Water history lesson

Chester Crawford (letter May 13) conveys: “It is time we stood up and made the elected officials declare where they stand on the water issue.” Mr. Crawford, we are experiencing where Democrats stand on water issues.

California’s water crisis is the direct result of state and federal Democrat legislators’ environmental laws and regulations that started incrementally impacting California water supplies 30 years ago. Be it the Endangered Species, Clean Water, Central Valley Project Improvement and/or other “acts,” Democratic legislators working at the behest of environmentalists have stripped away California’s water supplies and blocked every attempt to replace those lost supplies with new reservoirs like Temperance Flat.

I urge voters to remember that history lesson before believing any Democratic response on water issues. For decades, Democrats like Diane Feinstein and Jim Costa have been kissing voters’ backsides before every election saying they support solving our (previously impending) water-supply crisis. Then, after the election, doing either nothing or piling on even more regulations.

Until this current drought, urbane voters were largely unaffected by the increasing water supply shortages farmers have dealt with for decades. Maybe now that will change. If not, California’s water supply shortages will only worsen.

Shaver Lake

This story was originally published May 18, 2015 at 12:31 PM with the headline "Water history lesson."