Reply #11: some from the Central Valley Project [View All]

[kineneb]

It consists of the dams on the major rivers draining into the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. There are a bunch. Reading "Cadillac Desert" is helpful to understanding water in the west; it is also extremely well written (the author died far too young). Water is a touchy subject in CA, and probably will remain so forever.

Example- Shasta Dam: built during the Depression, both to provide electrical power and control water flow in the Sacramento River. In addition, it employed many of the out-of-work locals, including my grandfather. There is a diversion dam in Redding which goes up each summer to shunt water off to various farms in the valley.

Farmers do get lower cost water from the CVP, which, you guessed it, is subsidized by us, the US taxpayer. It was one of the deals brokered when the dams were built.

The water issue is different for those on the other side of the Tehachapis. That area is a different drainage and does (or at least did) have water rights to some of the Colorado River (I have not been involved in state water issues for some time, so do not know where they get water today).