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Economy
Liberals blamed for California drought
2015-04-16
[WASHINGTONTIMES] With everyday Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,ns now on the hook for drastic conservation measures, Republicans say the time has come to focus on the real culprit: a state and federal regulatory framework, fueled by environmental litigation, that requires a certain aquatic environment for at-risk fish while making it nearly impossible to build dams and other water-storage projects.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy
...the GOP house majority whip. He replaces Eric Cantor, who got whupped because his politix are like Kevin McCarthy's...
 described Mr. Brown's April 1 executive order as the "culmination of failed federal and state policies that have exacerbated the current drought into a man-made water crisis."

"Sacramento and Washington have chosen to put the well-being of fish above the well-being of people by refusing to capture millions of acre-feet of water during wet years for use during dry years," the Bakersfield Republican said in a statement. "These policies imposed on us now, and during wet seasons of the past, are leaving our families, businesses, communities and state high and dry."

Environmentalists have long blamed agriculture for absorbing more than its share of water, but figures from the California Department of Water Resources show that farming accounts for about 41 percent of applied water usage. Fully 48 percent is reserved for environmental purposes, which includes improving the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and its most famous inhabitant, the delta smelt.

So far Republicans, farmers and business interests have been unable to drum up much outrage over the situation, but that may change with the Democratic governor's historic restrictions, prompted by a record low snowpack and fourth year of drought.

The order calls for urban water agencies to achieve a 25 percent reduction through methods such as increased rates, reductions in kitchen and bathroom faucet flow rates and converting 50 million square feet of lawn into "drought-tolerant landscaping."

Environmentalists laud the stricter conservation order.

"The days of casual waste and inattentive consumption are over in California," Steve Fleischli, water program director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "Now everyone will be expected to do his or her part to help save water."
Posted by:Fred

#10  The really nasty little secret is that the Delta Smelt is not even a native species and is plentiful in its original habitat.

AND don't forget the Klamath Sucker, another farm killer that wasn't native either (seems it was a bait fish that got loose) but in either case the EPA is not interested in reality. They seem to have an agenda that means no one has a job in Californicate except with the government.
Posted by: Bill Clinton   2015-04-16 20:01  

#9  Subsidies always accrue to the land owner, not who the politician claims.

It's basic Ricardo.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2015-04-16 18:34  

#8  Of course, Carlsbad is a prime example of a city that could never say no to growth. The result is that, while it is gridlocked and overcrowded, the city is flush with money that it can spend on desal plants. The silver lining is they might not have to drink toilet water. The bummer is they are gridlocked and overcrowded.

Gonna need a lot of energy to power those desal plants and the San Onofre nuke plants have been decommissioned. All Moonbeam can think to do is tell us to stop watering our lawns. A columnist in the San Diego Union/Tribune said recently we might need to adopt a more "French" attitude toward personal hygiene. Ewwww!
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2015-04-16 18:06  

#7  Past time to build a few desalinization plants. Carlsbad is building one to supplement our water and half of San Diego is already asking for a cut. It's not even complete yet guys.

If Brown had any courage (besides reversing the crazy environmental laws) he'd set up a plan to build a massive desalinization plant near the San Onofre nuclear reactors. Get enough water for LA and find a way to recapture the salt for sale.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2015-04-16 14:43  

#6  I blame them for about everything they have screwed up which is nearly everything.
Posted by: JohnQC   2015-04-16 13:27  

#5  Even though no major water storage infrastructure has been built or begun the permitting process for decades, and the existing system was meant to support half the current population, if the environment diversions were lessened realistically, the consequences of the drought would be more manageable. The risible reality of the state is that environmental watermelons have halted any practical water storage projects, but politicians cannot even think of doing the alternative, which is halting growth The unspoken, but nasty truth is that the tax benefit of growth fuels the union/Democratic party's ability to control largesse to the idiots that keep them in power. Permitting fees for housing for example can produce as much as $100,000 to local government. Property tax and business taxes are the lifeblood of locals, so no-growth dooms them to frugal budgets. So we have a policy that cannot store water, cannot curb growth, and the only alternative is the rapid decline in the quality of life and property values for citizens. Thus the stewards of the public purse destroy the paradise that was California through craven, intentional neglect of their basic duties.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2015-04-16 13:18  

#4  ...and those 'family farms' are getting healthy farm subsidizes meant for real family farms.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2015-04-16 12:32  

#3  Not that I'm directly involved in it, but I'm afraid a lot of farms in this state have gotten pretty far away from the family farm concept that your parents and grandparents knew in the East and the Midwest. It used to be that kids got out of school for the summer so they could help their parents on the farm. These days in California the work is mostly done on factory farms by illegal aliens on vast fields that a family could never work by themselves while the kids in the cities get fat, lazy and brain dead watching TV all summer in air conditioned comfort. I might catch hell for saying so but it's hard for me to be sympathetic with that.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305   2015-04-16 11:59  

#2  Doing our part, like releasing 4.8 billion gallons of water from a reservoir so that 6 fish can swim down stream
Posted by: Rex Mundi   2015-04-16 11:14  

#1  "Now everyone will be expected to do his or her part to help save water."

Does that include the Delta Smelt? Will the 48% of the State's water "reserved for environmental purposes" also be reduced by 25%? Will 25% of the enviro-weenies move to Cuba?
Posted by: Bobby   2015-04-16 07:33  

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