Politics

When the city of Sacramento flooded in 1850 and again in 1862, the politicians at that time decided that something must be done to control the water. This was the beginning of many water projects to try to tame Mother Nature.

In the 19th century, United States law allowed anyone to claim land in which hecould sail in a boat. Henry Miller, a former butcher boy, sailed around claiming land in the San Joaquin Valley. By the time he was done, he had claimed 1,090,000 acres of land. He was the first person to build a significant sized dam.

Cheap labor from the people fleeing the Dust Bowl and cheap water led to rapid expansion of the west. Congressmen, governors and farmers fought to bring water to the Central Valley with the world's most expensive water project to an area drier than North Africa. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, under the New Deal, authorized the Central Valley Project, CVP. Its purpose was to catch the snowmelt from the Sierra-Nevadas and dole out the water during the summer using an extensive grid of canals and aqueducts. During this time, many people believed that the government should not undertake projects such as these. In this way, FDR's politics helped California out by providing many construction jobs and also providing water for the Central Valley, which had been rapidly depleting its groundwater sources.

These types of projects were made possible by the Reclamation Act of 1902 which was created to prevent another Henry Miller incident and also allow new 160 acre small farms for families.

Everyone wanted land with water, rather than land without water, and now every senator wanted a water project in his area. This led to political "pork barrel," the quid-pro-quo arrangement in which politicians agreed that "if I endorse your project, you endorse mine."

The Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamationcontinued to compete for resources. They continually built more and more projects and Congress could not keep up with the demands for cash. All of the money was coming from the Federal Treasury.

In the 1950s, Governor Edmund G. Brown of California decided that an expensive project to carry water from Northern California to Southern California was necessary. Many did not like the idea, but Brown was a popular governor and he was able to push the project through. In the 1950s and 60s, the California state government approved many parts of the California Water Project, one of the largest construction projects in the history of the United States. The goal of the project was to capture water at the right time and place and transport it to the places of need when it was needed.

More than 70% of the water in California is in the northern one-third, whereas 77% of the need for water comes from the southern two-thirds of the state. This project required billions of dollars in funds. It was the most important and controversial project during Governor Brown's term of office. The project was opposed by tax-conscious groups; Northern Californians were furious because they were spending money to send their water "to fill pools" south, and the San Francisco Chronicle hated his plan. Brown had to fight his way through the political system to finally get approval for the project.

The California Water Project helped avert a Sacramento Valley flood worse than the one in 1955, which killed 36 people and damaged 400 homes in Yuba City. The project cost more than the Manhattan Project and issued the largest bond issue of any state. When Pat Brown ran for re-election, he continued talking about water.

As the growth of big agribusiness continued, small farms disappeared. There was an iron triangle of the local sponsors, the local legislature, and the Bureau of Reclamation. The triangle would work together and receive grants from Congress to build projects and receive water. Political pork barrel continued as more and more projects were passed by Congress.

The presidents all had a list of projects to approve. Both Nixon and Ford said "no" to all of them because they knew what was going on inside Congress. However, when Jimmy Carter came into office, he was an outsider and he cut off the funds to 19 water projects. He said that they were too expensive and bad for the environment. He was the first politician to do this and this instigated a lot of debate. In the end, after all of the debates and congressional hearings, Carter could not stop the majority of the projects.

The 160-acre farm had disappeared and now there were alliances between the local farmers, the local cattle association, the cotton growers, and the local chamber of commerce in every town, to receive federal funding to irrigate and to receive water.

The Bureau tried to end the strongholds held by large agribusiness combines by bestowing large amounts of capital on a small group of large farms in return for their breaking up. However, the farms found loopholes in subsidizing, double dipping, and other evasion techniques and were able to continue their monopolies.

Ronald Reagan wanted to conserve and clean water. However, he did not want to interfere with commercial businesses, industries,and other business enterprises. He believed that corporate profit is the great motivating force for the solution to society's problems, and not the government.

Every time a politician, presidential candidate, or gubernationalfaced an election, he would visit the Central Valley and receive a hefty donation The donation was intended to persuade the politician to vote the way the growers wanted on any bills that would increase water prices, change water rights laws, or affect agribusiness in any way. When Carter was trying to reform water laws, re-election time came up and he did nothing in order to avoid provoking agribusiness interests

George Bush won votes in the Central Valley in 1988, but the feelings of the nation slowly shifted towards conservation and environmentalism and so, during the elections of 1992, George Bush signed a bill to increase the price of water.