out
of the revenue that the state gets in taxes to trickle down of all, the
trickledown effect of all the associated businesses. Whether it be
diesel, delivery, I mean everything that you can think of. All that will
go away. And the City of Fresno will begin to realize that when the
farmer does collapse and whatever reason, the trickle down for the
consumer and business here is gonna be a pretty big hit. Because farmers,
when they make money, they spend money. When they don't make any money,
they don't spend any money. And so does the farm worker and the tractor
salesman and on down the line. And you can see if you drive at the west
side right now, it looks like the moon. There's no tractors, nothing's
moving, nothing. It's just dead.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you have any hopes for the governor's proposal for
these twin tunnels under the Delta to bring more fresh Sacramento River
water down?
>> Marvin Meyers: He's in la la land [laughter]. You know how long that
will be. If he does get going and how long that will be in court? I'll be
dead before that's even getting out of court let alone try and build it.
Same thing for Temperance and sites. They'll be, just like anything else,
it'll be in court for years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, returning back to.
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, I'm sorry.
>> Thomas Holyoke: No.
>> Marvin Meyers: You got me passionate.

>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Returning back to your land and some of the
things you've done. So as I understand, you've done more than just make a
big water bank out there. You’ve, I mean you have some wetlands out there
now? You’re-- for all the complaining about the Endangered Species Act,
it sounds like you've been doing, making some efforts to save some
species.
>> Marvin Meyers: We've created habitat for endangered species. We
decided after we got the bank going and it was filling, everything was
working, I think it's time to do this wildlife habitat. And bring the
kids, people, not only kids, but bring people out and school children out
to show them what habitat is. Because it's right in their backyard, it's
a quick trip from Fresno or from around the area. So we decided to build
a wildlife habitat area for all the species. Whether it be endangered or
others. At that time, I thought, well, now, I can't. I don't have time to
run this thing myself. So I hired a young man who was employed by Fish
and Game. And I went and interviewed him, he's out of San Diego and he
happened to be the son of John Dean, the one that helped me on the bank.
And I interviewed him, and I liked him and I said you want a job? Well,
what would I do? I said, you'd be an educator and I have a ground water
banking project and I'd like you to learn about it and operate it for me
while you're doing the educational project. He agreed to do that. And lo
and behold, I found a gem in the rough. He is brilliant, he's a
biologist, graduating biologist, wildlife biologist. He knows what he's
doing. He loves to educate. The kids love him. He's a graduate of Cal
Poly. And so I brought him on and started giving him more duties. And let
him do designing of curriculum and let him be the head. I'm not going to
dictate. So I sort of just sat, I either approve it or I wouldn't approve
it. And then we started, we went over and talked to these Central Valley
Unified School District which was Mr. Powell. He loved what we were
trying to do, so he came out to the bank. He said, this is fantastic what
you're trying to do. At no cost to the school or the Central Valley
Unified School System. And so we decided to fund the buses and fund the
docents. So there would be no cost to any school to bring their kids out.
And then we hooked up med teachers and started the curriculum. And that
curriculum was passed around to all the schools so the teachers had
something to start with. And then we'd give them a prep through the
Internet of what we were doing so the kids wouldn't be, teachers would
not be blindsided. And then we had trips for the teachers. They all came
out, bunches of them. And explain what we were doing, why we're doing.
And so they had a bird's eye view of everything that we were doing. And
then they started bringing the kids out. Wow, it was cool. I mean, John,
Jason, would explain why are we putting this water in there. And then
we'd say we have trees up there about 15 miles away. Well, how is the
water going to get from here to the trees? And explaining to the kids we
had kids that had never been out of the city. Some of the docents told me
there's kids never seen the freeway. They've lived over on the Southeast
Calwa. And it's tough area in there. So bottom line is, it was an eye
opener. We had cattle, my granddaughters are growing, are raising cattle
out there. So kids have seen calves being born, they just love it, and we
put them on a cotton trailer with a tractor and we bring them in. It's a,
we built a learning area where you have easels and explain. We have a
pond that has islands in it so they can see the different species that

are hanging out. We also have nighttime cameras that Jason has set up so
they do walking tours. They can see who visited that night. Like we have
a very famous, what do you call it? A, oh, the striped, real cute. Oh,
they're all over the place here. Not a bobcat, but a. Anyway, we got a
visitor. Every night he's there in front of the camera. And they have 4
of them set up and the kids just love it. They'll go by and say, let's
see who was here last night. And they'll all be. You see snakes, king
snakes, a few giant garter snakes. So, we've you know, they're
endangered. But we learned through Jason, he knows how to manage habitat,
friendly to the species. And then when we get a lot of water that is the
fly way of, the Pacific fly way and so we spread water at times so the
birds will land. And we get all kinds of migrating birds will land in the
pasture and stay there for a little while. Everything you can think of,
it's magnificent. Just the geese, all kinds of geese, snow geese, the
refuge, Mendota Wildlife Refuge just south of us, but they allow hunting
over there, and we don't allow hunting. So all their birds come over to
our side and hang out so [laughter].
>> Thomas Holyoke: But if you lose your water, you're going to lose all
this, too, aren't you?
>> Marvin Meyers: I'm sorry?
>> Thomas Holyoke: But if you lose your water over the next few years,
there's no more water left or.
>> Marvin Meyers: I can't refill.
>> Thomas Holyoke: No wetlands, no educational programs.
>> Marvin Meyers: The whole thing will go down, yeah. And I've not asked
anybody for anything. I pay for the water, I spread it because I like
what we're doing. It's the right thing to do. But if we run out of water
and there's no water to get, then obviously mine is a private, not funded
or acknowledged by public. You know, they have wildlife refuges up in Los
Banos but, and they get water supply from the Federal Government. In
fact, all grasslands and all those guys get water allocated to them, be
it shortages. But for me, you know, I wouldn't know. I'd have to find out
somewhere, you know, where I can get a water supply to keep alive and
well. But at that time, you know, what shape would we be in financially
being able to farm? You know, I think if the farm goes, the wildlife
project will go, too.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, yeah->> Marvin Meyers: It's a shame because it's really cool out there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: One thing I'm curious about, it sounds like, I mean,
you've been very innovative with a lot of the stuff you've done with
water, the banking of water and what you've done with it. Is what you've
done proven to be lessons learned by other farmers in your water district
or in the area? I mean, your neighbors picked up on what you've done and
tried to replicate some of this?

