With California’s water supply greatly improving recently, the long-running dispute over where to use it is heating up again. Senator Dianne Feinstein is calling on operators of the federal and state water projects to pump more south through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to drought-stricken farms and cities in Central and Southern California. The legislative director for Nevada County’s Congressman Doug LaMalfa, Kevin Eastman, says there needs to be more flexibility..

click to listen to Kevin Eastman

Federal regulators say they’re shipping as much water south that’s legally possible, and still protect fish, under the Endangered Species Act. But Eastman says the data being used to justify it is too vague…

click to listen to Kevin Eastman

Ever since the drought was declared four years ago, the agriculture industry and fisheries advocates have each claimed that they’ve been hit the hardest by water cutbacks. A few months ago, LaMalfa expressed frustration about what he felt was Feinstein’s, as well as the Senate’s, stalling on the issue. He blamed her for a collapse of negotiations, saying they and their Democratic colleagues had caved in to environmentalist lobbyists.