California water rights: Millions of documents kept in Sacramento
In the Records Room of the CalEPA building in Sacramento are some of the most important documents in the entire state of California. Some date back to 1914. “Our files are organized in ascending order,” explained Matthew Jay, an analyst with the State Water Resources Control Board. “The oldest documents are at the bottom and so you can see that some of the stuff is all typewritten and in a lot of cases, handwritten.” … The papers are what’s known as water rights – the backbone of life in California and its multitrillion dollar economy. Water rights are official documents validating who has the authority to take water, from where, and how much of it.
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