California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report

[ericm979]

***** administration, requested, and Congress approved funding to transition all of the permanent Federal Government seasonal fire fighters to year round, and more project funding to plan and implement fuel thinning projects.

Making all seasonals permanant would be awesome but I have not seen any legislation doing that. So far all that's happened is one time (or a couple time) extra payments, mostly to seasonals. That passes last year and it took most of a year for funds to actually show up. There's a lot that needs to be done still to make the federal fire fighting force equivalent to what the states are doing.

We‘ll have to wait and see where it goes. The FS has been fighting and extinguishing all fires for a hundred years, an the theory they would timber sale and clear large fire breaks.

Timber sales do not help the fuels problem. In a timber sale you take the biggest trees because they make more 2x4s. But those are also the trees that survive fire the best. To restore forest health we need to thin out the small stuff and do way more controlled burns. The trees that get thinned are often not good for lumber. We need ways to use them like pulp mills and biomass plants. Even if we have to subsidize those, we can still extract some value from the thinning slash.

Changing the USFS's mind set from one of fight fire at any cost (i.e the 10am rule) to one of forest management will be a big undertaking and I'm not sure the present leadership is up for the task. Watching them lie to congress about how many unfilled fire fighter positions there are was discouraging. It may require new laws too.

California went backwards by renaming California Dept of Forestry to Cal Fire. The focus and money has increasingly gone to fire fighting at the cost of doing the forestry work to reduce fires. The recently programs and requirements to do fuels reduction are welcome but the dept is lagging on acreage and often counts the same acres multiple times.


Does anyone have a link to the actual California well regulations mentioned in the articles linked earlier? All I can find is angry words about a supposed letter but not the actual text of anything. I've not gotten a letter and no one on the 2000+ person mailing list for the local mountain area has mentioned getting one.

 

[dmccarty]

It doesn’t say the land owner owns the water. It says they can pump as much as they need in most situations, so long as it’s not wasted or intentionally meant to drain the neighbor. In a nutshell, the deepest, most powerful wells can suck the neighbors dry as long as it’s being put to good use.

However, there are some exceptions to that in the document you linked to.

I did not look refer to the Texas ground water ownership in the document I linked but referenced it for Arkansas.

As I said,

In Texas, the water is owned by the landowner, which was a decision in the Texas Supreme court a decade or so back.

Here is a link about the case, Texas Courts Start to Fill in the Blanks on Groundwater Law – Texas Living Waters Project

In Edwards Aquifer Authority (EAA) v. Day, the Day family and others sued the EAA claiming that the EAA’s regulation of the aquifer, which limited the landowner’s right to pump groundwater, violated their constitutional rights because the landowner owns the water under their property. The court ruled in Day’s favor; however, the decision was as striking for what it didn’t say as for what it did. While the court held that ownership of groundwater is a property right attached to surface ownership, the Court also held that regulation of the resource is permissible.

In Texas, unless there has been a more recent ruling, the property owner owns the ground water under the property.

Later,
Dan

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Our 20,000 sqft (1/2 acre) lawn theoretically requires about 12,500 gallons per week to apply 1" of moisture. Considering the overlap needed with the sprinklers to get 100% coverage, I'm sure its at least 15,000 gallons per week so the 20,000 gallon threshold wouldn't last long.

That's not a lawn, that's irrigated pasture. Plus, your side of the Rockies gets summer moisture. Your lawn is not relevant to areas that do not.

 

[California]

Some random observations on California water:

Water was scarce for the first settlers, the gold miners who had to wait for the rainy season to wash and filter accumulated ore. So water law started from the concept that the first upstream user had rights to all the water they could use. (Also that they could dump all their debris back in the creek causing floods downstream - this led to some of the first restrictions). The evolution of that water law today means almond growers and other high-volume water users have prior rights to as much water as they can use. This is controversial, almonds and alfalfa are major export uses of now-scarce water and law is evolving that can restrict this. Meanwhile financial speculators are buying farmland and planting almonds to control water rights that they know will will be more valuable in the future. (Lots of oversimplification, but relevant). One example: City of Davis and UC-Davis ag school considered buying adjacent land (Mace Ranch etc) to secure enough water for the city. Speculators got there first and now Davis has to buy water from them at a price that gives the speculators a nice return.

