Heads up - the environment is doing just fine. The environmentalists however...
From California's The Mercury News:
California storms: A 2-inch fish is limiting how much water can be captured for cities and farms
The most drenching storms in the past five years have soaked Northern California, sending billions of gallons of water pouring across the state after three years of severe drought.
But 94% of the water that has flowed since New Year’s Eve through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a linchpin of California’s water system, has continued straight to the Pacific Ocean instead of being captured and stored in the state’s reservoirs.
Environmental regulations aimed at protecting a two-inch-long fish, the endangered Delta smelt, have required the massive state and federal pumps near Tracy to reduce pumping rates by nearly half of their full limit, sharply curbing the amount of water that can be saved for farms and cities to the south.
The move has angered Central Valley politicians of both parties along with agricultural leaders, who have been arguing for many months that someone must help farmers suffering terribly during the drought. Now they are frustrated that the state Department of Water Resources and the federal Bureau of Reclamation aren’t capturing more water amid the record rainfall.
“It’s like winning the lottery and blowing it all in Vegas,” said Jim Houston, administrator of the California Farm Bureau Federation. “You have nothing to show for it at the end of the day.”
Add to this that California has not built any new infrastructure to retain water in over forty years. This despite an increase in population from 23.8M to 39.2M - a 164% growth.
Sure, we should go out of our way to preserve the environment but the Delta Smelt fish is not unique to that particular area - it is found in lots of places. The environmentalists are saying that this is a special sub-species that deserves it's own protection.
Watermelon - green on the outside and red on the inside. Very self-righteous about proclaiming their love for the environment but their real agenda is to use environmental legislation to cripple industry and capitalism. Classic Cloward-Piven move from the socialists - overwhelm the system, crash it and in the ensuing chaos, institute their own form of tyranny. They love their Goretex and Starbucks and their iPhones and laptops but they want Western productivity to go back 200 years. Useful idiots.
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