Opinion: Water bond: I’ll be baaaack

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Health care and budget troubles behind him (well, sort of) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is trying to resurrect efforts in the Legislature to craft a multibillion dollar water bond for the November ballot.

It would be interesting to see what details, exactly, are on the table. Even though the governor likes to refer to the bond as a “comprehensive” solution for California’s water supply problems, last year’s version did not get to the bottom of the biggest problem the state faces: figuring out whether or how to build a peripheral canal to carry water around the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta. Gov. Schwarzenegger euphemistically refers to this as “conveyance.” Californians have been deadlocked over a peripheral canal for decades.

And it looks like the biggest bone of contention from 2007 negotiations--massive levels of state funding for three dams in the Central Valley and Northern California--is still in play. The California Chamber of Commerce may begin collecting signatures on its own $11.6 billion bond initiative, which would provide money for the dams, in the coming weeks.

At a forum on water sponsored by the Valley Industry & Commerce Association on Friday one panelist joked that negotiations over this bond reminded him of the movie Groundhog Day, when Bill Murray relives the same day over and over and over again until he breaks the cycle by becoming a better person and falling in love.

Are the parties to this conversation becoming better people, too? Falling in love? Nothing much about the discussion appears new--at least, not yet. Other than that $16 billion budget deficit lurking in the corner.