Amid drought, California can't track water usage

Dried and cracked earth is visible on an unplanted field at a farm on April 29, 2014 near Mendota, California. As the California drought continues, Central California farmers are hiring well drillers to seek water underground for their crops after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation stopped providing Central Valley farmers with any water from the federally run system of reservoirs and canals fed by mountain runoff.

California's 19th-century water laws give nearly 4,000 companies, farms and others an unmonitored amount of free water, while the state is mired in a three-year drought that has forced water cutbacks to cities and agriculture.

After three consecutive years of drought in California, the water supply is running so low that the state and federal government have severely cut water deliveries to cities and farmers.

But because of water laws dating back to the 1800s, there are nearly 4,000 farms, companies and other entities known as "senior rights holders" that are allowed to use as much water as they want, with little to no oversight.

A new Associated Press investigation has found that these high-level water rights holders hold more than half of the claims on the state's rivers and streams. And even though they collectively are the biggest water consumers in the state, they're exempt from government-mandated cuts in water use.

For more on that investigation, we're joined by AP reporter

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