The Shock Doctrinization of California's water supply

[marmar]

Why Just About Everything You Hear About California's Water Crisis Is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong

By Yasha Levine, AlterNet. Posted January 8, 2010.

The media and the governor are warning of the "worst drought in history" in California. We're being lied to.




We've been lied to for years now about the severity of California's water shortage. The media and state officials have been ringing the alarm, warning that the state was in the grips of the quite possibly the "worst California drought in modern history," when in fact the state nearly pulled in its average rainfall in 2009. The fearmongering is about to go into overdrive, as powerful interests start whipping up fears of drought to push through a $11 billion bond measure on the upcoming November elections, setting up the Golden State for a corporate water grab.

One of the big boosters promoting the drought scare is Gov. Schwarzenegger, who declared a state of emergency in early 2009, and promised to reduce water deliveries across the state by a whopping 80 percent.

Such a huge cutback is alarming for a state in which most of the population lives hundreds of miles away from water sources and is dependent on a gargantuan aqueduct system for basic survival. Journalists in a wide range of publications have recently seized on this juicy disaster-in-progress story, hitting their readers with heavy-handed images of drought and suffering that seemed more in line with something filed on a UN humanitarian mission in Somalia than news from the heart of California.

Has the drought really been that bad? According to the November/December 2009 issue of Mother Jones, yes, it has: "armers are selling prized almond trees for firewood, fields are reverting to weed, and farm workers who once fled droughts in Mexico are overwhelming food banks. In short, the valley is becoming what an earlier generation of refugees thought they'd escaped: an ecological catastrophe in the middle of a social and economic one -- a 21st century Dust Bowl." 60 Minutes' recent segment on California's water crisis agreed, proclaimed: "You don't have to go to Africa or the Middle East to see how much the planet is running dry. Just go to California."The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, McClatchy's, the Wall Street Journal -- all have sung the same tune. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/water/144992/why_just_about_everything_you_hear_about_california%27s_water_crisis_is_wrong%2C_wrong%2C_wrong

[MindPilot]

1. Kinda sorta like

Kinda sort like when when we run low on electricity because plants are shut down or when we we routinely run low on gasoline because of reduced refining capacity?

[Uben]

2. Here's an idea

Don't fucking live in a desert!

[baldguy]

3. +1

[Bluenorthwest]

4. It is about crops

The CA Central Valley is 70% cultivated land. That land provides a huge percentage of the fruit, nuts and veg eaten by the entire country.
Most of the people who are in that Valley are there to work the agriculture. To feed others. Most for wages that are barely wages. Recently I'm told $4 is pretty good. Multi generational farms founded by poor immigrants are being lost. Hard working, excellent people are losing everything.
I always wonder where your sort lives, that is so safe from all natural events that you could have such hubris? Where is it on Earth that is free from drought or famine or flood or killing storm?
I think for you the first step should be a complete and careful removal of all CA foods and products from your diet. Start there. See how it goes. I no longer live in CA, but if I had to go without the food they grow, I'd not be happy about it.

[Coventina]

7. +1

The self-righteousness of those who live in those magical "perfect" places is so annoying!

I live where I can get a job that puts food on my family. If they want to give me a job where they live, I'll be happy to move!

[glitch]

11. Well said. nt

[MindPilot]

15. Thank you!

[tularetom]

5. Forget it Jake it's Chinatown

They pull this shit every time they want to build another big dam or pipeline

It's been going on for over 100 years and it's worked every time they rolled out the scare machine.

[flyarm]

9. I was just about to say..CHINATOWN ! you beat me to it!!

but i will add..remember Arnie and his secret Enron meetings!!

When i lived in LA in the 80's and 90's we were in a drought..we were charged a penalty if we used more water than we were alloted..

I got fined numerous times because i had to keep my pool filled to a certain point..because if there was an earthquake and the pool H2O was below a certain level the pool could crack..

I remember my mom coming from east coast and she kept doing small loads of laundry ..i had to beg her to stop..as each time she came i got hit with fines and penalities..I had to sit her down and tell her we only did full loads of laundry..and we didn't flush the pots if it was liquid..( i know gross, but it was what everyone had to do)

There is always some kind of major problem people have to deal with in the golden state of CA..

While I lived out there...it was fires , floods , droughts, riots and the finishing catastrophe for me was the 94 Northridge earthquake ..that took my home!...I then packed what little my family had left and moved east!

[newfie11]

6. Is there some reason they can't built desalination plants

And pump the water inland?

[DBoon]

8. very expensive

Though I've heard Santa Barabara, a very affluent community NOT linked to the statewide water system, was considering just this

[JCMach1]

14. Not as expensive as you think, but there are other problems with this

Increased salt load in Ocean equals higher temps... This has had major effects in the Persian Gulf in the last few years.

[MindPilot]

16. Desal plants require enormous amounts of electricity.

Something else that we don't have in excess around here.

[Javaman]

10. N. Cal complains about S. Cals use of "their" water, but...

you never hear S. Cal complain about N. Cal eating the fruit and veggies produced from that same water.

[Nikki Stone1]

12. It's about Piratizing the water supply.

The same awful rhetoric about the public schools is leading to corporate run curricula and profits for Wall Street.

[Xithras]

13. I live in the Central Valley. Most of it is alarmist bunk.

Only a fairly small percentage of the Valley, confined mostly to a single water district, is having major problems. Most of the Valley water districts have only seen minor reductions to water availability, and some have seen no reductions at all.

The farms around Mendota aren't doing so well, but the farms around the rest of the Valley, from Bakersfield to Sacramento to Red Bluff, are doing fine. The doom and gloom is limited to the areas west of the San Joaquin river, and even there doesn't widely impact farms at the north end (which pull their water from the rivers before they reach the Delta), or from the south end (which get their water from projects built around the Tule & Kern rivers).

The problem is largely confined to the Westlands water district, and is more political than anything. Westlands was one of the last water districts formed in the Valley and has no natural water rights (it's located in an area with very little natural surface water). Since they beginning, they've survived by buying water from other people. When water supplies get tighter, they're the first to get cut. Is it terrible in that area? Certainly, but those farmers KNEW they were buying land with a questionable water supply. Their "fix" is to kill the Delta and take water away from other farmers with reliable water supplies, in the name of fairness.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

17. When will these stupid "scientists" and "hydrologists" learn to stop using facts and figures...

...and start relying on blogs for their information? Is this the 21st century or not?

[Greyhound]

18. Nothing if not consistent. n/t