Nestle is buying and hoarding water rights worldwide. Their Arrowhead bottled water is one application and there have been challenges to their near-free access to water.

Mother of a kid that was in wife's GS troop is a water-specialist attorney. She said California water law precedents are unbelievably complex and contradictory, she makes a good living suggesting strategy that would withstand court challenges.

USGS photos showing subsidence caused from pumping subsurface water in the San Joaquin Valley:

[source]

[source]

and a quote with the second picture:

Between May of 2015 and September 2016 areas near the South San Joaquin Valley community dropped upwards of 25 inches in the last drought due to land sinking with the removal of water from underground aquifers.

The subsidence was the end result of jacked up groundwater pumping due to the Bureau of Reclamation cutting off water deliveries as growers scrambled to protect hundreds of millions of dollars invested in cropland and orchards.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Hey, if you have land, and water is under that land, it is your water. I wonder how your argument would be if they found oil on your land. Maybe even a vein of mineral? It'd probably be a little bit different I imagine.

Maybe in Arkansas. Here in the West, we have things called water rights. Water on your property is not yours unless you have title to it. By state law, every home has water rights for domestic water and 1/4 acre of garden or lawn. Anything more than that requires senior water rights, and you can be prosecuted or sued for using water you don't have a right to. Even livestock watering from a stream requires water rights.

 

[Jstpssng]

Maybe in Arkansas. Here in the West, we have things called water rights. Water on your property is not yours unless you have title to it. By state law, every home has water rights for domestic water and 1/4 acre of garden or lawn. Anything more than that requires senior water rights, and you can be prosecuted or sued for using water you don't have a right to. Even livestock watering from a stream requires water rights.

I've heard about western water rights off and on over the years, but this is the first time I've seen them explained. One family from here bought land in Oregon because it has the water rights... and are growing pot on it since it's legal on the state level there.

 

[dmccarty]

...

Mother of a kid that was in wife's GS troop is a water-specialist attorney. She said California water law precedents are unbelievably complex and contradictory, she makes a good living suggesting strategy that would withstand court challenges.

USGS photos showing subsidence caused from pumping subsurface water in the San Joaquin Valley:

[source]

[source]

and a quote with the second picture:

At least the soil is not disappearing...

The land/soil around Lake Okeechobee, which used to be part of the Everglades, has been disappearing since the canals were built to drain the swamps. I remember seeing a photo 30 or so years ago, where a post was driven to bedrock and left flush with the soil an Agricultural station. The top of the post was about six feet above grade...

The land is not lowering, the soil is just disappearing. At some point, some of the farms will not have soil and will be down to bedrock. I wonder if any of the CA land height changes is from soil loss.

Found these photos from this site, SL 311/SS523: Everglades Agricultural Area Soil Subsidence and Sustainability, which is not what I saw, but the same idea.

Later,
Dan

 

[ROUSTABOUT]

Maybe in Arkansas. Here in the West, we have things called water rights. Water on your property is not yours unless you have title to it. By state law, every home has water rights for domestic water and 1/4 acre of garden or lawn. Anything more than that requires senior water rights, and you can be prosecuted or sued for using water you don't have a right to. Even livestock watering from a stream requires water rights.

One of the many reasons I do not live or even visit the west.

 

[Fixastuff]

I love how people talk about how they would never live in California like that hurts California. I'm sure most of the people living in California are thinking they'd never live where I live but don't need to go online posting about it. Lol.

 

[lman]

It sounds like if you don't like to mow a yard or have a garden, California is a great place to live.
I just got done mowing for a couple hours. No irrigation.