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California Regulators Slap Farmers With Record $1.5 Million "Water-Taking" Fine

Tyler Durden's picture




 

In what seems a lot like a strawman for just how much they can pressure the population, AP reports California water regulators proposed a first-of-its-kind, $1.5 million fine for a group of Central Valley farmers accused of illegally taking water during the drought. This would be the first such fine for holders of California's oldest (most senior) claims to water, and follows suits from the farmers to the government arguing their 'law changes' are illegal.

 

As AP reports, the State Water Resources Control Board said the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District in Tracy illegally took water from a pumping plant even after it was warned there wasn't enough water legally available.

The move by the board was the first against an individual or district with claims to water that are more than a century-old, known as senior water rights holders.

 

The action reflects the rising severity of California's four-year drought that has prompted the state to demand cutbacks from those historically sheltered from mandatory conservation.

 

The Byron-Bethany district serves farmers in three counties in the agriculture-rich Central Valley and a residential community of 12,000 people relying on water rights dating to 1914.

 

District general manager Rick Gilmore said he did not know a penalty was coming and wasn't aware of the details.

 

"Perhaps the state water resources control board is not taking into account we purchased supplemental supplies," he said.

The district has sued the state over the board's June warning to immediately stop taking water because the watershed was running too dry to meet demand.

Several irrigation districts have filed unresolved legal challenges to stop the curtailments demanded by the state.

 

Among them is the West Side Irrigation District, which claimed a victory in a ruling last week by a Sacramento judge who said the state's initial order to stop pumping amounted to an unconstitutional violation of due process rights by not allowing hearings on the cuts.

 

Superior Court Judge Shelleyanne Chang also indicated, however, that the water board can advise water rights holders to curtail use and fine them if the agency determines use exceeded the limit.

 

West Side is a small district with junior water rights, but the ruling also has implications for larger districts with senior rights.

 

West Side's attorney Steven Herum said the order issued Thursday was prompted after the judge sided with his client.

 

"It is clear that the cease-and-desist order is retaliatory," Herum said. "It's intended to punish the district."

The board has sent out more than 9,000 notices across parched California warning there wasn't enough water entitled under rights.

The water board issued a cease-and-desist order last week against the West Side Irrigation District, also in Tracy, to immediately stop taking water. That district also had filed a lawsuit challenging the board's cuts, but the state denies it's retaliating against the agency.

 

Courts have not yet settled the question of whether the board has authority to demand cutbacks from farmers, cities and individuals with California's oldest claims to water.

*  *  *

Of course we suspectthe proposed fine will be reduced but it is likley testing the waters with just how much a fine is required to scare the people into not exercising their senior rights to water. But as Gaius Publius (via Down woith Tyranny blog) concludes, here's what's likely to happen next...

The social contract will break in California and the rest of the Southwest (and don't forget Mexico, which also has water rights from the Colorado and a reason to contest them). This will occur even if the fastest, man-on-the-moon–style conversion to renewables is attempted starting tomorrow.

 

This means, the very very rich will take the best for themselves and leave the rest of us to marinate in the consequences — to hang, in other words. (For a French-Saudi example of that, read this. Typical "the rich are always entitled" behavior.) This means war between the industries, regions, classes. The rich didn't get where they are, don't stay where they are, by surrender.

 

Government will have to decide between the wealthy and the citizenry. How do you expect that to go?

*  *  *

We suspect the tipping point in this situation is looming soon as tensions between the government's tyrannical law changes (albeit due to historic weather conditions) become unbearable for the citizenry.

 

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Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:50 | 6334003 Fukushima Fricassee
Fukushima Fricassee's picture

Shut down operations and get out, fuck the tax man.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:54 | 6334027 TBT or not TBT
TBT or not TBT's picture

This is what rule of law looks like in the single party state.  

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:58 | 6334055 Publicus
Publicus's picture

Burn it all down, California is finished.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:03 | 6334088 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

Some of these water rights go back to the Gold Rush days.  Welcome to California, where "Departments" with unelected bureaucrats disguise the tyranny.

I hope these farmers retaliate on a personal level.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:10 | 6334124 CounterPartyVice
CounterPartyVice's picture

I don't understand why these farmers need water, ... clearly the only thing they need to do is to buy more stocks, that's how farming is done our times.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:17 | 6334157 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

My home state was once a thriving economy built on agriculture.  Most of Southeast Asia eats California-grown rice.  Generations of farmers helped to build this once great state and then the government/welfare apparatus slowly metastasized into the cancerous tape-worm that it is today.  If you drive down I-5 in the Central Valley, you will see sign after sign on farmers' ranches slamming Feinstein, Boxer et al for selling them out.  Man I hope I see a Cliven Bundy-esque solution to this because these bastards deserve it.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:32 | 6334553 mophead
mophead's picture

ALL YOUR CROPS ARE BELONG TO US!

