Increased water tyranny in California threatens critical delta growing region

Drought conditions in the Golden State are worsening to the point that the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is considering shutting down a pre-1914 water rights provision that allows farmers to divert water within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region.

According to reports, the board is planning to convene in an Aug. 3-4 meeting to decide whether to impose emergency drought measures that would make it even harder for food growers to get the water they need – even as the state dumps precious freshwater stores into the ocean to supposedly protect the endangered delta smelt.

If approved, the measure will require that notices be sent throughout the expansive inland river delta and estuary in Northern California – see below – starving much of America’s “salad bowl” of the water resources it needs to grow almonds, fruit, vegetables, salad lettuce, citrus and more.

There are currently around 5,000 users in the Delta area, along with a few exemptions in place for human health and safety of non-consumptive uses. The vast majority of farmers within the Delta area hold those pre-1914 water rights, which is what they have been using for the past century to bring their crops to harvest.

If California’s “megadrought” causes them to lose these precious water resources, then we can all say goodbye to the California “breadbasket,” or at least large portions of it.

“As it stands right now, everything seems to be okay,” stated Ashley Lorenzo of Great Valley Poultry in Manteca back in late June about the situation. “We try to conserve as much as we can.”

A famine is on the horizon

Things have changed since that time, however. The board is now considering even more restrictions on water usage, including the issuance of stop-diversion notices to the roughly 4,300 junior rights holders in the Delta region that would then have seven days to confirm in writing that they have ceased drawing water.

As for senior water rights holders, their access to water in the Delta region will also be impacted, damaging what is largely considered to be America’s most productive farming region.

“The Delta is also considered the nexus of California’s water system,” reports Zero Hedge. “Besides surrounding farmland, the water is also exported to supply 23 million people in Southern California.”

As you can see in the following image from the U.S. Drought Monitor, dated July 22, most of California is currently in either extreme or exceptional drought conditions.

“It’s only a matter of time before California and other Western US states prepare for additional water shortage measures,” Zero Hedge further warns. “There’s also the possibility the first-ever federally declared water shortage could be issued.”

As all of this is taking place, the Biden regime continues to allow an unimpeded flood of illegal aliens across America’s southern border, which is putting additional strain on already depleted and rapidly dwindling natural resources.

These same illegals are also carrying with them the latest “strains” of the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19), which the government is using as an excuse to push vaccines, face masks and other forms of medical fascism on the public.

“The state squandered an opportunity back in the ’60s to construct a series of locks alongside the Antioch bridge which would’ve done wonders for controlling the salinity, tidal erosion, water quality, and storage and flood issues while preserving our inland sea ports,” wrote one commenter at Zero Hedge about California’s mismanagement of its water resources.

“It’d take far more than an act of Congress to have such common sense applied to our situation at this point.”

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Sources for this article include:

ZeroHedge.com

NaturalNews.com