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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is a big difference between the rich who are losing their house and the super rich who control California and its water.

This was posted in politics but was enlightening.

While 40 million Californians suffer through unprecedented drought, one billionaire couple owns a massive share of the state's water system, largely seized in a series of secretive meetings two decades ago.

That system was largely paid for by the very taxpayers whose water these billionaires hold hostage.  The Resnicks are the biggest farmers in California–as of 2007 they owned four San Francisco’s worth of farmland. Nearly half of Americans buy at least one of their products: pistachios, POM pomegranate juice, mandarins, flowers, and more.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4B19qb1Az94[/quote]

Idk if "hold hostage" is a fair assessment. How many jobs do these many agricultural ventures provide? How much do they pay in taxes? How much revenue goes to the state? It's not like they benefit 100% as a couple and nobody else does. [/quote]

They provide 2% of California gdp. they privately control many of Californias reservoirs and prioritize agriculture over urban supply.  The Monterey plan was executed without state politicians or public input decades ago.[/quote]

Wrong - all of agriculture is 2% of California’s  GDP.
However it consumes 80% of their water supply so the state has to buy their water from the privately owned reservoirs (ironically built by the state but handed over to private “water authorities”).

So counties like LA buy water when there is a drought from agriculture owners.

Total scam.[/quote]

I mean, I don’t pretend to know anything about farming in California, but this country does need food to eat. California grows food that we eat. And they have a pretty high GDP so the fact that farming is a low percentage doesn’t mean it’s not big. I’m not suggesting that there isn’t gross mismanagement and complete incompetence going on there because there obviously is, but let’s remember that we do need to eat.[/quote]

So first 2.5% of California’s GDP on agriculture translates to producing 75% of the fruits and nuts and 30% of the vegetables consumed in the US. California’s agri output exceeds all of France the largest agri producer in Europe. It’s important. Also GDP is fueled by not only Silicon Valley and Entertainment but all the other services like real estate, financial services, IT services and manufacturing. CA is more comparable to another country than another state.

Water rights in CA are Byzantine, a nightmare and entangled in long standing laws. It’s not a management issue, it’s a legal nightmare. You would need for the agricultural areas to turn blue, change the state constitution and laws and then disentangle all the water rights contracts and deeds going back 100 years. So if somehow you emerge from this quagmire, then what? CA has whiplash weather from climate change. Fill your reserves to the brim, and destroy communities with floods when it rains? Build fast, remove refs but then when an earthquake hits the damn or reservoir fails and you destroy communities. Fill every inch of land in the path of Santa Ana winds with concrete? OK you just raised the temperature and created stronger back cycles. [/quote]

Seems like they need entirely new water infrastructure. A big system of dams with the ability to pump between them. And yes the water coming from up north where they have too much of it (sorry Gavin but Trump is right on this one). I agree they don’t need more concrete (I used to live there and it’s hot and dry enough as it is). They do waste huge amounts of water in landscaping though. We were required by our HOA to keep our grass (must be grass) very green or they’d fine us. That meant sprinklers every other day. And we used to get letters in the mail telling us to use less water but we couldn’t do anything about watering the grass. That type of thing needs to be banned. They need more big trees to lower temps but less grass. Basically they need to embrace the fact that SoCal is a desert and stop pretending it’s not. Not unless you can bring a LOT of water down from the north in an economical way.[/quote]

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