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CCT
Trad climber
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Jul 16, 2014 - 11:29am PT
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Seconded about the new orchards. I was a little shocked to see one on the drive back from Yosemite this weekend.
Water rights in this state are managed oddly, to say the least.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2014 - 11:32am PT
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Seems every time I drive out to Modesto I see new almond orchards being put in. I've only just started to see people holding off -- they've prepared the land but are waiting... probably for another well to be drilled.
Clearly the only way forward is to regulate well drilling for agricultural use, at least in the central valley. Right now it's pretty much: dig deeper and whoever has the deepest well wins.
yeah, and the latest uc davis study actually didn't make that clear because they lumped in all the new almonds going in around oakdale, modesto and fresno with the fallowing in other locales, so the huge expansion of permanent crops (mostly going into what used to be pasturage) is invisible to a lot of folks. and yeah, it's new megawells driving it.
the main constraints at the moment are the backlog of well-drillers and the nursery supply of row-read almond/walnut seedlings.
we're seeing a huge rush of profit-taking as folks scramble to suck turn as much as possible of their neighbor's water into almonds and cash.
dmt is right, it's all going to go to a huge court cluster. there is zero political will on either side of the aisle to deal with what everyone competent understands to be the key issues.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 16, 2014 - 11:37am PT
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2014 - 11:42am PT
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that chart would look radically different right now
huge increase in groundwater pumping. and we can't even really quantify it, because california is the one state that doesn't have any real monitoring.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:03pm PT
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You think it surprises Gov. Brown that people, you for example, refuse to use less water (by your own words) and in fact purposely use more?
Sting us, Milktoast.
Catholics' holy water: "$500 fine per parishioner, Monsignor."
Each trip through the car wash: "$500 fine, Lady."
Each time the baby gets thrown out with the bath water: "$500 fine and two years in jail for child endangerment, Mom."
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:04pm PT
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Up until forty years ago, California's water supply kept pace with our population growth.
Then it stopped. Guess who was Governor then?
In the meantime, our population has doubled, yet the State hasn't done a damn thing to ensure the water supply has kept up with the increase. Nothing for forty years.
Yet there are billions of dollars for Bullet Trains and *stem cell research* ( which hasn't produced a cure for anything, despite billons spent ). None of those are more necessary than water.
The same people who are responsible for water being a problem now wonder why water use goes up during a drought, and they wonder why people don't have a lot of faith in their solutions.
Nobody's surprised by this, except for guys like Governor Brown.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:11pm PT
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Up until forty years ago, California's water supply kept pace with our population growth.
this isn't even remotely true-- not even in the same galaxy let alone the ballpark.
ignorance is not a good foundation for advancing empirical claims.
and no, brown's not going to offer any real political leadership on this issue nor is, apparently, any other influential california or national politician.
nor do the california voters want it.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:17pm PT
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What's the State done since the Feather River Project? Besides double the population?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:29pm PT
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What's the State done since the Feather River Project? Besides double the population?
each major moment in cali water history emerged out of a crisiss. lux v. haggin and the california doctrine; the wright act; the major municipal projects, esp hetch-hetchy and ladwp; the newlands reclamation act and the cvp; and then the state water project.
the swp collapsed in the middle-seventies for two different reasons. first, we'd picked all the low-hanging fruit. the most practical and least-expensive reservoir sites had band built, and the last of them, the new melones addition, turned out to be a nightmare costing jillions in oveer-runs and maintenance.
then cali voters-- you prolly one of them--decide that govt was too big and passed prop 13 casting the state into immediate financial crisis. the last big swp project, the kern water bank, had cost 80 millions but wasnt quite completed.
so the state, now in fiscal crisis, basically gifted the kern water bank it to paramount farms, a private corporation now the world's largest almond grower.
as best i can tell, you're furious that prop 13 ended the last big water project, and you want another big water project to move on all the expansion that was too costly for us to puruse last time.
and apparently, you want us to do this so that we can continue to subsidize almond exports to china.
i am touched by your devotion to the plight of the emerging chinese middle-class.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:31pm PT
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Chaz seems to be overlooking a little fact...
34 Jerry Brown January 6, 1975 January 3, 1983 Democratic
35 George Deukmejian January 3, 1983 January 7, 1991 Republican
36 Pete Wilson January 7, 1991 January 4, 1999 Republican
37 Gray Davis January 4, 1999 November 17, 2003 Democratic
38 Arnold Schwarzenegger November 17, 2003 January 3, 2011 Republican
39 Jerry Brown January 3, 2011 Incumbent Democratic
the water issue cannot be blamed on Jerry Brown... and it is much older than the 1970s
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Jul 16, 2014 - 12:31pm PT
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OK, Mr Kos, it's only been thirty years!
