Let’s see if I have this right

“Governing is a serious undertaking that needs to be conducted by equally serious people.” — Michel Turnipseed, Community Voices, April 12, 2022

Regarding Jesse Vad’s (SJV Water) “above the fold” article on May 31, the state proposes paying SJV growers a pittance to “repurpose” their land away from agricultural use?

And now nearly 15,000 additional new high-density housing units are in planning (“Mass rezoning proposed to open more land in Kern to high-density housing,” May 5)? Really? Let’s review. Among other things:

• Kern County is a desert (less than 10 inches of rain per year).

• It has only one river flowing into its basin (the Kern).

• Its aquifers are drying up and its land on average is subsiding 4.2 inches annually (think of a wet kitchen sponge drying and shrinking).

• The state is delivering no water to the county.

• Aqueduct water flow is slowing to a trickle.

• The Kern County Sustainable Groundwater Management Plan is behind schedule.

Yet…

• New orchards are being planted.

• New residential developments are springing up (single family, condo, apartments).

• New commercial developments are sprouting.

• New medical/hospital developments are being built.

• New high water-use landscaping trees and shrubs are being planted.

• New schools of every educational level are popping up.

• New hospitality businesses (hotels and restaurants) are increasing in number.

• New dorms and dining commons are planned at Cal State Bakersfield.

• Thirteen water parks and multiple other public pools have reopened for the summer.

• All this in Bakersfield alone. Multiply the above in other cities and county areas.

All the above guzzle water. Sure, some of the water ostensibly will be captured, treated and recycled as gray water and some will go back into the ground. But much will be lost to evaporation, green-growth transpiration, and other causes for a net loss. When Santa Barbara County faced less extreme of a drought in the late 1970s that turned Cachuma Lake back into a slow-moving river, it declared an absolute building moratorium that lasted a decade.

Are our city and county leaders so eagerly grabbing state development and redevelopment money, developers’, and multiple others’ dollars that they cannot see that all the above building will turn Kern County irreversibly back into the parched desert it once was? We ourselves see what has become of tiny hardscrabble towns up and down the valley with no water. They aren’t coming back. Is that what we want for us? Who’s going to buy into a functionally waterless city sitting on top of emptied aquifers and sinking land.

Can our leaders not see that their water-profligacy today is leading us straight into water-bankruptcy? By permitting all the above development aren’t they selling tomorrow’s dwindling water supply for today’s income? Raiding water from our kids’ and grandkids’ future water bank accounts to pay today’s bills? Shouldn’t our leaders be guardians instead of something more like thieves?

When the water’s operationally gone, it’s gone. No one will ride to the rescue. We know that most of the Sierra snow melt runs into the Merced and Sacramento Rivers and flows right out to the ocean, good for the delta smelt, salmon, and recreational fishing and boating, and blinkered environmentalists, but not so much for valley growers and food production. Water Authorities in Sacramento have said 95 percent of promised water will be withheld despite our having paid for it. Where does that leave us but holding the proverbial empty canteen in the middle of a desert — our desert. Is our city and county leadership OK with that?

And finally, with ever more water being pumped out of our aquifers, how can we ever meet the 2040 requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (water out of the ground must equal water back in).

So, back to Michael Turnipseed and his April 12, 2022, Community Voices piece. Where are our serious people?