For three years California has been mired in drought, with farms failing and unemployment rising higher and faster than national averages. With the same slothfulness and apathetic disregard for constituents displayed during the state̢۪s budget crisis, California lawmakers are once again failing in resolving another.

The Golden State has, in effect, become bronze.

Politicians have thus far been unable to shun partisan bickering, it being their nature. The chance to show off political skills and achieve a rise in the polls brings to mind John Adams’ complaint of the Continental Congress: “I believe if it was moved and seconded that we should come to a resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with logic and rhetoric, law, history, politics, and mathematics concerning the subject for two whole days, and then we should pass the resolution unanimously in the affirmative.â€Â

Stated simply, the state is running out of water. The Sierra Nevada has had less rain and less snow. California̢۪s 1,200 miles of canals and almost 50 reservoirs that have provided us with water for half a century aren̢۪t providing as they once were. And environmental concerns have led to water that would normally irrigate our farms being diverted to the Pacific Ocean.

Yet, our representatives in Sacramento still can̢۪t seem to compromise.

Democrats want to assemble a seven-person panel to decide what to do about the delta (as if that̢۪s not what they̢۪re elected to figure out) and the package currently on the table has garnered almost no Republican support.

Is it really that difficult to find a consensus on this issue?

Citizens of California are struggling. The state as a whole has 11.9 percent unemployment, Fresno County has 15.2 percent alone (as opposed to the national rate of 9.7 percent). All this in a state where the population is expected to grow from the 38 million people we have now to 49 million by 2030. Our current course in unsustainable.

If the cause of all this was just drought, we̢۪d have no choice but to put on our headdresses, grab our maracas, and go outside and rain dance. But while we have not received as much condensation per usual, California reservoirs have, according to a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Congressman Devin Nunes, still received 80 percent of their normal amounts of water. These are hardly drought numbers.

Something else has been the harbinger of this current crisis. The answer lies in a 36-year-old federal law.

In 1973, Congress passed the Endangered Species Act in a flurry of environmental legislation. This law requires government to do whatever it can to save endangered species. In 2008, the government declared the Delta smelt an endangered species.

In order to save this three-inch baitfish, more than 150 billion gallons of water was diverted from the San Joaquin Valley into the Pacific Ocean to save this fish. 150 billion gallons of fresh water that would help absolve this crisis is being pumped straight into the salt water of the great Pacific Ocean. It needed repeating.

This is an issue people of all political stripes can find agreement on. Saving a three-inch baitfish is not worth letting one more Californian lose their job.

How to solve this issue? The federal government needs to demand that the pumps are turned back on and send water back into this valley. Our state legislatures need to find agreement — build the dam we haven’t built for 30 years while keeping environmental standards high. The bottom line? We need our water!