[This interview was recorded in 2019] Here in California, we are surrounded by the world’s most elaborate system for moving water from the places nature puts it, to the places it will make the most money. Mark Arax started a book on that topic trying to resolve a basic question: why, in the midst of the worst drought in recorded history, were the growers of California’s Central Valley planting more and more acreage of crops that would need more and more water to survive?
GUEST:
- Mark Arax has spent most of his life writing about Fresno and the Central Valley — once as a reporter for the LA Times, now as an author and independent journalist. His newest book is The Dreamt Land: chasing water and dust across California