The Drought: California Apocalypto

[WestVirginiaRebel]

PJ Media:

The proverbial thin veneer of civilization has never been thinner in California, as if nature has conspired to create even greater chaos than what man here has already wrought. What follows below was a fairly typical seven-day period in the land of the highest sales, fuel, and income taxes that have led to the nearly worst freeways, schools, and general infrastructure in the nation.

 

I recently came home from an out-of-state trip. Something was wrong: I noticed off in the distance a strange geyser at the top of the hill. Vandals had apparently earlier taken sledgehammers to the pump’s four-inch plastic fittings — all to scavenge two brass valves (recycle value of about $20).

 

The fools did not know the pump was even on. When they smashed open the plastic pipes the spurting water apparently drenched them, and so they left their self-created mess. (No, criminals here do not know how to turn off a pump.) The ensuing deluge of several hours had ripped a three-foot-deep gully for about 20 yards.

 

I’ve lost count of how many pumps have been vandalized over the last decade. Some people play golf after work and weekends, but out here the pastime is to drive out to the countryside to wreck things for a few dollars of copper and bronze. It reminds me of the Ottomans in Greece, who pried off the lead seals over the iron clamps that had held together the marble blocks of ancient Greek temples and walls. The Turks, who could make little but scavenge a lot, got their few ounces of lead for bullets. In the exchange, the exposed iron marble clamps rusted and fell apart, ruining the antiquities that had theretofore survived 2,000 years of natural wear and tear. One civilization builds and invests, quite a different one destroys and consumes.

 

Four days earlier, three people (a male and two females) had parked nearby at the neighbor’s abandoned house. It was said not to meet California’s codes and thus was condemned, though the dwelling is far better built than are the occupied shacks and trailers across the street with various goats, chickens, geese, sheep, and cows grazing between the houses. In any case, the vandals were kicking in the sheet rock to rip out Romex wire (perhaps $5 worth of recyclable wire per ruined wall). I tried to catch them, but by the time I got to the truck and drove back out after them, they were speeding out of the alleyways with impunity.

 

When these things happen, no one calls the sheriff, the insurance company, or any authority. The problem is so ubiquitous, and the old civilized infrastructure so ossified, that it is impossible to address the vandalism and chronic violation of civilization’s basic tenets.

________

 

California's environmentalism comes home to roost.

[Valin]

California Government Is The Big Water Management Problem
Hank Campbell

April 7th 2015

 

It is raining in California as I write this but most of it will do little good. The rain is going to go to a gutter and the gutter will go to a stream and that will go to an ocean.

Yes, much of the fresh water that California has runs into the Pacific Ocean. You might wonder why the Pacific Ocean needs so much, since 96 percent of Earth's water is already in oceans, but the oceans are not asking for it. Instead, it is due to anti-science policies lobbied for by well-heeled California environmentalists.

Environmental regulations mandate that water that would sustain 4.4 million families gets flushed this way, regardless of drought conditions (however, farmers do get penalized during a drought, the environment must come before food). Meanwhile, Governor Jerry Brown just now got around to mandating water conservation among his wealthiest and most loyal voters. It had to be mandated because the wealthy are not conserving anything the way the more agricultural sections of California have been doing for two years.

It's not a surprise that Governor Brown and California government love fines and penalties and heavy-handed tactics, in a 'if your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail' kind of way, but if we cared about the actual problem - having enough water in good times and bad - the situation would be easy to resolve. For example, enough water to sustain 2.6 million California families was dumped into the ocean because there isn't enough storage capacity in the north of the state and environmental rules limit the amount of water that can be pumped to reservoirs in the south.

(Snip)