Everyone knows that California water policies are not working today – and haven’t worked for years. Misplaced priorities, outdated rules, unresponsive bureaucracies… the list of reasons goes on and on.
The question is: What can be done about it?
With the current control of state and federal government entities, not much. Without changes in the political makeup of decision makers, Californians will continue to be forced to reduce their water use – while millions of acre-feet of that life-sustaining liquid is flushed out to sea. Rip out your lawns, shorten your showers, tear up your walnut groves; reduce your standard of life, fallow your acreage, lower your income; sell your farm; leave the most beautiful state in the union.
Regulatory agencies, both state and federal, have assumed control over California’s water. Elected and even appointed officials cower before “staff” who make every call from the same playbook: take water away from people, and give it to… fish? Including species that are now extinct?
Two recent Supreme Court decisions signal the potential for change: Sackett vs. EPA and Loper Bright. The former reins in the Clean Water Act, reducing the Environmental Protection Agency’s control over navigable waters. The latter overturned the Chevron doctrine, putting a halt to the otherwise endlessly expanding reach of regulatory agencies to control every aspect of our lives.
These decisions in themselves, while laudable, only have practical effect if they are implemented. As President Andrew Jackson reportedly said in 1832, when the Supreme Court ruled against his position regarding the sovereignty of American Indian tribes in Worcester vs. Georgia, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
When it comes to California water policies, the Biden-Harris administration and the Gavin Newsom administration act consistently against the interests of anyone who uses groundwater – cities, farms, water providers, mines, industry. Reservoir operators are forced to alternately store and discharge water based on guidelines written more than fifty years ago – long before modern scientific data gathering and analysis made such practices obsolete, inefficient, and often catastrophic. Efforts to increase water storage capacity become mired in the muck of contradictory regulations and endless lawsuits.
Change may come. Improvement is possible. As the elites who have controlled California water policy become increasingly arbitrary and ideological in their decisions, ever more disconnected from the reality of farms going bankrupt and towns dying of thirst… a different mindset is emerging. People have had enough. Common sense is making a comeback.
Former President Donald Trump, running to return to office in a very tight race, has spoken strongly in favor of making more of California’s abundant water supplies available for the use of – well, you know – Californians. The human kind. You and me. Both Supreme Court decisions can help make that happen, if implemented and enforced by the federal government entities most responsible for California water policy – the Bureau of Reclamation, the US Fish & Wildlife Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Under Biden-Harris, these agencies not only ignore the interests of the people and the science of water, they do not even lower themselves to hear their arguments. With a new Trump administration, that will change. Having learned from prior bitter experience, President Trump will not only make better political appointments at the higher levels, he and his advisers will also reshape the “staff” – bringing in practical people with real-world experience.
The Delta smelt is extinct; whatever past efforts were made to protect it have failed. There is no need to deprive humans of water to “save” fish that don’t exist – even if there ever was such a need in the first place.
The endless red tape that has prevented existing reservoirs from being modernized and new ones from being built can be cut.
Positive change can come. Help could be on the way.
A very important election is coming up – right now. Today. Every vote matters. Every vote is as precious as every drop of water. If you are a human Californian, and water matters to you, vote for candidates to whom water for humans matters – from the president on down.