For most of the state, the drought is over. The Central Valley is receiving their full state water supply allocation and farmers don’t need to pull water from the ground to keep their crops from dying of thirst. But that doesn’t mean the signs along Interstate 5 and Highway 99 grumbling about the “Politicians Created Water Crisis” and the Valley’s man-made dust bowl, and asking if “Growing Food Is Wasting Water?” should be taken down. The abundance won’t last forever, and the farmers eventually will be back where they were before record rain and snow provided them with a bounty of life-giving water. That could be avoided, though, if policymakers got busy building needed water infrastructure.
-Written by Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Center for California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute.​