Schwarzenegger sets conditions for water legislation
Governor says he won't sign anything that doesn't include bonds for new dams and reservoirs, making a deal seem less likely. Democrats see such facilities as a costly sop to agribusiness.
Bettina Boxall
Los Angeles Times
08/19/2009
The chances that Sacramento will break the stalemate on California
water policy this summer grew dimmer Tuesday when Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger said he would not sign legislation that doesn't include
bonds for new reservoirs and dams.
The declaration signaled
Schwarzenegger's dissatisfaction with a package of water bills that
Democrats are hoping to move through the Legislature before the
mid-September adjournment.
"I will not sign anything that does
not have above-the-ground, below-the-ground water storage," the
governor said at a news conference on the steps of the Capitol in
Sacramento. Inside, Democrats were holding the first of a series of
public hearings on the bills.
Schwarzenegger has for several
years promoted a bond package to pay for new water infrastructure,
including a proposed dam and reservoir in the Sierra foothills
northeast of Fresno and a reservoir in Northern California.
But
he has been stymied by Democrats, who favor cheaper groundwater storage
and consider new surface storage a costly sop to the agribusiness
interests that would reap most of its benefits.
Southern
California water managers say a new reservoir in Northern California
would be of little use to them because the water would still have to be
shipped south through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which is
in ecological collapse and subject to increasingly strenuous pumping
restrictions.
They want a new method of getting water south,
probably a multibillion-dollar canal that would carry supplies around
the delta from the Sacramento River.
The Democrats' water
package does not authorize specific projects, but creates a powerful
council that would have the authority to embark on proposals such as a
delta bypass. The council's members would be appointed by the governor
and the Legislature.
The bills also include delta protections,
call for an examination of water rights in the delta watershed and
mandate a 20% reduction in per capita urban water use.
Assemblyman
Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), a sponsor of the package and chairman of
the lower house's Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, said the state
needed to agree on what to do about the delta's many problems before
approving the issuing of bonds.
"We're out of money, and we've
got the worst credit rating in the United States," he said. "To
suddenly link [a bond measure] to the resolution of the critical crisis
in the delta I think is irresponsible."
