California's Drought Man-Made? It Was Created By Environmentalists, Congressman Devin Nunes Says
Nunes writes at Investors.com, taking on the claim "There's not enough water in California":
Environmentalists often claim that the California water crisis stems from the state not having enough water to satisfy its rapidly growing population, especially during a drought.However, the state in fact has abundant water flowing into the Delta, which is the heart of California's irrigation structure. Water that originates in the snowpack of the Sierra Nevada Mountains runs off into the Delta, which has two pumping stations that help distribute the water throughout the state.
But on average, due to environmental regulations as well as a lack of water storage capacity (attributable, in large part, to activist groups' opposition to new storage projects), 70% of the water that enters the Delta is simply flushed into the ocean. California's water infrastructure was designed to withstand five years of drought, so the current crisis, which began about three years ago, should not be a crisis at all. During those three years, the state has flushed more than 2 million acre-feet of water -- or 652 billion gallons -- into the ocean due to the aforementioned biological opinions, which have prevented the irrigation infrastructure from operating at full capacity.
His eyes were first opened in the summer of 2002, at an "eye-opening meeting" with representatives from the Natural Resources Defense Council and local environmental activist groups:
Hoping to convince me to support various water restrictions, they argued that San Joaquin Valley farmers should stop growing alfalfa and cotton in order to save water -- though they allowed that the planting of high-value crops such as almonds could continue. Then, as our discussion turned to the groups' overall vision for the San Joaquin Valley, they told me something astonishing:Their goal was to remove 1.3 million acres of farmland from production. They showed me maps that laid out their whole plan: From Merced all the way down to Bakersfield, and on the entire west side of the Valley as well as part of the east side, productive agriculture would end and the land would return to some ideal state of nature. I was stunned by the vicious audacity of their goal -- and I quickly learned how dedicated they were to realizing it.
He also has solutions to the water crisis:
The solution comprises these three simple measures:
• Return Delta pumping to normal operations at federal and state pumps. Because normal pumping levels are already paid for, this measure would cost taxpayers zero dollars.• Fix the San Joaquin River Settlement. Instead of continuing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on an unworkable scheme to recreate salmon runs, we should turn the San Joaquin River into a year-round flowing river with recirculated water. This approach would be good for the warm-water fish habitat and for recreation, and it would save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars that will otherwise go down the salmon-run rat hole.
• Expedite and approve construction of major new water projects. This should include building the Temperance Flat dam along the San Joaquin River, raising Shasta dam to increase its reservoir capacity, expanding the San Luis Reservoir and approving construction of the Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley. Because water users themselves should rightfully pay for these projects, they would cost federal taxpayers zero dollars.
These measures would not only end the water crisis, they would improve the environment for fish and wildlife -- all while saving taxpayer dollars.
A lot of these measures are taking place now under the forceful leadership of Jerry Brown. What motivates Jerry Brown to do this? As near as I can tell, he's motivated by hatred of his father, Pat Brown, under whose leadership California's water projects got their start. Shutting down the water projects is Jerry Brown's teenage rebellion.
Cousin Dave at August 7, 2015 5:30 AM
I am sure Jerry Brown is too busy trying the plug the holes in the exsanguination of CALPERs to allocate anything for infrastructure.
Isab at August 7, 2015 7:54 AM
If environmentalists were just honest that their end game requires the deaths of hundreds of million of humans I could respect them more
lujlp at August 7, 2015 8:58 AM
@ Cousin Dave - not quite. California has a long and storied history of water development on the West side of the Sierras going back the best part of 150 years, when it was all about logging and mining. Pat Brown was definitely a Johnny-come-lately compared to giants like Mulholland and the great Federal irrigators of the 1930s and 1940s. They literally altered the landscape forever.
But of course, we are now at the point where California state government has become the living proof of the old adage - if you put government in charge of the Sahara Desert, pretty soon, you'd have a shortage of sand. California has no shortage of water, in fact, it has a massive over-supply problem - why do you suppose that Los Angeles is shot through with huge drainage channels, hundreds of feet wide and a hundred feet deep? They're not just there to film movie chase scenes in. Congressman Nunes is exactly right - California doesn't have a water shortage, it has a common sense shortage. Water has been a) grievously mispriced for decades, encouraging wasteful and uneconomic uses, which now all have their own lobbying groups in Sacramento and DC to make sure it continues , and b) diverted, managed, lobbied for and argued over for 101 purposes which have nothing to do with water use. The silly-ass pipe-dream of restoring California's rivers to some imagined pre-Columbian state of nature which the Congressman describes is a perfect example.
llater,
llamas
llamas at August 7, 2015 9:04 AM
"If environmentalists were just honest that their end game requires the deaths of hundreds of million of humans I could respect them more" lujlp
agreed, lujlp... many of them actually want no humans, though maybe they exempt themselves... yet they'll tell you they believe in evolution, jut not that humans are part of it. :shrug:
SwissArmyD at August 7, 2015 9:20 AM
Teachers who are certainly not pro-death will still often say, about overpopulation problems: "The problem is not the birth rate, the problem is that the death rate has gone way down."
Well, since no one will openly advocate for a higher death rate, aside from bloodthirsty dictators, that MAKES the birth rate the new problem. (But, according to one source, even falling birth rates around the world are no match for growing life expectancies, which is why we shouldn't expect to see the world population do anything but grow past 10 billion - maybe even before 2050. The difference is that by then, maybe 1/3 of the people or more will be over 60, unlike now.)
And, as I may have mentioned before, since society learned to adjust to all the terrifying changes to the economy created by the horseless carriage, heartbreaking though it was for thousands of families whose skills became obsolete, we really should be able to find ways to adjust to a shortage of young taxpayers. My guess is, it will be a matter of teaching everyone money-saving skills from day one, plus much better public transportation and other technology to help the elderly.
lenona at August 8, 2015 9:55 AM
I should add that according to the Hunger Project, hunger drives UP the birth rate, since Third World societies with high death rates - whether due to hunger or war - always naturally have high birth rates to make up for all the losses. "When people know their children will NOT die, they have fewer children."
lenona at August 8, 2015 9:59 AM
"we really should be able to find ways to adjust to a shortage of young taxpayers"
There is no secret here Lenona. History offers all the common solutions. Parents will move in with their kids when they can no longer afford to live on their own. People without kids will end up in poor houses paid for by the government or religious groups. A small percentage of people will save and take care of their own retirements just like today.
Ben at August 8, 2015 5:20 PM
Then why do so many conservatives - in many countries - talk as though the solution is not what you mentioned, but for UNWILLING couples to have more kids for the sake of creating more taxpayers? (Often, but not always, those conservatives don't bother suggesting anything that would help a willing-but-poor couple to afford at least one kid. Ross Douthat was one example of that - he simply scolded, in effect, those people who don't have kids, whether for economic reasons or not.)
It's also important to remember that even if you have four kids, two of them could turn out to be drains on society who never pay taxes, and the other two could be perfect young adults who die in car accidents - or become quadriplegics. So don't count on your kids to support you when you're old.
Interesting (if nasty) thread in response to the Wall Street Journal's columnist Jonathan V. Last on Feb. 12, 2013 ("America's Baby Bust"):
http://www.refugees.bratfree.com/read.php?2,274817,274840
("Boo Hoo...People don't wanna have babees.")
Some of the better comments are by:
surgicalvetnurse
CFinPenthouse
barbur
Anonymous User
lenona at August 10, 2015 9:43 AM
Leave a comment