Three Ways to Get It Right : WATER WATCH: And three politicians who are on the case

After a quiet summer interval, California’s great water policy debate is back in full swing. A parched state will need more action to go with the talk than it got last time around.

Perhaps the weekend of heavy rains and snow that swept across Northern California and brushed the Southland is the start of a wet year. But Californians cannot drink hope or bathe in maybes.

Wise water agencies will plan for a sixth dry year. The process should be more orderly than the emergency rationing planning that spread across the state early this year.

A new state law, for example, requires urban water agencies to adopt contingency plans that spell out three years in advance the cutbacks and rate increases needed to cope with worst-case water shortages.

Sacramento’s water bank, which bought and sold supplies from the State Water Project early this year, will need a major overhaul. It is no surprise that this first attempt to use market mechanisms to transfer large amounts of water from relatively wet regions to dry led to some mistakes. The state government got stuck with $35 million worth of water that it could not sell. It should try shifting from its role as banker to a role as broker.

But the policy agenda, not administrative steps, is still where the state’s future will be decided. Action is needed in three policy areas:

1. Gov. Pete Wilson’s task force on growth management will make recommendations soon. Water policy should be prominent because it is so tightly linked to growth issues.

2. A bill by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) to free farmers of the need to get an irrigation district’s permission before they can sell their water failed by a single vote last year. It will be one of the most important items of business when the Legislature reconvenes in January. Wilson should support it.

3. Finally, U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) will soon press for action on his bill that would allow 7 million acre-feet of federal water in California to be sold in a free market.

All these moves would put California on a path toward adequate water supplies. New policies must not be postponed by old politics any longer.