Opinion: California drought manmade intentionally

[Maxmars]

The source for this thread is an opinion piece.  That means that it will pretty much be ignored by most people who aren't interested in opinions.

But the information relayed seems very real and quite worthy of consideration.  Especially since California advocate journalists and activist whine about the climate most, and loudest.

Source The Epoch Times: California’s Perpetual Drought Is Manmade and Intentional
 

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...Over several decades, the public has been deceived into voting for water bonds that have little new water in them—phony promises to build new water storage and aqueducts. About 12 percent of bond funds are spent on new water storage. The rest of the bond funds have been squandered on scores of local and special-interest environmental projects, e.g., tearing down four Klamath-area dams—killing fish to save them—and opposing substantial new water projects, e.g., raising Shasta Dam and building Auburn Dam.
Further, by California law, water must be equitably distributed, pumped “equally”—half to human beings (if you count agriculture) and half to fish (the water-short Pacific Ocean, 187 quadrillion gallons). During the big rains of 2024, about 90 percent of the water was flushed to the Pacific through the gills of perhaps a half dozen delta smelt.

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Water management for a population on the edge of a desert is crucially important... but not important enough to threaten commerce it would appear.  Damn the citizens, we have profit to make.
 

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As I have said before, California wastes tens of billions of dollars’ worth (at a conservative $100–$200 an acre-foot) of precious fresh water to save handfuls of delta smelt and “restore” salmon runs where salmon never ran before.

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I thought some might like to backcheck these statements, or at least register them in their internal databases of memory.

[guyfriday]

It's worse than that. Kern County California isn't allowed to use the water that is stored there since all of it is earmarked for LA County use. The people in Kern County didn't have any water and was forced to get limited water from the state through water trucks. Now the water that Kern County is allowed to have access to is being poisoned, and the state is just blaming it on "Climate Change" amongst other factors. 

If you really want to see how bad this mess is and who behind it all, go look up information on the Resnick family and their involvement in California politics. Hell you can even look up the changes to that doomed California highspeed rail, and those weird stops it was going to make, with where the Resnick family has businesses and homes. Then you can see how badly California is controlled by this one family.

[Maxmars]

It's worse than that. Kern County California isn't allowed to use the water that is stored there since all of it is earmarked for LA County use. The people in Kern County didn't have any water and was forced to get limited water from the state through water trucks. Now the water that Kern County is allowed to have access to is being poisoned, and the state is just blaming it on "Climate Change" amongst other factors. 

If you really want to see how bad this mess is and who behind it all, go look up information on the Resnick family and their involvement in California politics. Hell you can even look up the changes to that doomed California highspeed rail, and those weird stops it was going to make, with where the Resnick family has businesses and homes. Then you can see how badly California is controlled by this one family.

I suspected that some of the old ways of powerful 'family' concerns were a factor.  It makes me wonder about the nature of their representation, and how they can justify going along quietly with the continued abuses of their "sponsors."  I suppose that they get elected and appointed by the embedded influences in the order of their government.

Kind of sad, no?  We could rail against the inequity, but who actually listens?  Is it that those who could take steps to fix this simply won't? (Or perhaps they can't.)

We could make a huge list, a litany of grief... including the inhabitants of Kern County... but who takes on the responsibility to fix it?  If not the local government officials, not the regional representatives... who is left?

It seems to me that water is too important to allow private profiteering to interfere. 

This is the stuff of the legendary "black pill" everyone yields to... it engenders the cynicism we have to overcome somehow.

[Nerb]

I thought some might like to backcheck these statements, or at least register them in their internal databases of memory.

I know it might be a pain, but is there a chance of quoting the whole article because I won't sign up to a news site that demands I do to read the article.

Regarding the water: I think it is criminal what is happening. For the authorities to take so much money and throw it at anything but supplying the residents good clean drinking water from an infrastructure already in place is madness. I can't say I understand too much about "water bonds" but I seem to remember there was a Simpsons episode that dealt with that. Maybe "Watch The Water" comes into it.

I can only imagine that this whole fiasco is part of a long term plan to make it impossible for residents to live there and free up the area for future development for the Elite, just like burning Lahaina or any other situation where long term residents under the pressures of an apparent natural disaster are not only ignored but actively displaced.

Paying attention to land sales would be a good marker. Follow the money. Seems like a lot of it is going to things that don't address the immediate problems.

Cheers for posting and I'll return for more.

[Maxmars]

I know it might be a pain, but is there a chance of quoting the whole article because I won't sign up to a news site that demands I do to read the article.

Regarding the water: I think it is criminal what is happening. For the authorities to take so much money and throw it at anything but supplying the residents good clean drinking water from an infrastructure already in place is madness. I can't say I understand too much about "water bonds" but I seem to remember there was a Simpsons episode that dealt with that. Maybe "Watch The Water" comes into it.

