If Jed Clampett was shooting at some food back in 1991 on Stewart Tract and not in the Missouri Ozarks and hit the ground instead, what would have come bubbling up wouldn’t have been oil.

Instead of black gold, it would have been “California gold”, a reference to the value of having a secure source of water today in the Golden State.

Striking an “artesian well,” so to speak, on Stewart’s Tract would have been more like fool’s gold.

Confused?

Welcome to the wacky and bizarre world of California water where the old line “whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting” is virtually the state motto.

Stewart Tract today is one of 57 manmade islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta with 4,995 acres and an elevation is just over 13 feet.

Today, it is known at River Islands at Lathrop. It is where a planned community of 15,001 homes is nearing the point of being 20 percent built out.

In 1991, if you were to head out in June to a popular fishing area located near where the San Joaquin River main channel heads north toward Stockton and the Old River channel takes off to the west, by turning on Stewart Road off Mathney Road you’d understand the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song reference.

After you crested the railroad tracks near the brick silos you passed a farm house on the right nestled against an orchard while on the left there was a field that had been harvested weeks before of its watermelon crop.

Yet, despite no irrigation water being applied for weeks and not a drop of rain for months, there were pools of water in the field amid left over remains of watermelons too small to make the cut.

The natural water table is that high.

To be clear, the miracle of engineering not only transformed Stewart Tract into the most flood resistant island in the Delta, if not the entire country, with its 300-foot-wide levees but also addressed the high-water table.

It took a lot of dirt moving — much of which ended up building a “parallel level” near the existing levee and then filling in the gap to free the levee widening project request needing federal bureaucracy approval that would likely still today be winding its way through the vetting process.

That dirt moving also created de-watering and natural cleansing for storm runoff basins thanks to the placement of rocks to creating a filtering system.

Add to that the fact the near surface water table — there are aquifers much farther down — is non-potable but has been tapped to irrigate common landscaping through the development.

In short, River Islands created a holistic system that addresses a water table fed by river seepage, to keep a 200-year and then some flood event at bay, found a way to cleanse storm runoff, and tapped into non-potable water to avoid using drinking water for landscaping.

If Jed had indeed struck an artesian well oozing potable water to the surface with a gun shot on Stewart Tract and had owned the water rights, he could have indeed packed up the clan and moved to Beverly Hills.

They could become neighbors of Stewart and Lynda Resnick — of The Wonderful Company fame (think pistachios, other nuts, juices, et al —who became the wealthiest farmers in the country by wheeling and dealing with water rights.

What beings this up is southwest Manteca (which is just across the river from River Islands), 200-year flood protection, 5-foot water table, the state’s 2045 groundwater mandate for zero net water pumping, the need to recharge aquifers, climate change, rising sea level, and the Stanislaus River watershed.

All of that impacts communities around the southeast Delta.

Manteca is in the process of establishing 200-year flood protection for the east side of the San Joaquin River in Manteca, Lathrop, and south Stockton.

Addressing the high ground water is a work in progress as noted by the struggle to deal with water table issues impacting a Manteca Unified school site.

The climate change and rising sea level will impact the Delta and its communities within it and on the edge more than any other place in California according to the state’s official climate change modeling map.

And the Department of Water Resources latest proposal to help the Stanislaus River watershed weather climate change might be a non-starter when it comes to being applied to the extreme western edge of that basin — south Manteca.

Recharging the groundwater using storm runoff in the Stanislaus basin is supposed to negate the impact of climate change on overall precipitation versus water needs for cities and farms.

Recharging almond orchards close to the Delta could be near impossible given the high-water table.

Then there is the problem that the City of Manteca will eventually need to recharge its aquifer as well.

Yes, there are UC Davis studies that are promising in that flooding almond orchards with storm water doesn’t cause root damage.

One big problem. Almond trees take four plus years to reach the point they start producing and have a productive life-span of roughly 25 years.

There is no 25-year study, just several years or so.

It’s a huge leap of faith for an almond grower who has so much riding on being able to support their family. Keep in mind, 90 percent of the almonds in California are grown on family farms.

This is not to say that what the state has in mind won’t work and there isn’t a way to deal with climate change and drought in an area with a five-foot water table.

But you’ve got to admit the state veering from pushing for water conservation to deal with climate change by switching from flood irrigating to drip irrigation and hammering irrigation districts to line dirt canals to end seepage and now saying essentially the opposite sounds, well, nuts.

It goes without saying this part of the state is basically ground zero in California for the state’s water wars and water issues.

After all, 70 percent of California’s water — either being transferred out of basin to cities and farms or heading out into San Francisco Bay — passes through the Delta.

The bottom line?

Water issues are about to become more interesting and more complicated in California, as impossible as that might seem.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com