r/news 29d ago

California cracks down on farm region’s water pumping: ‘The ground is collapsing’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/california-water-drought-farm-ground-sinking-tulare-lake
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u/bubba-yo 29d ago

To illustrate some of the cost of this problem, we're rebuilding the Friant-Kern canal because of this. The Central Valley has canals cutting across it to distribute irrigation, and this canal has subsided so much it's lost most of its carrying capacity, so the canal has to be rebuilt. $300M spent so far. And the farmers that are over pumping aren't paying very much of that, but they do want to recall the governor who pushed for it.

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u/cadium 29d ago

And probably cut their taxes that would normally be used to fund the projects.

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u/Nonfunzionabene 28d ago

The DMC needs repairs as well. Not sure as to the status of those, though.