CATO: Water in the West: It’s Complicated.

The fundamental problem is that the federal government has been heavily subsidizing Western water for decades, particularly for crop irrigation. Artificially low water prices have encouraged overconsumption and the planting of very dry areas where farming is inefficient and environmentally unsound. Subsidized irrigation farming has created major environmental problems in the San Joaquin Valley, for example.

To make matters worse, federal farm subsidies have boosted demand for irrigation water, which has further encouraged farmers to bring marginal lands into production.

So don’t blame the Delta smelt. Instead, blame antimarket policies going back eight decades in the case of farm subsidies and a century in the case of subsidized water from the federal Bureau of Reclamation.