California Water Wars Escalate: Government Orders Massive Supply Cuts To Most Senior Rights Holders
Just two weeks after California’s farmers – with the most senior water rights – offered to cut their own water use by 25% (in an attempt to front-run more draconian government-imposed measures), AP reports that the California government has – just as we predicted – ignored any efforts at self-preservation and ordered the largest cuts on record to farmers holding some of the state’s strongest water rights. While frackers and big energy remain exempt from the restrictions, Caren Trgovcich, chief deputy director of the water board, explains,“we are now at the point where demand in our system is outstripping supply for even the most senior water rights holders.”
With “the whole damn state out of water,” AP reports State water officials told more than a hundred senior rights holders in California’s Sacramento, San Joaquin and delta watersheds to stop pumping from those waterways.
The move by the State Water Resources Control Board marked the first time that the state has forced large numbers of holders of senior-water rights to curtail use. Those rights holders include water districts that serve thousands of farmers and others.
The move shows California is sparing fewer and fewer users in the push to cut back on water using during the state’s four-year drought.
“We are now at the point where demand in our system is outstripping supply for even the most senior water rights holders,” Caren Trgovcich, chief deputy director of the water board.
The order applies to farmers and others whose rights to water were staked more than a century ago. Many farmers holding those senior-water rights contend the state has no authority to order cuts.
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