Say hello to even HIGHER food prices. I wonder if this is intentional? Naw, they'd never DOO that.

Stealth Inflation Baby! Works like a charm.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:42 | 6334600 SoCalBusted
SoCalBusted's picture

The price of water is too low.  The state is trying to compensate the artificially set low price through fines.  If the price of water is too low, then the price for the crops coming out of California is too low as well.  Something has got to give.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 19:33 | 6334787 truthserum
truthserum's picture

Not only is water below market rate but the price of emmigration to United States is too low as well. If you were to sell "membership" to the US it wouldeasily bring $15,000 per year. Typical Mexican that makes two dollars an hour in Mexico would gladly pay that much to get that $20 an hour job construction jobs they currently take (steal) with Illegal trespassing of the country. Eight in the Lord crime rate, clean water, better class of people…

I would figure the typical illegal is stealing $300,000-$600,000 worth of citizenship. It's the governments response to Grand theft? Amnesty!

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:11 | 6334132 Lost My Shorts
Lost My Shorts's picture

Wait, what, California you mean the place where highways are washing out in the floods?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:21 | 6334184 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

That's Southern California.  It's a big state.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:52 | 6334015 kaiserhoff
kaiserhoff's picture

The deep state finds it's own laws inconvenient.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:19 | 6334154 Philo Beddoe
Philo Beddoe's picture

It is sadder than that. I remember as young guy on my motrocyle ridding from Yuma to El Centro.  The smell of the freshly irrigated fields of El Centro is something you have to witnesss to believe. Makes grandma's apple pie smell like dog shit. 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:53 | 6334018 Xibalba
Xibalba's picture

Water 'costs' the price of a bribe to the regulator, nothing more...

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:53 | 6334020 JustObserving
JustObserving's picture

It takes more than a galllon of water to grow a single almond.  California farmers will have to change their mix of crops.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:59 | 6334056 Vullsain
Vullsain's picture

And who is the state to deny water rights for the growing of rice by agri-busisness in a drought devastated region ????

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:04 | 6334071 cowdiddly
cowdiddly's picture

The exempt Oil drillers who were willing to pay buy their politicians off properly. Hey you, we seen you watering that carrot with our fracking fluid

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:12 | 6334137 Vullsain
Vullsain's picture

They probably used their slush funds to payoff politicians to not initiate any real illegal immigration reform, been doing that for four decades they like the cheap labor.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:03 | 6334086 Ralph Spoilsport
Ralph Spoilsport's picture

"Is that a hickory daiquiri Doc?"

"No, it's an almond daiquiri Dick."

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:58 | 6334375 Stumpy4516
Stumpy4516's picture

They own the rights to the water.  They can grow what makes them the most money.  Capitalism.  Of course that is a dead concept in the US. 

Your private rights will soon be erased for the what they claim is the better good (for them).

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 21:25 | 6335187 greyghost
greyghost's picture

Justobserving.......good lord, just read the motherjones article that states that. also followed the paper trail to the waterfootprint/org boys posting the study this is based on. good grief....this paper is all over the board with averages that include india, china, and the usa. in all the studies the U.S. is the lowest user of water for crops. it ranges from india using 150% more water to china at aprox. 30% more water to get the same product in the usa. the thing that got me about the mommy jones article was the great pictures and graphics and utter lack of printed words. i can't say i have ever read anything by mother jones and now i know why. always thought people magizine was a total waste.....all pictures....no words. i learned more on pbs this weekend with the show about the drought in the central valley showing drip irrigation and how they are now using brackish water[part salt water/clean water] to irrigate certain grasses and also almond trees do well.....who would of thought? averages with a country that uses 2 and half times as much water for the same crop. how ever feel free to sign up at waterfootprint/org for thirty thousand euros a year....ouch.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:54 | 6334026 Vullsain
Vullsain's picture

Giant agribusiness thought their water rights would last for eternity??

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:09 | 6334117 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

Yeah, as opposed to those temporary rights?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:26 | 6334214 Vullsain
Vullsain's picture

Does that include the right to  cheap illegal labor subsidized by the state. You don't believe that in a devastating drought some sacrifices and cut backs have to made.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:30 | 6334230 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

You're confusing rights with priveleges.  

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:45 | 6334308 Vullsain
Vullsain's picture

Do you believe that in a devastating drought that some sacrifices will need to be  legislated? how about when the fifty year drought hits?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:02 | 6334402 Stumpy4516
Stumpy4516's picture

They always come up with excuses to remove rights.  But never give them back.  The farmers bought the rights to the water and the first use of the water to the full allotment of their rights.

