Viewpoints: Water barons will corner market in new 'Chinatown' [View all]

[XemaSab]

There is more money in selling water in California than there is in farming.

A one-sentence provision inserted in the 2012 budget bill by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein will allow a handful of powerful San Joaquin Valley water oligarchs to sell federally subsidized agricultural water in a private market for as much as 150 times more than what they pay for it.

This relaxation of publicly owned water supplies for private gain strips out protections approved by Congress in 1992.

They call them "water transfers," and for the last 15 years California has been quietly edging into a very lucrative privatized water sales market that seeks to expedite the movement of cheap agricultural water from Northern California to thirsty Southern California and Bay Area cities.

http://www.sacbee.com/2012/01/08/4168916/water-barons-will-corner-market.html