Holy water war

GOV. ARNOLD Schwarzenegger likes to grumble that the battle over how to store California’s scarce water supply for a non-rainy day is tantamount to a “holy war.” Year after year, Republicans and farmers push for new dams and reservoirs, while Democrats and environmentalists call for increased underground storage and conservation. Middle ground is as easy to find as a diving hole in the lower Owens Valley.

So it was no surprise this week that the governor’s latest water infrastructure plan was voted down by Democrats on the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee. Sponsored by Sen. Dave Cogdill (R-Modesto), SB 59 called for nearly $4 billion in bonds, half of which would be spent on two new dams in the Central Valley.

California slakes its thirst by way of a complex system that transports water from the Colorado River and Sierra Nevada to the drier valleys and coastal plains. Most years this generates enough water, but droughts, aging infrastructure and an ever-growing population threaten to make the well run dry.

Schwarzenegger, who needs Republican support to pass his budget and key reforms, has vowed to keep fighting for the dams. For the rest of his audience, however, he’s come up with a novel pitch: Reservoirs are needed because of global warming.

The state’s snowpack is indeed likely to shrink as the Earth warms, but scientists disagree on where and how, making it difficult to know whether the proposed Sites and Temperance Flat dams would be positioned properly to capture snowmelt. The dams could help control flows into the environmentally sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which supplies 60% of Southern California’s water. But it seems premature to embark on such massive and intrusive projects before comprehensive proposals to rehabilitate the delta come out around the end of the year.

Of the many ways to save and store water, dams are among the most expensive. They also alter the natural landscape in violent and often irreversible ways. The trend in the modern West is to tear down dams, not build them. Water solutions going forward should be based on cooperating with nature, not continuing the legacy of manhandling river systems into unrecognizable forms.

Knowing that bond-weary voters are likely to be asked to borrow billions more to shore up the far more critical delta, why would Schwarzenegger waste his clout on what appears to be a peripheral, piecemeal project? Politics, most likely. With his reservoir rhetoric, the “post-partisan” governor hoped to split the difference in the holy war -- pander to Republicans while sounding environmentally savvy at the same time. It’s a nifty trick, but unfortunately it won’t solve California’s water problems.