A group of water oligarchs in California have engineered a disastrous deregulation and privatization scheme. And they've pulled in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without causing much public outrage. Full Story »
Posted by Chris Finnie
I'm personally aware of many of the facts Levine presents and can verify what she writes. However, in addition to the water pollution she so ably describes, Central Valley aquifers are being damaged by salt from the water pumped in from the Delta--which is becoming increasingly salty because of the large amounts of fresh water being diverted and the lower flows during the drought. This could damage the ability of farmers to continue to grow in this ancient inland sea, and pollute the drinking water for the sixth-largest city in California. The final piece she doesn't present is the recent passage of an $11.9 billion bond issue to finance even more of this water hijacking. In a state that is already technically bankrupt, this is a big deal.
This has brought in massive profits to owners of the Kern bank at taxpayers’ expense, and frequently involve nothing more than buying water at subsidized rates from the state, then turning around and selling it back to a different government agency for a tidy profit.
As always, profit before all. These water barons don’t care that the practices they encourage for short-term profit is already damaging some of the most productive farm land in the world.
Of course, the profit drive of corporate America is relentless. And we, the people, have short lives and short memories. And that’s the funny thing: this isn’t even a new scam. “The Peripheral Canal had been a top priority of the water interests for forty years,” wrote the late and much admired Marc Reisner in 1986 in his book Cadillac Desert, one of the most eye-opening and sweeping histories of water use in the American West.
Unless voters reject the bond measure in November, the peripheral canal will finally become a reality. And taxpayers throughout the state will pay to finance more profits for these water barons—at the cost of the loss of even more state services to pay for bond debt service.
Most of the state has been on water rationing for years. Estimates I've heard say that the state has granted water rights to 8 times more water than we actually have. And this shows why it is an increasing problem.