The Modern Evolution of California's Water Wars

Independently published, 2021. Hardcover. New. New tightly bound encased hardcover. Print on boards. 4to. Clean text free of marks or underling. Color photos and illustrations throughout. Tables and graphs. Bibliography. vi, 189 pp.

Fast shipping in a secure book box mailer with tracking. Historians have long been fascinated by the West's water wars since so much of the region's history has been shaped by those who control the limited resource. The Owens Valley water grab by Los Angeles was the most infamous of California's water wars, but by no means, the last. In the early 1990s, California's witnessed another water war that masqueraded itself in the environmental movement under the name of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA). The CVPIA's architect was Bay Area Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez) who had for decades, sought to deprive Central Valley Project (CVP) farmers of their federal water supply. Miller battled CVP farmers so that his suburban Contra Costa County constituents' water supply would be fresher thus ensuring him a long congressional career. In the early 1980s, Miller attempted to limit the water supply of Central Valley farmers by having the Bureau of Reclamation enforce its acreage restrictions, but when that approach failed to work in Miller's favor, he switched tactics to an environmental course of action since doing so was more in line with changed societal values of the 1990s. For Miller to pass his CVPIA, he employed the help of Southern California's Metropolitan Water District (MWD) and environmental groups in order to gang up on CVP farmers. By changing tactics and creating new alliances, Miller's political gamble worked as his CVPIA became law on October 30, 1992. The CVPIA caused California's water system to become more dysfunctional than ever before because it made water marketing more difficult and protected invasive species that preyed upon California's endangered fish species. In addition, when the CVPIA took a substantial portion of water away from Central Valley farmers and dedicated it to the environment, farmers had no option left but to pump groundwater like they had before the CVP became operational. Such a phenomenon caused emergency water shortages and subsidence throughout the Central Valley during the last drought that lasted from 2012-2016. The water crisis did not just affect valley farmers, but millions of Central Valley residents who depended on groundwater for their survival in the arid West.