3 ms·

Driving through the Central Valley on a regular basis, it's interesting the entirely different beliefs/expectations about water that seems to drive politics the

by xp84 3y ago

Driving through the Central Valley on a regular basis, it's interesting the entirely different beliefs/expectations about water that seems to drive politics there. There are signs everywhere railing against the state government for "dumping our dam water into the ocean" which is apparently a political memeification based on a Trump quip. It makes it sound like from the perspective of the Central Valley farming interests, California's cities should just shut off water to homes and businesses, plus allow rivers to be completely run dry by farming to the point saltwater flows inland in the delta, to make it possible for farms to always get unlimited cheap water to grow their choice of crops. The signs also say "Is growing food wasting water????" as though the choice is to either allow unlimited irrigation, or end all farming, ignoring the option that they 'spend' water on crops within a realistic budget even when that doesn't allow full maximization of crops every year. It seems like this lack of realism due to people's desire for very simple good-guy/bad-guy partisan narratives will continue affecting internal CA water politics, which are based on the Sierra Nevada-sourced water that flows in the California Water Project to Los Angeles.

amflare 3y ago
[flagged]
- padjo 3y ago
  The fish are close to extinction, humans are struggling to water their lawns.
- dymk 3y ago
  It's understandable until you consider that you live in the same food web as those fish, and ecosystems are a little more complex than "Divert all the top-level resources to humans".
  - cmh89 3y ago
    Forget the food web, other people also exist, which is incredibly hard for central valley farmers to understand. I'm not sure the workers of the decimated pacific fishing industry would quite agree that the fish are 'random'. It really comes down to living in a society with competing interests. Society has decided that protecting the last salmon is somewhat important. I say somewhat because central valley farmers are HEAVILY subsidized by the state and federal government and still to get to take the lions share of the water to grow water intensive crops on the desert heat. What's that old saying? "When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression".
- callalex 3y ago
  You are doing exactly what the comment you replied to is talking about. Extreme hyperbole helps nobody, and compromise is required when it comes to businesses that exploit any natural resource.
- gamblor956 3y ago
  Central Valley farmers are in this predicament because they spent the last 20 years railing against climate change instead of implementing water-saving techniques for the megadrought that everyone knew was coming. While residents have cut back on their water use by 50% or more in SoCal, Central Valley farmers increased their water use over the past 2 decades. Agriculture now represents 80%+ of the water use in CA, but only about 3% of its economy. If they were growing food with all that water, people might give a damn. But they're not; they're growing alfalfa for export to feed pigs and livestock in other countries that are smart enough not to waste their water on feed crops.
s1artibartfast 3y ago
If you are curious and want to learn, Central Valley in California and Farmers have a lot of legitimate grievances. Wanting unlimited water is a pretty biased take. The start of the whole issue was that many Central Valley Farms and counties raised bonds to put in aqueducts and entered into purchase agreements with the state of California. The California legislature then passed environmental regulation and stopped providing the water. In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract. The farmer's position is that the state needs to fulfill it's half of the contract or buy its way out of the obligations it made. A similar legal battle is playing out all throughout California over groundwater. In those cases, the state passed environmental regulation bypassing the eminent domain process. I know dozens of families that have lost their life's work and savings overnight because the state thinks it found a loophole to stop them from using water without using eminent domain to buy it. The closest analogy for the groundwater situation is if you owned a farm in a migratory bird path and the state passed a law for minimum roosting land. Then, instead of buying your farmland, they made a law that you aren't allowed to step foot on it.
- cmh89 3y ago
  > In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract. Do you have citations for this? >The closest analogy for the groundwater situation is if you owned a farm in a migratory bird path and the state passed a law for minimum roosting land. Then, instead of buying your farm and land, they didn't compensate you but said you aren't allowed to continue using it as you have been. isn't this how literally all laws prohibiting something work? The government generally doesn't prohibit something if no one is doing it. Why should the government buy their land? For example, the government built the interstate highway network of which all of those central valley farmers need to ship their products by using the law to seize land and then changing the character of millions of acres of homes from quiet and peaceful to loud and toxic. They did not generally buyout homeowners who were not necessary to build the road despite fundamentally changing how they were using their property.
  - 3y ago

by xp84 3y ago

amflare 3y ago

[flagged]

padjo 3y ago
The fish are close to extinction, humans are struggling to water their lawns.
dymk 3y ago
It's understandable until you consider that you live in the same food web as those fish, and ecosystems are a little more complex than "Divert all the top-level resources to humans".
- cmh89 3y ago
  Forget the food web, other people also exist, which is incredibly hard for central valley farmers to understand. I'm not sure the workers of the decimated pacific fishing industry would quite agree that the fish are 'random'. It really comes down to living in a society with competing interests. Society has decided that protecting the last salmon is somewhat important. I say somewhat because central valley farmers are HEAVILY subsidized by the state and federal government and still to get to take the lions share of the water to grow water intensive crops on the desert heat. What's that old saying? "When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression".
callalex 3y ago
You are doing exactly what the comment you replied to is talking about. Extreme hyperbole helps nobody, and compromise is required when it comes to businesses that exploit any natural resource.
gamblor956 3y ago
Central Valley farmers are in this predicament because they spent the last 20 years railing against climate change instead of implementing water-saving techniques for the megadrought that everyone knew was coming. While residents have cut back on their water use by 50% or more in SoCal, Central Valley farmers increased their water use over the past 2 decades. Agriculture now represents 80%+ of the water use in CA, but only about 3% of its economy. If they were growing food with all that water, people might give a damn. But they're not; they're growing alfalfa for export to feed pigs and livestock in other countries that are smart enough not to waste their water on feed crops.

s1artibartfast 3y ago

If you are curious and want to learn, Central Valley in California and Farmers have a lot of legitimate grievances. Wanting unlimited water is a pretty biased take. The start of the whole issue was that many Central Valley Farms and counties raised bonds to put in aqueducts and entered into purchase agreements with the state of California. The California legislature then passed environmental regulation and stopped providing the water. In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract. The farmer's position is that the state needs to fulfill it's half of the contract or buy its way out of the obligations it made. A similar legal battle is playing out all throughout California over groundwater. In those cases, the state passed environmental regulation bypassing the eminent domain process. I know dozens of families that have lost their life's work and savings overnight because the state thinks it found a loophole to stop them from using water without using eminent domain to buy it. The closest analogy for the groundwater situation is if you owned a farm in a migratory bird path and the state passed a law for minimum roosting land. Then, instead of buying your farmland, they made a law that you aren't allowed to step foot on it.

cmh89 3y ago
> In many instances this water was already paid for, or the state decided that farmers must continue to pay while the state doesn't hold up their side of the contract. Do you have citations for this? >The closest analogy for the groundwater situation is if you owned a farm in a migratory bird path and the state passed a law for minimum roosting land. Then, instead of buying your farm and land, they didn't compensate you but said you aren't allowed to continue using it as you have been. isn't this how literally all laws prohibiting something work? The government generally doesn't prohibit something if no one is doing it. Why should the government buy their land? For example, the government built the interstate highway network of which all of those central valley farmers need to ship their products by using the law to seize land and then changing the character of millions of acres of homes from quiet and peaceful to loud and toxic. They did not generally buyout homeowners who were not necessary to build the road despite fundamentally changing how they were using their property.
- 3y ago