Posted on 08/31/2018 6:25:47 PM PDT by Mariner
Anyone who has spent much time in California knows that our water policies and politics are immensely complicated and contentious.
Leave it to the Trump administration to muck up the water wars even more.
His Bureau of Reclamation told state officials on Aug. 17 that it wants to renegotiate the landmark 1986 agreement for the sprawling federal and state water projects and how they pump water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The goal is to get more water to Central Valley farmers, at the expense of millions of Southern California residents, The Sacramento Bee’s Dale Kasler reports.
This unexpected move follows a threat by the Trump administration to sue over a state proposal, announced in July, to reallocate water in the San Joaquin River and its three tributaries, the Tuolumne, Merced and Stanislaus.
The state says leaving more water in the rivers to flow through the Delta to the ocean would ease an “ecological crisis” for fish. But it would mean less water for farmers and nearly 3 million people who live from the Bay Area to Modesto, so Valley farmers and many local officials are lambasting the proposal. Later this year, the state expects to release a reallocation plan for the Sacramento River watershed.
At the same time, there’s the continuing controversy over Gov. Jerry Brown’s plans for gargantuan tunnels to move water under the Delta to Central Valley farms and to Southern California cities. He says the $20 billion project would help endangered fish and ensure a more reliable water supply, but opponents question its cost and feasibility.
After critics raised a huge stink, legislators canceled a hearing on Thursday – the next-to-last day of the session – on extensions to water contracts needed to help finance the tunnels.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Of course those folks want to kill farming in CA. And they want to drain the lakes to preserve a salmon run that has been essentially extinct for 50 years.
As far as the $20bil delta tunnels are concerned, they are not needed. Today the Sacramento river drains into the Delta, and there are pumps on the other side of the delta to restart the flow southward in a series of very, very large canals. (Thank you Ronald Reagan!)
But there was a lawsuit to protect the "Delta Smelt", a fingerling with no use, and it prevailed because they were getting chewed up in the pumps.
Zinke is doing the right thing here.
I was born here, raised here and have fished these rivers and lakes all my life. There's no going back.
Do not ness with the choo choo money. Water? Meh!
That little fish in not endemic to California and is not worth saving. That is the problem. The RATS and rabid leftist judges are putting the life of a fish before the health, life and liberty of millions of California “humans.” But then again, these bastards don’t like us humans.
I can’t understand why people in Kalifornia are willing to do such stupid stuff as kill off farming to protect some baitfish. Is it some kind of shared insanity?
desal working in carlsbad
” Is it some kind of shared insanity?”
60% of the population is either insane, or too stupid to function...or both.
A full 60%.
I too grew up along the delta. The smelt is a bait fish that is not native to the delta. It was introduced by fisherman who were using it as bait to catch bass.
You want to save endangered fish, put them in aquariums. When the owners get sick of them, they will dump them into the rivers like the snakeheads, packs, jumping carp, etc
Accidentally introduced.
“bait to catch bass”
Striped Bass.
In the old days, with grandpa, we used sardines. We’d cut pieces...and grandpa would have them for lunch.
$287 this year for my car registration on an 8 year old car.
All that money is going to the trains.
You actually think our water system is going to get better?
My bro has just been constantly yelled at by his city for the last 2 years to quit watering his yard.
So he stopped.
Now they hit him with a $1600/month fine until he spends $6000 on his yard to put in desert stuff.
All his neighbors have had $3-500 water bills a month to keep their front yards alive.
The few that listened and stopped watering, were just hit with city redtags to redo their yards. With specific requirements for sand/dirt/rocks/plants/trees.....all in percentages. Like stupid percentages. 8% rock, 11.4% bushy plant.
Too many people wondering what’s in their neighbor’s poop. Why I left small towns. Now it’s here too.
Good thing I just learned I don’t have cancer today....or I’d encourage doing something stupid.
If only California was located near a large body of water that they could purify.
... oh wait.
One makes the wars worse by lying about them.
Newspapers have lately been doing a superb job about that.
Good. The human created dust bowl needs to end
It’d be too expensive to filter out the radionuclides from the seawater. Fukushima.
Pacific’s Fuk’d.
“In the old days, with grandpa, we used sardines. We’d cut pieces...and grandpa would have them for lunch.”
Thanks for reminded me that I was a lot more fortunate than most kids now days.
Ping
Kalifornia is near, very close to the Specific Ocean. Trouble is, that all salt water, and all the money is going for a train to nowhere that can never be built. Priorities you know!
California democrats are perfectly capable at mucking everything up all by themselves.
The SoCal folks need to pay for massive Desalination Plants, cut their birthrate to zer0, or move.
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