>> Marvin Meyers: No, nobody in my water district or any other water
district that I know of has been able to do this. King's Water
Conservation District, Dave Orth, they are doing some off of King's
River. But mine, mine was very unique because I was actually bringing the
water in and going through different canals to put it in the ground. And
mine's a, theirs is a spreading. The other ones are doing it on spreading
of water to recharge the ground water. Mine is actual buying the water,
bringing the water in, documenting it, measuring it, every acre feet that
goes in, and bringing 90 percent of it out because I leave 5 percent in
and I lose 5 percent to EPET. So for every agri foot I put in, I get 9/10
of it out. But, no. All mine was reading, studying, talking to different
people that I know that they had expertise but not much. Because I did
waste a lot of money early on trying the west side of the pool was not
the place to do any ground or recharge. But the east side where the area
was and the Bureau was helping me. The Bureau really opened up the doors.
And they were the applicant for my water bank.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah, you were probably about the only grower I've met
in the last few years who has said anything positive about the Bureau of
Reclamation.
>> Marvin Meyers: I know. I do that every time, every time that I speak
of the Bureau, I tell people these guys, it's not the Bureau. It's NMFS,
Fish and Wildlife, and the environmental groups that are, the Bureau just
does what they tell them to do. They don't make this shit, stuff up. And
I do praise them because they embraced my project. And I didn't ask them
for any money. And they did, when John Keys told them, "I like what
Marvin's doing, you help him do it. Don't be a negative contact, work
with him". And, oh, my God, it just opened up a whole bunch of doors. And
they didn't know, they've never done a water bank, no one's ever done a,
a private water bank. And nobody's ever done anything like this. So they
didn't know what agenda, what do we have to jump through. Well, enviro,
yes. And then we had to do filtration, geological survey, endangered, I
mean, purities like selenium and arsenic, all that had to be documented.
And then what kind of a program are we going to put together? Then we sat
down and did a 25 year exchange contract which is the last one that was
ever approved. And did a basis of negotiation. Let me tell you, I chased
Bureau guys all over the place just to get them to sign off and it was
hard, hard to get ‘em to. Because I found out through the grapevine that
John Keys who was the commissioner, was told by the Bureau attorneys,
don't you endorse this. There's too much risk. But he told them, don't
bug me, I'm going to do it anyway, I like what he's doing. And I was
straight up. We'd been complimented by the Bureau because they told us,
we like doing business with you because we can trust you. There's a lot
of guys that try and pull shenanigans and it's hard to get anything done.
Water transfers. But I can walk into that office now, I shouldn't even
put that on, but they welcome me. And it's fun and we do trade ideas and
trade different venues and things that we're doing out there. They've
been very helpful to me.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well sort of wrapping up here, what do you think the
future holds?

>> Marvin Meyers: Well, you know, we'll get through this year. We have
the water and water isn’t-- and the district will survive this year.
They'll be a lot of guys in our district that will go down. But we have
to be seriously thinking about what are we going to do for the future?
And my grandson came up to me and said, "Papa Marvin, what is our future?
All the things I hear about with no water, the district is in trouble.
I'm worried about my future, too". I said, "You know, you have good head
on you". He just finished California Leadership Class. And he's a bright,
young man. He graduated in agricultural economics. Excuse me.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Here at Fresno State?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, good.
>> Marvin Meyers: Smart kid. Almost too smart for us [laughter]. But to
make your question, I don't know. My gut tells me this may be our last
year. If my attorney has a buyer, he said it would buy you out in a
heartbeat and pay you enough money you wouldn't have to worry about
anything forever. I said, well, obviously, I'm not worried because I'm
going to be 81 years old. How many more years I got left? But the kid,
yeah. Where is he going to go? And certainly not in California, not in
the Central Valley. So now they're talking about different states, going
to Colorado, go up to Idaho. A lot of guys are going to Idaho,
Washington, Oregon. Different lifestyle, different cropping pattern. So,
you know, that talk, it's just in the talking stage. But I will tell you
there isn't a farmer on the west side that hasn't thought about, what am
I going to do next year? I'm talking about Wolf, I'm talking about
Harris, I'm talking about major, major, big boy players. We're not big
boy, but we're pretty good size. But, you know, I'm worried about my
family. And what is the best way to keep farming till it's all gone? Till
the district can't function anymore? And I don't think the board members
of the district are facing it. A couple of them are. But as a district,
when you have a meeting all hands on deck meeting and all the growers
show up, all the manager says is that we're in for a tough year. And you
guys will have to take care of yourself. But he never talked about the
longevity of the district, I have with them. And they said the district
can survive on 35,000 acre feet of water but barely. Okay, well divide
that by 3, that's 12,000 acres of trees, and that's it. You got to raise
the O&M, you got to raise the administration charges to pay the to be
able to operate. So that could be. Well, if it's all non-project water,
where's he going to get 35,000 acre feet? And that is his target. Enough
to keep the district alive for whatever, you know. There's guys like me
that don't require any water from the district. We use our own water
whether it's purchased water or bank water. Obviously it's tough times,
and I honestly have told people that are not in the water business. That
the economic impact of this county, property taxes and a revenue is going
to be major when the guys idle all that land, lay everybody off, and call
up the assessor and said I'm idle. I mean, the Williamson Act would
minimize my, I don't have any income-bearing crop on this land. So drop
my taxes. And that's what's going to happen.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well--

>> Marvin Meyers: Right now, there's 500, it would be 900,000 acres of
land is forecast to be out of production this year on the west side.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I’ve heard that.
>> Marvin Meyers: Maybe more. Okay, I'm done.
>> Thomas Holyoke: On that gloomy note, I guess we're done. Thank you
very much.
>> Marvin Meyers: You're welcome.
>> Thomas Holyoke: We are talking to Marvin Meyers today. Let's just
start with a little bit of biographical history. Where are you originally
from?
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, I was actually born in Los Angeles, California.
And I left there after I went to Pierce School of Agriculture for 2 years
then I came to Fresno State because I wanted to get out of the LA area
and pursue my degree in agriculture. Actually, I was focusing on animal
husbandry. But when I got to Fresno State, I decided to have more focus
on agronomy and different types of farming. And so that's what I did. I
graduated in '56, got drafted in the Army in January of '57 and spent a
couple years in active duty. Had quite an experience in the Army. My,
when I got drafted in January of '57, I went to Fort Ord for boot camp.
And while I was there, they interviewed some of us for about our college
education. So I explained to them what I had been doing and went through
infantry training and was on the way to Korea. And they pulled me off the
boat and told me that you're going to Washington DC. And I couldn't
figure out why am I going to DC? Well, I was chosen to be on one of the
atom bomb tests, radiation. And they sent me to Walter Reed Medical
Hospital and then on to Bethesda to irradiate pigs. And they knew that we
knew the normal metabolism of pigs, so we were to study the effects of
different amounts of roentgen, radiation. To see and study the symptoms
of these animals as they passed on. So we did that and then we went,
there was 25 college graduates throughout this country of all ag animal
husbandry. And then they went and took me to, we went to Nevada test site
in Nevada. And they had brought in thousands of land-raised specied pigs
which are the white skinned. Similarly to humans as you probably know.
The digestive system is the same as humans and the skin and so et cetera.
So we developed, it was a bomb that could be shot out of a bazooka and
they wanted to know how far away the shooter had to be from ground zero.
So we spent several months over there designing slings to put the pigs
in. They could weigh over 90 pounds. And so we put them in the slings and
we put them in armored cars, machine gun nests, everything you could
think of, pill boxes. And then there was thousands of us involved in
this. And without going into detail, you know, different guys had to go
to ground zero were highly at risk for sterilization, et cetera. So they,
it was interesting, they the married guys that had kids had to go to
ground zero and et cetera. All the way out 800 yards. And the single
guys, they were at the edge, far out. And so I was one of the chief of
the, we had a group, different groups. And it was a circular area a
thousand yards apart with same different things to put, put these animals
in. So we carried them, we'd put them in a sling live. Had Geiger
counters and tape recorders in them. I don't know what the tape recorder
did, but they had doctors come and put them in them. And then we'd take
these animals and put them out into those placements. And then the bomb
would go off and then we immediately drove in during the fallout, it was
a hot bomb. And then we would gather where the animals that we put where
we put them and took them back out and placed them in a another duplicate
circular. And then we were charged with, we were charged to study those
animals on hour symptoms. Ground zero, there was nothing left. And then
100 yards, 200, 300, so on. And the ones that, you know, about 300 yards
out, 400 yards out, they were alive but they were hot. And we would take
them back and put them in the circle and document everything that we saw.
That was that project. When I left that project, that was quite

