billion dollars

In a typical year the California agricultural industry uses about 34 million acre-feet of water or more than 80% of the developed water consumed by urban and agricultural users in the state. Between 30% and 50% of that water is used to grow four low value, water-intensive crops: cotton, rice, alfalfa and irrigated pasture.

San Joaquin River restoration costs

Want to know how much the partial restoration of the San Joaquin River will cost? Last year the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated it would cost about half a billion dollars, less than half what critics of the river restoration process say it would cost. It's worth noting the CBO estimate says the river would be "fully restored" when in fact only about 20 percent, or less, of the river's annual flows would be returned to the dry riverbed in normal years. Agriculture on the east side of the San Joaquin will continue to get over 80 percent of the river's flow, at prices FAR below the true market value of the water. In some cases, East Side irrigation districts are getting the cheap, subsidized publicly-owned water that was intended for farming and turning around and selling it at fat profits to developers. See the CBO report for yourself: CLICK HERE.