Sunday, February 16, 2014

Federal rules leave drought-stricken California high and dry

“In this present crisis, government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.” With that famous phrase at his 1981 inauguration, Ronald Reagan called out the federal government for overregulation that helped drive the economy into a ditch. For Californians today experiencing a severe drought, Reagan’s words should once again hit home. Of course, the weather is the prime culprit. Until a desperately needed storm moved in this past weekend, it had been a dry winter, — and the storm hasn’t compensated for the months without rainfall. However, the damaging effects have been magnified by destructive regulations. Federal policies under the Endangered Species Act are making things worse, not better. The scale of “this present crisis” — what Gov. Gov. Jerry Brown warned could be a “mega-drought” — can be seen in some compelling numbers. Seventeen rural communities were put on a watch list for severe water shortages, and for the first time, water agencies serving 25 million people were told they won’t receive any of their allocation from state-run reservoirs. While rationing has been promoted in many communities, and vast areas of farmland have been removed from production, people ought to be asking: Where is the water that should have been saved for a non-rainy day? Answer: Millions of gallons were diverted from human use because of federal regulations intended to help a tiny fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the delta smelt. The smelt is listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act, and the feds claim it benefits if less water is available to be pumped south to the San Joaquin Valley, Los Angeles and San Diego. For example, from December 2012 to February 2013 alone, more than 800,000 acre-feet of water that could have been conserved behind dams was allowed to flow to the sea. That water could have provided for the needs of 800,000 families. It could have irrigated 200,000 acres of cropland. This flushing of torrents of water to the sea is a new practice in California, threatening to make not just the current drought, but every future one, far more painful than necessary. The trigger for this destructive new policy was the feds’ 2008 “biological opinion” for the smelt, which essentially said people’s needs for water may not even be considered. Result: The state’s water “treasuries” were raided...more

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