Drought Wars: Where did the farm water go?

CalWatchDog ^ | February 6, 2014 | Wayne Lusvardi

[artichokegrower]

Where did that farm water go? That’s a major question stalking California during its record drought.

The finger-pointing sure is under way. On Feb. 4, environmental writer Dan Bacher pointed at state water managers, claiming they made the California drought worse by taking water from Northern California farms and fish and sending it to Southern California cities.

Bacher claimed 827,000 acre-feet of water was sent to Southern California in 2013, where some of it was consumed by cities and some stored in Castaic Lake and Pyramid Lake, both North of Los Angeles. Bacher’s claim evokes the image of another water grab by Los Angeles almost a century ago and dramatized in the move “Chinatown.”

However, Bacher is talking about water from the State Water Project that primarily serves Southern cities, not Central Valley farms where the farm drought has hit the hardest.

[Alberta's Child]

I don't disagree with you, but interestingly enough, these kinds of disputes are rare (and I haven't heard of one in years) in the Northeast -- even in a jurisdiction like New York State that is a de facto Marxist state. I suspect the biggest factor is that water isn't very scarce up here, and that what we call a "drought" is nothing more than an unusually dry period that is likely to be followed by one or more seasons where reservoirs are overflowing. For example, it's pretty much understood that after this harsh winter when the snow and ice on the interior areas of the Northeast melt, we're going to have a huge problem with inland flooding for several weeks.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Some are natural, some are man made. They are interconnected in a giant water project.

[GilesB]

Just because a government is empowered to do X, does not require that it control Y - down that path is absolute government control, because EVERYTHING is connected: road, cars, tires, fuel, tractors, farms, food, grocery stores, cosmetics, beauty salons, barber shops...

And that is just a single linear thread.