# Divide California into six states? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 24, 2014, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936 "2014-07-24T14:35:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/61 "2014-07-25T03:55:09Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Jefferson is the traditional name for several attempts to break off Northern California. And the proposed capital is Yreka. Good Lord, do I have to explain the joke? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/62 "2014-07-25T03:57:56Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > The Supreme Court never directly addressed the constitutionality of West Virginia’s secession and it has now just been grandfathered in. Wasn’t it really grandfathered in after Virginia was split the first time, in 1792, and nobody (as far as I know) complained that it wasn’t allowed? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/63 "2014-07-25T04:06:28Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Did Creedence do a song about trying to parcel up California? > > \_\_\_\_\_\_\__Oh lord, stuck with Lodi again_ Loki is a frickin’ paradise compared to Bakersfield or Barstow or Hemit. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/64 "2014-07-25T04:11:38Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Also, it’s a very minor concern, but how would 51 stars look on the US flag? [See for yourself](http://www.geekinheels.com/2010/06/10/the-n-states-of-america.html). ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/65 "2014-07-25T04:16:19Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Wasn’t it really grandfathered in after Virginia was split the first time, in 1792, and nobody (as far as I know) complained that it wasn’t allowed? North Carolina and Georgia also extended their boundaries nebulously westward until Congress decided to draw actual lines and make new states. At this stage of the game, all the existing states are pretty well defined, chopping them up is a little more difficult. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/66 "2014-07-25T14:24:34Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Since it uses _unsustainable_ amounts of imported water, yes. The Central Valley includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and all their tributaries – why would it need to import water? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/67 "2014-07-25T14:34:37Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Loki is a frickin’ paradise compared to Bakersfield or Barstow or Hemit. I see what you did there, but did you see what you did there? I spent just long enough in Lodi to validate all the stories. Won’t go back. Can’t make me. I’d rather live in Charming. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/68 "2014-07-25T14:38:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The Central Valley includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and all their tributaries – why would it need to import water? Uh, yeah. The central valley HAS the water. It’s the Kern County, Inland Empire, El Lay area that exists only on [del]stolen[/del] imported water. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/69 "2014-07-25T15:16:50Z")
> [@running\_coach](#): > > Good Lord, do I have to explain the joke? Just don’t get grouchy and harp on it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/70 "2014-07-25T15:18:23Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Also, it’s a very minor concern, but how would 51 stars look on the US flag? It already looks too busy. If we admit one more state, we should just go back to the original ring of 13 stars. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/71 "2014-07-25T15:36:54Z")
Hey - speaking of flags. I was watching the Tour yesterday and I saw some people waving very pale white flags that I finally realized was an American flag done in pale blue & white, with a white field where the blue field would be, and pale blue stars. What’s that about? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/72 "2014-07-25T15:39:33Z")
**Hooker** pretty much nailed what I was thinking, but the issue of CEntral California is what bothers me. Central California, according to the news last night, would become the poorest state in the nation. That’s impressive, when you consider the competition.It’s a chunk of real estate with little going for it, no seacoast, no easy transportation, and no industries. But, IIRC, Centrral California wasn’t always the way it is now. It used to have better water supply for its farming, but in the first half of the century it all got diverted to Southern California, to provide water for LA (now LA gets water from elsewhere, as well). So Central California got to be the way it is because LA stole its water. If this plan goes through, I predict that it’ll precipitate Water Wars in the WEst, something people have been concerned about for quite a while. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/73 "2014-07-25T15:55:12Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Hooker** pretty much nailed what I was thinking, but the issue of CEntral California is what bothers me. > > Central California, according to the news last night, would become the poorest state in the nation. That’s impressive, when you consider the competition.It’s a chunk of real estate with little going for it, no seacoast, no easy transportation, and no industries. I hadn’t actually looked at Draper’s map before now, but you’re right. Central California is the leftovers after everyone carves away the parts they want. Making it a “state” would put it in a class with Haiti. Maybe Somalia. All the more reason not to allow the power brokers who would benefit to carve off the valuable bits and tell the remainder to fuck off; in a nutshell, that’s not how we do things. > [@](#): > > If this plan goes through, I predict that it’ll precipitate Water Wars in the WEst, something people have been concerned about for quite a while. California has been living through water wars for a century. And nothing - absolutely nothing - is going to set fire to the situation more than the shifts of climate change that are already underway. The farming regions of California are headed back to being deserts and there’s not a hell of a lot anyone can do about it short of a Manhattan project-level effort, at adjusted cost. