{"id":13065,"date":"2021-03-30T09:02:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T16:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=13065"},"modified":"2021-03-30T09:02:33","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T16:02:33","slug":"thought-of-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/thought-of-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Thought of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water, Water and Not a Drop?
<\/strong>
Behind the national headlines are lots of other stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in California, the Department of Water Resources and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation announced that they may not (be able to?) honor the meager 5% of the contracted water allotments of westside California farmers south of the Delta.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

2020-2021 is a moderately below average snow\/rain year in California (there is always a chance of a late mid-April Sierra snow storm to come), but these decisions are increasingly political and reflect the diminishing political clout of California farming\u2014as contracted water \u00a0in the California Water Project is either redirected to cities or never really enters the project. \u00a0Snow runoff is increasingly allowed to flow into the sea, without diversion to century- and half-century-old water projects. Food for LA and SF I guess just spontaneously generates?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Biden Administration will only accelerate these trends. If nothing changes, a lot of farming from the Grapevine to the Delta, on the vast west side of the Central Valley will end. The vanishing aquifer out there cannot be pumped much longer to keep orchards and vineyards alive or to plant annual row crops. I don’t think anyone in control in Sacramento or Washington remembers the once arid, dry “West Side” before the miracle of irrigation water, but they may soon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Water, Water and Not a Drop?Behind the national headlines are lots of other stories. Here in California, the Department of Water Resources and the Federal Bureau of Reclamation announced that they may not (be able to?) honor the meager 5% of the contracted water allotments of westside California farmers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3oJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8695,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-underbelly-of-the-california-drought\/","url_meta":{"origin":13065,"position":0},"title":"The Underbelly Of The California Drought","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Eureka It is September in California, year four of a scorching drought. Forest fires are blackening the arid state, from Napa Valley to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Fly over the High Sierra and about every tenth evergreen below appears dead. Even the high mountain lakes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "California"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/california\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Almaden Reservoir in San Jose, Calif. 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The most vivid example of how wrong they were is that California\u2019s majestic Oroville Dam is currently in danger of spillway failure in a season of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Water"","block_context":{"text":"Water","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/water\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/la-mfleischer-1487111549-snap-photo-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/la-mfleischer-1487111549-snap-photo-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/la-mfleischer-1487111549-snap-photo-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9858,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/tear-down-this-dam\/","url_meta":{"origin":13065,"position":2},"title":"Tear down this dam?","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 16, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ The Hill Oroville dam, the tallest in the nation, is currently in danger of structural failure. Thousands living downstream from its desperate cascading water releases are evacuating their homes in Hollywood disaster-film fashion. Something premodern and apocalyptic like this was not supposed to have happened\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Water"","block_context":{"text":"Water","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/water\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/gettyimages-OrvilleDam-500x281.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8199,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-scorching-of-california\/","url_meta":{"origin":13065,"position":3},"title":"The Scorching of California","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"How Green extremists made a bad drought worse by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ City Journal\u00a0 In mid-December, the first large storms in three years drenched California. 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