Here is a copy of a comment I recently posted on Lloyd Carter's website. Mr Carter is a lawyer specializing on water issues

The big picture
Submitted by John Warner (not verified) on Sun, 01/03/2010 - 14:36.

The earth's 6.5 billion people represent a number well over sustainable carrying capacity. Present carrying capacity is only possible because of exploitive mining of non-renewable resources--principally petroleum and fossil water.

Nearly all irrigated agriculture is, in the end, unsustainable because of the salt content of irrigation water. Each flooding adds its load of salt and, over the years, it all adds up until the point is reached that no further cropping can be done. Around 1970 I recall reading an issue of "California Agriculture" [official publication of the University of California school of agriculture]that made this very clear. It said in effect that the job would be so costly that there would not be enough money, public or private or both combined, to build the drainage network that would be required. And even if built, the salt load would be so heavy that it would poison the whole bay and even a portion of the Pacific Ocean beyond it.

Given that the food needs of the earth are dramatically rising due to increasing population and the increasing demands of a swelling middle class [mostly in Asia but unlikely to be completely countered by diminishing middle class here], food, and the land that grows it will become ever more dear.

So it would seem to me that the few hundred farmers on the West Side are being rather short-sighted by demanding irrigation water now. This would bring on the demise of their land sooner than if they grew crops only in the years promising sufficient water delivery. Hey, they might be able to collect a nice fat subsidy for retiring their land. Then, in the future, with some productive years still remaining, sell it to the Chinese at a nice fat profit when food prices have gone way up.

We need to remember that the wealth of these farmers depends almost entirely in the generosity of government. Starting with land near worthless, California taxpayers brought them the Central Valley Project [without the acreage restriction then attached to federal water]. Yes, the citizens of California, as I recall, funded it alone for this very reason. A job this big was surely one cut out for the Feds. Then they grew cotton and collected nice subsidies there. Ah, but the land was kind of isolated, hard to get to and develop without a nice highway so legislators, loyal to their paymasters, brought them Highway 5, at the expense of the economic development of the towns and cities along the 99.

There's no way out of it. These oligarchs will have their piece of taxpayer's flesh and that's that. It's an entitlement they've become accustomed to and earned by kicking back profits to the sources of their good fortune in Sacramento and Washington DC.

A good deal for taxpayers these days is hard to find.

John Warner, Madera CA
Hand-scale market farmer since 1996
http://www.wholesystemsag.org