Fox had a show on a California Water rally. Apparently water was taken from some farmers in the southern valley to provide habitat for Salmon and Smelt. Another expected pot shot at Obama to those that already don't like him. There were about 500 farmers there and an actor.

1st. The farmers can move somewhere else where there is water. Such as the northern valley or another state.

2nd. I like to fish in the delta and would like to fish in the these rivers. I eat the Salmon and shad I catch and the stripers. They put food on my table. You are picking winners to select farmers over fish.

http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/sanjoaquin.asp

http://www.revivethesanjoaquin.org/c...entalist-rally

3rd. Are we to the point to allow a river to go dry just so some farmer can make big bucks with the water. The unemployment rate is 15% in Fresno county. Can they do other things? 80% of the southern valley is not farmed because there is not enough water in the valley.

Most of the illegal farming labor that comes to California comes to places like Fresno county. Because the farmer can get away with the labor laws. Except for the owners, many of the jobs lost were to immigrants.

It has already been decided in the courts.

http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=1651131

Taken from this site.

I am amazed by the ignorance displayed on tonights program. The pumps have been on for months. No one seems to care about the other industries being affected by the drought. Like the fishing industry. This is a drought issue not the smelt. Of the 2,000,000 acre feet of water not pumped through the pumps in 2009, 1,500,000 acre feet is documented as being due to the lack of water in california attributed to three years of drought. The remainder is due to restrictions imposed by the Endagered Species Act of which there is no way for California to legally deviate from.

I don't even know where to start with this post.

n/m, I'll start here.

I understand that you believe that farmers are jet-set playboys, but even -they- have a difficult time relocating all their cows and tractors and harrows and bottom plows and barns and furniture and irrigation equipment.

Nice idea though.

Oh well. Also:

Do you think that river can support more people through fishing, or through farming? Let's not be selfish now. Serious answer.

For such a big deal to those people and the Valley, why so little info about it. A quick google search when Hannity started kicked Hannity and some old studies from 5 years ago.

major LOL here. The water doesn't belong to those farmers.

I highly recommend the book Cadillac Desert. It's the history of water in the western US. Which is full of projects that return 4 cents on the dollar. It's a book with an environmentalist slant, but I found the economics of it all very persuasive.

Anyways, these farmers are used to getting plentiful super subsidized water. Welfare of the highest order. While their competitors in other areas that have water can't compete because they have to pay market rates.

I definitely considered bringing this into the "public goods" discussion, because these agricultural water projects are mostly "public bads".

lol @ farmers complaining about government.

No ****. heard Hannity on the radio talking to michele Malkin about this, saying "You'd think the government would help them but nothing because Obama is like **** uyo:

So you're criticizing obama for not enough socialism you quarterwit ****tard

gak I had neocon asshats.

It would be funny if the 300 billion dollar ag bill actually helped food production.

Even when the government ostencibly tries to help....they don't help.

The only goal is to prop up American farmers and appease the agricultural lobby. The subsidies are effective in achieving the desired ends.

Very little of that money actually goes toward real agricultural production.

That's not what he said.

Pretty sure it's 1/3, if not 1/2, of what he said.

If a law is responsible for loss of water, although most of it is drought, the government should compensate or offer aid to help those that lost their rights. Thus, the government could buy their land and offer long-term unemployment. Farmers sucked their water supply dry. The show makes it sound like 80% of farmers lost their water. But I am sure it is far less like 10% or less.

n/m.

A law was responsible for the initial delivery of the water.

1. The land was relatively worthless.
2. The government spent a fortune and delivered water to the land and gave it to the farmers for nothing.
3. The land was very valuable.
4. The government can't deliver the same amount of water because it doesn't exist.
5. With less water, the land is worth less.

You want to compensate the farmers? Nuts. They never owned the water rights AFAIK. If the government chooses not to deliver, tough luck. (Hopefully I'm not misremembering anything important from the book.)

There was shameful corruption, insider info, etc. when the water was first delivered. Lots of laws were broken to make a few insiders rich.