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California water planning needs to get moving, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 20, 2008 at 7:22 am

From the San Francisco Chronicle, this editorial:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature are fighting over the direction of the state’s water planning again. This time, each has some good points - and some unrealistic expectations. The best solution, and unfortunately the one that is least likely to happen, would be for both of them to get out of the way.

California’s water planning has been paralyzed for decades now, and a big part of the problem is the fact that no elected official in California wants to be responsible for an unpopular solution. The problem is, all the solutions are bound to be unpopular with someone - whether it’s the state’s farmers, nervous urban dwellers or environmental groups. It might be best for California’s interests if the decision making on this issue were handed over to an outside commission, the way that state highway construction decisions are made.

California’s water supply has been in crisis practically since the state was born, but things are particularly treacherous now: The delta is on the verge of collapse, the state’s population has grown by more than 50 percent over the past three decades, and global warming will ensure that drought is a permanent way of life in the coming decades.

In the meantime, the Republican governor and Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein have proposed an additional $9.3 billion in water bonds for new storage (e.g. unpopular dams and reservoirs) and delta restoration projects.

That’s a lot of money at a time when the state is staring at a deficit that tops $15 billion, and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, D-Baldwin Vista (Los Angeles County), and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, are right to ask the governor why the state still hasn’t spent billions of dollars in water bond money that was approved years ago.

It seems that the unspent water bond money was approved for flood control, local water projects and conservation - not the storage projects that the governor wants, and that’s the main reason why it hasn’t been appropriated and spent. The governor vetoed a Perata bill last year that would have appropriated the money.

Read more of this editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.

July 20, 2008 · Filed Under Water Legislation

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