In both cases, credit or water once flowed easily: Four of the five years of highest water deliveries from the Delta's two massive pumping plants were 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
---
To understand how California reached its current water crisis, one could look for an analogy in the financial meltdown.
In both cases, credit or water once flowed easily: Four of the five years of highest water deliveries from the Delta's two massive pumping plants were 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
In both cases, lax regulatory oversight was a factor in the collapse that followed: The state Department of Water Resources never obtained an endangered-species permit required under state law, and the two federal permits it and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation operated under were invalidated by a judge who found them ineffective and weak.
And in both cases, a bubble formed and burst: By 2007, record pumping levels had contributed to an ecological collapse that in turn led to a court order to slow the pumps.
Although the causes for the collapse of Delta smelt, salmon and other fish species are complex and hotly debated, the fact is that state water managers, given a loose rein by regulators, cranked up pumps in recent years and the fish species that were supposed to be protected — especially Delta smelt — collapsed.
By the time courts stepped in, drastic measures were in order.
