On the Public Record blog comments on ‘limosine liberals’, water banks and large water bills

The On the Public Record blog comments on a few of the recent articles making the Aquafornia scroll, including the woman from Solano who received a very large water bill, and this on yesterday’s Limousine Liberals article from AlterNet:

“I enjoy Levine’s outrage, and especially appreciate that he seems to have updated Reisnerian cliches instead of mindlessly repeating “Rice in the desert!!!”. But I thought his closing paragraph was also slightly off.

Now, three decades later California’s legislature is trying to hammer out exactly the same [Peripheral Canal], which is as much about opening up more farm land as it is about securing more paper water to fuel suburban sprawl in the desert.

I can’t imagine that anyone is contemplating opening new farm land. I think this is a rearguard action to hold onto what they’ve got or to minimize the contraction of ag farmland, and make someone else bear the costs. His theme about securing paper water to increase development is interesting; I simply don’t know that side of things well enough to know if his argument that it shifts the risk that the water doesn’t show up onto the state is accurate.

I’d call attention to two things. If the water isn’t actually wet, no amount of risk-shifting can make it appear in a dry year. Someone else may eventually be liable, but it is the city at the end of the pipe that will find themselves without physical water and forced to buy the next more expensive source. Right now, there are cities going broke trying to do that.

The other point is that verifying that water is real will eventually land on whomever approves building permits, which is mostly County Boards of Supervisors. What are they supposed to actually DO? What can they trust more than some agreement with a legal entity which swears it can pump water in a dry year and send it to the proposed development? They can’t go look at the water, although I suppose they could take a field trip and stare at a wellhead. … “

And also this on yesterday’s Capital Press story about the difficulty with the water bank this year:

” … Mr. Ortega doesn’t get at the things that limited the bank this year. Rice prices were high; rice growers weren’t offering to sell water. With pumping restricted, there was no guarantee that purchased water could be moved south, so buyers weren’t all that tempted. The water bank program itself can’t make environmental documentation proving that transferring water out won’t hurt the originating environment happen fast enough. (Also, aren’t they being sued to require that the climate change and ghg effects of pumping that water be included in those impact statements, just like they must be in every EIR/EIS? Takes time to figure those out for each transfer.) You might think that each water transfer shouldn’t have to do that, or that the drought water bank program should do an EIR/EIS that covers individual transfers. Sure, but it isn’t written yet, so each transfer has to have one. … “

Click here to read the full text of this post from the On the Public Record blog.

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