California Farm District Accused of Diverting Water
California water regulators cracked down Monday on a rural irrigation district accused of illegally diverting water in the midst of the state’s drought emergency, proposing a record $1.5 million fine in what they said would be the first of many penalties like this.
The civil penalty filed against the Byron Bethany Irrigation District, which provides water to farmers in a 45-square-mile area in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, signals what state officials said would be an aggressive enforcement action directed at water providers that defy cutbacks ordered by the State...