I can only imagine that this whole fiasco is part of a long term plan to make it impossible for residents to live there and free up the area for future development for the Elite, just like burning Lahaina or any other situation where long term residents under the pressures of an apparent natural disaster are not only ignored but actively displaced.

Paying attention to land sales would be a good marker. Follow the money. Seems like a lot of it is going to things that don't address the immediate problems.

Cheers for posting and I'll return for more.

My apologies regarding the source website.  I have never signed up but it hasn't begun to pester me for information.  I would like to offer as much of the material as is allowed... but I am sensitive to posting all their work here... some authors are jealous, most news sites moreso.

I will offer what I can...
 

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The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) last week released its next five-year plan for the State Water Project—Update 2023. After years of meetings, California’s premier water agency has decided to focus on “three intersecting themes: addressing climate urgency, strengthening watershed resilience, and achieving equity in water management.”

Water supplies for California’s 40 million people and the planet’s most productive agriculture have third- to fifth-level priority.

There is nothing new here, except to publicly admit to betraying the public trust. Really?

Over several decades, the public has been deceived into voting for water bonds that have little new water in them—phony promises to build new water storage and aqueducts. About 12 percent of bond funds are spent on new water storage. The rest of the bond funds have been squandered on scores of local and special-interest environmental projects, e.g., tearing down four Klamath-area dams—killing fish to save them—and opposing substantial new water projects, e.g., raising Shasta Dam and building Auburn Dam.

Further, by California law, water must be equitably distributed, pumped “equally”—half to human beings (if you count agriculture) and half to fish (the water-short Pacific Ocean, 187 quadrillion gallons). During the big rains of 2024, about 90 percent of the water was flushed to the Pacific through the gills of perhaps a half dozen delta smelt.

The politicos halted humans “taking” water, “diverting” it, from fish. Under the U.S. Constitution, the taking of private property requires just compensation—not mass confiscation. Water rights are a complex species of property.

“Our findings show that atmospheric river activity exceeds what has occurred since instrumental record keeping began,” said Clarke Knight, a U.S. Geological Survey research geographer.

Still, DWR scheduled 2024 meetings of the Drought Resilience Interagency & Partners (DRIP) Collaborative for April, July, and October.

The DRIP fantasy continues despite a deluge of 2024 water from two winters of giant “rivers in the sky” dumping excesses of water and creating massive floods and landslides.

Recent massive atmospheric rivers, Ark events, are small compared to ancient monster storms that occurred long before human beings had any impact whatsoever on climate, let alone weather.

Despite plentiful rainfall, DWR continued to limit pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Central Valley agriculture to 30–40 percent to protect native fish. Nonnative bass are likely the greatest dangers to native fish. DWR insisted that its ability to move water south has been “impacted by the presence of threatened and endangered fish species.”

Those water districts’ contractors, paying the full cost of State Water Project (SWP) water, thought otherwise.

Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, stated: “While we are glad to see this modest allocation, it is still far below the amount of water we need. There is a lot of water in the system, California reservoirs are full, and runoff from snowpack melt is still to come. Even in a good water year, moving water effectively and efficiently under the current regime is difficult.”

California’s drought fixation is entirely manmade. In the past, in wet years, the waters of the Sacramento River, greater than the mighty Colorado, turned the Central Valley into an inland sea.

For over a century, California visionaries followed the lead of the Mesopotamians, Assyrians, Romans, and Nabataeans as well as the Aztecs before them. C.R. Rockwood, William Mulholland, Michael O’Shaughnessy, Gov. Pat Brown, and Gov. Ronald Reagan built dams and aqueducts to store and distribute water and to provide flood protection and hydroelectricity “too cheap to meter.”

As I have said before, California wastes tens of billions of dollars’ worth (at a conservative $100–$200 an acre-foot) of precious fresh water to save handfuls of delta smelt and “restore” salmon runs where salmon never ran before.

As I’ve also mentioned before, tyrannical water police order city folk, who use only 8 percent of California’s water, to drink recycled toilet water and to live on 55 gallons a day. The serfs may bathe every other Saturday whether they need it or not. California demands that its residents take a water conservation pledge: And to the utopia for which it stands. Neighbors turn neighbors in for “wasting” water, not to mention life, liberty, and property.

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Hopefully no one will be offended...

[Nerb]

My apologies regarding the source website. ...

Thanks for posting the info from the article.

I think it's time for new management basically and to realise that saving fish before people is the result of a very dubious system that perhaps has a hidden agenda fuelled by the wishes of elite handlers who really don't care about the people that probably put them where they are. Couple that with minions with badges and everyday folk don't get much of a say.

The whole scenario is a sham imo. I wonder how far this pressure will build until the dam bursts, lots of puns intended.