I got my question answered and it wasn’t the screenwriter’s what done it, just a run-of-the-mill Legal type wrote the script. This time they might’ve driven a wedge in the farming community and garnered fishermen some unlikely allies, something they’ll soon regret.

The “Water Wars” continue unabated, and last weeks suit of the State of California by the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, has escalated a bit – in my mind, a bit in our favor.

This coalition is the front for the farmers in Kern county, who are suing the Department of Fish and Game and the State of California for the promotion of a foreign species, Striped Bass, whose predatory antics (they claim) are causing the current decline in smelt, salmon, and most other fisheries.

This time they pooched it – as they’re also interesting in examining wasteful water practices from “…thousands of unchecked farm water diversions in the Delta itself.”

It’s no longer fishermen and ecologists against farmers, it’s going to be farmer on farmer. Whose crops are more important? I don’t think they want to surface that question, not with all those intertwined subsidies, corporate “farms” – and water intensive produce.

This will make one hell of a battle and will likely have some strange allies, and stranger opponents, with us “small yet vocal” fishermen prodding both 800 lb Gorillas… from a respectful distance of course.

A war on two fronts is a poor strategy, those that don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

Technorati Tags: delta water wars, farm subsidies, striped bass, Coalition for a sustainable delta