The WSJ does an indepth analysis of the water problems in CA and concludes environmental regulations are a major contributing factor.

Excerpts (recommend full reading):

"While droughts occur intermittently across the globe, other societies have learned better how to cope with water shortages. For instance, Israel (60% desert) has built massive desalination plants powered by cheap natural gas that helped the country weather the driest winter on record in 2014 and a seven-year drought between 2004 and 2010"

"During normal years, the state should replenish reservoirs. However, environmental regulations require that about 4.4 million acre-feet of water—enough to sustain 4.4 million families and irrigate one million acres of farmland—be diverted to ecological purposes. Even in dry years, hundreds of thousands of acre feet of runoff are flushed into San Francisco Bay to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta."

"Once beloved by greens, desalination has likewise become unfashionable. After six years of permitting and litigation, the company Poseidon this year will finally complete a $1 billion desalination facility that will augment San Diego County’s water supply by 7%. Most other desalination projects have been abandoned."

"Not even Gov. Brown can make it rain, but he and other politicians can stop compounding the damage by putting water storage, transportation and market pricing above environmental obsessions. Do not hold your breath—and prepare for French showers."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-...=trending_now_9

The misallocation of water has produced yet another negative consequence. Brown, emulating Obama, is issuing directives and policies he has no legal authority to issue. Such dictates are the responsibility of the legislature, not the governor. But CA is truly Left and thus accept passively one man rule.

The purpose of environmentalism is two fold: The dimunition of human numbers, and increased control over society by whackos.

This is chilling. Victor Davis Hanson describes conditions he observes in CA.

"The proverbial thin veneer of civilization has never been thinner in California, as if nature has conspired to create even greater chaos than what man here has already wrought. What follows below was a fairly typical seven-day period in the land of the highest sales, fuel, and income taxes that have led to the nearly worst freeways, schools, and general infrastructure in the nation.

I recently came home from an out-of-state trip. Something was wrong: I noticed off in the distance a strange geyser at the top of the hill. Vandals had apparently earlier taken sledgehammers to the pump’s four-inch plastic fittings — all to scavenge two brass valves (recycle value of about $20).

The fools did not know the pump was even on. When they smashed open the plastic pipes the spurting water apparently drenched them, and so they left their self-created mess. (No, criminals here do not know how to turn off a pump.) The ensuing deluge of several hours had ripped a three-foot-deep gully for about 20 yards.

I’ve lost count of how many pumps have been vandalized over the last decade. Some people play golf after work and weekends, but out here the pastime is to drive out to the countryside to wreck things for a few dollars of copper and bronze. It reminds me of the Ottomans in Greece, who pried off the lead seals over the iron clamps that had held together the marble blocks of ancient Greek temples and walls. The Turks, who could make little but scavenge a lot, got their few ounces of lead for bullets. In the exchange, the exposed iron marble clamps rusted and fell apart, ruining the antiquities that had theretofore survived 2,000 years of natural wear and tear. One civilization builds and invests, quite a different one destroys and consumes.

Four days earlier, three people (a male and two females) had parked nearby at the neighbor’s abandoned house. It was said not to meet California’s codes and thus was condemned, though the dwelling is far better built than are the occupied shacks and trailers across the street with various goats, chickens, geese, sheep, and cows grazing between the houses. In any case, the vandals were kicking in the sheet rock to rip out Romex wire (perhaps $5 worth of recyclable wire per ruined wall). I tried to catch them, but by the time I got to the truck and drove back out after them, they were speeding out of the alleyways with impunity.

When these things happen, no one calls the sheriff, the insurance company, or any authority. The problem is so ubiquitous, and the old civilized infrastructure so ossified, that it is impossible to address the vandalism and chronic violation of civilization’s basic tenets.

I think that we’ve come full circle in California: from the premodern Wild West of the 19th century to a decadent postmodernism that is every bit as feral, though the roughness of ascension is always preferable to its counterpart in decline. The day before Easter, Sacramento tried to stage the world’s largest public Easter egg hunt. From news reports it seems quickly to have devolved into a Darwinian free-for-all, where the ochlos swarmed the few who played by the rules.

[snip]

After fixing the broken pipes, the pump ironically went dry the next day."

http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the...nia-apocalypto/

I was born and raised in CA, but had no idea conditions there have become so dire.

Speaking of bad policies.

"174,301 people or 6 fish"

"Correspondence between the National Marine Fisheries Service and Congressman Jeff Denham’s office shows the Bureau of Reclamation wants to flush as much as 15,000 acre feet of water down the Stanislaus River in order to “save” six fish.

In an email Sunny Snider of the federal fish protection agency sent to Denham Chief of Staff Jason Larrabee, it indicated a previous pulse flow in March that significantly raised water levels on the Stanislaus River through Ripon despite being in the middle of a severe drought had moved out 76 percent of the out-migrating steelhead by March 30.

The email stated that National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) only expects 29 out-migrating steelhead a year and that their plan was to release 30,000 acre feet by the end of April to help them reach the Delta.

That means there are six steelhead left that the Bureau ordered South San Joaquin Irrigation District and Oakdale Irrigation District to release water this week to help on their journey. The 15,000 acre feet of water based on a statewide per capita use average could supply 174,301 Californians with water for a year to the combined populations of Tracy and Santa Barbara. Combined with last month’s pulse flow release, the 30,000 acre feet of water is the equivalent of the combined annual water needs of the cities of Stockton, Lathrop, Ripon, and Escalon.

And even if the six steelhead do make it to the Delta there is no guarantee they will survive to make it to the San Francisco Bay and then the Pacific Ocean.

The SSJID and OID on Tuesday refused a Bureau order to start releasing more water until it was clarified whose water was being released — that belonging to the Bureau or the two water districts. Modeling shows New Melones running out of water in late August or early September meaning the likelihood that future releases to keep the river flowing will be commandeered from the two irrigation districts.

The dollar value of the 15,000 acre feet based on today’s market rate of $400 an acre foot means the water — if it is indeed will be taken from SJID and OID — has a value of $600,000."

http://www.mantecabulletin.com/section/1/article/122681/

I originally found this article at Poor Richard's News where I discovered much to my amazement deep thinker Cher has the best explanation I have ever seen for the water shortage: "she blamed the drought on fracking."

Uh huh.