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Facing drought, California will not allot water to farmers, cities
CBS News ^ | 1-31-14

Posted on 02/01/2014 4:01:08 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Amid severe drought conditions, California officials announced Friday that they would not send any water from the state's vast reservoir system to local agencies beginning this spring, an unprecedented move that affects drinking water supplies for 25 million people and irrigation for 1 million acres of farmland.

The announcement marks the first time in the 54-year history of the State Water Project that such an action has been taken, but it does not mean that every farm field will turn to dust and every city tap will run dry.

The 29 agencies that draw from the state's water-delivery system have other sources, although those also have been hard-hit by the drought.

Many farmers in California's Central Valley, one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country, also draw water from a separate system of federally run reservoirs and canals, but that system also will deliver just a fraction of its normal water allotment this year.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: agriculture; california; centralvalley; desalination; drought; israel; water
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1 posted on 02/01/2014 4:01:09 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Based on what I’ve read about Mulholland, those very farmers and cities, counties, etc. who are now being denied water from “California’s (actually LA’s) Vast Reserves” were fooled into signing over their watersheds to him Decades and Decades ago....

Irony? Probably being denied their own water.


2 posted on 02/01/2014 4:11:01 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: afraidfortherepublic

No problem. Just get the illegals from Mexico to bring water when they come. Surely, if we give them free education, free healthcare, free welfare checks, free housing,and free clothing, the least they could do is give us a “little” free water in return.


3 posted on 02/01/2014 4:28:31 AM PST by swampfox101 (l)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
I feel for them but we have our own water problems out here in West Texas, the lakes we've been depending on for over 50 years are drying up big time. We need rain of biblical proportions or we dry up. We have water wells on the ranch and they get us by but even they are suffering and those levels dropping daily. The extended drought has obviously cause this but I think we ranchers may be part of the problem also. Our is a big ranch with the largest part being 32 sections and we have a total of 16 stock tanks for catching surface run off but that also catches water that would have normally just been a tributary feeding the larger lakes.
4 posted on 02/01/2014 4:35:55 AM PST by Dusty Road
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To: afraidfortherepublic

>> would not send any water from the state’s vast reservoir system

Send or restrict?


5 posted on 02/01/2014 4:38:12 AM PST by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
There is a certain irony that the drought is affecting America's most liberal state where environmentalism is supreme. I pity the farmers who are trying to make an honest living, but I can't muster up much sympathy for the Democrats who control most of the state.

On the other hand, I'm sure the federal government will find some extremely expensive way to provide water at the expense of the taxpayers.

There was a time in America when making bad decisions (like living in a huge city in a desert) had negative consequences.

6 posted on 02/01/2014 4:50:16 AM PST by Senator_Blutarski
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To: afraidfortherepublic

James Earl Carter cancelled 33 western US water projects in the 70’s. It’s almost like dems want to ruin the country.


7 posted on 02/01/2014 4:53:20 AM PST by Artie (We are surrounded by MORONS)
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To: afraidfortherepublic

Perhaps if Gov. Brown, during his next press conference, were to read 1 Kings, Chapter 18 aloud and then declare:

“As Governor of this state I wish to lead our people in a public repentance of the worship of Mammon, of the sins of Sodom & Gomorrah and of offering our unborn children to Moloch. We humbly ask Almighty God to forgive our sins, to once again send the rains and to restore our souls, lands and crops.”

Hey, Jonah didn’t expect it from the king of Nineveh, either!

Jonah 3

Living Bible (TLB)

3 1-2 Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again: “Go to that great city, Nineveh,” he said, “and warn them of their doom, as I told you to before!”

3 So Jonah obeyed and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city with many villages around it—so large that it would take three days to walk through it.[a]

4-5 But the very first day when Jonah entered the city and began to preach, the people repented. Jonah shouted to the crowds that gathered around him, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” And they believed him and declared a fast; from the king on down, everyone put on sackcloth—the rough, coarse garments worn at times of mourning.[b]

6 For when the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne, laid aside his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And the king and his nobles sent this message throughout the city: “Let no one, not even the animals, eat anything at all, nor even drink any water. 8 Everyone must wear sackcloth and cry mightily to God, and let everyone turn from his evil ways, from his violence and robbing. 9 Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will decide to let us live and will hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

10 And when God saw that they had put a stop to their evil ways, he abandoned his plan to destroy them and didn’t carry it through.