interesting. I was thinking, oh, I'm going back to DC and I only got
another 8 months to go. They sent me to Minnesota. Well, actually, they
sent me to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology where I was instructed
to train primates to be put them in a capsule and send them into the
stratosphere to see how much cosmic radiation they would get. That was an
interesting job. They ended up using rhesus primates. And they put a
frame in on their head and they drilled the skull and ran wire through
and then hooked it to the other side and to put in a motion plate in this
unit. And as they went into the stratosphere, it could document the hits
of cosmic radiation to the brain. So we trained these animals to do that
and to put them in a designed capsule made out of titanium. Taught them
how to drink, to eat, they were in a cage, so they had free movement of
the arms. But, and drink water out of a straw. So we went to, ended up at
International Falls which is the Earth's least gravity, gravitational
pull. But that didn't work because the winds were bad. So we ended up in
the Crosby Iron Mines which is a deep, deep pit. And winds and research
said get a balloon, giant balloon. It was attached to a 2 DA track
Caterpillar tractors to hold it down. When we got everything in, ready to
go and a lot of doctors and scientists came and hooked up goldfish and
vegetables and everything to see what space would do. And we sent it up.
And we had a chase plane which is a DC4. With full of equipment. And as
it got up to 110,000 feet, the jet stream shoot off the top of the
balloon. So somehow it, and it collapsed around the parachute. And we've,
this was quite a deal. It was a free fall and it fell into Canada. Well
we were military, so we couldn't go chasing into Canada, we had to get
permission. So we went into, we finally got permission. We, into Canada
and put out a bulletin on the radio telling anybody that saw it don't
touch it. And a farmer called and said he found it. So we found it, we
got in, and there it was and it had gotten into a bunch of trees. And it
had somewhat cushioned the fall. It did split the capsule. But when I got
there and looked down, the animal was alive. And so got him out, and done
with that project. They had done this project a couple years earlier, and
they had dissected the brains and did all that stuff. But interesting
when on the way back to Washington, I had talked to my commanding officer
and said, "Sir, you can't kill this monkey." "Why not," he says. "Do you
know of any living creature that fell 110,000 feet free fall and lived"?
"Yeah, yeah, well, you know, that's the government's paying for this
project and I can't do that". Well, anyway, after about 2 weeks of
pleading, I got them not to kill it. And they put it in the zoo,
Washington Zoo, saying the only living creature known to man that lived
on a freefall of 110,000. So that was interesting. I got out of the Army,
came back to California. Well actually, came back to California and
helped build the first chair at China Peak.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Really?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, one of my friends had a job, got a job for me,
run a jackhammer. So anything out of the Army, you know. So after that, I
decided through urging of my parents that I should get a real job. And so
I went to work for Swift and Company as a lamb buyer trainee. And they
sent me to St Louis, Missouri.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Just interrupt you for a second. Who is Swift and
Company?

>> Marvin Meyers: They used to be meat packing company. They're defunct
now. Like, you know, with some of the meat packing company, but it was a
big, big company. So I went to DC and, I mean, I went to St Louis and
learned how to buy-- buy lambs. I had good instructors, but I didn't like
St Louis, so I. When I had graduated from school, this chemical
fertilizer company had interviewed me, but wouldn't hire me because there
was no guarantee that after I did my service time that I would come back
if they trained me. Before I went in, no guarantee that I'd come back and
go to work for them. So I decided to call them up and say, "Can do you
have a job"? They said, "Well, we need to talk to you again". I said,
"Well, I'm in St Louis and I can only get out during the Thanksgiving
holiday". So I didn't have a lot of money, I was pretty broke. Got
married, had a son. And so I had enough to buy a round trip ticket to
Fresno. And so I flew, had an interview. They said, we'll let you know. I
said, no, you got to let me know now because I don't have enough money to
come back. So they hired me on the spot. And so I gave Swift my 2 week
notice, sent my family out, parents helped on a plane. And I drove like
the Grapes of Wrath, drove to California, and got that job. I did that
for quite a long time. I can't remember how many years, 4, 5, 6 years.
And then one of the crop dusters that I was working with told me I ought
to start my own company. So I did. I went to my growers and the growers
said, "Yeah, you know, you're the guy we depend on". So I got credit and
I got some chemical companies to supply me with product. And I did that
for quite a long time, and I branched out. But after in the mid 80s, it
was time for me to move on. I got sold the company, and I had bought some
land on the west side. It didn't have any water at that time. However, I
knew water was coming through the Aqueduct. And it was in a San Louis
water district that is a CVP contractor. And the land is absolute premium
land for any crop you want to grow on it.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Where is this land at?
>> Marvin Meyers: San Luis, west of I5, right along I5. West of Fresno
County. Can I get a drink of water?
>> Thomas Holyoke: Sure.
>> Marvin Meyers: Sorry.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is it near, I'm wondering if the land is near any of
the towns out there just for reference? Like is it near Mendota?
>> Marvin Meyers: West of Mendota.
>> Thomas Holyoke: West of Mendota.
>> Marvin Meyers: About 10, 15 miles. It's junction area of highway 33
and Russell Avenue. It's fantastic soil.
>> Thomas Holyoke: This is in the 1980s, you said?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah. Actually, I bought the land back in the '70s
just-- just to hold on to it. Eighties is when I sold the company. But in

