Voters will decide fate of $7 billion water bond Nov. 4
Por Doug Curlee
California voters will decide whether or not to approve more than $7 billion in bonds to drastically upgrade the state’s creaky and outdated water system.
Public opinion polls show the voters, influenced by the ongoing drought now plaguing the state, will vote in favor of the bond issue, although perhaps not in the overwhelming numbers originally predicted.
Assuming the voters approve, what happens? A close examination of the text of Proposition 1 on the ballot reveals this process will be a whole lot longer, and much more complicated, than originally thought.
To begin with, it will take time to set up the mechanisms that will eventually decide what projects will get funding, and what projects won’t.
One thing that didn’t become all that clear in the long, drawn-out legislative process that created Proposition 1: The bond-derived funds will generally cover only half the cost of a project. The other half will have to come from the local cities, counties, water districts, and other agencies that try to build dams, clean up polluted water sources, and any of the other projects the measure would provide for.
Sacramento-based Glenn Farrel, who keeps an eye on the legislature for the San Diego County Water Authority, says this is all going to take some time.
“There are a lot of cooks in the kitchen in a process like this,” he said.
There are plans right now for two new dams and reservoirs to be built. One would be the Sites area near the Northern California city of Colusa, and the other at Temperance Flat in the Sierra foothills northeast of Fresno.
There is also serious talk of raising the faces of two huge dams already holding water: Shasta Dam at the very top of the state water system, and San Luis Dam at Los Banos in the San Joaquin Valley. San Diego and the County Water Authority has greatly increased the storage capacity of San Vicente Dam near Lakeside by doing just that.
Using these as examples, supporters can look forward to the usual, long involved process of getting environmental impact studies done, probably by both the state and federal government. They must also line up the rest of the money for their project, remembering that bond funds will pay for only half of it all.
The proponents must make their case before the California Water Commission, a body that not everyone even knew existed. They must do so in competition with other like projects. Not every project will be approved. Not every project will get off the ground.
There are any number of strictures in the proposition requiring that the projects clearly benefit the local community, the region, and the state as a whole.
SELLING THE PROPOSITION
Those in favor of Proposition 1, headed by Gov. Jerry Brown, have amassed a reasonably significant war chest for advertising between now and Nov. 4. It’s in the neighborhood of $5 million right now, with more coming in if needed. It’s coming from labor unions, agricultural groups like the Farm Bureau Federation, Western Service, and several others. You’ve likely already seen the first salvo of television ads, featuring a ranking CalFire chief pitching both saving water and Proposition 2, which would set aside a certain percentage of state revenues into a rainy day fund as a hedge against natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and anything else where an unexpected need for cash might develop.
The “No on 1” campaign, on the other hand, has about $50,000 at last tally. That’s not going to go very far. Mainly a coalition of environmental groups and people trying to save the decrepit Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, along with people from the far north of the state and the north coastal regions, who feel their needs were not addressed in the bond measure.
It’s hard to separate some of the opponents, but the base of the opposition seems to coalesce around Stockton and to the west — in other words, the Delta. It’s also hard to decipher whether their opposition is to the bond issue itself, or more to the concept of the Twin Tunnels, Brown’s $25 billion solution to the problems of the delta.
Those people can, or at least should, take some solace in the fact that Proposition 1 specifically says that not a penny of the bond money can be used in any way whatsoever to advance the cause of the Twin Tunnels. The measure is what’s called “tunnel neutral.”
A good number of the opponents just don’t believe that. They believe that someone, somehow, will find a way to divert money to something supporting the governor’s dream Tunnels.
You can’t really blame them. Stockton is, after all, just down the road from Sacramento. They’ve been too close to the state government before. Some disbelief could be expected.
It could even be pardoned.
—Contact Doug Curlee at [email protected].
