Do you know water right law in California? I don’t but here you buy long established water rights whether from a body of water or underground aquifer.
When you buy property you get domestic use right and the amount of water is strictly defined. As an example, if you buy an acre and build a house you have enough water right to provide your needs and a lawn and a couple of trees. If you buy 50 acres the water right doesn’t increase, you get just that domestic use.
On agricultural land the rights were already established by the early Spaniards who settled here or were acquired through the federal government by homesteading and are long-standing, they don’t make new ones. No one uses water without that water right, communities, industry or agriculture.
So anyway, you own the rights to a certain amount of water and you pay nothing for it except delivery costs. It is a property right and there aren’t that many in this arid state. Agriculture is not subsidized they actually own the water and pay for the means of delivery.
I understand the water rights are quite complicated and long established.
I was responding to a poster stating the government responsibility to provide water.
In the oil and gas world, private ownership of minerals doesn’t obligate the government to spend money to help move them.
If a farm has water rights, I don’t see it as a government responsibility to provide that water at a distance.
California farmers argue that without federal and state government subsidies, crops could not be grown in desert areas.
In the eastern half of the nation(wet zone), the states use Riparian water rights.
In the west(dry zone), the states use Prior Appropriation water rights.
But, those states that have both a wet and dry zone use the dual doctrine. The dual doctrine states are those that straddle the 98th meridian(TX, OK, KS, etc) and those states that straddle the Cascades/Sierra Nevada(WA, OR, & CA)
Prior Appropriation is characterized as:
First in time, first right. Rights are in a hierarchy based on when they were first used or appropriated. The older the right, the higher the right. The older or more senior your right, the more likely you are to get your water in any given year. The younger or more junior your right, the less likely you will get your water in any given year.
Use it or lose it. If you don't use your water, someone else can, and under certain conditions, that someone else can end up owning the water right(prescriptive water rights).
Highest beneficial use. The water must be put to the highest beneficial use. Traditionally agriculture was the highest beneficial use but in modern times, water that attracts tourist/recreational dollars generates more money(economic output) than some types of agriculture, like growing a low value crop such as hay or potatoes. Tourists will pay big bucks to golf on bent grass greens and fish for trout and salmon.
A third water right in play in CA and other dry states is Federal and Indian Lands Reserved Water Rights, often called Reserved Water Rights. Tribes with Treaty rights to farm and fish have water rights that enable them to farm and fish, that trump prior appropriation water rights. Likewise, federal lands and the flora/fauna have water rights that trump prior appropriation water rights. Often times this takes the form of a minimum instream flow rate, which means you can't take all the water out of the stream to satisfy someone's prior appropriation water right. Most notably, the Delta Smelt(an indicator species) were entitled to a minimum flow, that trumped a farmer's prior appropriation water right.