Others who did not plan as well need to be motivated to resolve their problems.  Desalination for example.  Too bad they did not plan or start making plans many years ago.

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:35 | 6334565 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

If something is a right, why do you have to go hat in hand begging the busybodies to exercise it?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:06 | 6334417 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

Rights are rights and shan't be legislated away. They have a right to the water on their land. What gives bureaucrats the right to legislate someone else's rights away? I have a right to the water on my land if I drill down to find it.

Now if you're asking me if they should choose to make sacrifices, then that's a valid question.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:07 | 6334428 The Delicate Genius
The Delicate Genius's picture

What's a 'right'?

Rather, what's a "right" when someone pointing a gun at your noodle disagrees?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:34 | 6334564 steelhead23
steelhead23's picture

In the event that CA government determines that senior water rights need to be curbed to keep people and rivers alive, it should either permanently, or temporarily withdraw those rights.  But it must follow the rule of law in so doing.  That is, they must compensate the right-holder for his loss.  My view is that during times of crisis, when lives are at stake, you take the action (suspending withdrawals under those rights), then pay the consequences (litigation, compensation).  Given the authority of the state to take private property under just compensation, all property rights are temporary.  Or, just fail to pay your property taxes and they will condemn your property for the taxes.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 19:19 | 6334733 Stumpy4516
Stumpy4516's picture

Property taxes are not related to holding water rights that are bought and paid for. 

There are many who will tell you the "just compensation" is anything but.   Will the State pay their lost profits for the next 100 yrs, compensation for lost of lifestyle and dream, provide reversion rights?  Funny, not once have I read that the State has offered to even pay a years rental for the water right.  Much less to pay for the damage to their crops, damage that may last 20 yrs at least.  You see, by taking the water even short term they destroy the value of the land due to the orchards dying.  If you connect this with the geoengineering going on you can connect the dots.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:57 | 6334050 sethco
sethco's picture

NOTHING should be "farmed" in southern California. It's a desert.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:06 | 6334103 silverer
silverer's picture

What about cactus?  Hell, what an opportunity!

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:31 | 6334221 Vullsain
Vullsain's picture

Agave tequilla!!!! Drink enough and forget for a bit how far we have regressed.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 21:59 | 6335330 sethco
sethco's picture

read "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian". read "Cadillac Desert". There are many others. these issues are a century and a half old, and this is a retarded article, from any perspective. these comments are a retarded slogan message board.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 22:02 | 6335340 sethco
sethco's picture

OK some comments are still thoughtful and/or funny.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:57 | 6334053 kchrisc
kchrisc's picture

"Never waster a crisis..." to steal more wealth.

LOL

Liberty is a demand. Tyranny i submission..

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:57 | 6334054 SelfGov
SelfGov's picture

A slap or a proposed slap?

wtf Tyler?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 16:59 | 6334063 p00k1e
p00k1e's picture

Sea Salt the fields and leave!!!

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:01 | 6334072 H H Henry P P P...
H H Henry P P P Paulson's picture

don't bite the hand that feeds you fat fucks.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:02 | 6334083 wmbz
wmbz's picture

I read somewhere that Tom Sellick had been stealing water to grow his nuts.

Paid a $21,000.00 dollar fine with the understanding that he could keep stealing.

He really must like his nuts!

Kalifornia what a fucked up mess!

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:05 | 6334099 silverer
silverer's picture

Nothing like the "Rule of Law", which apparently doesn't even have a viable definition anymore...

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:24 | 6334210 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

Law of Rule is more like it.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:10 | 6334112 lex parsimoniae
lex parsimoniae's picture

Replay of Cliven Bundy episode in 3, 2, 1..

They're asking for it; these farmers have legal and long established water rights. If you back a guy into a corner, don't be surprised if he fights.

All informed Califonia landowners know this is a scheme to take water rights and raise the prices high enough that the state can 'afford' desalination plants.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:11 | 6334129 Meat Hammer
Meat Hammer's picture

LOL. are you kidding???  Desalination is a solution and the last thing politicians want is a solution.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:09 | 6334116 Secret Weapon
Secret Weapon's picture

Part of me can't help but wonder if this is a back door land grab in the making.  Bankrupt the farmers and then purchase the land for pennies on the dollar followed by a return of normal water rights.  Just wondering.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:21 | 6334191 Bastiat
Bastiat's picture

There's a bunch of people who have maintained for some time that the California drought was engineered with some kind of HAARP and chemtrails used to block storms/fronts with stationary high pressure systems off the coast.  Imagine for minute that is possible.  Dry up the farms, buy 'em cheap then let the rain fall.

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:33 | 6334559 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

What if there is no drought?

