{"id":8157,"date":"2022-06-20T16:27:57","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T16:27:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8157"},"modified":"2022-06-20T16:27:57","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T16:27:57","slug":"californias-water-bureaucrats-are-making-a-bad-drought-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=8157","title":{"rendered":"California&#8217;s Water Bureaucrats Are Making a Bad Drought Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> &#8220;Nearly 50 percent of the state&#8217;s available\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ppic.org\/publication\/water-use-in-california\/\" target=\"_blank\">water<\/a>\u00a0flows to the Pacific, 40 percent goes to farms and 10 percent goes to urban users. Residences use 5.7 percent of the state&#8217;s water, with half of that going to pools and landscaping. Conservation is a good idea during times of scarcity. But why are environmentalists and regulators fixated on squeezing more drops from those who use the least?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>\u00a0It&#8217;s almost as if they are more intent on punishing Californians for our lifestyles than funneling more water into our system to assure that everyone has the water that they need.&#8221;\u00a0 \u00a0<br>&#8230;<br>&#8220;California needs to build appropriate\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/californiapolicycenter.org\/towards-a-grand-bargain-on-california-water-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\">water-storage facilities<\/a>\u00a0to capture more water during rainy years (and, yes, we&#8217;ll have rainy years again), improve water trading and pricing, and build recycling and desalination plants. We&#8217;re not going to do desalination now obviously, we&#8217;re not fixing the pricing situation and we&#8217;re not building water-storage facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, the governor&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2022\/04\/19\/governor-newsom-highlights-state-action-to-address-water-and-energy-challenges-amid-changing-climate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">rhetoric<\/a>&nbsp;has been good lately when it comes to water, but his action is lacking. He appoints members to the Coastal Commission and we see how that went. He touts his $5.1-billion water infrastructure&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/2021\/05\/10\/governor-newsom-announces-5-1-billion-package-for-water-infrastructure-and-drought-response-as-part-of-100-billion-california-comeback-plan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">package<\/a>&nbsp;as the centerpiece of his efforts to boost water availability, but one need only look at the administration&#8217;s own press package to see it&#8217;s a fairly empty package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The largest&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.ca.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Drought-Response-and-Water-Resilience-Factsheet.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">portion<\/a>&nbsp;($1.3 billion) goes toward drinking and wastewater infrastructure for disadvantaged communities\u2014an important and long-neglected upgrade that nevertheless has little to do with boosting water supplies. The other main expenditures relate to environmental improvements, including fish corridors and water-efficiency subsidies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R\u2013Roseville), has\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/mcclintock.house.gov\/newsroom\/speeches\/california-water-its-the-storage\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a>, &#8220;Droughts are nature&#8217;s fault and they are beyond our control.\u00a0 Water shortages, on the other hand, are our fault.&#8221; Based on the commission&#8217;s decision, it&#8217;s sadly clear that California has made its choice to enter a stage of permanent rationing and endless crisis.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/reason.com\/2022\/05\/20\/californias-water-bureaucrats-are-making-a-bad-drought-worse\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/reason.com\/2022\/05\/20\/californias-water-bureaucrats-are-making-a-bad-drought-worse\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Nearly 50 percent of the state&#8217;s available water flows to the Pacific, 40 percent goes to farms and 10 percent goes to urban users. Residences use 5.7 percent of the state&#8217;s water, with half of that going to pools and landscaping. Conservation is a good idea during times of scarcity. But why are environmentalists and regulators fixated on squeezing more drops from those who use the least?<\/p>\n<p> It&#8217;s almost as if they are more intent on punishing Californians for our lifestyles than funneling more water into our system to assure that everyone has the water that they need.&#8221;   <\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;California needs to build appropriate water-storage facilities to capture more water during rainy years (and, yes, we&#8217;ll have rainy years again), improve water trading and pricing, and build recycling and desalination plants. We&#8217;re not going to do desalination now obviously, we&#8217;re not fixing the pricing situation and we&#8217;re not building water-storage facilities.<br \/>\nAgain, the governor&#8217;s rhetoric has been good lately when it comes to water, but his action is lacking. He appoints members to the Coastal Commission and we see how that went. He touts his $5.1-billion water infrastructure package as the centerpiece of his efforts to boost water availability, but one need only look at the administration&#8217;s own press package to see it&#8217;s a fairly empty package.<\/p>\n<p>The largest portion ($1.3 billion) goes toward drinking and wastewater infrastructure for disadvantaged communities\u2014an important and long-neglected upgrade that nevertheless has little to do with boosting water supplies. The other main expenditures relate to environmental improvements, including fish corridors and water-efficiency subsidies.<\/p>\n<p>As U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock (R\u2013Roseville), has said, &#8220;Droughts are nature&#8217;s fault and they are beyond our control.  Water shortages, on the other hand, are our fault.&#8221; Based on the commission&#8217;s decision, it&#8217;s sadly clear that California has made its choice to enter a stage of permanent rationing and endless crisis.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[304,1214,167,1156],"class_list":["post-8157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-california","tag-drought","tag-government","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8158,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8157\/revisions\/8158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}