the '70s, water came in in 19, I'm sorry, not '70s. Nineties, 90s. In
'90, no, that's not right. In the '70s. Yeah, in the '70s, in 1977 was,
then, the worst drought year we ever had, there was zero rainfall. There
was just any no water. At that time, though, in San Louis water district
had 3 improvement districts. The land that I had purchased is improved
addition number 2. That was the first year that it had water. And so they
sent water down the ditch. There was plenty of water in the reservoirs,
the government, I think, gave us 50 percent of our water supply. But the
water came down the ditch, but it was such a new ditch. The seepage,
almost half the water disappeared before it got to where our outlet. That
was a tough year. We grew a lot of cotton in those days. And we irrigated
with sprinklers. There was some flood irrigating. But in those days, in
those days. No, you know, the years that I bought that land and when that
drought was, I had owned that ground and that was in the '70s, I'm sorry,
I get my dates screwed up. I'm 80 years old so [laughter]. So then that
was a tough year. In two thousa-- in 1978 was an El Nino year. And we had
flooding, lots of water everywhere. And it was just the opposite of the
drought year. And cotton grew to be Jack and the Beanstalk. Nobody could
kill it, to foliate it. It just would grow, grow, grow, and we stopped
irrigating. But it was a small farm in those days. I think 3 or 400
acres. There were a lot of absentee owners that I started leasing ground
from. And, eventually, they would sell it to me, little parcels.
Twenties, 40s, 60s. And I put together a pretty good sized farm over
time. And during those years, I had a Hispanic foreman, dedicated guy,
and myself and a few guys to move lines and drive tractor. You know,
cotton was good then, grew a lot of cotton. We didn't have any water
shortage problems. Since we built that ditch, we've lined it, and we save
a lot of evapotranspiration and seepage. So we started, we grew a lot of
cotton. We were funded by, eventually funded by a cotton company. They
liked our quality. We were selling to Japan who wanted premium quality.
And so we bragged about our fields that you could eat off our field
because they were so clean. They were real sticklers over contamination.
So we had bought a lot of equipment and then I brought my son in. He
wanted to farm with me. And that helped. He was a very smart, mechanical
kid, preventive maintenance on equipment instead of act and react, we
didn't have any downtime when Greg came on.
>> Thomas Holyoke: If I may interrupt. Just sort of the beginning of your
farming time back in the 1970s when you bought the land out there, you
said you were in, what was, what was the name of the irrigation district?
>> Marvin Meyers: San Luis Water District. Not San Luis Canal Company
which is an exchange contractor. This is San Luis Water District, 55,000
acres.
>> Thomas Holyoke: And they contract with the Bureau of Reclamation for
water.
>> Marvin Meyers: Correct. Just like Westlands.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Was it, at the time was there any issues or problems
with being able to get water contracts with the Bureau? The 1970s was
tumultuous as I understand.

>> Marvin Meyers: It was. It was a 960 problem. But, yeah, it was a
trouble. And the only way you couldn't renew a contract. What do is the
environmental community was putting so many restrictions on your contract
you just couldn't do it. That was during endangered species surveys, fish
and wildlife was out surveying all the fields. You know, it was a crazy
era, but what we did is do continuous 1 year contracts, renewing 1 year
contracts. Westlands had just completed 1 long term because they were
going to take on take over the drainage problem that the Bureau has.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Yes.
>> Marvin Meyers: And you know about that
>> Thomas Holyoke: I do know about that. Now your land wasn't impacted
that way?
>> Marvin Meyers: No, no, we're not in, we don't have a drainage problem,
we don't even have any ground water in San Louis. It's sloping, it's up
west of I5 and east of I5, but not, not all the way down into the Valley
floor. So we don't have, we don't have ground water problem, we don't
have any ground water in San Luis. It goes up to Banos, Los Banos. It
goes right up to the San Louis reservoir. ID3 is up there. That's all
becoming M and I, municipal and industrial. More houses are being built
and people want to live there. But, obviously, water you have to dedicate
water. And in order to have a municipal and industrial contract, the
district has to guarantee that they're going to have water in a drought
period. And with no allocated water coming from the bureau for
agriculture, but M and I gets 75 percent of their supply just like the
exchange contractors. So that's the guarantee they get from the
government. But, yeah, they planted a lot of trees and vines in ID3. But
they haven't done as well as they thought they were going to do on that
soil. It's more of a rocky area. When you get down south of Shields
Avenue, then you get into the ID2, ID1. That's Cadillac soil, the best
voile in the Valley, very forgiving.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Just needs some water.
>> Marvin Meyers: We can mess, yeah, a little water helps. But that
district is a good district. I was chairman of that board for many, many
years. And but it's shrinking. Later on in your interview, you may want
to hear what the current situation is.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay. Now 1 little question on that. When you went out
there in the '70s, did, was the Bureau under the impression they'd be
able to supply San Louis irrigation district with their full water
allotment or is this right as the environmental restrictions were
hitting?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, they were subject to shortages, but they
guaranteed 100 supply. I know I had to tell, my banker had to know that I
was in 100 percent. And most years we did until CVPIA came in.
>> Thomas Holyoke: ‘92 yeah.

>> Marvin Meyers: And then all the subsequent restrictions that have been
put on us because we gave them 800,000 acre feet for this sand bed that
time. And then beyond, there's been trinity, there's been so many
different more rigs taking water away that we don't, we don't have hardly
any water even if it was a good year. Most we can actually hope for is 50
percent would be the best ever. And that be, our full allocation is 2.1
acre feet per acre so if you cut it down as 1.1 acre feet per acre if we
had a good year. Then you always gotta try and go out and buy
supplemental water because you don't have it at 1.1 on 50 percent year,
ain’t gonna grow any crop.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Is it hard to find supplemental water?
>> Marvin Meyers: It hasn't been till this year. We've been able to go
out and cut deals with people that have non-project water supplies. Like
pre 1914 water, those guys, that's religious, that is the best there is.
We've also been able to go out and find willing sellers from up North.
Even down in the Valley, there are guys that have access water. Water,
they have wells they can pump. And they can put it into Mendota slough
and do a transfer. It hasn't been that difficult. We've been able to
raise probably 75, 80,000 feet of supplemental water. But now those have
run out. No one wants to sell any water because everybody's worried that,
oh, if you have that much water to sell, you don't need, you don't need
your allocation.
>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] In the 1980s, was there any particular
problems you were experiencing with getting your full water allocations?
>> Marvin Meyers: In the '80s? Well, '83 was El Nino. We had 23 inches of
rain, so we had plenty of water. I don't recall '80 being that bad. We
would get couple feet of water. The only time I recall was in that '77
drought. And then we had that long term drought from '88, '89 to '94
similar to this one. And guys were idling land where they had to idle
land, we didn't have very little. We always got some kind of allotment.
That time, the Bureau had a policy to allow any losses or anything that
they had put aside for losses. Guys that had trees could get that
allocation 5 or 10 percent. But, no, I don't recall having a severe
shortage from the Bureau then. We had been cut back, though. I remember
50 and 40, 50 percent. And then I know we got into 25s and we got to 10
and now we got now we have zero.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So the 1990s, you have Central Valley Project
Improvement Act, and that's 1992. I'm curious, was, were you asked to
engage in any kind of political activity as Congress is trying to move
this legislation?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, I went back to DC on behalf of the water users. I
was asked to go back and meet with Congressmen and, you know, pleaded
with them that, you know, this is not a good thing. But, you know, we had
some powerhouse Congressmen and Senators in. I remember talking to
Cranston and he said, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to you, get
out of my office".
>> Thomas Holyoke: Cranston said that to you [laughter]?

