{"id":9120,"date":"2018-06-09T14:11:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-09T21:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/BigJimIndustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=9120"},"modified":"2018-06-10T14:29:17","modified_gmt":"2018-06-10T21:29:17","slug":"the-water-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2018\/06\/09\/the-water-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"The Water Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

from the LA Times via Bristol Herald Courier<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

One of LA\u2019s oldest community gardens thrived for decades. Then the water wars began<\/h1>\n

By Joe Mozingo<\/span><\/p>\n

For more than 40 years, Italian, Mexican, Croatian, Filipino, Indonesian and Laotian gardeners have built productive mini-farms on the parcels. Jason Neubert \/ Los Angeles Times<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

LOS ANGELES \u2014 The old Italian men pass their mornings near the top of the hill, tending thick grape vines and rows of fava beans, smoking crumbling Toscano cigars, staying out of the house. If you try to call Francesco \u201cFrank\u201d Mitrano at home, his wife will brusquely tell you that he\u2019s at \u201cthe farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

The farm is a patch of soil by the 110 Freeway, where he harvests enough tomatoes from his crop to make spaghetti sauce for his family\u2019s weekly Sunday dinner. \u201cTwenty-one people,\u201d he exclaims.<\/p>\n

A half-century ago, Filipino seafarers re-created a piece of the old country on this weedy hillside in San Pedro.<\/p>\n

Italian fishermen quickly joined them, as did others with horticultural skills honed all over the world \u2014 Mexico, Laos, India, Japan, Indonesia, Croatia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Arizona and Lawndale.<\/p>\n

More than 250 parcels are connected by a maze of trails and pipes and hoses. Avocado trees soar as high as 60 feet. Giant banana leaves, ratoons of sugar cane and bright orange guavas \u2014 set amid a jumble of sheds, trellises, fences and retaining walls \u2014 give the hill the look of a rural village carved from jungle.<\/p>\n

The community garden \u2014 thought to be the oldest in Los Angeles \u2014 grew quietly and off the grid, with unlimited water and little oversight.<\/p>\n

But now, in a time of drought, it faces an existential crisis after the city drastically cut its water supply.<\/p>\n

Though the heavy rains helped last year, the plots they have nurtured for decades are getting thirstier every day.<\/p>\n

Mitrano, 83, barrel-chested with a burl of a nose and a sail rigger\u2019s forearms, sneered at the hose that dribbled at his feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo hay presion,\u201d said Mitrano, using Spanish, the lingua franca of the garden. There is no water pressure.<\/p>\n

[ click to continue reading at Bristol Herald Courier<\/a> ]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the LA Times via Bristol Herald Courier One of LA\u2019s oldest community gardens thrived for decades. Then the water wars began By Joe Mozingo For more than 40 years, Italian, Mexican, Croatian, Filipino, Indonesian and Laotian gardeners have built productive mini-farms on the parcels. Jason Neubert \/ Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES \u2014 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}