Jim Hinch

Bureaucracy can be a wonderful thing. Tucked inside a recent meeting agenda for an obscure government agency (the Fresno Council of Governments) is a startling revelation: Planners in California’s San Joaquin Valley are embarking on a massive effort to inventory and map out all of the Valley’s natural resources, its watersheds, open spaces, grasslands, remaining wilderness (if any), etc. The project is called the San Joaquin Valley Greenprint and it follows a similar recently completed Valley Blueprint that inventoried the Valley’s urban sprawl and remaining farmland. Don’t write this off as yet another forgettable government study. The Valley Blueprint has already sparked debate between developers, agribusiness and conservationists as Valley governments, for the first time in history, seek to limit sprawl and preserve farmland. The Greenprint will undoubtedly inspire equally intense discussion. The effort to plan Valley growth matters to all Californians, indeed to people around the globe. Most of the fruits and vegetables Americans eat are grown in California. Loss of Valley farmland will drive up food prices for everyone. At the same time the Valley now has eclipsed Los Angeles as home to America’s dirtiest air. If efforts to rein in sprawl and curb greenhouses gases fail here it won’t matter whether they succeed elsewhere in the state. The Greenprint represents a welcome focus on a crucial and often misunderstood and under-appreciated part of California.