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/74 "2014-07-25T16:05:16Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **Hooker** pretty much nailed what I was thinking, but the issue of CEntral California is what bothers me. > Central California, according to the news last night, would become the poorest state in the nation. That’s impressive, when you consider the competition.It’s a chunk of real estate with little going for it, no seacoast, no easy transportation, and no industries. > > But, IIRC, Centrral California wasn’t always the way it is now. It used to have better water supply for its farming, but in the first half of the century it all got diverted to Southern California, to provide water for LA (now LA gets water from elsewhere, as well). So Central California got to be the way it is because LA stole its water. > > If this plan goes through, I predict that it’ll precipitate Water Wars in the WEst, something people have been concerned about for quite a while. From [_The City in Mind,_](http://www.amazon.com/The-City-Mind-Notes-Condition/dp/0743227239) by James Howard Kunstler, chapter on Las Vegas: > [@](#): > > Another questionable factor in Las Vegas’s future is the water supply. Las Vegas occupies the driest region in North America with the greatest extremes of temperature. Las Vegas gets four inches of natural rain a year. Tucson, Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert, gets twelve inches. The springs that watered the ancient meadows Las Vegas was named after served as the city’s water supply until the 1950s. Since then, the city has had to make do with the state of Nevada’s allotment from the Colorado River. Since 1922, the Law of the Colorado River, a compact among seven western states, has ruled western water allocation, under formulae drawn up by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The law was fashioned years before the bloated hallucination of contemporary Las Vegas was even conceived, and the allocations can only be revised on the basis of an absolute consensus by all seven states, with ratification by each state’s legislature – an extremely cumbersome procedure. > > Under the compact, California has long received the lion’s share of the water from the Colorado River (since 1935 impounded behind Hoover Dam in Lake Mead, with a little dribble released to its destination, the ancient delta at the top of the Bay of California in Mexico). California’s annual allocation is 4.4 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to fill an acre 12 inches deep, or 325,851 gallons, or enough to theoretically supply two American families for a year. A clause in the federal act stipulates that California has absolute priority over the Colorado River’s water and is entitled to 4.4 million acre-feet before other states can receive their first drop. This was the price that California politicians exacted for their support of the enormous federal projects the compact entailed – including the Glen Canyon Dam as well as the Hoover Dam, and various pipelines, canals, and aqueducts associated with the Central Arizona Project. Nevada’s annual allocation is a measly three thousand acre-feet. (In 1922, Nevada had only eighty-one thousand inhabitants.) California is usually characterized as the bad guy in the picture. The head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Pat Mulroy, told me, “They’ve developed an attitude. They believe that they were there first. The Colorado River belongs to them. They try to con their way rather than entering into partnerships. Six states could solve those problems, but California makes it difficult.” Now imagine it’s **twelve** states . . . ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/75 "2014-07-25T16:18:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > The Central Valley includes the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and all their tributaries – why would it need to import water? Read [this piece I linked above](http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/04/08/Central-California-is-Sinking-as-Groundwater-is-Depleted), the valley floor is subsiding because the farmers are over-tapping the aquifers. The subsidence is making the aquifers unrecoverable (the ground is compacting to the point that it will not again hold water). So clearly the rivers are inadequate. And you know it must be serious if it shows up on Breitbart with no spin. Stop eating almonds, everyone. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/76 "2014-07-25T16:58:41Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I see what you did there, but did you see what you did there? > > I spent just long enough in Lodi to validate all the stories. Won’t go back. Can’t make me. I’d rather live in Charming. Howls of laughter, the trickster keyboard! Lodi has Wine and Roses Inn and lots of decent wineries. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/77 "2014-07-25T16:59:32Z")
All of this is why at least four of the first ten full-scale fusion reactors will be installed along the California coast and used for desalinization. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/78 "2014-07-25T17:02:56Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Lodi has Wine and Roses Inn and lots of decent wineries. Lodi has commercial wineries like Woodbridge set amid commercial grape fields, found pretty much everywhere. Putting up a hand-carved sign and turning a Motel 6 into a B&B doesn’t make it Napa. You might as well tout Fresno as a wine-drinker’s destination. Or - in the immortal cadences of David Hyde Pierce - Con-et-i-cut. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/79 "2014-07-25T17:03:36Z")
> [@rsa](#): > > The Supreme Court never directly addressed the constitutionality of West Virginia’s secession and it has now just been grandfathered in. The technical legality was settled via approval from the _legitimate_ state legislature. The gang of traitors assembled in Richmond were not consulted. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2014, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936/80 "2014-07-25T17:04:00Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Hey - speaking of flags. I was watching the Tour yesterday and I saw some people waving very pale white flags that I finally realized was an American flag done in pale blue & white, with a white field where the blue field would be, and pale blue stars. What’s that about? They’ve been standing in the sun too long? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/divide-california-into-six-states/693936.md?page=5)