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 20:28 | 6335000 bunnyswanson
bunnyswanson's picture

I am in central California ag area - You are right to consider this.  Chemtrails have been over my head for years.  They seem to have stopped as of july 4th and we have had 2 major rain storms.  Last year, a major storm was forecast and it went completely around me, even with 50 mph gusts...which never showed up.  It was so severe, I had a tree taken down the day before...and we had not a cloud in the sky.  Something nefarious is going on here.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:11 | 6334131 Mike Honcho
Mike Honcho's picture

Take your business and get the hell out of here!

 

- California

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 19:33 | 6334785 bunnyswanson
bunnyswanson's picture

Agenda 21 is here and moving fast, regardless of what Rosa Koire says (Postsustainability Project).  The city of SF has 5 cranes in the air and high rise apartments are going up in LA as well...freeing rural land from the animals we have become and returning it back  to nature to save the earth (or somethign like that).  Rosa Koire has taken the seat of fighting agenda 21 and perhaps she needs help or is a gatekeeper...Water by the millions of gallons is being caught up in the mountains, bottled and sold.  Corporations are buying bankrupt farms and putting up cyclone fences with razor wire and cameras.  Highway work is nonstop as is parks.  It is a land preparing to be sold to the highest bidder. 

Just sitting here and waiting for someone to help us stop this unpopular Hidden Agenda to take over disguised as a helping hand to protect Mother Nature.  Not a word, not A WORD, about the Fukishima disaster and radiation levels, however. 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:18 | 6334169 vq1
vq1's picture

People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful... We pay significant property taxes based on where we live,” he added in an interview. “And, no, we’re not all equal when it comes to water.”

-Steve Yuhas

Local idgaf Councillor 

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:34 | 6334249 Dixie Flatline
Dixie Flatline's picture

Tax and regulate to utopia!

Progtardtopia 4 eva!

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:38 | 6334268 atthelake
atthelake's picture

The purpose is to destroy America, Americans and the dollar and they're winning. I wonder what it will take.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 17:43 | 6334302 22winmag
22winmag's picture

You had to see this coming.

 

Gotta pay those teachers benefits and police pensions!

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:09 | 6334439 The Delicate Genius
The Delicate Genius's picture

Niggaz neeeeed to be growin' legal weed.

Cannabis is pretty good with water, can grow in hardscrabble area or tropical forest...

I believe CA has medical marijuana - absurd how much money they are leaving on the table because some old fucks and bible-thumpers think anything that makes your food taste better, your music sound sweeter, and oft-visited pussy feel tighter and new must be a "sin."

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:32 | 6334555 PoasterToaster
PoasterToaster's picture

Not enough water "legally available".

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 18:51 | 6334631 The Delicate Genius
The Delicate Genius's picture

Illegal Immigrants Account for Over Half of California Driver’s Licenses Issued in 2015

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/illegal-immigrants-account-for-o...

Wow.

Fuck California - let La Raza reclaim it once it's turned to dust.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 20:01 | 6334899 falconflight
falconflight's picture

Only after the great blood flood of 20xx is complete.  

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 19:14 | 6334711 Faeriedust
Faeriedust's picture

Hmmmm.  At least farmers are doing something productive with their water rights.  Not like SOME PEOPLE, with their golf courses and multi-acre lawns.  Furthermore, the fundamental issue with the senior rights holders is that they were there first.  The land (and water) were theirs.  And then all these "come-heres" moved in to make movies and computers, both of which can be done just as easily anywhere else.  But you can't grow almonds anywhere else nearly as well as you can in California.  Nor can you grown them again next year,  if you let them die this year.

Somewhere, we have to make decisions as to what the important things are.  And I've got news for you: celluloid fantasies only put food in your belly, if somebody is growing the food.

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 20:00 | 6334893 falconflight
falconflight's picture

The nation of  men versus the law is a blowout.  The legal plunder floodgates are wide open.

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 21:20 | 6335175 Ms No
Ms No's picture

So unbelievable.  They import millions of people, dump their fresh water into the sea and then tell the farmers they have no water rights?  If their isn't enough water why do they keep siding with both legal and illegal immigration on an insane scale?  Farmers are supposed to pay for this with their rights?  Somebody better rally the pitchforks because this is nothing but a coup.

Tue, 07/21/2015 - 03:08 | 6336013 Why.Not.
Why.Not.'s picture

The Left has been waging war on the Constitution, private rights and property rights for generations. This is just another opportunity justified by a "crisis" that could easily have been averted years ago, by those same leftists, through improvements in water storage and desalination plant construction. This is not a novel idea. Those things were proposed, discussed and explicitly rejected - and here we are, with Gov. Moonbeam and the boys/girls/sexually-ambivalents in Sacramento pretending it's all an unpleasant surprise as they roll out the threats and oppressive regulations. 

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