Measure Attempts to Put Regional Water Wars to Rest

The group behind a $1.97-billion water bond on the March 7 ballot is flying under the banner “Californians for Clean, Safe, Reliable Water.”

If it wanted a more homey slogan for the measure, Proposition 13, it might try “Can We All Get Along?”

The measure, which would pay for dozens of water infrastructure projects, represents an attempt by state authorities to get diverse regional, economic and political interests to put aside their animosities and their lawyers.

Leading environmental groups and major water agencies are endorsing the bond issue, but many farmers are not buying into it.

The problems that the measure would help correct read like a laundry list of the state’s water woes: flooding on the Russian, Yuba and Feather rivers in Northern California, seawater intrusion along the coast, depletion of ground water, urban runoff polluting the beaches of Southern California, destruction of riparian habitat along the San Joaquin and Kern rivers in Central California, and much more.

In Orange County, the proposition addresses flood protection along the Santa Ana River and its tributaries, restoration of wildlife habitat along the Santiago, San Juan, Aliso, Trabuco and Laguna creeks, environmental improvements in the Laguna Creek watershed, the Santa Ana River and the San Joaquin Marsh and water reclamation in the Irvine Ranch Water District.

The measure would also help Orange County water districts in their attempts to recharge coastal aquifers.

Although the projects are disparate in nature and location, they share a common philosophy: That California needs to redouble its efforts to make greater use of its existing water supply and that the days of an ever-expanding water supply are over.

By one estimate, the projects to be funded by Proposition 13 could, through conservation and reclamation, increase the state’s usable water supply by 3%.

To anyone who isn’t a water wonk, that may seem like a paltry amount, but it pays to remember that this is a state that is perennially just one dry winter away from drought and is also facing a sizable increase in population in coming decades.

Admittedly, the price tag is a whopper, kept strategically just below $2 billion, just as the price of consumer goods often hovers at 99 cents. Add interest payments and the cost to taxpayers is more like $3.5 billion.

Still, boosters say the cost reflects the state’s chronic neglect of its water system.

“We let it go too long and now we’ve got to make up for it,” said Assemblywoman Denise Ducheny (D-San Diego), one of the Legislature’s water experts.

Four years ago, voters endorsed a $995-million bond issue that was billed as a means of ensuring the state’s water future.

Two-thirds of that amount was dedicated to the down payment on the state’s share of the state and federal effort to rescue the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Plagued by pollution, silting and flooding, the delta provides drinking water for 22 million people and irrigation for 4.5 million acres of farmland.

But now the Calfed program, to some observers, is caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of California water politics: the environmental movement and farming interests. Trying to please both, the program has pleased neither.

Deadlines have been pushed back, the proposal dearest to the interests of Southern California (a canal looping around the delta) is no longer even under discussion, and the Calfed executive director has left for a federal job.

With the Calfed stalemate firmly in mind, the crafters of Proposition 13, principally Gov. Gray Davis and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature, opted to tilt firmly toward the environmentalists. The result is that the environmental movement is exultant and the California Farm Bureau is in a huff.

“One of the best things about Proposition 13 is something it doesn’t do: It doesn’t rely on building big dams and reservoirs,” said Lisa Boyle, director of law and policy for Heal the Bay, a group dedicated to cleaning up Santa Monica Bay.

Dams and reservoirs are anathema to the environmental movement. Agriculture interests insist they are essential to control flooding and also to store water for use in drought years.

“Our members have made it clear to us that Proposition 13 does not contain enough benefit for agriculture statewide to justify our support,” said Bill Pauli, president of the California Farm Bureau, which decided to remain neutral.

To mollify the farmers, the governor included $20 million in his budget to study above-ground storage in the Central Valley.

The Farm Bureau is unmoved. Its concern about Proposition 13 is part of an overall feeling that farmers are being cheated by state and federal water policies that favor fish and birds over farmers.

Whatever the environmental and economic arguments, the political reality is that the Farm Bureau has limited political clout.

“I have a lot of respect for the Farm Bureau, but, let’s face it, the votes are in the cities,” said Steve Hall, executive director of the Assn. of California Water Agencies. “Suburban California will decide this measure and there’s a lot in it for the suburbs.”

Getting the public’s attention for such a dry topic as water is always difficult. Without the threat of drought, Proposition 13 backers worry about their message getting lost amid a lengthy list of ballot measures and the hoopla of the presidential primary.

Unlike the 1996 water bond, Proposition 13 does not contain one overriding big-ticket project. Rather, there are conservation, reclamation, pollution control, environment restoration and flood control projects scattered throughout the state.

The Libertarian Party, which opposes the measure, argues that individual projects, such as the upgrade of water treatment plants in Los Angeles and increased pollution control in Orange County, should be paid for by communities directly affected and not by statewide taxpayers.

Boosters counter that it’s high time Californians rid themselves of the notion that water is strictly a local issue.