From 1956 through 1982, Ballis with Berge Bulbulian and a band of small farmers carried forth an epic struggle for small farmers’ water rights in Fresno’s Westlands Water District and throughout all the federally irrigated western states. The 1902 law had never been enforced anywhere. In 1975, the NLP was formally incorporated as a community-based political group for lobbying with a separate nonprofit corporation (501(c)3) to raise funds for public education and court cases to hold large farmers accountable for the water they received in the Westlands Water District through the publicly financed California Aqueduct.
In 1977, NLP moved its offices to a six-acre organic farm, the Magical Pear Tree, west of Fresno, after its downtown offices were burglarized twice by the Biggies’ agents. The Biggies also tapped NLP’s phones, did a make on Elfie’s life back to two days before conception and even pressured Wells Fargo to get copies of NLP’s monthly bank statements.
Farmers paid only 5% of the water’s actual cost, which enriched large landowners like Southern Pacific Railroad and Standard Oil. The federal law required that large (Biggie) landowners had to sign contracts agreeing that after 10 years of subsidized use, they would have to sell all land in excess of 160 acres at dry land prices (cheap) to new farmers. The Ballises with a small staff and board did research, educated the public and took litigation to the Supreme Court level to try to enforce the law.
The Biggies avoided honoring their contracts any way they could. One way they avoided the intent of the law—but complied with the letter of the law—was to break up large holdings into 160-acre lots by giving relatives, friends and employees (on paper only) 160 acres that they never saw or farmed. Some did not even know they “owned” the land when contacted by the NLP.
When the NLP won support in the courts to force large owners to live up to the spirit of the law, the large growers screamed violation of private property rights and threw enough money to lobbyists and contributions to the right Congressional campaigns to rewrite the Reclamation Law. In the end, the NLP won the battle in the courts but lost the war in the media and Congress. When big business interests want something badly enough, they simply change the rules of the game.
The spiral strategy of the NLP was that “we must grow a social structure which will actively support many people owning subsidized agricultural land.” At its small farm, in addition to the water fight, the NLP staff did organic-farming demonstrations with the federal Office for Alternative Energy directed by John Ballis. In addition, Marc Lasher organized a farmers’ marketing co-op, direct marketing maps and farmers’ markets, and George, Marc and Maia helped organize and sustain Our Store.
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