You can start here: http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/r...evin-nunes-versus-the-stupid-delta-smelt.html though it's not breitbart/FoxNews approved. There's a lot more if you can and are willing to maintain an open mind. Otherwise, as you were.
Why the Delta Smelt of course! The leftists don't want to divert the flow of the sacramento river delta (that drains into the bay) because of the presence of a little fish that is "endangered" despite the history of massive flooding of the delta and surrounding land and the obvious need for water down south. Yes, they would literally trash the entire economy of the state and trigger a diaspora to protect this little fish. The whole country is paying higher food prices because of the destruction of the agriculture of the san joaquin valley. Nancy Pelosi and the san francisco politicians don't care because they get hetch-hetchy water so it is an opportunity for northern california liberals to fuck southern california, they are all over it.
Imagine if you will what the entire southwest, nevada, california, etc would be like if today's environmentalist wackos had been in charge in the eary 20 th century when all those dams were being built. They would still be tied up in litigation and the entire area would be desert.
Actually, some advance the case that it is the dams that are the problem, that if the water had been allowed to flow naturally, most of these problems would not exist. For the most part, the problems arise due to our fucking with the natural order of things.
In a perverse sense, that is correct. There would have been no cities sucking up water and no agriculture using it. Just the natural order of things, which rich liberals are so fond of, provided they are not inconvenienced.
Not necessarily. Cities would have been limited to the sizes that the water would accommodate, and they would have had to recognize that they were in deserts, which precludes lawns and golf courses. As for agriculture, that would depend on what and where. People have adapted to water and water flows for millennia. The decisions to force nature into serving our wants and needs is independent of party.
chinatown with Jack Nicholson is an interesting movie set in the water wars... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars
800k acre feet would have been gone in a month. And the delta's water has fallen so far in any case that it no longer reaches the pumps and couldn't be diverted even if CA wanted to reverse course on the smelt. The smelt represent the overall condition of the environment, and a temporary (we hope) crisis like a drought is not a good enough reason to make permanent, harmful changes to the environment. The line must be drawn somewhere.