Comments on: Will CA groundwater regulation bring shortages?

By: Hondo

Hondo — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 04:02:13 +0000

The Occupy-enviro dream is what Kali was like before white man came to Amerika. Their ‘perfect world’ dream is based on the ecology of 1491. They howl about taking water from bait fish but support millions of 3rd world illegals coming to Kali. The more people you bring in, the more water they need. This is 1st grade math they never figured out.
Hondo……….

By: Wayne Lusvardi

Wayne Lusvardi — Sat, 26 Jul 2014 20:42:10 +0000

I would respectfully suggest the anonymous commenter read Robert Kelley’s 1989 book Battling the Inland Sea: Floods, Public Policy, and the Sacramento Valley. In its natural condition the Sacramento Valley flooded annually and an inland sea formed during wet years that nearly bisected the state in two. There was extensive property damage and loss of human life, including decimation of wildlife habitats and ecologies. Perhaps the commenter wants California to be returned to some mythical idyliic and bucolic ecology where man either is absent or peripheral, but we do not have that option in reality today. Floods and estuaries have to be engineered and managed. Nature is more devastating than man could ever be.

All it takes in California to begin an adjudicated groundwater basin is for one landowner to take another landowner to court alleging over drafting of the groundwater. So there is no need for groundwater regulation other than for political purposes to divide groundwater under the Public Trust Doctrine to constitutuencies of the Democratic Party: commercial sports fishermen, Indian Tribes, water recreation enterprises such as kayaking, and endless environmental monitoring jobs.

When taking cheap shots at writers credentials one should identify their name, their credentials, any conflicts of interest, and the sources they rely on. Slander and libel should not be allowed on any website.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 19:01:40 +0000

This opinion piece has it all backwards. We already have a serious groundwater shortage. The drought has just magnified that condition. Water is a shared resource. Without regulations, those with the biggest, deepest wells can deplete the resource for all surrounding property owners.
As for water being wasted on the environment: The writes obviously has no scientific education in biology, geology or hydrology.
Prior to man’s extraction of water from nature, ALL the water went to the natural environment. Nature is like a huge biological/ physical machine. You remove a critical component from the machine (i.e. water) and the machine cannot function properly. That means rivers can’t carry as much sediment (leading to more flooding), hold back seawater from flowing inland (destroying estuaries and groundwater basins), or support a myriad of critical and necessary habitat and biota (which apparently has no value to the author).
If water is being ‘politicized’ then this opinion piece is leading the charge.