>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah. But we had Tony Coelho and we had, you know, good
guys that we could talk to. And, you know 800,000 acre feet we were
figuring if this will get them off our rear end, then we'll, we’ll agree
it to and we did. That was the biggest mistake we ever made because
George Miller won that year. And he, you know, we ended up, from then on,
it was downhill from there because they kept taking more water away in
the '90s. And then it came, that I saw, in the late, mid ‘90s, I am not
going to survive up here unless I find out another source of water. And
there was a lot of people selling and buying water. And at that time, you
know, water was, you know, 100, $200 an acre foot supplemental water. It
was high, but people laugh about it now. So I decided, I got to search
out some method of getting some supplemental water. And that's when I
started studying ground water recharge. I hooked up with some scientist
with Lindorff Scalmanini [phonetic] and one other one. Anyway, to study
what would be my best avenue. And at that time I, Spreckels Sugar Company
near Mendota was selling some land because they were changing companies
and they didn't want the land. That was on the west side of the aqueduct,
I mean of the Mendota pool. So I bought the land, and I started thinking
about, well, if I drill some wells and I can get water, good quality
water out of it, pump it into the Mendota pool and do some kind of an
exchange. Now, the Bureau of Reclamation really liked what I was trying
to do. So we built ponds on the west side, but they would, I had to go
through a clay layer. And it would seal. So I put PVC pipe, perforated
pipe, and it was a septic type, septic type sized hole. And we'd fill up
the pond with supplemental water that I would purchase and put it in. But
they would seal up with sand and silt and [inaudible]. And I had a guy
run around on a boat with an air compressor trying to blow out and it
wasn't working. Wasted a lot of money doing that, but it was the only
game in town. And then I went over to the east side of the Mendota slough
where Spreckels Sugar had land. And I was suspect that there has to be
some areas of water penetration over there. So I, through a long period
of time, politically and otherwise, was able to get permission from
Spreckels to do some pilot boring holes to find out if there was a
profile in there I could put water in. I wasn't thinking about where I'm
going to get the water. I was just thinking about I need to get some
place to do this. The beauty of the Mendota pool, it's a conveyance
facility. It's the confluence of the Delta Mendota Canal, the San Joaquin
River passes through it, and the King's River from the south. So it's a
great place if you can get water from some area, you can convey it to the
pool and put it in the bank. At that time, we had met, my son and I were
working on this project with, I had hired Lindorff Scalmanini, a guy
named Glenn Browning who was brilliant, brilliant guy. And trying to
figure out if, if it was feasible to do this project. At the same time, I
met one of the high end people from Spreckels that really liked what I
was doing. And they had no use for that land out there, they were just
putting waste water out there from the sugar beet processing. So I-- I
got a driller, and we went out and put 80 drilling holes, small drilling
holes to see what the profile was like. And it turned out pretty good.
Now I had to go back to Spreckels and convince them that, hey, this is
would be great area for a water bank. Would you think about selling it to
me? No. Would you lease it on a pilot project? Well they had an
environmental person that was against everything that I was doing, and I
was up against the wall. So it was really, it's an interesting aspect of

my future because without it, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.
It was timely and so I talked to, I went to their headquarters in Texas,
sat down with them, explained what I wanted to do. And there were some
going we don't need to mess with it. And, you know, I was sort of in a
stone wall until I met John Dean was the new superintendent of the
Spreckels Sugar Plant in Mendota. At that time, Spreckels started
realizing that the water shortages were affecting their growers growing
sugar bees for them, and so they made a decision that they're gonna close
the plant. Now John Dean had gone to bat for me on this project and got
to the hierarchy and convinced them that they ought to let me go ahead
with it. So I did, I got the full go ahead. In the meantime, I had met
John Keys who is commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. He came out,
liked what we were doing. The local fellow, Michael Jackson, brought him
out. And he said, "I like you guys, what you're trying to do". And we
weren't asking for any money from the government or any taxpayer money.
We had applied for it in prop 13 money and got approved. But when I found
out the baggage that went with it, I said no. So I hocked our farm, we
didn't have much debt. I went to the land bank, hocked it all at 4
percent money. And we developed the project by ourselves. Now, in the
meantime, I had to get all kinds of tests, all kinds of due diligence. I
mean, I had to do environmental work, everything you could think of. And
it took 4 years to do that. But I got the blessing of the Bureau, and
then I got a wonderful note from Gale Norton who happened to be the
Department of Interior. Said, "We, everybody talks about doing what
you're doing, but nobody does anything about it. I wholeheartedly endorse
you". Well it went on down the line where the Bureau was my friend and
they were helping me put this together and getting through all the
environmental work. So I had to do geological surveys and everything, but
we got it done. And it was 2002 we started filling the bank. Well, that
was a good year of water. We had a lot of good years there. So what we
did is there was some flood water. I had a license to put flood water in
the bank, didn't cost me anything. I was buying water from different
people. And reschedule water, I put in the bank. And I started filling.
And lo and behold, I got it up to 35,000 acre feet was the limit that the
Bureau allowed me to put in. Recently, I've gone back to the Bureau and
said my district needs help. You've got to let me expand my bank. And so
through the my scientific people, we agreed that the aquifer could hold
60,000 acre feet in that area. So they allowed me to go to 60 and allowed
me from. I was limited from 6,000 a year extraction to 10,000 a year. And
allowing me to pump in more water to help my district, help my neighbors
that were dying.
>> Thomas Holyoke: So you're no longer storing water just for yourself.
You're storing water for the whole water district.
>> Marvin Meyers: This year, I'm selling water to the district. I have
water because I have a contract with another district up north that is
supplying me with 319, 14 water. And so it's given me some latitude to
pump for the district, extract for the district. This year, it's
critical. And they have come to me and talked to me about being able to
sell ‘em some water. And I don't sell to individuals, I don't do that
because that I tried to help a guy out and this guy come, you helped him,
why didn't you help me? Et cetera, et cetera. So I went to the district
and let them dole it out the way they want to do it. So but it's very

