the problem is that the claims of the central valley farmers and their supporters are only HALF right
it’s true that certain “environmental” concerns are receiving 100% of what the state designated as their portion of water, and the central valley is getting maybe 40% of it’s designated allotment
HOWEVER, even if all water interests in the state got an equal % of their regular allotments, there would still be shortages, because there has been and continues to be drought, in terms of the amount of water California had gotten use to receiving and what it has been getting in recent years.
Yes, the drought is more severe in the southern part of the state - always dryer than the north in good or bad years, in terms of water - but, the state resevoirs are a gage on the drought and a majority are at some stage of drought status and many have been for a number of years.
California has experienced large scale multi-year drought conditions, moderate to severe - 1918-20, 23-26, 28-35, 47-50, 59-62, 76-77, 87-92, 2000-2002, 2007-2009; and in terms of precipitation 2013 was the driest on record. A majority of the state’s resevoirs are at some level of drught status.
Yes - the Liberal ideolgoues and environmental nazis have made the problem for farming worse than it needed to be under the present conditions.
My point is that correcting that will not create the water conditions the state, and the farmers have been used to.
Solutions like desalinization plants are what is needed, or their will never be enough water to satisfy all interests in California, particularly through the dry years. That kind of solution is needed in the southern part of state as well, because the watershed that feeds the Colorado River has not been delivering the kind of quantities that were abundent when the Hoover Dam was built. There is some concern that its hdroelectric generation capacity may be threatened, if drought conditions continue or become more severe.
California has water problems up and down the state.
The pols and ideolgoues have made matters worse for the farmers, worse than needed to be.
But, their actions are not creating the drought, they just make the drought that is worse for some of state’s water interests.
Corn is a HUGE user of water compared to other food crops. And is a REAL waste when used for ethanol fuel, so I did a quick search to see if California was stupid enough. Seems that they are, but the article also told of how they were trying to move away from corn for ethanol:
http://www.ewg.org/agmag/2013/09/california-needs-corn-ethanol-reform
Transitioning away from corn ethanol makes sense for California and the rest of the country. From 2008 to 2011, the mandate has contributed to plowing up more than 23 million acres of wetlands and grasslands – an area the size of Indiana – in order to grow crops, largely corn...
Likewise, the National Academy of Sciences found no evidence that corn ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions and may actually increase them, along with boosting air pollutants...
In California, where water shortages are common, it can take more than 3,500 liters of water to produce a single liter of ethanol, according to researchers at UC Berkeley....