But whoever said it was right on.
asserted
said → say → it
Yet Sacramento seems determined to let the state run dry.
asserted
state → let → ?
Recently, the state imposed new restrictions on watering commercial buildings, and most observers expect more rules in the future, on everything from gardens to showers.
asserted
observers → impose → showers
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Of course, with El Niño on our doorstep, this should be a “wet year” that should keep us in good stead.
asserted
that → sign → stead
If you are familiar with the story of Joseph from the Bible, you know he rightly advised Pharoah to save grain in rich years for the years of famine.
asserted
he → know → famine
That is what California once did with water.
asserted
California → do → water
But now, the idea of storing water in rainy years has been lost.
asserted
idea → store → years
The change is the work of green activists, who have worked overtime to create a drier, poorer, and less pleasant California.
asserted
who → work → California
In 2014, after decades of failing to improve the state’s aging, increasingly stressed water supply system, the California legislature sought and received voter approval to build new reservoirs.
asserted
legislature → fail → reservoirs
Earlier this year, the Sites project suffered a potentially fatal blow when a state agency decided that the reservoir could not use more than 34% of its long-planned water supplies in order to “save” the Sacramento delta and its marine inhabitants.
uncertain
reservoir → suffer → delta
The decision, which exasperated even the state’s deep-blue leadership, shows how California’s regulatory process is undermining our ability to meet the most obvious challenges in front of us.
asserted
process → exasperate → us
Elected officials had hoped to expedite Sites by legally preventing “frivolous” environmental review and permit delay.
asserted
officials → hop → review
Its environmental impacts were analyzed under state and federal law during a six-year public process.
asserted
impacts → analyze → process
Several environmental groups immediately sued.
asserted
groups → sue → ?
Once the litigation ended, the project should have gone ahead.
asserted
project → end → ?
But logic and public needs matter little to our messianic, and well-financed, green movement, who claim climate change will turn California ever more arid.
uncertain
change → matter → California
The State Water Resources Control Board, an unelected agency, decided that the court-approved environmental analysis was inadequate.
asserted
analysis → decide → ?
Much of this is part of a Quixotic drive by greens to “save” the delta fish habitat.
asserted
Much → save → habitat
But no native delta smelt has been detected in state surveys since 2018.
asserted
smelt → detect → 2018
So, in wet years and dry, the vast majority of water from the Sacramento River washes out to the sea instead of being stored.
asserted
majority → wash → sea
Given these conditions, even if we have heavy rains and snow this winter, we will waste it.
asserted
we → give → it
Indeed, during the very wet winter of 2017, the Oroville Dam simply overflowed, the water flowing out of San Francisco Bay.
asserted
Dam → overflow → Bay
Water supplies will drop even further when allocations from the Colorado Rive are cut.
asserted
allocations → drop → Rive
But every proposed ssolution, short of water rationing, is all but ignored, including desalinization of ocean water.
asserted
ssolution → propose → water
Ed Ring of the California Policy Center notes that just building one proposed desalinization plant in Huntington Beach would make Orange County self-sufficient in water.
asserted
County → note → water
“Desalinization could help but you are in trouble with the bureaucracy and the environmental community, notes Ring.
uncertain
Ring → help → bureaucracy
“We face shortages, but they really don’t want to do anything about it.”
asserted
they → face → it
You would think anything that would make California more self-sufficient, greener, and more fecund would be applauded.
asserted
California → think → ?
But bizarro state policy consistently imposes ever stricter water regulations on people and businesses.
asserted
policy → impose → people
So, here’s the future ahead of us: fewer farms, brown communities, fewer home gardens, and shorter showers.
asserted
future → ’ → us
That is, if Californians continue not to rise up and demand a return to sanity.
asserted
Californians → continue → sanity
The Aporia
