Water Madness

One report out of Sacramento this past week said that both sides in California’s latest north-south water war had just begun to fight. If so, one wonders how to describe the madness that occurred in Round 1--shades of “Apocalypse Now”--as the Senate and Assembly concocted their own bills designed to “solve” the state’s water problems.

In the coming weeks or months the Senate and the Assembly presumably will try to work out differences in the two measures by Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino) and craft a compromise of some sort. When the smoke clears, perhaps sense will have returned to the Legislature and it will produce a spartan, responsible bill that would begin to solve some of the real problems facing the state Water Project.

The essentials would include money for shoring up levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, from which the project pumps its supplies to the San Francisco Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. If floods topple critical levees, operations of the project could be severly interrupted.

The Legislature could direct that work begin on a storage reservoir south of the delta to capture excess winter flows, thus bolstering Southern California supplies. Of course, a previous Legislature already has approved such a reservoir. Doing it again probably would not cause any real harm.

The Legislature could declare its intent to protect the delta and its fisheries. This already is assured in state law. And it even could pledge to protect water quality in San Francisco Bay, as state law does now. The state Water Resources Control Board will begin hearings Tuesday leading to the adoption over the next three years of new water-quality standards for the bay and the delta.

The Legislature could direct the state Department of Water Resources to widen delta channels to correct existing damage that pumping is doing to the delta fisheries, and possibly allow for some additional pumping of water to the south during high winter flows. The department is authorized to do this under existing state law, and in fact has embarked on such a project.

The Legislature even could take the ultimate step and declare that no additional water can be exported to the south until the bay and delta are protected through various steps outlined above. Actually, it will be physically impossible to increase exports until those actions occur, whether or not the Legislature passes a bill.

The fact is that the delta and the bay must be protected, because it is the right thing to do. The delta channels must be improved to correct the damage that has been done and to allow more exports to the state Water Project during high flows. More storage is needed south of the delta, both in reservoirs and in groundwater basins, to reduce the need for pumping from the delta during dry periods. More water conservation is needed everywhere, because it makes good sense.

All of these things most likely will happen no matter what the state Legislature does this year. The north will get environmental protection. The south ultimately will wind up with more water. The level of hyperbole in the Legislature in recent weeks, however, is not bringing California any closer to those goals, nor are the threats by both sides to launch initiative and referendum campaigns.

Air Force B52s could not bomb North Vietnam into submission. Legislative bombast cannot solve California’s water problems. Unless reason is restored in the Capitol, the issue should be turned over to some representative third party or commission, outside the Legislature, for an attempt at resolution. Either that or the Legislature could do nothing and declare victory.