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Lloyd G. Carter: How about enforcing current water laws?

Posted by: Maven on December 25, 2009 at 9:17 am

From Lloyd G. Carter at the Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood blog, this commentary:

“Seventeen years ago, Patrick Porgans and I co-authored an article that ran at length in the Forum section of the Sacramento Bee. We argued then that new and proposed state and federal water marketing changes would enrich some people “by turning [publicly-owned] water into a freely transferable commodity.”
Sadly, as proven by a recent below-the-rader $73 million water transfer from a small irrigation district in the western San Joaquin Valley to an urban district in the Mojave Desert, time has proven us right. Profiteering by buying cheap water from the public and selling it to the highest bidder is now making small groups of people enormously rich, to the detriment of farming, the Delta, and the state treasury.

Patrick and I remain deeply concerned about an equally serious problem: the inability or unwillingness of the State Water Resources Control Board to catch and punish water rustlers, including the two most powerful water agencies in California: The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). … “

Continue reading this post from Lloyd G. Carter by clicking here.

December 25, 2009 · Filed Under Water Quality

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