Superficially, the problem appears simple--whether or not the landowners in the vast Central Valley Project area shall be limited in their use of irrigation water to a maximum of 160 acres of individual holdings. But behind this deceptively simple proposition lies a bewildering complex of economic and social potentialities and consequences. It involves, as well, the fundamental question of who shall control the water supply and its corollary power--the people of California who develop, use and pay for them, or the bureaucratic instruments of government, centered in the national capital. Downey argued that the farmers of the Central Valley, who controlled water rights based on state law, would come into conflict with the federal Bureau of Reclamation. Downey acknowledged that Central Valley farmers were technically in violation of the Reclamation Act of 1902, but defended these violations of Federal law as necessary because, in the context of California agriculture the Federal limitation was impractical.--Wikipedia.