minimal amount of water, I can only extract about 1,000 acre feet a
month. Some months I can get 12 or 1300 like but we're putting like 50
acre feet a day. But as you keep pumping, it goes down. So but the worst
case scenarios about 900 to 1,000 feet a month. So I'm pumping for the
district this year for March and April. And then I'll switch over to
pumping for Meyers, my farm. And we will credit, that credit will go up
into San Louis through an exchange. We pump into the Aqueduct, somebody
downstream uses that water, and the Bureau gives me credit for it in San
Louis reservoir. And I can take my water out on the San Louis Canal where
all my trees are.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I'm curious to know a bit more about how you're
getting the water into the water bank in the first place. You just
putting it on the ground and let it seeping down or is there, is it a
more complicated process?
>> Marvin Meyers: We developed ponds, large ponds. When the water comes
in, water's in the pool that we want to put in the bank. We put a double
screen for any species that would get into the pump. So we keep giant
garter snake which is one of the species that Fish and Wildlife is very
concerned about and any other salmon or anything that got in the pool.
And it goes through a pipeline to a pumping plant that we have. And it
pumps into major, the entry pond which is about 17 acres, almost 20
acres. That is been ripped and have big, it's a very deep pond, and it
has a rock area where the water comes out. And the pipes like, I think 2
feet, 24, 26 inches in diameter, so we can get a lot of water coming out
there, 15,000 gallon per minute well. And the water goes into the ponds
and then we have gates that go from pond to pond in a series. So we can
go all different directions with this water as they fill. What they, I
was approached about doing injection, water injection. And it was very
intriguing, but very expensive. So I decided, no, we'll do filtration.
And we did the testing, and found that it would drink some water. We
didn't know how much, we did ring sampling where you put the water in the
ring and clock it. Anyway, we had these ponds, we built these ponds,
Spreckels had 2 or 3 they hadn't used, so we used those as the first
ones. And we ripped them all deep, deep ripping. And we put the water in
and lo and behold, it started drinking. And we put also 27 monitoring
wells in to be able to monitor, number 1, the base, base of ground water.
We take our baseline numbers for all the different tests you have to take
on water. And then we were able to track the water on levels and we had a
sounder. And then we also took water quality every month. And you could
track where the water was going by the change in water quality. The worst
water quality was the Native ground water. But then as we put good water,
this was from the pools, it came from the reservoir. It came down the DMC
from the Delta. It was good water. So we would track that water and lo
and behold, all those years until 2009 or '10, I was filling, it just
kept filling. And I got bought water, I did this contract with these
people. And they were sending me water. And they liked the contract
because I could take water wet and dry years because I had a place to put
it. A lot of the districts couldn't take water in wet years, they had
nowhere to go with it. And so they liked it because I was guaranteed to
take their water. It used be a 5,000 acre foot contract now it's a 10,000
acre foot contract. And so I was able to send the water to the, if the
district didn't have any room to bring it in, I'd put it in the ground.

It was wonderful. And I just kept pouring it in the ground and, boom,
boom, boom, boom, got up to 37, 38,000 acre feet in the ground before
this stuff hit, before your drought.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now you had, earlier, you had mentioned I should ask
about the shrinking of the San Louis Water District. What's happening?
>> Marvin Meyers: It's a 55,000 acre district. And it usually has a
contract of about 9, 9 or almost 100,000 acre feet, 110,000 acre foot
contract from the Bureau at full water. Obviously, we'll never see that
again. And a lot of the growers were able to, we had a manager that
really had a good ability to go out and buy non-project water from
willing sellers. Different districts that had plenty of water. And, you
know, it was a money thing or you could sell water and sell it to guys
like San Louis who never really had enough water. And so a lot of guys
planted permanent crops. Now we planted a lot of cotton, a lot of we
planted vegetables, melons, squash. I mean, we were major players in this
business. We had about, we got up to about almost 5,000 acres of cotton,
leased and owned land. And then we grew peas for Bird's Eye Frozen Foods,
we did all, we did it all. Melons for every kind of melon you would think
of. And then we did squash because we met a guy that would like to have
Japanese guy and we started supplying him with squash, string beans,
everything. And it was great because that soil could do it. But after a
while, we could see something happening on shortage of water and the cost
of production. Cotton income was shrinking. So more guys realized that,
so they took it out and they started putting in almonds. And obviously we
did, too. In the 8-- the late '80s, we planted our first almonds. And
eventually, we just sold off all of our cotton equipment and got rid of
it and said we're gonna be in the almond business now on drip. And we got
high tech with weather machines. We put in, what do you call it, the
weather forecasting, neutron probes in the ground. And we could know the
profile of our soil and root system. Because we had no ground water.
Because at that time, you know, the exchange contractors were accusing
the CVP guys for all their seepage ground water raising their ground
water, and polluting it and that's what the lawsuit was all about.
Including the Bureau was causing a drainage problem. So obviously we
showed them that we didn't have any ground water and we took profiles and
so we were on the side of the lawsuit. Westlands was right in the middle
of it. However, we planted a lot of trees about 30,000 acres of trees out
of 55,000 acres. Everybody was a happy camper. And then it started
getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And this year, there's 25,000
acres of trees of which 12,000 of them have zero water and no access to
supplemental water and no water supply and they're drying up. The other
12 or 13,000 of which we have about 4,000 of the, so we're a third of
what they've got left. We have water. A few of the other guys, they have
some water they have bank rolled and have deals they've made with ground
water people that are pumping ground water for exchange. They've been
able to bring water in that way. I know of some very large guys over,
they said if we don't get any help after this year, we're done. They put
away a lot of water, bought water and stashed it in the reservoir and
paid the storage charges. And then they said we'll get through this year
but if we don't have some help. And that's the story in the San Louis
Water District. My district is very worried of survival.

>> Thomas Holyoke: Where are you personally about survival?
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, you brought it up. It's ironic you bring it up
because it's our discussion with my family, my banker, my attorney, and
other members of the district. They're all saying if I could get out, I'd
get out. But nobody wants to buy it. If I could find a buyer for my land,
I'd sell in a heartbeat. And as far as Meyers Farming, we've discussed
it, I have enough water to supply ourselves for, if we got zero water
supply and my other supplier didn't come through. I could make it for
probably 3 years for the water I have in the bank. Assuming I can get
every last drop out of it. There is losses, you know, EV-- ET losses and
so on. But we'd have to shrink our size slowly, slowly take orchards out
as they get old. I'm worried about my district being able to service us.
There was a joke a few years ago where I had the bank, you may be the
land man standing. No, way. Well, now, that's a serious-- serious
thought. To answer your question, I'm very worried about it. And our
discussion is, "Dad, what are we gonna do"? And I told them, you know
what, we could survive. My attorney has come to me and said I think if
you sell now with your water bank, you got a sellable ranch right now
for, there's a lot of outside money that's trying to come in. And there's
been a lot of outside money buy ranches in the CVP with the attitude, I
guess we'll just idle it and wait till things change. That it seems like
a lot of money out there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Who is-- who would be buying this land right now?
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, you should see the land. Pistachios are dying,
some guy from India bought it with cash. All foreign money, no local.
Origin consortiums, doctors, lawyers, all these people have gotten
together and they put up money. Insurance companies, they bought some of
that land knowing there's no, no secure water supply. But they're just
figuring that their land value will increase down the road. I don't
believe that they've got their head in the right place because obviously
if we thought that, we'd be happy campers and stay there. But you asking
direct question, I'm gonna convince my son that if we could sell it, the
whole package, we shouldn't get out. Doesn't have anything to do with me
because I'm on the bottom, I'm on the bottom end of the ring now. I'm
sliding away. I only do what I do for him, for the kids is politics,
water, and legal and regulatory issues, I can handle those. But for his
future and my grandson's future, I don't-- I don’t want to be
pessimistic, but I don't see much future. Victor David Hanson put that
article out and I'm sure you read it, and people picked up on that. That
the 2 cities at both ends of the state, they're the ones that are going
to get all the water, not the guys in the middle. And he said it right.
Because we're sure heading that way.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, that's, it's been that way for a while.
>> Marvin Meyers: Well, guys have been saying there's a conspiracy to get
rid of us, to get rid of agriculture on the west side. We don't need
them, we don't need farming up there because we export everything.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you believe there is such a conspiracy? I've heard
that said, too. And that, you know, it gets.

