As another water war rages, the west side of California’s storied San Joaquin Valley waits for relief that may not come.

low reservoirBy Katie Paul | Newsweek Web Exclusive

…After three years of drought, California’s legendary water wars are flaring once again, and towns like Mendota, San Joaquin, and Firebaugh are getting a first glimpse of what their future might look like. Farmers blame the area’s blight on a “man-made drought” brought on by increasingly strict environmental regulations, but that is only the beginning of the story. There’s also the crushing confluence of political negligence, drought, and a century’s worth of unbridled growth. Now, as residents wonder if normalcy will ever return, planners are forced to consider a far uglier question: should it? Is a new “normal” required? … Over the last three decades, however, the valley’s explosive growth has caused rivers to run dry, dead fish to accumulate near the water pumps, and chronic water shortages. The levees near the bay are old, prompting worries that a failure, perhaps following an earthquake, could cause salt water from the bay to rush into the delta, crippling the water supply for the entire state. And the delta smelt, an endangered species of fish no bigger than an index finger, began disappearing as the massive pumps sucked up fish along with the water it was sending south. Lawsuits over the fish filed by environmental groups and water contractors multiplied, and court-imposed restrictions and regulations began siphoning off more and more of the 6 million acre-feet of water exported through the river basin each year. … Barry Nelson, the National Resources Defense Council advocate behind the fish lawsuits, says the fish vs. people argument is nonsense. Even after three years of drought, the Central Valley Project (CVP) is still making half of its water deliveries to farms in the valley. Westlands just isn’t getting that water. “There’s a myth in the valley about the delta smelt, and it’s really a tragedy,” he says. “I don’t mean for a moment to suggest that those small communities on the west side aren’t seeing impacts; they are. They’re seeing the impact of drought, and those impacts are real and they’re hard.” Nelson contends that the fish aren’t the problem; it’s the way the system is set up. Just adjacent to Westlands, he says, four other contractors are getting a full 100 percent of their water allocation this year, despite the drought. … Climate models by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the state’s water resources agency, and researchers at the University of California, Davis all point to the same trend: the Sierra snowcaps that supply the state’s water are disappearing. If that’s the case, farmers should expect droughts more frequently, and Westlands may have to come around to the notion that they will never receive all the water that their contracts call for. “No drought comes to you with a label that says, ‘Brought to you by climate change,’ ” says Nelson. “But in the American Southwest and in California, we should be prepared for a drier future.” …

Dying on the Vine via The Oil Drum