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To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (35)	11/14/2002 6:05:16 PM
From: Win Smith	Respond to of 603

Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature kteh.org [ The book that this came from dates back to 1986, but it may be one of the better known treatments on the general issue . The online PBS thing is a little sketchy, but sometimes less is more. The Chinatown inspiration part: ] Between 1911 and 1923, Mulholland's agents quietly purchased 95 percent of water rights to the Owens River. Against overwhelming odds, Mulholland constructed a 233-mile aqueduct across the blistering Mojave Desert to deliver Owens River water to downtown L.A. When the Owens Valley dried up, local ranchers seized aqueduct gates and dynamited the pipeline repeatedly. In 1927, Mulholland declared war, securing L.A.'s legal rights to Owens Valley water with a massive show of armed force. When the huge San Francisquito dam -- part of the aqueduct project -- burst in 1928, it caused the worst California disaster since the San Francisco earthquake in 1906. Mulholland resigned in disgrace and died a broken man, his real achievement forgotten. But in the 1930s and 40s, L.A.'s City Council, Chamber of Commerce, and its Board of Realtors continued to promote the water search he had set in motion -- this time, 300 miles east to the Colorado River, and, with state help, 600 miles north to the Feather River. But still, it wasn't enough After L.A. had drained so much water from the streams feeding Mono Lake -- a jewel in the California desert -- the Lake level fell 40 feet. Environmentalists began to take notice. A handful of biologists fought the powerful Department of Water and Power, and in 1988, the state forced the city to stop its diversions of water from Mono Lake. The victory helped open the gates for the conservation measures, progressive water policies, and fragile peace that have come to Los Angeles in recent years.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (35)	11/15/2002 7:29:54 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 603

Arkansas Rice Farmers Run Dry, and U.S. Remedy Sets Off Debate nytimes.com [California would have way more water than needed if they didn't do things like grow rice and irrigate pasture land in the desert. But instead of addressing that problem, the current trend is to repeat the California solution elsewhere, it seems. ] The debate touches on issues of water rights and responsibilities, and spills over into farm policy, because one issue is whether taxpayers should have to spend more to help grow rice, which is already heavily subsidized. It also involves wrangling about whether the corps, which has been limited to navigation and flood control, has any business wading into irrigation. One interest group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, contends the plan is a boondoggle of the first order. Farmers here in Arkansas' Grand Prairie, one of the country's richest rice-growing areas, see it differently. "We really don't have a water problem," said Mr. Kerksieck, 42, in hunting garb in anticipation of the duck season, which rivals rice farming as the Grand Prairie's main preoccupation. Like many here, he traces his lineage to the farmers who arrived in the early 1900's, starting a century of pumping from the aquifer at rates that could not be sustained. "There's plenty of water in the river," Mr. Kerksieck said. "They've just got to let us divert it." Another farmer, Lynn Sickel, 51, said: "I'm a conservative person. But if this is what it's going to take for highly productive farmland to continue to provide food nationally and internationally, well, that's the taxpayer's burden." [ Bite me , Mr. Sickel. I'm with the next guy. ] David Carruth, a local lawyer who had led opposition to the plan, posed the question a different way. "Why shouldn't we say to these farmers in the Grand Prairie: `You've known since 1940 that you had a problem with your aquifer, and you went ahead and overpumped it anyway,' " he said. " `Why should we go ahead and grant you another resource?" . . . Mr. Carruth, the critic of the plan, said a better approach would be to retire some farmland and to spend federal money on technology to enable farmers to use water more efficiently. That approach, he says, eases overpumping of the aquifer without the costly river diversion. "Why should we subsidize a pump that will sell subsidized water to grow a subsidized crop?" he asked, noting that federal price guarantees mean that rice farmers receive $3.10 a bushel for their crop, more than twice the current $1.40 market price.