Profiting From California's Epic Drought

[MachineGhost]

Moda will like this one!

For him, yes. But not for the farmers on the other end of the deal who have water to sell. They’re among the lucky owners of so-called senior water rights, which date back to the Gold Rush era, when settlers staked their claims along California’s rivers. Today, those claims still determine who gets the water that flows from the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada into the Central Valley, one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions. In times of drought, the system creates winners—the heirs of the miners and ranchers who built the state—and losers, including farmers without rights, who find their place in the state’s $44.7 billion agricultural industry threatened by deals for natural resources cut more than 100 years ago.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-0 ... ic-drought

[WildAboutHarry]

I feel compelled at this point to trot out the quote often attributed to Mark Twain:

"Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over."