California approved its new Delta water plan late Thursday. Water agencies can join voluntary agreements to give up some water and restore habitat, or face backup regulations. Agencies that once supported the deal now call it too restrictive. Environmental groups and tribes say it doesn't protect the ecosystem enough.

Water board chair E. Joaquin Esquivel says criticism from opposite directions tells him the plan sits where a regulator should.

Ah. We've found the correct amount of water by measuring the distribution of annoyance.

Imagine explaining that to a salmon. Good news: the farmers are furious and the environmentalists are furious. The fish asks about river flow. Sorry, that's a different spreadsheet. On the dissatisfaction dashboard, you're practically swimming.

I understand that a compromise won't delight everybody. But everybody being upset isn't proof that you've balanced the needs. You can also achieve unanimous unhappiness by serving soup with a rake.

WHO IS CHECKING THE WATER? Not the temperature of the meeting. The actual goddamn water. The thing the fish are supposed to occupy when the stakeholders stop talking?

The Delta supplies farms and cities while its native species struggle. Water agencies say the revised agreements concentrate too much control in state regulators' hands; environmental advocates say protections are too weak. Those disputes don't resolve themselves because both sides can locate the complaint microphone.

Make powerful people uncomfortable.
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Fine. The board has approved the plan. We can put down the nameplates and start finding out whether it works.

Except the federal government is threatening to leave and take its anticipated $740 million contribution with it. Nobody has officially withdrawn. Federal officials say the terms threaten reliable water supplies for farms and communities.

And then—here's the part that makes me want to lie facedown on the conference table—the state says federal water managers would face the backup rules if they leave. State modeling indicates they could export more water by staying in the voluntary deal.

So, according to the state's own analysis, the threatened exit from an overly restrictive arrangement leads to the door marked MORE RESTRICTIVE ARRANGEMENT.

IS THERE A GUIDE AT THE EXIT? SOMEBODY WITH A LITTLE FLAG WHO CAN EXPLAIN WHICH WAY THE WATER GOES?

Environmental and fishing groups doubt the state will actually enforce those backup requirements against Washington. Wonderful. We don't just have a dispute about the amount of water. We have a dispute about whether the consequences of the dispute will happen.

The voluntary program has a $2.9 billion price tag, mostly state money, and was supposed to help avoid legal warfare. Now its backers are fighting its terms and the federal contribution is under threat.

Could somebody ask the river how it feels about the compromise? No, not appoint a liaison. Put some water in it and see.