>> Marvin Meyers: I do.
>> Thomas Holyoke: A lot of people point to people like George Miller,
although he's no longer in Congress.
>> Marvin Meyers: I do. I think in the statewide, I think the legislature
doesn't understand, obviously Brown doesn't understand. Well, look at all
the money we're throwing at you, look at all the things we're doing. No,
no, no. No, I'm sorry. With all the restrictions and all the things that
are coming down on ground water and on surface water, it just seems to me
in the Federal Government and then NRDC and Earth First and all of these,
they seem to rule because the government will listen to them before
they'll even listen to us. We always thought the Endangered Species Act
is a scam, it's a sham. Throwing water at the Delta smelt hasn't solved
any problem. Same thing with the salmon fry. But they won't get rid of
striped bass who ferociously consume the fry and consume smelt and smelt
egg. And Fish and Game has documented this that, you know, when you see a
cluster of eggs, there's a striped bass just consuming all that. But they
ignore it and the pollution and the loss of food in the Delta. From the
refineries dumping waste water or heated water from their process back
into the Delta. You put, but they ignore all that, and that's why I think
it's conspiracy. That's why I just that the government really, doesn't
really care. And I think there is an agenda, you know, that the towns
will prevail. We say economically, a $39 billion of income that comes out
of the revenue that the state gets in taxes to trickle down of all, the
trickledown effect of all the associated businesses. Whether it be
diesel, delivery, I mean everything that you can think of. All that will
go away. And the City of Fresno will begin to realize that when the
farmer does collapse and whatever reason, the trickle down for the
consumer and business here is gonna be a pretty big hit. Because farmers,
when they make money, they spend money. When they don't make any money,
they don't spend any money. And so does the farm worker and the tractor
salesman and on down the line. And you can see if you drive at the west
side right now, it looks like the moon. There's no tractors, nothing's
moving, nothing. It's just dead.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Do you have any hopes for the governor's proposal for
these twin tunnels under the Delta to bring more fresh Sacramento River
water down?
>> Marvin Meyers: He's in la la land [laughter]. You know how long that
will be. If he does get going and how long that will be in court? I'll be
dead before that's even getting out of court let alone try and build it.
Same thing for Temperance and sites. They'll be, just like anything else,
it'll be in court for years.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well, returning back to.
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah, I'm sorry.
>> Thomas Holyoke: No.
>> Marvin Meyers: You got me passionate.

>> Thomas Holyoke: [Laughter] Returning back to your land and some of the
things you've done. So as I understand, you've done more than just make a
big water bank out there. You’ve, I mean you have some wetlands out there
now? You’re-- for all the complaining about the Endangered Species Act,
it sounds like you've been doing, making some efforts to save some
species.
>> Marvin Meyers: We've created habitat for endangered species. We
decided after we got the bank going and it was filling, everything was
working, I think it's time to do this wildlife habitat. And bring the
kids, people, not only kids, but bring people out and school children out
to show them what habitat is. Because it's right in their backyard, it's
a quick trip from Fresno or from around the area. So we decided to build
a wildlife habitat area for all the species. Whether it be endangered or
others. At that time, I thought, well, now, I can't. I don't have time to
run this thing myself. So I hired a young man who was employed by Fish
and Game. And I went and interviewed him, he's out of San Diego and he
happened to be the son of John Dean, the one that helped me on the bank.
And I interviewed him, and I liked him and I said you want a job? Well,
what would I do? I said, you'd be an educator and I have a ground water
banking project and I'd like you to learn about it and operate it for me
while you're doing the educational project. He agreed to do that. And lo
and behold, I found a gem in the rough. He is brilliant, he's a
biologist, graduating biologist, wildlife biologist. He knows what he's
doing. He loves to educate. The kids love him. He's a graduate of Cal
Poly. And so I brought him on and started giving him more duties. And let
him do designing of curriculum and let him be the head. I'm not going to
dictate. So I sort of just sat, I either approve it or I wouldn't approve
it. And then we started, we went over and talked to these Central Valley
Unified School District which was Mr. Powell. He loved what we were
trying to do, so he came out to the bank. He said, this is fantastic what
you're trying to do. At no cost to the school or the Central Valley
Unified School System. And so we decided to fund the buses and fund the
docents. So there would be no cost to any school to bring their kids out.
And then we hooked up med teachers and started the curriculum. And that
curriculum was passed around to all the schools so the teachers had
something to start with. And then we'd give them a prep through the
Internet of what we were doing so the kids wouldn't be, teachers would
not be blindsided. And then we had trips for the teachers. They all came
out, bunches of them. And explain what we were doing, why we're doing.
And so they had a bird's eye view of everything that we were doing. And
then they started bringing the kids out. Wow, it was cool. I mean, John,
Jason, would explain why are we putting this water in there. And then
we'd say we have trees up there about 15 miles away. Well, how is the
water going to get from here to the trees? And explaining to the kids we
had kids that had never been out of the city. Some of the docents told me
there's kids never seen the freeway. They've lived over on the Southeast
Calwa. And it's tough area in there. So bottom line is, it was an eye
opener. We had cattle, my granddaughters are growing, are raising cattle
out there. So kids have seen calves being born, they just love it, and we
put them on a cotton trailer with a tractor and we bring them in. It's a,
we built a learning area where you have easels and explain. We have a
pond that has islands in it so they can see the different species that

are hanging out. We also have nighttime cameras that Jason has set up so
they do walking tours. They can see who visited that night. Like we have
a very famous, what do you call it? A, oh, the striped, real cute. Oh,
they're all over the place here. Not a bobcat, but a. Anyway, we got a
visitor. Every night he's there in front of the camera. And they have 4
of them set up and the kids just love it. They'll go by and say, let's
see who was here last night. And they'll all be. You see snakes, king
snakes, a few giant garter snakes. So, we've you know, they're
endangered. But we learned through Jason, he knows how to manage habitat,
friendly to the species. And then when we get a lot of water that is the
fly way of, the Pacific fly way and so we spread water at times so the
birds will land. And we get all kinds of migrating birds will land in the
pasture and stay there for a little while. Everything you can think of,
it's magnificent. Just the geese, all kinds of geese, snow geese, the
refuge, Mendota Wildlife Refuge just south of us, but they allow hunting
over there, and we don't allow hunting. So all their birds come over to
our side and hang out so [laughter].
>> Thomas Holyoke: But if you lose your water, you're going to lose all
this, too, aren't you?
>> Marvin Meyers: I'm sorry?
>> Thomas Holyoke: But if you lose your water over the next few years,
there's no more water left or.
>> Marvin Meyers: I can't refill.
>> Thomas Holyoke: No wetlands, no educational programs.
>> Marvin Meyers: The whole thing will go down, yeah. And I've not asked
anybody for anything. I pay for the water, I spread it because I like
what we're doing. It's the right thing to do. But if we run out of water
and there's no water to get, then obviously mine is a private, not funded
or acknowledged by public. You know, they have wildlife refuges up in Los
Banos but, and they get water supply from the Federal Government. In
fact, all grasslands and all those guys get water allocated to them, be
it shortages. But for me, you know, I wouldn't know. I'd have to find out
somewhere, you know, where I can get a water supply to keep alive and
well. But at that time, you know, what shape would we be in financially
being able to farm? You know, I think if the farm goes, the wildlife
project will go, too.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Now, yeah->> Marvin Meyers: It's a shame because it's really cool out there.
>> Thomas Holyoke: One thing I'm curious about, it sounds like, I mean,
you've been very innovative with a lot of the stuff you've done with
water, the banking of water and what you've done with it. Is what you've
done proven to be lessons learned by other farmers in your water district
or in the area? I mean, your neighbors picked up on what you've done and
tried to replicate some of this?

