California's drought raises rural-urban tensions over water
California's third year of drought is stirring up long-standing – and usually low-simmering – tensions between farmers in northern and central California and urban consumers in the state's dry Southland.
The competition for scarce water was evident this week, as up to 19 million southern Californians learned they would face mandatory water restrictions for the first time in 18 years and as tens of thousands of farm workers marched through the Central Valley to protest federal and state cuts in irrigation water for the current growing season.
Though Los Angeles is recommending a cut in water use of 15 percent – and surcharges for those who miss the mark – the agricultural set is not placated. The cutbacks for consumers are not nearly equal to what's happening in farm fields, where growers don't expect to get any federal water deliveries at all and have had to lay off thousands of workers.
