Comment / By Jonathan / Aug. 19, 9:03 a.m.

Great blurb on the water and our right to it - contractually - what are the comments from our local elected leaders?

What do our very own Sups think; maybe Lovelace can back some of that ‘I am the most liberal sup, in the most liberal town’ talk with some action and deliver something more than verbal acts of hubris.

Thanks for the info.

Comment / By Laer Pearce / Aug. 19, 11:02 a.m.

As for the Westlands deal, your characterization is a bit sensationalized. The MWD deal would be unprecedented and the result of Westlands’ failure last year, despite their reputed political power, to get enough water for its customers. Expecting the same this year, Westlands farmers left vast acreage fallow, only to get water allotments in June and later, when it did them no good at all.

Faced with having a surprising excess of water and no way to use it, they reached out to MWD, which is having a hard time supplying its customers’ needs due to Delta litigation, Colorado River shortages, etc. What would you have them do with it? Let it run out to sea when the dams are opened to drop water levels in preparation for the winter rainy season?

All this water is California’s water, not my water or your water. (I’m a Southern Californian, in case you’re wondering.) We have a state-wide responsibility to manage it reasonably for the use of all Californians.

Comment / By Hank Sims / Aug. 19, 11:42 a.m.

Laer:

It’s honorable of you to give your name.

You say …

What would you have them do with it? Let it run out to sea when the dams are opened to drop water levels in preparation for the winter rainy season?

… and your attempt at a rhetorical question, there, sort of illustrates the North/South divide when talking about California water issues.

We used to have a fishing industry up here. We used to have fish. You’ve probably eaten them from time to time, in the past.

It so happens that the Klamath River salmon runs that remain occur in the fall — “in preparation for the winter rainy season,” you might call it. And there the salmon sometimes die on the banks of the river for lack of water, and that’s because of the dams and diversions on the Klamath, Shasta, Scott and Trinity Rivers.

It’s not quite true that “all this water is California’s water.” Certain users — private users, municipal users — have contracts for shares of it. Humboldt County’s contract has never been honored. Westlands’ contract, of course, has.

And a mockery is made of the fine civic sentiments in your final paragraph by the fact that Westlands and other agricultural users are now taking “California’s water” and trading it on their own account, to entities such as your clients.

Comment / By Terrence McNally / Aug. 19, 1:24 p.m.

Southern California does not have adequate water supply for its continually growing population. It’s a friggin desert, fer chrissakes.

Get on that desalination technology or something, Laer.

At the least shut down the golf courses before pointing your drinking straws up here.

Comment / By NorCal river walker / Aug. 19, 1:29 p.m.

To the person from SoCal, it would make sense that you don’t understand the value of a natural resource to it’s native area considering Southern California has historically been draining, literally, surrounding areas of their natural resources. Those of us who live on or near these resources witness the damage it is doing to our area and our way of life.

Comment / By Aldaron Laird / Aug. 20, 8:19 a.m.

Our water? If it is California’s water then why does the Bureau of Reclamation control where it goes, how much it is worth, and how liitle they are willing to leave in the river? If Humboldt County gets its 50,000 ac ft then who will decide what it is used for; our Board of Supervisors, who?

Comment / By robert calvosa / Aug. 20, 8:56 a.m.

This article is the most succinct and accurate one I have read, so far, regarding the ‘great california water rip-off’. After a 20 year fight we were ‘allowed’ to retain 50% of the Trinity flow. Experience and science has demonstrated that this is not enough. A vast quantity of diverted water is being used to leach selenium and chlorine from from farmland contaminated by chemical fertilizer. The evaporation ponds are clearly visible along hiways 5 &99. One could also make a case for ‘saving the central valley desert’ - a significant ecosystem in it’s own right that has been destroyed by development .

Comment / By Fred Mangels / Aug. 22, 11:55 a.m.

The link you have to vote in the “Best of 2010” doesn’t seem to be working for me. Is the problem on my end, or yours?

Comment / By Boo / Aug. 22, 12:50 p.m.

boo to the online-only voting. I smell lazy. Should be the other way around: stamped envelope only, LOCAL4LIFE-G

Comment / By Hank Sims / Aug. 22, 12:55 p.m.

Fred: I’m going to take a gamble and say it’s on yours. Click my name on this comment — should get you there.

Boo: I forgot to say that you can also wire your votes in by telegraph, or send them via carrier pigeon.

Comment / By Boo / Aug. 22, 12:59 p.m.

sure…have the pigeons do the work for you.

Comment / By Derral Campbell / Aug. 23, 10:36 a.m.

Westlands Water purchased the Bollibokka Club, a private fishing club on the lower 7 miles of the McCloud River, so a proposed raising of Shasta Dam would meet with less opposition, so the tribes would be powerless, and so they can make even more money, on top of all their federal subsidies and water-shipping schemes. Their agenda is right out there in the open.