• @Shrike502
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    61 year ago

    water barons to claim literal aquifers as their property

    Mad Max was not supposed to be a user manual dammit!

    but the water barons have found loopholes in the legislation due to its emphasis on privatization

    What are the odds it was drafted like this on purpose?

    • @xenautika
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      1 year ago

      What are the odds it was drafted like this on purpose?

      i have to look into the details again but SGMA was drafted with the stakeholder mentality in mind through the involvement of major water districts and landowners. who of course enable corporate agri-industry, such as the Resnick’s wonderful brands and paramount citrus, as the main political power of the state’s water resources.

      each groundwater region is managed by a groundwater sustainability agency (GSA), which develop strategic plans they have to submit to the state to be approve, after which they go about managing it with oversight through SGMA.

      GSA’s are a combination of land-owning farmers, ranchers, and water districts, such as aquifers, entities with natural surface water rights, canals or reservoirs. the GSA board is solely comprised of landowners of that GSA, elected by landowners in the GSA. Often wealthy farmers also serve on the board of the water district they receive water from. the formation of new water districts under the SGMA rules also gives them liberal flexibility to meet GSA formation requirements. for example, one water district consolidated three other districts, involving a nearby city, then moved to form the GSA. one decision was a one acre, one vote decision-making process: because of the aquifer and the nearby cities dependence on it and thus incorporation into the same GSA , the acreage of about 50 landowners now overules at least 60,000 people’s water rights.

      when you get more into it, you see this is some serious cartoon villain shit. and the state of California has been in collusion since the beginning: in the 1930’s, the very first and still-dominant state water infrastructure projects were done under direct leadership and control by the settler water aristocracy of Amerika.