Wasted by flowing to the ocean rather than being stored, which is a sad statement on our water policy from this article in the Sacramento Bee, and it is because we do not have the dams to capture the water when we have wet years to help us out when the dry ones come.
An excerpt.
“In its editorial criticizing House Republicans, The Bee recently suggested that current management of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is without controversy or is somehow the result of a collective best practice. However, existing California water policy is neither "nuanced" nor "balanced," nor is it so complicated as to defy the comprehension of mere mortals who live, work and vote in the Golden State. Radical environmentalists and their allies in government prefer to speak using these terms to deflect attention from the truth.
“Today, 78 percent of all water entering the Delta is flushed out to the ocean, depriving California of enormous amounts of fresh water that could help restore the state's economic vitality. Yet despite all of this lost water, a preliminary report by the Delta Stewardship Council suggests some species may not recover and, according to the EPA, more species are in danger, not fewer. This represents overwhelming indictment of the junk science used to justify nearly two decades of water diversions.
“The science used by Delta regulators is so bad that a federal judge recently ruled against the government in a landmark lawsuit. Yet the environmental left continues to wage a merciless attack on water users - particularly San Joaquin Valley farmers. They are shamelessly using debunked science to advocate the forced retirement of 1.3 million acres of farmland - a land mass nearly three times as large as the state of Rhode Island.”
