Kings River water should flow to where nature intended

Steve Malanca’s letter (June 22) about the enormous amount of water flowing through the Delta was a real eye opener: 45 million acre-feet being allowed to run out to the ocean is a shocking figure.

What I would really like to see though is a detailed breakdown describing exactly how much water is being diverted by corporate farming operations in the Tulare Lake Basin to protect their crops while the entire region is dealing with subsidence due to over-pumping of the aquifers.

Communities like Corcoran and Stratford are sinking while water from the Kings River and others that serve the southern San Joaquin Valley are being manipulated every which way to deliberately keep the entire lake bed dry.

Signs along the roads say things like “crops grow where water flows.” I’d like to know why water isn’t flowing into the Tulare Lake Basin where it naturally belongs?

This story was originally published June 25, 2017 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Kings River water should flow to where nature intended."