>>1104698Educate yourself, my man. The Delta tunnels will solely benefit huge agro-businesses and destroy the Delta ecosystem, turning it into an uninhabitable saltwater marsh. Agriculture uses 80% of California's water yet contributes only $40 billion to a $2 trillion state economy. Family farms are a myth in the Central Valley and almonds are NOT an essential crop, particularly when most of them are shipped overseas to China anyway. Not to mention the only jobs agriculture creates in the Valley are below-minimum wage ones for illegal slave labor. The Central Valley was always a desert prior to the 20th century (and still is) and if the choice is between propping up inefficient agriculture in the region at the expense of sustainable ecosystems, it deserves to be reclaimed by the sands.
>Lynda Resnick and her husband, Stewart, also own a few other things: Teleflora, the nation’s largest flower delivery service; Fiji Water, the best-selling brand of premium bottled water; Pom Wonderful, the iconic pomegranate juice brand; Halos, the insanely popular brand of mandarin oranges formerly known as Cuties; and Wonderful Pistachios, with its “Get Crackin'” ad campaign. The Resnicks are the world’s biggest producers of pistachios and almonds, and they also hold vast groves of lemons, grapefruit, and navel oranges. All told, they claim to own America’s second-largest produce company, worth an estimated $4.2 billion.>The Resnicks have amassed this empire by following a simple agricultural precept: Crops need water. Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of California’s byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the state’s water than any other family, farm, or company. They control more of it in some years than what’s used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined.And that's just one fucking grower.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/lynda-stewart-resnick-california-water/ 