California’s State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) voted Wednesday to approve the Bay-Delta plan, which will re-allocate water from farms and cities to the environment in an effort to restore dwindling fish numbers.
The plan will require tributary rivers within the San Joaquin watershed to maintain an average water level of 40% of “unimpeded flow” — that is, the flow that would exist without human activity — during the spring season.
The result is that less water — “billions of gallons,” according to the Fresno Bee — will be available to the farming communities of the Central Valley, as well as to San Francisco and its suburbs, which rely on water from the area.
Last month, outgoing Gov. Jerry Brown and incoming Gov. Gavin Newsom asked the SWRCB to delay its vote by a month to allow time for local water authorities to reach voluntary settlement agreements (VSAs) as an alternative to the new plan. In the interim, several local irrigation districts did, in fact, commit to investing in conservation and environmental projects that would theoretically help restore fish populations without giving up quite so much water.
But as the Bee reports, the SWRCB — all of whose members were appointed by Brown, and who are thought to be partial to environmental groups — passed the plan anyway “to put pressure on a group of holdout water agencies.”
The Trump administration has promised to take legal action to block the plan, which may be moot as a result. Some environmental groups have criticized the Bay-Delta plan for not going far enough.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
This article was originally published by Breitbart.com/California
Desalination plants. Desalination plants . Desalination Plants.
Australia had this problem with water. However, it required building a
completely new electrical generating plant just to run the desalination.
The process to build a plant takes about ten years before the first shovel of dirt can be moved. First obstacle ..the approval of the coastal committee and that is after two or three environment impact studies have been completed . Then you have to comply with city, county , state and federal regulations . Then apply for approval. About ten years of delay built into it by the Democrats because they were told to make it difficult…think beach front property.
Recycle the dam 2 Billion gallons of water that gets dumped DAILY into the sea, just from ONE county.
Lame.
They never come up with the true solution…just twisting in the wind measures that stifle our agriculture/farmers. How else can the gang move to destroy Cali…let me count the ways.
The LEFTISTS want those remaining in CA to be aligned alongside the RR tracks and forced to take bus or trains to their work-.This shows the tyrannical total control of populations and destruction of food production from a once very productive state. Letting terrorists clear the southern borders also assures destruction of creativity and will to produce on an independent basis. Don’t laugh. -The lib-left want this state destroyed as it is heading toward that goal now
Having had such success with forest management the democrats after their owners , the environmentalist will now drive out the farmers from California. It wasn’t that long ago that this same group denied the water rights of the farmers for any water they had access to on their property. That is now considered a public asset .
When these guys already know their “efforts”(?) have not worked and continue to not work, don’t they have the brains to decide to try something else ? Maybe try to eliminate the introduced, predatory striped bass and see what the result of that would be ? Why do they want to reduce our supply of safer food, state income from out-of-state and foreign food sales ? Why do they want to ruin the livelihoods of people who produce our food and others whose lives and/or livelihoods depend on agriculture. I am a city slicker and can’t produce food.
If California had a brains, they would collect water NOT at the headwaters of the rivers, but instead at the mouth of the delta before losing it out to sea. That way they get the best of both worlds….tributaries and streams can flow freely and farmers get full allocations. But they wont, they do rather build a bullet train. So stupid.
Hmmm, Rising sea levels threaten the world but no one wants to use de-sal plants to take the overflowing water back out ? Seems to me that if you are filling a pot with water and you cant shut the water off or move the pt then you take some out by whatever method will work to keep it from flooding over . But I’m just a deplorable citizen . Of course we would have to have many plants to make a difference but at least you would be killing two birds with one stone.
This isn’t about water. It’s about power and control. The government had illegally given themselves the power to control our food, all agriculture and where you can live.
We let Brown steal our water in his 2nd term (Ca Con 10th Amendment)…this is just the finishing touches.
They must “harvest” quite a number of votes from those fish to give them priority over men, women, and children.
Idiots are running California.
Voted in by harvesters filling out ballots.
California no longer is trust worthy.
Her debt is unsustainable.
Her ballot box has no integrity.
Her elected leaders, state and federal have no honor.
Her schools are failures.
There is no moral virtue of any value in any Democrat.
You need to be sued for allowing building in places that do not have enough resources to supply the property. You should buy every home and an inconvenience fee for your inability to manage. Or I guess you could repeat the light our citizens on fire method. 50,000 residents 30,000 structures burned. 85 dead? Where are the people Jerry? Hey take our money water and food you are a fool.m
Hard to grow food with no water, isn’t it? IDIOTS? I swear, the people running this state accept a daily challenge called, “How stupid can we get, today?” Can’t wait to get out of this shit hole.