The April 1 federal allocation of irrigation water to California farmers is no joking matter for those south of the Delta who were slapped across the face with the announced 5 percent allotment.

How much better 5 percent is than zero is a matter of degree akin to choosing your death slowly and painfully, or quickly and efficiently.

The announcement illustrates gross negligence on the part of federal and state regulators who hide behind court edicts and biological opinions that are proving to have no positive effect on fish populations in the Delta region and the two main river systems in California that feed it.

The issue isn’t as complicated as it’s made out to be. While regulators and politicians hide behind environmental documents and even feign outrage at the lack of wiggle room in these decisions that would water regulators to do the right thing, the real consequences continue to steamroll real human beings.

One man I spoke with shortly after the decision was announced told me how he lost his farm, his home and his livelihood because of the federal government’s decision to take away his irrigation water back in 2009.

Meanwhile, all the press releases in the world from politicians seeking cover as this decision was being prepared does little to help entire families who’ve been uprooted and forced to start over. Neither do these prepared statements do anything to cure the problems.

For all the advancements of the 21st Century to see people suffering as they did during the Great Depression because of government malfeasance is appalling.

There is absolutely no reason growers in the most agriculturally prolific state in the nation should be forced to do with 5 percent of the water their government promised to deliver them from a system they largely paid for.

Imagine the riots if grocery store shelves were filled to 5 percent capacity or the bank account you worked decades to build fell to 5 percent of its former value because of government decisions.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to see that everyone north of California’s Delta region will get 100 percent of their allotted water from the agency that controls most of the water in the West, and those south of it, with some exception, will get virtually no water. See the problem?

The choke point in California’s water delivery system is the Delta. The reason for the stranglehold stems from the work of environmental activists and their compliant regulatory agencies to destroy agriculture in this state, pure and simple.

Environmental laws purported to improve wildlife numbers and their habitat has achieved the opposite; salmon numbers are almost zero not because of farmers but because of the meddling of do-gooders.

California’s collapse as a shining jewel of the American economy and its conversion to third-world status is on a fast-track in spite of the trillions of dollars of virtual wealth in the Silicon Valley or the best-feigned intentions of urban do-gooders.