{"id":10240,"date":"2015-07-20T20:01:28","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T01:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10240"},"modified":"2015-07-20T20:01:28","modified_gmt":"2015-07-21T01:01:28","slug":"california-regulators-slap-farmers-with-record-1-5-million-water-taking-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10240","title":{"rendered":"California Regulators Slap Farmers With Record $1.5 Million “Water-Taking” Fine"},"content":{"rendered":"

California Regulators Slap Farmers With Record $1.5 Million “Water-Taking” Fine<\/a><\/h3>\n
In what seems a lot like a strawman for just how much they can pressure the population,\u00a0AP reports<\/a>California water regulators proposed a first-of-its-kind, $1.5 million fine for a group of Central Valley farmers accused of illegally taking water<\/strong>\u00a0during the drought. This would be the first such fine for holders of California’s oldest (most senior) claims to water, and follows\u00a0suits from the farmers to the government arguing their ‘law changes’ are illegal.<\/strong><\/div>\n

As AP reports<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0the State Water Resources Control Board said the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District in Tracy illegally took water from a pumping plant even after it was warned there wasn’t enough water legally available.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n
The move by the board was the first against an individual or district with\u00a0claims to water that are more than a century-old, known as senior water rights holders.<\/strong><\/div>\n

The action reflects the rising severity of California’s four-year drought that has prompted the state to demand cutbacks from those historically sheltered from mandatory conservation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Byron-Bethany district serves farmers in three counties in the agriculture-rich Central Valley and a residential community of 12,000 people relying on water rights dating to 1914.<\/p>\n

District general manager Rick Gilmore said he did not know a penalty was coming and wasn’t aware of the details.<\/p>\n

“Perhaps the state water resources control board is not taking into account we purchased supplemental supplies,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The district has sued the state over the board’s June warning to immediately stop taking water because the watershed was running too dry to meet demand.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Several irrigation districts have\u00a0filed unresolved legal challenges to stop the curtailments demanded by the state.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Among them is the West Side Irrigation District, which\u00a0claimed a victory in a ruling last week by a Sacramento judge who said the state’s initial order to stop pumping amounted to an unconstitutional violation of due process rights by not allowing hearings on the cuts.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

California Regulators Slap Farmers With Record $1.5 Million “Water-Taking” Fine In what seems a lot like a strawman for just how much they can pressure the population,\u00a0AP reportsCalifornia water regulators proposed a first-of-its-kind, $1.5 million fine for a group of Central Valley farmers accused of illegally taking water\u00a0during the drought. This would be the first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[101,141,220,299,834,866,6359,7416,4318],"class_list":["post-10240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-california","tag-climate-change","tag-drought","tag-farming","tag-us","tag-water","tag-water-rights","tag-west-side-irrigation-district","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10241,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10240\/revisions\/10241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}