Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Water, Part III

Next I am going to focus on how California is doing in regards to the capturing and the holding on to the water that nature provides. A lot of the following information was gleaned from a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, and so it should be very up to date.
In 2014 California voters approved a $7.5 billion bond to expand water storage and improve flood control. That’s good news, right? Well it should be except that it is the California Water Commission controls the pursestrings. In the four years since the bond measure passed, this commission has tried to scuttle 11 water-storage projects like the Sites Reservoir in NorCal and the Temperance Flats Reservoir in the Fresno area. Apparently the Commission scored both of these projects low on “public benefit,” and “public benefit” is required by law for approval.  The hooker here is that the Commission has apparently formulated its own narrow definition that includes the ecosystem, water quality, emergency response, and recreation.
A glaring omission from this list is what “public benefit” should actually mean: Preserving the California lifestyle by providing adequate storage facilities for water in years of drought and at the same time insuring that the farmers in the Central Valley have enough water to sustain their livelihood.
This past weekend I drove on I-5 through the Central Valley and saw a lot of fallow farmland along with the following signs:
“No water; no Central Valley jobs!”
“Is Growing Food Wasting Water?”
“Food Grows Where Water Flows”
And lastly, “California’s Future Depends on Water;
                     Build Dams Now”
Already hundreds of billions of gallons of water have been flushed out into the ocean to protect some little known species of shrimp, while the people who live in the Central Valley are suffering! Can anyone explain to me how this makes any sense?
So what’s the final verdict?
Is California following in the footsteps of Israel or Capetown, So. Africa?
Does California have a “Day Zero” in its future?

45 Replies to “Water, Part III”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.