I remember watching its progress from Taquitz.
EDIT:
Dr Hartouni,
Wilson and Schwartznegger presided over their own dry stretches, and didn't do anything either.
And Davis was the one, who instead of simply generating more electricity ( like they were going to have to anyway, and did ), wanted everyone to turn off their Christmas Lights at Christmastime.
I don't see how anyone can blame one party over another. They're both in on it. One's the Bag Man. The other one drives the Getaway Car.
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couchmaster
climber
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Jul 16, 2014 - 01:25pm PT
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At some point it's diminishing returns Chaz. You run out of water to damn (dam LOL, see that?). Really. However, that said, I too, find it curious that Cali can fund a multi-billion dollar bullet train (they don't need and can't afford to annually fund) but can't afford to buy up some of the soon to be out of business farmers water rights.
Sympathies to the farmers.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 16, 2014 - 01:32pm PT
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However, that said, I too, find it curious that Cali can fund a multi-billion dollar bullet train (they don't need and can't afford to annually fund) but can't afford to buy up some of the soon to be out of business farmers water rights.
Sympathies to the farmers.
california voters are idiots. bullet train! stem cell research! three strikes! next we'll have more dams. each one a direct product of the proposition system after failing in which used to be constitutional representational government.
i have a lot of sympathy for the small ranchers, especially, and the small farmers and viticulturists who've been trying to be responsible.
i have remarkably little sympathy for the resnicks and the mega-dairies, and the almond barons. one of the reasons this is so tragic is that the fallout is going to come down hardest-- is coming down hardest --on many of the most responsible folks. we're going to end up with more consolidation, bailouts for the biggest connected folks, more feed lot beef, and a swathe of destruction among the exact landscapes and communities that we really ought to be building up.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 16, 2014 - 01:48pm PT
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2014 - 08:00am PT
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i haven't read yesterday's decision in the legal battle up in siskiyou, but this summary suggests that it could be a major step toward groundwater regulation.
http://www.capradio.org/28181
apparently the ruling held that "public trust doctrine" applied to groundwater pumping at least as it affects riparian flow. that would be a potentially big event, but it depends on the details of the ruling.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2014 - 08:19am PT
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No word on appeal, seems inevitable?
i haven't heard, and i don't think i know anyone who worked this case.
nationally, there's no question about the constitutionality of regulating groundwater-- we're the only state that doesn't do it.
cali water law, though, is a special cluster because it mixes two philosophically opposed doctrines: riparian rights and prior appropriation. so each of these decisions risks becominbg another layer of cluster on top of the last century of cluster.
the summary seems pretty confident, but the devil will be in the details. was hoping someone here might've worked this one.
edit--
found it
http://www.envirolaw.org/documents/ScottOrderonCrossMotions.pdf
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 17, 2014 - 08:27am PT
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yeah, as i expected, the key phrase here is this:
the court concludes the public trust doctrine protects navigable
waterways from harm caused by groundwater extraction
that limits the range of application, so it's probably not as broad as the story summary suggested. but still a big deal.
i can imagine lots of problems, since it basically orders counties to do the regulating, and the counties have no money and in most cases, no inclination. the immediate outcome is likely to be a raft of more suits.
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Jingy
climber
Somewhere out there
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Jul 17, 2014 - 08:53am PT
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My take on the drought:
If you have to ask then a drought is happening.
I got a rule during constant drought that we have been living in for the last decade (I can care less what the "official - We are in a drought" date was, but if feels like my entire life has been about conserving water due to drought).
In my world I don't see requests to conserve water to be a bad thing... As a human and as part of being in a society I know that having access to fresh drinking water is important...
So I do my best to not waste water. I try to use as little as possible and I get by. When I turn off the spigot I don't feel that I am being slighted, or that I am doing something against my will, or that I have lost any personal freedoms.
Unfortunately, being part of this society I know I cannot ask my fellow Americans to minimize their water use due to the fact that I am surrounded by Self-Important, self-righteous Americans who think that freedom is having the ability to yell their opinion unnecessarily at full volume, spew foul sh#t into the air and generally burn anything at will... because.... it's their right?
What ever happened to doing the right thing?
What ever happened to civic duty?
What ever happened to not behaving like a virus...?
They are Americans and they are human.
But I am a part of this society, therefore I am American and I am human.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 17, 2014 - 08:56am PT
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"Navigable" water ways can often cover a lot of history. IIR back east it included pre-Colombian use too. But perhaps not an issue in California history.
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