You are correct about wondering why we collectively decided to allow so much agriculture in western regions at all, but I also kind of disagree with the sentiment… when these farms were founded this country still was covered in dense trees on both sides, it had intense winters and deep snowpacks, ecosystems weren’t competing with massive sprawling suburbs. But I believe the problem with water the west is facing is not a unique one and we’ll see a lot more conversations about water shortages in the near future.

Human development is far more destructive than farms to the environment and drinking water is much harder to plan around in a governmental level during times of drought than agricultural water needs are. A farm has far less risk to life than massive cities running out of drinking water does, so it kinda makes more sense to use western land for agriculture rather than Golf courses, swimming pools, parking lots, and air conditioned homes… but i guess these were not the primary modes of civilization when these cities were founded either … so it’s hard to blame anyone from the past explicitly lol We have always been very capable of building networks of rain capture ponds, massive dams, and all sorts of contraptions like aqueducts and pipes and logistics networks for trade deals with places like Canada and Mexico for water … we even one time dreamed of building an aqueduct to one of the Great Lakes lol I’m sure our fore bearers imagined the wilderness and the soil and the water of this world to be an unending resource… but it’s not…

and yes, the republicans and corporate and foreign money in politics are more largely responsible for blocking real environmental change in the US… and yes, they’re also the primary driver behind the manipulation of the dialogue on the food we eat so that large international food companies benefit more than small local agricultural and food companies… and yes they’re also the party fighting for the “rights” of these massive international corporations to manipulate our political system with money and a voice towards the public… and yes it also seems like they are promoting the selling of our land and water rights to companies who want to export us and sell us more corn and sugar and meat and trash… yes they are also the party involved in making all kinds of deals with foreign countries to take over agricultural land, so they can frack, so they can run our factories and shipyards in toxic ways… for mountain top removal mining and for stripping our country of every other kind of natural resource this country has… maybe so they can shied themselves from being connected to how toxic these agricultural, mining, and manufacturing methods are to the world around us … and to run these businesses into bankruptcy leaving environmental disasters in their wake all around us… yes, farms are using a lot of water … and yes, human development might have been shortsighted for the west… but generations of environmental destruction and horrible land and water use policies to the environments around us are causing a worldwide crisis that I’m sure they also know about and don’t want the public to be really be cognizant of because they want us to continue to economically function like “nothing is wrong” until they have figured out an exit plan for themselves. No one wants to be responsible for footing the bill to fix the real problem: that the water tables are collapsing worldwide.

Nestle sold its water bottling operation… that’s a red flag … These massive fires aren’t random… the soils dying, the water tables go with it, maybe even the ocean too… All these fights about water bottling companies and almond farms are not just a fight about population levels or “water use policy” effecting the water in the west… our own rainforest in the north west of the US has been shrinking and drying and dying and burning thanks to human activity… roads and invasive plants and “turf grass” and farms all over the west … acres of trees stripped and replaced by large swaths of plastic houses and driveways… and all kinds of pollution such as that from agriculture… but also car tires… coal power plants… pfoas… and even the stuff we use to seed clouds with to try and save our farms (silver iodide) … all has a negative effect on the soil microbes, especially funguses that many plants depend on for nutrient and water retention. These funguses not only are vital for the very important plant and microbial life in the water and weather cycles… but also account for a large percentage of “living biomass” on the planet. All that biomass helps not only hold moisture in the body of the organisms, but also keeps the soil and air “cool” acting as a large heatsink. The shape” of networks of fungus, and its interactions with the plants and bacteria keeps soil “spongy” and capable of holding large amounts of water and vital nutrients for the survival of life on this planet. All this living biomass also slows the groundwater down, allowing ground water to find its way into all nooks and crannies in our bed rock that we depend on for well water worldwide. The temperature in areas with trees and plants is also consistently cooler thanks to plant respiration…and the funguses in the ground actually literally help drive local precipitation events with spores, keeping fresh water from ending up in the ocean… something we’re only just learning about

https://www.reddit.com/r/abovethenormnews/s/qS3j7t4CfV

Funguses harness lighting too! All these smaller cooler weather events are what drive overall stable large weather patterns we evolved to be familiar with, and the lack of soil structure from the lack of plant and fungal life will also cause more mudslides and flooding… all of which we’re seeing lately

Without these systems in place, when it does rain, the water flows downhill on the surface faster, taking more nutrients with it, dumping more and more silt and mud into water ways, acidifying the oceans and choking out fish populations in rivers. Agricultural chemicals and many other human chemicals such as pfoas act as “surfacents” too, amplifying this process of soil stripping process and also preventing bacteria and fungal colonies from reestablishing themselves … soil health is very important and not very well managed worldwide. Spreading of invasive wildlife, bugs, and funguses are responsible me for killing a number of trees in the us as well, amplifying this process even more, and this is happening on a worldwide scale as well thanks to the import and export of plants and food worldwide. The best way I’ve explained it to my kids lately is how our world used to be a big warm swamp and it took millions of years to evolve to be the amazing place we currently live, and we’re putting a ton of energy into reversing this evolution and turning it back into a giant warm swamp…

I think I prefer William Penn’s original visions for US forestry and agriculture…

https://whyy.org/articles/penns-woods/

it’s a shame his son went against his fathers wishes and clear cut the whole state of Pennsylvania, setting a precedent in early US economics that was not interested in preservationist model for natural resources or I guess “life” over “profit”