Our policy analyst and new author Tim Stroshane will be touring the state to read from his new book “Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California’s Central Valley Project.”
Book Tour Schedule:
Stockton
Sacramento
Berkeley: Wednesday night, March 29 from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm @ Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, California 94704 – No RSVP required.
Davis: Friday night, April 21 starting 7:30 pm @ The Avid Reader, 617 2nd St. Davis, CA 95616 Details at Facebook event (optional RSVP).
More location and dates coming soon!
Books will be available for purchase at each event. If you would like to purchase the book beforehand, you can purchase via Amazon or directly from the publisher.
Tim Stroshane: Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California’s Central Valley Project
How did the California Water Wars start?
How did the evolution of water law create the struggles we face today?
How can we fix that mess?
Albany author, Tim Stroshane, takes on these questions in his new book: Drought, Water Law, and the Origins of California’s Central Valley Project.
This book is an account of how water rights were designed as a key part of the state’s largest public water system, the Central Valley Project. Along sixty miles of the San Joaquin River, from Gustine to Mendota, four corporate entities called “exchange contractors” retain paramount water rights to the river. Their rights descend from the days of the Miller & Lux Cattle Company, which amassed an empire of land and water from the 1850s through the 1920s and protected these assets through business deals and prolific litigation.
Miller & Lux’s dominance of the river relied on what many in the San Joaquin Valley regarded as wasteful irrigation practices and unreasonable water usage. Economic and political power in California’s present water system was born of this monopoly on water control. Stroshane tells how drought and legal conflict shaped statewide economic development and how the grand bargain of a San Joaquin River water exchange was struck from this monopoly legacy, setting the stage for future water wars. His analysis will appeal to readers interested in environmental studies and public policy.
About the Author:
Tim Stroshane received his MA in city planning from the University of California, Berkeley. An independent scholar who has studied the water, economy, and environment of California since 1980, he has worked professionally in environmental consulting, for the city of Berkeley in housing economics and policy, and most recently with environmental nonprofit organizations focused on California and its Bay-Delta Estuary. He lives in Albany, California.