Due to the continuous droughts and massive fires, water and its management in California are grossly inadequate. Despite its natural beauty and large-scale agriculture, California has been consumed by a bad water policy that caused the state to lose its farmland, broke the normal supply of drinking water, and led to catastrophic wildfires.

Although wildlife conservation forms the substantial part of the proposition of these policies, the fact is otherwise. It is indeed a crisis that is manmade, arising from the mismanagement and non-maintenance of the core infrastructure of the California Aqueduct and the failure to address the needs of humans and wildlife in a sustainable manner. This blog post discusses how erroneous priorities and dismissive policies have made California’s water troubles all the worse.

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Prioritizing Smelt Over Human Lives and Farms
For instance, one of the most erroneous examples of the water policy in California is the policy to protect the delta smelt—this is a small species of fish found in the delta of the Sacramento-San Joaquin. Of course, it is important to preserve biodiversity, but some of the actions are too aggressive and result in great unintended consequences.

Masses of fresh water have been diverted away from human use, most notably from large agricultural areas that depend on it, to maintain certain balances for the smelt. This has resulted in significant cutbacks in supplies to California’s Central Valley farmers, a situation causing them to leave vast tracts of fertile lands lying fallow.

In other words, this means a reduced agricultural output from California and seriously affected economies at the local level of the farming communities. Thousands of people have lost their jobs, the food prices skyrocketed, and the billions of chips in the state’s economy made through the agricultural business find itself in extremely hot water. Dependency on imported produce has increased, undercutting food security. It is indeed one of the best examples of policy favoring wildlife over human necessity yielding further destructive ripple effects.

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The State of California Aqueduct System Decays
The California Aqueduct is a critical piece of state water conveyance infrastructure designed to transfer water from California’s wetter north to its drier south. However, years of deferred maintenance and lack of investment in repair have left this key piece of infrastructure far from reliable. It has serious leaks, structural issues, and millions of gallons of water have been lost that could have been used for agriculture, fire prevention, and community drinking needs.

Despite repeated warnings and studies to the effect that the Aqueduct restoration is an absolute necessity, repair and modernization of the system have been woefully slow. To the detriment of Californians, resources have been misappropriated to the quick fixes or pet projects of politicians. Long-term water needs have been neglected at best. Resultant from the negligence in maintaining the Aqueduct, California has faced a serious incapacity to manage its water.

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Failure to capture water runoff
A further substantial flaw in the Californian water management plan is that rainwater and runoff are not properly harvested. In California, although it gets periods of rainfall and flash floods when there is the occurrence of storms during the rainy winter, it lets billions of gallons of water run off to the Pacific Ocean. The lost water can be properly harvested, stored, and utilized when there is a drought, but the infrastructure for this is either lacking or is not enough in different parts of the state.

That is a problem: rather than investing in enlarging reservoirs or developing state-of-the-art water capture systems, California has allowed much of this to escape, all while struggling with chronic shortages during dry years. Had the state invested in full runoff capture decades ago, much of what is happening now would have been avoided. Its failure to do so is emblematic of a deeper pattern of mismanagement that has left the state vulnerable to drought and fire.

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Bad Water Policy with Mexico and the California Dam
The water policy failure in California is not only an internal crisis but also has leaked internationally. Water policy failure in this respect is along the US-Mexico border, regarding water-sharing agreements over the Colorado River and water flow through California Dam. It is noted that the agreement on water-sharing among Arizona, Nevada, California, Mexico, and others has not been doing its best since it did not take into account population growth and the need of both countries for more water for agriculture.

In California, it is believed that the state, in the name of international diplomacy, has had a give away of too much water to Mexico, and as a result, it has left the Californian farmers and the communities in misery out of water shortage. It is also arguable the operations of the dam have been properly managed especially with increased drought conditions across southwestern U.S.

Without renegotiating these agreements and ensuring that California’s needs are fairly implemented, the state will remain beleaguered by these chronic shortages.

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Consequences: Fires, Loss of Arable Land, and Water Shortages
But in human terms, these bad policies with regard to water result in a state of crisis. From California’s lack of an ability to capture water runoff, its prioritization of endangered species, such as the delta smelt, above people and farms, to its dereliction of critical infrastructure—such as that of the California Aqueduct—California has set itself up for a perfect storm of drought, wildfire, and water scarcity. These policies have removed farmlands, adding to the pressure that hinders the state’s food production system. Many farmers have quit their fields, causing even lower crop production levels, leading to unemployment and recession in the countryside. The wildfires have devoured vast stretches of the state, creating cities of ash and spreading toxic emissions into the atmosphere.

The cost to humans from these misdirected policies is beyond measure. California citizens, particularly in the countryside, no longer have reliable access to any source of clean drinking water. Fire seasons have longer and more intense effects, burning houses, displacing families, and increasingly undermining public safety. Yet, with all these desperate consequences, policymakers at the state and federal levels have never taken the appropriate and serious action to correct such policy failures.

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A Way Forward
The solution to California’s water ills will be striking a new balance between the demands of nature and people. It is these investments that will now include fixing and modernizing the California Aqueduct system, expanded infrastructure for water capture, and a rethinking of water-sharing with Mexico that will place California on a path to a secure and sustainable water future. Furthermore, policymakers should understand that although the preservation of the species is important, it should not be at the expense of people’s livelihoods and agricultural productivity.

California can solve its water problems, but not without abandoning failed policies of the past and moving toward a more balanced, proactive approach to water management. These are problems that can be addressed by getting at the root causes of California’s water crisis: mismanagement, neglect of infrastructure, and flawed policies. It is within reach that with the proper kind of leadership and investment, the state can take the weight of many of these environmental and economic concerns now pressing on it. Yet without a change in priorities, California’s droughts, fires, and water shortages will likely persist, continuing to impact millions of lives.