The state has already started the spin campaign regarding the near catastrophe of Lake Oroville.

Some are taking it hook, line and sinker. Farmers are not.

Take Feather River’s fish for example. The dichotomy between fish and farmer was spun long ago. The fallacy goes like this: Fish and farmer are intricately connected because of water. Salmon and steelhead are in danger. Therefore, farmers must give up water because they took it from the fish.

The protagonist is the state of California — the Departments of Water Resources and Fish and Wildlife, the saviors. These are doing battle against the evil, fish-killing lords of agriculture.

Such crafted narrative rivals the best prose and propaganda of Antiquity, and the media is parchment and pen.

The Chico E-R and the L.A. Times have run stories on the “millions of fish and fish eggs” that have been saved. The stories minimize the catastrophic environmental failure the spillway incident was to Feather River’s ecosystem.

Untold amounts of fish died, yet state agencies are praised. From a farmer’s perspective, this is incredibly inconsistent.

Farmers are demonized for legally allocating managed agricultural water to their crops. Last fall, in one of its most aggressive water grab plans yet, the state wanted to take more water from farmers. Why? To save fish, they claimed.

The inconsistency is ludicrous.

Here’s the irony: The majority of the state Legislature as well as the executive branch are convinced climate change will have dire consequences on our water security. Rather than taking action to modernize our water infrastructure in lieu of climate change, they seem bent on telling Californians that farmers are the root cause of our environmental ills. It’s nonsensical.

If it is true climate change will make it more challenging, and dangerous, for California to cope with winter rains and snow, then we must not only better manage higher volumes of runoff, we must be able to store it in a different form than snowpack. Any objective appraisal of the situation points to the most obvious solution: Sites Reservoir.

So, before “we launch our own damn satellites” in the name of fighting climate change, as Gov. Jerry Brown angrily threatened recently, California representatives must build Sites.

The irony gets thicker. California, the self-proclaimed champion of economic growth, avant-garde environmentalism and defender of disadvantaged communities, has, at one fell swoop with Lake Oroville, managed to jeopardize all three with the laissez-faire (mis)management of our crumbling water infrastructure.

Our existing water infrastructure is wildly unsustainable for a state that prides itself on sustainability.

California is poised for an epic turf war with the Trump administration in the name of environmentalism. Here’s more irony: California’s battle against Trump is akin to the farmer’s battle against the state’s radical environmental liberalism — big brother forcing extreme political ideologies upon people who are already doing everything they can to fight climate change on their farms. Some are asking, “How does it feel?”

As California’s infrastructure erodes, Gov. Brown spins the greatest yarn yet. Earlier this week he moved to expedite $500 million for “repairs and maintenance.”

To the uninitiated, Brown is another California savior coming to the rescue. To farmers who know better, Brown moved to expedite approximately $400 million from water bond funding already approved by voters for this very purpose. He is trying to save face by putting out a fire, not allocating additional funds to prevent more flooding.

Ronald Reagan, California’s governor at the time, spoke at Oroville Dam’s dedication: “It’s with great pride, therefore, that I simply dedicate Oroville Dam and Lake Oroville, to the people of California’s future.”

We are the people of California’s future noting the irony before us: Former Gov. Pat Brown, father of Jerry Brown, fought vigorously to get the dam built back in the ’50s. His son is letting it crumble at the expense of our economy, environment and communities.

Rory Crowley is a Chico farmer and columnist for North State Voices, which appears each Thursday. Email him at CaAgVoice@gmail.com.