>> Marvin Meyers: No, nobody in my water district or any other water
district that I know of has been able to do this. King's Water
Conservation District, Dave Orth, they are doing some off of King's
River. But mine, mine was very unique because I was actually bringing the
water in and going through different canals to put it in the ground. And
mine's a, theirs is a spreading. The other ones are doing it on spreading
of water to recharge the ground water. Mine is actual buying the water,
bringing the water in, documenting it, measuring it, every acre feet that
goes in, and bringing 90 percent of it out because I leave 5 percent in
and I lose 5 percent to EPET. So for every agri foot I put in, I get 9/10
of it out. But, no. All mine was reading, studying, talking to different
people that I know that they had expertise but not much. Because I did
waste a lot of money early on trying the west side of the pool was not
the place to do any ground or recharge. But the east side where the area
was and the Bureau was helping me. The Bureau really opened up the doors.
And they were the applicant for my water bank.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Yeah, you were probably about the only grower I've met
in the last few years who has said anything positive about the Bureau of
Reclamation.
>> Marvin Meyers: I know. I do that every time, every time that I speak
of the Bureau, I tell people these guys, it's not the Bureau. It's NMFS,
Fish and Wildlife, and the environmental groups that are, the Bureau just
does what they tell them to do. They don't make this shit, stuff up. And
I do praise them because they embraced my project. And I didn't ask them
for any money. And they did, when John Keys told them, "I like what
Marvin's doing, you help him do it. Don't be a negative contact, work
with him". And, oh, my God, it just opened up a whole bunch of doors. And
they didn't know, they've never done a water bank, no one's ever done a,
a private water bank. And nobody's ever done anything like this. So they
didn't know what agenda, what do we have to jump through. Well, enviro,
yes. And then we had to do filtration, geological survey, endangered, I
mean, purities like selenium and arsenic, all that had to be documented.
And then what kind of a program are we going to put together? Then we sat
down and did a 25 year exchange contract which is the last one that was
ever approved. And did a basis of negotiation. Let me tell you, I chased
Bureau guys all over the place just to get them to sign off and it was
hard, hard to get ‘em to. Because I found out through the grapevine that
John Keys who was the commissioner, was told by the Bureau attorneys,
don't you endorse this. There's too much risk. But he told them, don't
bug me, I'm going to do it anyway, I like what he's doing. And I was
straight up. We'd been complimented by the Bureau because they told us,
we like doing business with you because we can trust you. There's a lot
of guys that try and pull shenanigans and it's hard to get anything done.
Water transfers. But I can walk into that office now, I shouldn't even
put that on, but they welcome me. And it's fun and we do trade ideas and
trade different venues and things that we're doing out there. They've
been very helpful to me.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Well sort of wrapping up here, what do you think the
future holds?

>> Marvin Meyers: Well, you know, we'll get through this year. We have
the water and water isn’t-- and the district will survive this year.
They'll be a lot of guys in our district that will go down. But we have
to be seriously thinking about what are we going to do for the future?
And my grandson came up to me and said, "Papa Marvin, what is our future?
All the things I hear about with no water, the district is in trouble.
I'm worried about my future, too". I said, "You know, you have good head
on you". He just finished California Leadership Class. And he's a bright,
young man. He graduated in agricultural economics. Excuse me.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Here at Fresno State?
>> Marvin Meyers: Yeah.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Oh, good.
>> Marvin Meyers: Smart kid. Almost too smart for us [laughter]. But to
make your question, I don't know. My gut tells me this may be our last
year. If my attorney has a buyer, he said it would buy you out in a
heartbeat and pay you enough money you wouldn't have to worry about
anything forever. I said, well, obviously, I'm not worried because I'm
going to be 81 years old. How many more years I got left? But the kid,
yeah. Where is he going to go? And certainly not in California, not in
the Central Valley. So now they're talking about different states, going
to Colorado, go up to Idaho. A lot of guys are going to Idaho,
Washington, Oregon. Different lifestyle, different cropping pattern. So,
you know, that talk, it's just in the talking stage. But I will tell you
there isn't a farmer on the west side that hasn't thought about, what am
I going to do next year? I'm talking about Wolf, I'm talking about
Harris, I'm talking about major, major, big boy players. We're not big
boy, but we're pretty good size. But, you know, I'm worried about my
family. And what is the best way to keep farming till it's all gone? Till
the district can't function anymore? And I don't think the board members
of the district are facing it. A couple of them are. But as a district,
when you have a meeting all hands on deck meeting and all the growers
show up, all the manager says is that we're in for a tough year. And you
guys will have to take care of yourself. But he never talked about the
longevity of the district, I have with them. And they said the district
can survive on 35,000 acre feet of water but barely. Okay, well divide
that by 3, that's 12,000 acres of trees, and that's it. You got to raise
the O&M, you got to raise the administration charges to pay the to be
able to operate. So that could be. Well, if it's all non-project water,
where's he going to get 35,000 acre feet? And that is his target. Enough
to keep the district alive for whatever, you know. There's guys like me
that don't require any water from the district. We use our own water
whether it's purchased water or bank water. Obviously it's tough times,
and I honestly have told people that are not in the water business. That
the economic impact of this county, property taxes and a revenue is going
to be major when the guys idle all that land, lay everybody off, and call
up the assessor and said I'm idle. I mean, the Williamson Act would
minimize my, I don't have any income-bearing crop on this land. So drop
my taxes. And that's what's going to happen.
>> Thomas Holyoke: Okay, well--

>> Marvin Meyers: Right now, there's 500, it would be 900,000 acres of
land is forecast to be out of production this year on the west side.
>> Thomas Holyoke: I’ve heard that.
>> Marvin Meyers: Maybe more. Okay, I'm done.
>> Thomas Holyoke: On that gloomy note, I guess we're done. Thank you
very much.
>> Marvin Meyers: You're welcome.

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