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Jones Tract struggles to recover from floods.

Published in the Stockton Record on 05/29/05

Jones Tract struggles to recover from floods

By Dana Nichols - Record Staff Writer
Published Sunday, May 29, 2005

JONES TRACT - Corn and tomatoes grow here again. Red-winged blackbirds swoop and sing. But many of the people have not returned to this Delta island, which is very different a year after a levee crumbled and the waters of Middle River drowned 12,153 acres on June 3, 2004. Those who have returned must contend with mud, rust, acres of dead crops and other challenges.

Some farmers teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, while others have fallen over that edge. Some farm workers have returned to live in the fields, but none have returned to their homes on the sunken island. All the farmers are behind schedule and in April were scrambling to plant crops. Land gouged out near the levee break can't be planted for another year.

"We're hustling harder than ever and just trying to get our ground back in tiptop shape," said Kurt Sharp of Conrad Silva Farms. "We are never going to recover our losses."
Asparagus, the island's most lucrative crop, has vanished. New asparagus plants take years before they can be harvested, and it may take farmers years more before they can afford to spend the $3,000 or so per acre to establish new beds.

Meanwhile, fields that once yielded $2,000-per-acre spring asparagus now grow $150-an-acre corn. Changes are easy to see from the roads that circle the island. Seven houses that once sheltered farm-worker families were bulldozed. At least two asparagus-crew bunkhouses sit vacant, unusable, walls warped and stained by floodwaters.

Not far from the storage sheds on most farms sits a row or two of water-damaged disks, harrows, tractors, cultivators and other equipment, most of it rusted beyond repair. County officials estimate the total loss of farm equipment and buildings at $25 million. "I think I lost $250,000 in equipment," said Greg Torlai, who farms 1,800 acres on Jones Tract. Torlai estimated that he lost $1.5 million in buildings, including trailers, houses and a bunkhouse.

One big change is invisible: the blow to bank accounts. Tony Vanni was working in a cornfield near where the levee broke. "I was just getting established and then that hit. I had to fold up," Vanni said. Vanni had been a farmer since 1996. He used to farm 1,100 acres on Jones Tract but had to find another job to earn a living and pay off his farm bills. Now he works for someone else, making crates and cartons for produce. "The insurance didn't pay anything. It seemed I didn't quite qualify for that or this." Vanni said he would've needed to borrow about $1 million to get back to farming. "I turned 42 this year. I am not going to go into debt to spend 20 years to rebuild it."

As disastrous as the flood was for farmers on Jones Tract, it had only a small effect on the total value of San Joaquin County's farm production in 2004, said Scott Hudson, the county's agricultural commissioner. Jones Tract is less than 2 percent of the county's cropland and even less of its total farm production value. Fortunately for Jones Tract farmers, about $6 million in asparagus was harvested before the flood. That left an estimated crop loss of about $6.6 million for the unharvested grains and tomatoes, only a fraction of the county's total farm production last year, according to county figures.

On the island, there are no more mobile homes, which once housed farm-worker families. "It was better for the children," said Marta Calderon, 39, who has a daughter, 16, a son, 5, and a daughter, 1. "There was more room, less danger. There wasn't traffic." Calderon and her husband, Leonardo Calderon, now rent a three-bedroom apartment in Stockton. Leonardo Calderon is back at work, commuting each day to Jones Tract. Renting is an $850 per month financial blow. Their island residence was rent-free. So now the family has cut its expenses and shares the apartment with relatives. "At least my husband is working again," she said. The family may return to the island once farmers are able to replace the housing.

Gilbardo Meza is one of the few workers who has returned to live and work on the island. He spent much of the past year working at ranches on other Delta islands. His wife and children are in a rented home in town. He sleeps in a camper because his boss, Torlai, wanted a full-time caretaker to keep thieves away. "We lived 10 years on this island," Meza said. "We had one day to get our things out." Meza and other workers lost everything, from appliances to children's tricycles, in the rush to escape the rising water. Thieves are a problem now that so many farm-worker families are gone. "Every night, we are taking our tank wagons home with diesel," Sharp said. "We left it overnight, and they stole the diesel out of it."

Still, many of the farmers here are optimistic. Rudy Mussi's Stella Farms works 2,500 acres on Jones Tract. Mussi puts his losses at $12 million to $15 million " three silos, houses, trailers, a bunkhouse, equipment and lost income. Yet he says the island's rich black soil will rebuild the wealth that farmers lost. "Most of them will hang in there," he said.

The flood ripped chunks of concrete from an irrigation ditch, forcing Gilbardo Meza and Juvenal Lara to make repairs. The work was done only days before irrigation resumed at the end of April.

david finch/The Record

Farm worker Juana Serrano prepares tomatoes for planting on Jones Tract. The island’s most lucrative crop, asparagus, is too expensive for the flooded-out farmers to replant.

david finch/The Record

Farmer Greg Torlai’s aparagus were killed by the flood. New asparagus plants take years before they can be harvested.

david finch/The Record

GRAPHICS: Jones Tract cleanup costs: The levee breach at Jones Tract a year ago cost taxpayers $45 million to fight the flood, close the breach, reapir the levee and pump out the million of gallons of waters that flooded 12,000 acres of crop land. Below is a tally of public spending to repair the damage. (Source: Department of Water Resources; graphics by K. FIRTH/The Record)

Contact reporter Dana Nichols at (209) 546-8295 or dnichols@recordnet.com

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