by Fran Grattan Freedle
With the recent passage of the water bond measure for the November 2010 election, we have to ask ourselves “What were they thinking?”
To quote from an email from Congressman Tom McClintock, “A generation ago, the principal objective of our water and power policy was to create an abundance of both. It was an era when reservoirs and hydro-electric facilities produced a cornucopia of clean and plentiful water and electricity on a scale so vast that many communities had no need to meter consumption. Now the principal purpose is not to produce abundant water and power, but rather to ration shortages that government has caused by abandoning its earlier objectives. The result is increasingly expensive water and power that is now affecting our prosperity.
I am pleased to serve as the Ranking Member of the House Water and Power Subcommittee… I will use my position to work to eliminate restrictions that prevent water getting to our Central Valley farmers or stop us from building water projects that would provide needed flood control and additional storage…”
The State Legislature has passed a package of six bills. Just like congress, details were negotiated in private meetings and never given full legislative hearings where open debate could occur.
It creates a new governance structure for the Delta that puts the decision-making authority for building a peripheral canal in several new agencies with the main one made up of gubernatorial appointees who will not be subject to oversight, rather than elected officials.
The water bond grew to $11.1 billion without a single public hearing. It contains only $3 billion for above ground storage projects (dams), and is packed with pork barrel earmarks for dozens of state conservancies and environmental projects in Southern California that fail to resolve our water problems.
Also included is a water rights measure that increases the ability of state water bureaucrats and investigators to pry into the way farmers and ranchers run their operations.
Another bill increases the oversight state water agencies have over underground aquifers and the methods urban and rural water districts engage to utilize and recharge this source of water. Sounds like our private wells could be at risk.
Possibly the worst policy passed in this package is the one-size-fits-all requirement for everyone in California to conserve 20% more water than they are currently using with San Francisco, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana and Monterey exempt.
Heads up Northern California: This package provides a mechanism to send more water to the Central Valley and Southern California, provide billions to try to undo the environmental damage done to the Delta, and increase costs on the people of Northern California to increase the supply of water necessary to meet the “co-equal” goals of protecting the Delta and providing a reliable supply of water to all residents of the state. By placing new requirements on the way all of us in Northern California manage and use our water resources in what are called the “areas of origin”, this is a substantial threat to our traditional water rights.
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