High-speed rail in California may have hit a turning point. While a majority of top politicos in the state still publicly support the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco rail project, its ballooning budget estimate has made one previous backer begin to backpedal into noncommitalness. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has recently started to distance himself.

Political observers think governmental shenanigans are now in play with high-speed rail first set to link some minor burgs in the California’s Central Valley due to the cheaper cost of building and perceived lower threshold of grassroots opposition, though some rich rural landowners are acting to get the rail authority’s notice. The idea is once the project starts, public pressure will be on to continue to fund construction no matter the budget overruns.

Now a natural disaster in the making threatens the project. As the unprecedented worst-in-two-centuries drought continues in California, Central Valley farmers are pumping excessive amounts of groundwater from the water table. As this additional water is removed from the soil, the ground starts to suffer subsidence. Water molecules serve to separate the clay particles in the strata under normal conditions, but in their absence, clay compacts. The right-of-way for critical portions of the project goes through some of the most overused well water pumping zones in the Central Valley. Ground subsidence in these regions will require that the surveying of the right-of-way be redone and if subsidence is detected, new routes could have to be charted to avoid it.