[absalom01]

The Sacramento River delta is not what anyone who's been there would call "arid". Never has been.

But you're making a broader point, one of many where Libertarians part company with most conservatives and "right populists". 

The massive system of dams, channels, canals that today (mostly) controls the river was indeed constructed largely at public expense, but with the explicit understanding that the beneficiars would be the people who taxed themselves to pay for it (and their decendants).  The present priorities, that send half of the water in the system uselessly out to sea deserve more than a shrug of the shoulders and contempt for those betrayed by their overlords who now control the government in Sacramento, imho.

Put that aside, the present priorties in California are not just bad policy over which reasonable people can disagree.  They've gone completely nuts, and, even worse, are using the public infrastructure to target their cultural enemies.  And they're willing to use water as a way to weaponize food supplies.  That should concern everyone, even the most loyal Libertarian.

[Mariner]

“The present priorities, that send half of the water in the system uselessly out to sea deserve more than a shrug of the shoulders and contempt for those betrayed by their overlords who now control the government in Sacramento, imho.”

All Californians paid for the entire water distribution system, except for that which was paid by the feds.

And the majority of Californians want 50% of the water to flow through the rivers, keeping alive the riparian habitats of the Big Valley. A great number of conservatives among them.

Some of us have seen great rivers flowing the wrong direction...with brackish sewage. I cite the confluence of the Tuolumne and the San Joaquin in the fall of 1975 as an example. When the fish were considered poisonous.

If you want that, create it in your own state. Grow your own food.

We have too much ag in CA.