California’s big gulp: Lester Snow of DWR & Mandy McIntryre of the PCL duke it out in the LA Times editorial pages all week!

Wow! I can’t believe it, but here it is! (Check this out, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo!) Lester Snow of the Department of Water Resources and Mandy McIntyre of the Planning and Conservation League are going to debate all week in the – are you sitting down?? – THE LA TIMES! No, Aqua Blog Maven did not soak up too many rays in the Delta this weekend, or enjoy too many Corona’s at the marina. It is true! From the Los Angeles Times:

Last fall, solving the state’s water crisis was a hot political issue. Now we’ve had a rainy winter, and some of that interest seems to have flagged. What does that say about the political climate regarding water reform? All week, California Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow and Mindy McIntyre of the Planning and Conservation League debate state water policy.

Excerpt of what Lester Snow says:

In one way or another [referring to California's water problems], all of this centers on the Delta, where we tap our rivers to meet the needs of most Californians. And the delta will not be able to provide reliable water supplies unless we start acting immediately to fix our problems.

Fortunately, Schwarzenegger has shown strong leadership in proposing solutions to our water problems. His Bay Delta Conservation Plan, for example, calls for a collaborative effort by water agencies, other federal and state agencies and environmental organizations to improve water storage, quality, conveyance and conservation to both protect our environment and reliably meet the demands of agriculture, cities, homes, businesses and industry.

The delta’s ecosystem and water-delivery capability cannot be sustained without major changes. At this point, no amount of precipitation will dispel the urgency of fixing the state’s water crisis. There are no silver bullets. We need to invest in water conservation, improved water quality, additional storage and alternate delta conveyance to save the delta and ensure a reliable water supply well into the future. Reforming water policy and reinvesting in California water infrastructure may not be easy, but it is essential to the state’s future.

Excerpt of what Mandy McIntyre says:

The governor should be commended for his call for increased conservation. In addition, several other realities will have to be accepted for effective solutions to move forward.

The first is that California’s rivers and streams are already over-allocated. Building new dams to allow more diversions from already water-short streams would perpetuate the problems we are seeing with endangered species and water quality, not lead to solutions.

Second, the condition of our economy requires that we look for new solutions that do not rely so heavily on public subsidies. Any bond presented to voters should serve multiple public benefits and address the needs of California today. We ought to steer clear of bonds that provide new subsidies for a select few based on assumptions and strategies from the past. While we move as quickly as possible to sort out the long-term solutions, the governor should approve the list of immediate actions that everyone agrees are ready to go.

Lastly, California needs to develop water solutions that support a healthy economy while restoring a healthy environment. We cannot rely on strategies from the past to solve the problems they created and address the water issues of the future. I’ll write more on that tomorrow.

Cool! Check it all out in this article from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.

Water picture by flickr photographer limowreck666. 

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