The Other California

California is really two states. I was born, grew up, and got my first two degrees in Coastal California, and began my career there. Then I moved to CA's great Central Valley and called various parts of Interior California home for 33 of the next 39 years. Not a CA resident for over a decade, I still visit both Californias every winter. 

The Wall Street Journal has an article about the travails of Central California, the great agricultural valley between the Coast and Sierra Ranges that stretches 500 miles north from Bakersfield to Redding. Here the most productive agricultural land in the United States is under attack by so-called environmentalists, who the article accurately describes as "obstructionists." 

The issue, as you'd expect in the arid West, is water. My lifelong experience with California says the Tulare farmer being interviewed is right on target.