8 posted on 02/01/2014 4:57:49 AM PST by BwanaNdege
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To: Senator_Blutarski
I pity the farmers who are trying to make an honest living, but I can't muster up much sympathy for the Democrats who control most of the state.

Agree completely but I think you will find the agricultural owners and managers to be mostly conservative, only to be out-voted and out-represented by urban, farm-worker and union voters that favor Democrats. This does not include the wine-makers as that is usually an income negative profession and largely owned by liberal types with money from elsewhere.

On an aside, I am old enough to remember when popular magazines were full of glowing visions of the future. In particular I remember visions of ocean-front nuclear power plants with attached desalination plants that would end all drought problems. Like the sky-car I was promised, I suppose!

9 posted on 02/01/2014 5:27:48 AM PST by SES1066 (Quality, Speed or Economical - Any 2 of 3 except in government - 1 at best but never #3!)
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To: Senator_Blutarski

I’m not sure what bad decisions you think were made? We’re in a drought during what is normally the rainy season - it hasn’t rained much in over a year.

BTW, most of the affected framers and ranchers are conservatives. Most of suburbs with landscapes to irrigate and cars to wash tend to be conservative.

The libs live in their little rat warrens in urban areas and hardly notice there is a drought.


10 posted on 02/01/2014 5:27:53 AM PST by BigBobber
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To: afraidfortherepublic

The solution is simple:

Frack for gas

Tax the producers 25% of their gas.

Use the gas to power desalinization plants

Free water

The technology is proven and off the shelf in use in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel


11 posted on 02/01/2014 5:32:24 AM PST by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... History is a process, not an event)
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To: Dusty Road

Had severe water shortages in South Carolina, but then God sent the bucket brigades over the state and solved the problem. A few days last summer rain was falling at the rate of an inch an hour. Hope He hears your calls and gets you out of the water problem.


12 posted on 02/01/2014 5:38:20 AM PST by sergeantdave
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To: afraidfortherepublic

And yet California keeps voting Dhimmicrat (well probably not the Central Valley )


13 posted on 02/01/2014 5:46:33 AM PST by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: BigBobber
The libs live in their little rat warrens in urban areas and hardly notice there is a drought.

Put them on water rationing hours and you'll get their attention.

15 posted on 02/01/2014 5:50:01 AM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
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To: swampfox101

Idea! everyone is supposed to drink about 2 liters of H2o per day. Multiply that by the estimated 10 million illegals in CA and you’ve got yourself a lake full of H2o per day. Deport them! Water problem solved.


16 posted on 02/01/2014 5:56:20 AM PST by mistfree (Their & There, they're not the same)
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To: mistfree

Don’t worry...everything will be hunky-dory. Isn’t california spending obscene amounts of tax-money on a high speed rail between feral-infested cities? Yea, that’s the ticket...problems solved.


17 posted on 02/01/2014 6:01:48 AM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: afraidfortherepublic
From the article: "State Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin said there simply is not enough water in the system to meet the needs of farmers, cities and the conservation efforts that are intended to save dwindling populations of salmon ..."

In other words, "Fish First!"

18 posted on 02/01/2014 6:16:43 AM PST by Pearls Before Swine
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To: bert

“Use the gas to power desalinization plants”

100% agree with you on this. I was always of the opinion that if they did this on the dark continent instead of handing dictators money, Africa would become part of the global economy.

75% of the world is water and we have the technology to make it drinkable.


19 posted on 02/01/2014 6:21:21 AM PST by EQAndyBuzz ("The GOP fights its own base with far more vigor than it employs in fighting the Dims.")
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To: Pearls Before Swine
...that are intended to save dwindling populations of salmon...[In other words, "Fish First!"]

Well, that's better than putting the Delta Smelt as the top priority. /s

20 posted on 02/01/2014 6:46:17 AM PST by VRW Conspirator ( 2+2 = V)
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