Thanks to the Chico Enterprise-Record for speaking out on our critical North State water issues! Below are some excerpts from the editorial — to read it in full, please click: Trump lives in fact-free world 6.6.16

… Talking and pandering to a group of Central Valley farmers, who never saw someone else’s water they didn’t like, Trump declared: 1) “There is no drought,” and 2) “Even the environmentalists don’t know why” a minimum amount of water has to flow into the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta to protect the health of the waterway.

These are fact-free declarations.

“There is no drought” is just goofy. … Trump must know we haven’t gotten much rain. What he really means is that California has plenty of water for farmers — if it just drains its rivers dry, and stops worrying about the wildlife and ecosystem of the delta. Who cares if it turns into a salt-water inlet? Who cares if you sacrifice fisheries in favor of people who farm in a seasonal desert?

Environmentalists (and lots of business leaders and, oh, most educated Californians in general) know precisely why that’s not a good idea. All of the reputable scientific studies of delta have the same conclusion: The estuary needs more water, not less, to stay healthy. And if it turns into a dying waterway, it will no longer be a good source of water for places like the Bay Area, which would put more stress on the overtaxed water delivery system.

… a National Academy of Sciences report on the delta … concluded, like the others, that continued unsustainable water diversions are a major factor driving salmon and other native fish in the delta to extinction. And as rivers upstream are sucked dry and no rain replenishes them — what happens then?”

Stewardship is not a concept in the Trump lexicon. But really — is a dead delta what will make America great?