I'm not saying there is no cause for grievance - only that it doesn't look like the discussion is being had in good faith.
The urban water districts, especially Southern California, paid for the 444-mile California Aqueduct to get water from the mountains to the cities. During the last half of the twentieth century this had more supply than needed, so they were happy to sell it for cheap to Central Valley farmers under the condition that they don't grow permanent crops like trees, because eventually the urban water needs were going to increase and they'd need to keep more of the water that they'd paid to transport.
What did they actually do? For one thing, planted orchards. (I'm assuming the miles and miles of felled orchards I saw last week alongside the 5 are related to this particular thing.)
Now, the farmers of the Central Valley may have contractual grievances if the State has done as you say -- and I don't claim to invalidate those, but (A) the fishermen who want salmon to still exist have just as much of a right to a living as they do, and the self-serving bias of the farmers is obvious here. And (B) they have no inherent right to that water, as it comes from up in the mountains. I'd say the districts who paid the cost to build the water project should have first dibs. The farmers who are loudest right now seem to see water costs the same way restaurant owners view minimum wage: "It must be low enough to make my personal business model viable, and if it's not, I'm being oppressed." Nobody owes them favorable costs, any more than Apple is owed cheap semiconductors or Tesla is owed cheap batteries. As reliable Republican voters, it's disappointing that they oppose a market economy so much.
As far as I can see, I think that as long as there is a marginal dollar that could be made by the farmers if only water were cheaper, their politicians will be disingenuously arguing that the cities are robbing them of their water and trying to get more. No matter how fair the arrangements are, or how many concessions are made to them.
Thank you for the thoughtful responses. I think we agree on logic, but differ on some of the facts. That is to say, I would agree with your logic and conclusions if I held the same inputs.
The first difference is that you characterize the urban water districts as the primary payers. My understanding is that many agricultural cities and counties also put money and bonds for various water projects with the intent to use it for agricultural uses.
I have also never heard of any conditions on trees or crops, so I am genuinely curious where that is coming from.
In general, I am for letting the water price vary with market demand, or as dictated by contractual agreements. This is admittedly very complicated because the supply and allowed participants is dictated by policy. That is to say, fishermen and environmentalists aren't buying up the water in the market, they set limits on how much can be sold and to whom.
I actually hear very little from farmers auguring that the cities are robbing them of their water. They seem to see the conflict more in terms of ag vs environmental groups, and take city use for granted. Urban dwellers seem to see the conflict more in terms of city vs Ag, with environmental use taken for granted.
I don't think your restaurant example is a charitable or accurate description of farmers (or restaurants for that matter). Nobody is owed anything, but people can be reasonably upset if they think their government is actively working against their interests. A farmer might be mad that the state prioritizes smelt over his livelihood or cancer treatment. In some sense it's a central function of government to pick winners and losers, and it sucks being on the losing side. A restaurant owner might be mad about minimum wage hikes while the city prevents more housing that would alleviate such need, seeing themselves as a victim of bad policy. It doesn't feel good if your life is selected as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. People obviously have huge biases about what the greater good is when it opposes their livelihood, but let's not pretend policy is free of flaws either.
I apologize for not bringing receipts for the orchard stuff. I promise I didn’t read it somewhere silly, but will try to find the source anyway since me saying so doesn’t prove anything.
As for who paid, you’re probably right that while the CSWP itself definitely was paid for by the urban water districts, perhaps many expensive… uh… “tributaries”? Branches? were invested in by the ag counties to move the water they were getting from it, and if they were promised that water was forever and it wasn’t, I assume that they would be mad. And tbh I don’t think anything I know is related to the Colorado River stuff, so if your info is about that water, perhaps that’s part of these discrepancies.
Things are also complicated by mixing up of the CSWP (1960s), with the Central valley project [1], CVP which is older (1930s). If you browse through the timeline, you will see a lot of detail about funding secured for irrigation, and trading farmers water rights for rights for canal water. This Wikipedia page has some fascinating detail on the history.[1] This image shows the CVP which was built to serve farmers, and the later addition by the SDWP to connect with urban users in southern California.[2] Today I learned that the project was initially intended to limit users to small farmers 160 acres or less (1 Mi^2). Imagine how different California would look if that were the case.
I just found the wiki page today and it is one of the best and most technical pages I have seen in a long time, probably ever. It has lists of relevant annual reports going back to the 1920s, a comprehensive list of litigation, and tons of relevant links.
I also found a reference to farmers being advised to avoid orchards, but this pertained to the CSWP waters from the 1970s onward [3]
>In the early 1970s, the SWP system still had a lot of "surplus" – water supply developed through the construction of Oroville Dam, which was running unused to the Pacific Ocean because the water delivery infrastructure for Southern California had not yet been completed (and when it was, southern California was slow to use the water). The surplus water was given for irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley instead. Because the water would only be a temporary supply, farmers were advised to use it for seasonal crops (such as alfalfa or hay) rather than permanent crops such as orchards. Nevertheless, many farmers used the water to develop new permanent crops, creating a dependency on SWP water that is technically part of Southern California's entitlement
On a different perhaps more mixed note, I found these articles [4][5] going down this rabbit hole of "permanent water contracts"
>According to the Bureau of Reclamation, as of October 2019 more than 75 agencies that had “temporary” water service contracts to receive Central Valley Project water, including the State of California Department of Fish and Wildlife, have exercised the option provided by the WIIN Act to convert their contracts to “permanent” repayment contracts. The contract terms proposed in the repayment contracts for Westlands and other Central Valley Project contractors under the WIIN Act are nearly identical to those in the Friant Division repayment contracts.
>The Interior Department on Friday awarded the nation’s largest farm water district a permanent entitlement to annual irrigation deliveries that amount to roughly twice as much water as the nearly 4 million residents of Los Angeles use in a year....The district is one of more than 75 Central Valley Project customers — most of them farm irrigation districts — that are taking advantage of a 2016 law to convert water service contracts that require periodic renewal to agreements that permanently lock in delivery entitlements and other terms.
I believe these are the water contracts that farmers have been paying since the 1930s, which had terms to convert to
permanent contracts. I will have to tell my republican farming family how Obama accelerated the terms of the water contracts to make them permanent.
The urban water districts, especially Southern California, paid for the 444-mile California Aqueduct to get water from the mountains to the cities. During the last half of the twentieth century this had more supply than needed, so they were happy to sell it for cheap to Central Valley farmers under the condition that they don't grow permanent crops like trees, because eventually the urban water needs were going to increase and they'd need to keep more of the water that they'd paid to transport.
What did they actually do? For one thing, planted orchards. (I'm assuming the miles and miles of felled orchards I saw last week alongside the 5 are related to this particular thing.)
Now, the farmers of the Central Valley may have contractual grievances if the State has done as you say -- and I don't claim to invalidate those, but (A) the fishermen who want salmon to still exist have just as much of a right to a living as they do, and the self-serving bias of the farmers is obvious here. And (B) they have no inherent right to that water, as it comes from up in the mountains. I'd say the districts who paid the cost to build the water project should have first dibs. The farmers who are loudest right now seem to see water costs the same way restaurant owners view minimum wage: "It must be low enough to make my personal business model viable, and if it's not, I'm being oppressed." Nobody owes them favorable costs, any more than Apple is owed cheap semiconductors or Tesla is owed cheap batteries. As reliable Republican voters, it's disappointing that they oppose a market economy so much.
As far as I can see, I think that as long as there is a marginal dollar that could be made by the farmers if only water were cheaper, their politicians will be disingenuously arguing that the cities are robbing them of their water and trying to get more. No matter how fair the arrangements are, or how many concessions are made to them.