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Costing the Earth

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Costing the Earth: California Gasping

California Gasping

18/05/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Costing the Earth, California Gasping

Is California's desperate search for water at an end? Tom Heap reports.

Since the 1930s there's been a simmering conflict over California's water supply. The state governor has now demanded a resolution by 2012. Tom Heap asks if he will get his way.

California has a rapidly expanding population, one of the world's most important agricultural zones and a chronic lack of water. That contradiction has led to 70 years of wrangling punctuated by outbursts of violence and corruption.

A new plan is being drawn up which is intended to resolve the outstanding problems once and for all, finding a balance between the needs of farmers, consumers and the environment.

Travelling from one of the primary sources of the state's water in the far north to the threatened landscape of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Tom Heap hears the voices of those who've spent their lives in these stunning landscapes, feeling themselves at the mercy of those in power.

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