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Opinion: Water is Precious in the American West. California Barely Even Tries to Manage it

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Dave Owen, Nell Green Nylen, Michael Kiparsky

For eight days last summer, a group of about 80 California ranchers and farmers took more than half the Shasta River’s flow during severe drought conditions, violating state requirements designed to protect salmon. The state’s water regulator couldn’t stop the illegal diversion but fined the group the maximum penalty it could — $4,000. The fine translated to about $50 per person.

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Opinion: California Water Rights at Risk as Three Legislative Proposals Advance

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Dan Walters

When California imposed its first-ever regulation on the extraction of water from underground aquifers in 2014, it gave environmental groups a landmark victory in their decades-long effort to overhaul water use laws.

It was also a political setback for farmers, who are California’s major water users and have depended on wells to irrigate their crops as increasingly frequent droughts reduce surface water in rivers and reservoirs.

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