Written by Sasha Reva<\/p>\n
State water regulators voted Tuesday to enact a drastic emergency order that will bar thousands of Californians, primarily farmers, from using stream and river water.<\/span><\/p>\n California\u2019s compound water rights system is made to distribute water use during times of shortage. But Tuesday’s order, which will apply to thousands of senior water rights across the state, is unprecedented.<\/span><\/p>\n While some farmers were protesting, irrigation districts and others, CDFA Secretary Karen Ross said the decision \u201ca necessary step,\u201d saying that senior water rights holders were in \u201cspeaks to the severity of the hydrology and what climate change has presented this year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt is a painful moment. We know the impacts are real,\u201d Ross spoke.<\/span><\/p>\n The State Water Resources Control Board unanimously passed the \u201cemergency curtailment\u201d act for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed. The regulation will be two weeks from now.<\/span><\/p>\n About 5,700 Northern California water rights holders who hold about 12,500 water rights will be subject to the forthcoming reduction. The order will really affect rights holders using water for agricultural irrigation purposes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The only thing why Davy made a decision to purchase his ranch was because of the perceived comfort of his local irrigation district\u2019s pre-1914 water rights. He\u2019s planning to sell all of his calves early at a loss and fears having to divide his property to pay his mortgage.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMost of us that went this route, investing in property with these water rights within these districts all did it for very similar reasons in that there was security in that,\u201d Davy said. \u201cAnd now seeing that security gone, we\u2019re really scared.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Drought conditions in the state got worse really fast this spring when they were expecting the snowpack runoff to the watershed to decrease by almost 800,000 acre-feet, an amount almost equivalent to the capacity of Folsom Reservoir between April and May.<\/span><\/p>\n Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency in 41 of California\u2019s 58 counties on May 10. In May, many farmers were warned that they would receive some or nothing at all from two large allocation systems, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Sasha Reva State water regulators voted Tuesday to enact a drastic emergency order that will bar thousands of Californians, primarily farmers, from using stream and river water. California\u2019s compound water rights system is made to distribute water use during times of shortage. But Tuesday’s order, which will apply to thousands of senior water…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6742,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n