Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   5/19/2015

     Wet and wild; Iraq gotcha questions

Since our local water use is now driven by state mandated policy, there’ll not likely be the rational discussion I alluded to regarding water cutbacks; it remains a contentious matter for those forced to reduce. We have little actual local groundwater data beyond the charts that DWR has for test bore wells documenting how far below the surface the liquid resides. The information on the depth and size of the aquifer supplying Red Bluff may surface; however, when the demand for a 25 percent reduction comes from (the pompous) Gov. Brown, or a local figure of 36 percent heads to the City Council for a vote, what choice is there but to comply as best you can?

Red Bluff’s water comes from deep wells, I understand; experts cannot say with certainty from where such aquifers are replenished. In the Chico Enterprise-Record, “Study will look at where groundwater begins—rain or snow,” (May 11 by Heather Hacking) it is reported that “The county Department of Water and Resource Conservation recently asked for bids on an isotope analysis study” hoping to provide answers to such questions. “Studying the chemistry of water underground helps researchers learn the origin of the water.” The article is good reading, not too long, and searchable by title. I don’t honestly know if Butte County’s study is transferable to our situation but someone might have expert input on our aquifer and trends to share with readers.

Some figures on projected water storage and the quantities likely to be conserved by residential users make my case that reservoirs 1) are an essential and effective means to tide us over the dry/drought years and 2) equate rather handily with the needs of California’s residents. The bottom line is that, as reported in the April 3 Washington Post (the same article that retailed the “farmers use 80 percent” misinformation), the expected, anticipated reduction in residential water use if cutbacks are adhered to will be around 1.5 million acre-feet. Elsewhere, I read that the expected, quantifiable storage for the Sites and Temperance Flat reservoirs is perhaps over 3 million acre-feet.

Actual storage over the years will certainly vary but it is indisputable that if those water storage projects had been built in a timely manner—instead of being postponed by gutless politicians and water agencies afraid of rankling the environmental fanatics—we’d have available water sufficient to make the mandated cutbacks far less onerous. I also read that it is a fact that California’s population has roughly doubled, while residential usage has remained stable. It is also true for agriculture in the sense that self-imposed efficiencies have allowed far more production with no corresponding increase in water for crops.

Apparently, some disagree that agriculture uses about 40 percent, not the 80 percent bandied about by sources like Governor “Moonbeam” (yes, I mean disrespect) Brown, the Washington Post and other green-sympathizing mouthpieces. Of course, when the undeniable assertion that fully half of California’s water serves environmental functions is factored in, the remaining half is 40 percent for agriculture and 10 percent for residential.

“Drought: 10 things to know about California water use,” April 15, scpr.org (that’s for Southern California Public Radio), provided a handy breakdown: “Wild and scenic rivers protected under federal law get 31 percent; In other rivers, we keep water flowing at a certain rate for recreation, environmental reasons or both. Maintaining such ‘instream flows’ takes around 9 percent; Keeping seawater out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta—the source of much of the state’s drinking water—uses about 7 percent; managed wetlands get 2 percent; Cities and towns get 10 percent. What that means is that agricultural irrigation accounts for around 41 percent of the state’s water pie.

“The Public Policy Institute of California helpfully shorthands that to: 50 percent environmental, 40 percent agricultural, 10 percent urban.” Academic environmentalists object, saying “the state’s accounting system is misleading and should leave out wild and scenic rivers, since it’s impractical to get water out of them for any kind of human use.” Others might rightly point out that failing to allow for human use of such waters in a drought emergency is a choice, an arbitrary judgment that should be reconsidered to allow for human and economic needs.

The Democrats and their media adjunct mouthpieces are quite taken with themselves over thinking they have a massive “gotcha” question for Republican candidates: “Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the Iraq War?” I am not, unfortunately, surprised that some of them fall for the trick, rather than immediately punch back with a rejection of the straw man argument that can be applied to any war throughout history. It’s a completely speculative, and utterly indefensible question, to posit “time machine” type of fanciful scenarios.

I just read that, if America had not entered WWI, European nations would have fought to an exhausted standoff, then negotiated terms of peace which would never have been as onerous on Germany, which would have probably prevented the rise of both Adolph Hitler’s Nazi regime and the Russian Communist tyranny. Anyone can re-wage any war with 20-20 hindsight.

Republicans should throw out the question and insist that Democrats who predicted doom and gloom would follow President Bush’s surge admit they were wrong; make Democrats admit that Obama’s boogying out of Iraq is the proximate cause of the deterioration of Iraq and the rise of the barbaric Islamic State juggernaut. I’ll defend the Iraq War decision based on the same information and intelligence available to the Clintons, the Democrats and Western spy agencies.