Darian
09-07-2010, 12:18 AM
If you've been reading the news recently, there's been a number of articles addressing water issues. None more important than the article in todays SacBee reporting that several water agencies and non-profit, environmental entities have filed a couple of law suits over the last 3 months to:
1) Determine how Roll International gained control of and who actually owns the Kern County Water Bank....
2) Stop the pumping of water from the Kern County Water Bank. :-k
The defendants are Roll International (Stewart Resnick :ninja: ), Paramount Farms and Tejon Ranch (one of the largest private land owners in the state). Of course, the defendants say that they acquired the water bank legally and everything is above board. It seems that Roll and Paramount have succeeded in gaining ownership of a public trust resource (water) and have been selling that water back to the state and downstream users at the expense of other Kern County water agencies and growers in the area. I guess they succeeded where Enron failed.... Remember Enron and their Water Desk :?: :?:
It was reported that the water table in the area had dropped 115' in the last 3 years. It usually takes a couple decades to cause that rate of subsidence. Smaller growers are drilling deeper wells as are the other Kern County water agencies. :\\
I'm not going to bet on who'll win the first cause as this isn't the first time the state has sold its interests in public Trust resources and probably won't be the last. Realistically, unless the governments of this state engage in private/public partnerships, there'll never be enough money to fund infrastructure projects dealing with water. :-|
However, the second cause of action may be the one that causes a change. One of the actions the plaintiffs are taking on is to determine the actual amount of water that may be pumped from the aquifer without causing subsidence. Assuming a figure is established, that could be enforced regardless of the ownership of the aquifer and may cause the current ownership to find it unprofitable to continue operations after the decision... :-k
we can only hope.... :nod:
1) Determine how Roll International gained control of and who actually owns the Kern County Water Bank....
2) Stop the pumping of water from the Kern County Water Bank. :-k
The defendants are Roll International (Stewart Resnick :ninja: ), Paramount Farms and Tejon Ranch (one of the largest private land owners in the state). Of course, the defendants say that they acquired the water bank legally and everything is above board. It seems that Roll and Paramount have succeeded in gaining ownership of a public trust resource (water) and have been selling that water back to the state and downstream users at the expense of other Kern County water agencies and growers in the area. I guess they succeeded where Enron failed.... Remember Enron and their Water Desk :?: :?:
It was reported that the water table in the area had dropped 115' in the last 3 years. It usually takes a couple decades to cause that rate of subsidence. Smaller growers are drilling deeper wells as are the other Kern County water agencies. :\\
I'm not going to bet on who'll win the first cause as this isn't the first time the state has sold its interests in public Trust resources and probably won't be the last. Realistically, unless the governments of this state engage in private/public partnerships, there'll never be enough money to fund infrastructure projects dealing with water. :-|
However, the second cause of action may be the one that causes a change. One of the actions the plaintiffs are taking on is to determine the actual amount of water that may be pumped from the aquifer without causing subsidence. Assuming a figure is established, that could be enforced regardless of the ownership of the aquifer and may cause the current ownership to find it unprofitable to continue operations after the decision... :-k
we can only hope.... :nod: