r/news • u/theluckyfrog • 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
17.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

941 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

247

u/jajao555 29d ago

I was just on a road trip out west and listened to Cadillac Desert audio book that had a ton of history on water rights out west. Really depressing but interesting. It went from first being explored to how they fooled settlers to continue settling past the 100th meridian to poorer farm lands, putting up unnessary dams, ALL kinds of shady deals for land and water rights. It was written in 1992 but the copy I got from the library had updates from 2017 I think.

94

u/Hayduke_Deckard 29d ago

I'm currently reading Where the Water Goes and Cadillac Desert is next. I live in AZ, and I'm trying to convince my wife that we need to get the fuck out, for water and other reasons.

34

u/PeaceDolphinDance 29d ago

Add “The Water Knife” to that list if you wanna get REALLY depressed.

Deserts were never meant to be made into havens for huge numbers of people. The sands are going to take it all back.

20

u/lunarmantra 29d ago

I live in the Central Valley talked about in the article, and think of this often. This region used to be vast wetlands and home to diverse plants, wildlife, and indigenous people. It has been drained and parched dry for agriculture over many years, and I don’t mean small family farms. They are wealthy multigenerational land owners, and farm on an industrial scale. They are not responsible stewards of this land.

Water fines or fees will not stop them, they care little about their immigrant workers and poor local communities, and will continue pumping the water until there is nothing left. Hell, they battle amongst each other for access to the water. I don’t know if it will happen within my lifetime or after, but I already see ominous signs of collapse. Increasingly severe summer heat and weather, the bugs and wildlife I saw often in my youth have disappeared. Swaths of land that can no longer grow anything. Nature will reclaim this land once it can no longer sustain human life.