Posted on 09/17/2014 8:13:50 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
On Friday, the California State Assembly outdid itself. You can always count on the leftist leaders of what is supposed to be the “people’s house” never lets a crisis go to waste.
With the passage of AB 1739 (Dickinson-D), SB 1168 (Pavley-D), and SB 1319 (Pavley-D), 100 years of history was reversed. The authors painted a grim picture of California’s groundwater future. Most of what they said is true. The only problem they didn’t bother to tell you two key truths:
1.It was these same so-called leaders who give up our seat—the property owner and the farmer’s place at the table—to the enviro-extremists. The fish now have more water rights than do the farmers and ranchers who by making a living off the land, feed this state and this country.
2.By wasting surface water and letting 800,000 acre-feet go out to sea instead of capturing and storing it for the bad years, California’s dysfunctional policies combined with uber-restrictive Federal endangered species protections have created over-dependency on groundwater.
These bills, which obliterate private property rights and local control, are being sold as a port in a storm, when the reality is that they are the recipe for the perfect storm. By granting the State Water Resources Control Board, the last vestige of control over all our water, the farmers and ranchers who were denied their allocation of water from the State Water Project, will be at the mercy of a merciless government. The tactics of the left never vary. They use a government created crisis such as the drought, which is the culmination of years of their own mismanagement and corruption, to consolidate power.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Liberals and their policies do nothing but cause harm. They should be imprisoned in some ghastly banana republic hellhole!
All I know is that the California legislature is a ship of fools. They are killing the goose that laid the golden egg — agriculture in CA. The farmers were promised this water in perpetuity. Without agriculture, CA is just another collection of substandard housing — too crowded and too expensive, shacks on the hillside. Will it become Brazil next? Last week I read that 30% of the pop. doesn’t speak English and nearly 50% are not citizens. What are all these folks going to do once the agriculture industry literally “dries up”?
BTTT!
I have said before and I will say again that the Enbvironmental Lobby poses the greatest threat to the United States Economy and National Security. Its’ tentacles control politicians, the EPA and other State and Federal Regulatory agencies that to the detriment of progress, prosperity and the ability of the U.S. to be energy self sufficient.
Maybe they will be forced to self-deport back to Mexico? Like a lot of other things here in CA, the “farmers” brought a lot of what's happening today on themselves by utilizing illegals.The state might have survived the drought if it weren't for the 30% increase in our population due to illegals. That and if the politicians had foreseen the need for more water storage facilities given the growth in our population. But no, our governor wants to pi$$ away money on a train to nowhere that won't be necessary if agriculture fails because the current trackage will only provide "commuter service" for illegals as the move up and down the Central Valley picking crops (along with their noses).
Blame the republicans, move to a neighborhood near you, increase regulation, raise taxes or all of the above.
Sounds like the old Water Wars of the Post-Civil War era may happen this time in CA.
Sounds like the old Water Wars of the Post-Civil War era may happen this time in CA.
A very small percentage of the illegal population in California work in agriculture. These people say it is 3%.
When the farmers started using “illegals” they weren’t illegal. CA had a Bracero program where the labor force crossed the border legally and went home during the off seaon. I don’t remember when that was stopped, but it was phased out a number of years ago. Now they have a mess.
Shortly after WWII, my uncle found the migrant labor force undependable and he organized a co-operative among his neighboring ranchers in the Chowchilla area. They pooled their resources and purchased a cotton picking machine — first in the Valley. They eliminated the need for migrants.
CA has been fighting Water Wars for longer than I am old — and I’m older than dirt! Mostly it has been Southern CA that wanted Norther CA water — and AZ’s and everybody else’s.
But there was a water authority that the farmers signed on to that promised them water in perpetuity. I don’t know what they paid into it, but they did pay. Now the politicians are denying them their water. There would be plenty of water to go around if so much was not wasted by the enviros — draining right out to sea.
Enviros are everyones enemy.
Bracero ended in 1964 and in 1965 Congress passed the Immigration and Nationality Act which created the H2A temp ag worker visa which is still used today. Along with the H2B non-ag worker visa.
But not many farmers use the H2A because it is very complicated to use and while it has an unlimited quota there may only be 30,000 workers. Those workers that do use it will oftentimes not leave with the visa expires and they become illegal.
“When the farmers started using “illegals” they weren’t illegal. CA had a Bracero program where the labor force crossed the border legally and went home during the off seaon. I don’t remember when that was stopped, but it was phased out a number of years ago. Now they have a mess.”
I graduated from HS in Northern California in1958. It was about that time that the Bracero Program was terminated because the Blacks (who were left here with nothing to do after the defense plants and shipyards closed after WWII, locally Kaiser Shipbuilding in Richmond) complained that the “Guest Workers” were taking their jobs. But guess what, the lazy Blacks didn’t really want to do the kind of back breaking work that picking crops entailed. That left the farmers with few options. But also you should go have a look at the “accommodations” our farmers provided for their Mexican workers. These places were slums of the first order so don’t be too supportive of their “efforts,” as they didn’t treat their workforce at all well.
As far as growing cotton here is concerned, it is a crop that should never have been allowed owing to the amount of water it requires. Same for rice.
Because of the drought the farmers are drilling many wells and groundwater is being pumped furiously. Aquifers are going dry and well are going dry.
So they are setting up local agencies to regulate how much can be pumped.
This is the way it is done in Texas, with the local/regional underground water conservation districts that decide the minimum level in the aquifer.
Many freepers will probably remember Boone Pickens and Mesa Water getting their water from the Panhandle Underground Conservation District. He tried to sell that water to DFW and San Antonio but nobody ever bought. Eventually the drought hit Texas and Lake Meredith went dry so 7 city water agencies located in the panhandle bought Boone's water.
I am well aware of some of the housing provided by the farmers for the illegals. My uncle wasn’t one of them. I don’t know where his workers stayed, but they didn’t show up to work again after they were paid; and they spent their wages on alcohol, gambling, and whores. That is why he and his neighbors invested in a cotton picking machine. He had one family to help that stayed in the old ranch homestead under conditions that my father’s family had lived in just a decade before. The rest were day workers.
I went with my teen church group to provide Christmas cheer out at a migrant camp in December 1954, or ‘55. The conditions were deplorable, and not all of the workers were Mexican. Some of them were from the Southern states. I’ve never forgotten the experience.
I never was so cold in all my life (and I now live in Wisconsin). The hovels had dirt floors, and babies were running around clad in just diapers and runny noses. This was in the San Joaquin Valley.
My uncle went into cotton after WWII after he had been enslaved in the dairy business by the War Department. He was alone on the ranch with no help and milking a herd of cows twice a day was more work than he could handle alone. He transformed the ranch into crops.
Probably because they are too busy saving the smelt in the dammed up river instead of letting the water flow into the orchards and vegetable fields.
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