… What could have been more California than dipping my paddle into the waters being fought over by multiple states, Indigenous tribes, farmers, ranchers, conservation groups, and so on? We are, after all, on the verge of yet another new chapter flowing out of the Colorado River, whose silty waves, east beyond Death Valley, undulate California’s southeast border and which, in the fullness of thirst, became L.A.’s main water source. Parsing those waters has been bogged down for years, seemingly because California has been hogging more than its realistic share—even the mighty Colorado has shrunk, first from an overly optimistic estimation of its volume and now from drought. Welcome to the New West. T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” springs to mind:

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road

Other essays on California water:

• Manteca Bulletin (Calif.): Editorial: The power of water in both its liquid & frozen form has carved California​