Another Water Bond in the Pipeline

Voters may feel deja vu when they ponder Proposition 84 on the Nov. 7 ballot, because like five other bond measures in the last decade, it promises clean water, flood control, better parks and coastal protection.

And like the last water bond to go before voters, in 2002, Proposition 84 was written by a Sacramento lobbyist whose clients are land preservation and environmental groups that stand to win public money for pet projects through the measure.

If passed, the initiative would help fund capital projects over the next decade or so. It would shunt money to several state agencies, which would weigh competing proposals from cities, counties, water districts, conservancies and other groups and decide which to fund.

Past bond money has helped purchase the 32-acre Cornfield property near downtown Los Angeles, paid for repairs to Big Tujunga Dam and built basins to help refill aquifers in Clovis, among hundreds of projects.

Of the $11 billion that Californians have borrowed over the last decade through five water, parks and natural resource-related bonds, less than $1 billion remains. Proposition 84 carries the highest price yet: $5.4 billion in principal. The cost is more than $10 billion when interest on the 30-year bond is included.

It’s not clear voters will pony up again for pipes, parks and flood protection when there are four other statewide bonds totaling $37 billion on the November ballot -- including a $4.1-billion flood-control bond. In an August poll, Proposition 84 trailed the other bond measures, with 40% of those surveyed saying they would vote for it, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

The other measures, written by the Legislature, each had at least 50% approval.

Proposition 84 was written by Joe Caves, a lobbyist whose clients include the Big Sur Land Trust, California State Parks Foundation, National Audubon Society, the Nature Conservancy and the Peninsula Open Space Trust in Menlo Park.

California’s political leaders support the measure, saying it will rescue wild lands and increase water supplies as California adds tens of millions of residents.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and top Democrats have endorsed it; other backers include dozens of water districts, more than 100 conservation groups, the California Chamber of Commerce and many cities, counties and labor unions.

“It puts money into the hands of locals,” said Steve Hall, executive director of the Assn. of California Water Agencies, “and locals for the last 20 years are the ones who have developed the water.

“We’ve added the equivalent of a new California Aqueduct” in the last 10 years, Hall said. “That’s huge, and this is the kind of money that helps do that.”

The biggest contributor to the Yes on Proposition 84 campaign is the Nature Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that frequently uses state bond money to help purchase and preserve land. It has given at least $1.6 million to the campaign.

Other groups that stand to gain from the bond also have donated to the campaign. The California Assn. of Local Conservation Corps gave $70,000; the bond earmarks $32.5 million to local conservation corps. An additional $100 million of the bond would be directed to museums, aquariums and other such institutions; the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles and the manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium have each donated $100,000.

There is no organized opposition raising money against Proposition 84.

“There’s such a huge amount of money at stake and there are so many people that are going to benefit from the largess that there’s very little opposition,” said one foe, Jim Uhler, spokesman for the National Tax Limitation Committee in Roseville.

His 30-year-old nonprofit group, which sponsored the 1990 initiative that imposed term limits on the Legislature, called Proposition 84 part of a pattern of “self-serving, self-enriching” ballot measures.

“There are a lot of earmarks” for those who qualified the measure for the ballot, said Uhler.

Caves said Proposition 84 details no specific projects and gives the Legislature oversight of most of the $5.4 billion, which must be appropriated as part of the annual budget. The exception is several hundred million dollars that would go directly to the Department of Water Resources and Wildlife Conservation Board for flood-plain mapping, levee repairs and purchase or restoration of wildlife habitat.

Proposition 1E, the flood-control bond measure written by lawmakers on the November ballot, includes money for some of the same purposes.

The greatest share of the money -- $1.5 billion -- would be dedicated to water quality. That includes loans to prevent groundwater contamination and grants to improve drinking water in small communities.

Unlike previous water bonds, Proposition 84 explicitly authorizes private water companies -- which serve roughly 20% of Californians -- for the grants. Previous water bonds either barred private companies or were silent on the issue.

Proposition 84 also devotes $928 million to protecting rivers, lakes and streams, and $800 million to flood-control projects. Most of the flood-control money is dedicated to the Central Valley and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the same region that would receive $3 billion for flood control under Proposition 1E.

Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources, said there’s no overlap, because the need is so great.

“We originally estimated $13 billion worth of need in flood protection over the next 20 years,” he said.

Proposition 84 devotes $580 million to “urban greening” projects that would cut energy and water use, acquire or expand parks and discourage sprawl. Caves offered as an example the creation of a park from overlooked public land, such as a utility right of way, and using it as a storm-water detention basin too.

“We have way worse park access in Los Angeles than they do in New York City,” he said. “Kids just don’t have access to green space.”

Several state agencies and four regional land conservancies would receive $540 million to distribute for the protection of beaches, bays and coastal watersheds. The Wildlife Conservation Board and the University of California would get $450 million to buy, restore or protect forests, wetlands and other wildlife habitat.

Finally, the state Department of Parks and Recreation would get $500 million to buy or rehabilitate natural or historic settings, and to disburse to museums, aquariums, botanical gardens and other educational institutions.

Critics call the bond a “bait and switch.” It is titled “The Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality and Supply, Flood Control, River and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006,” but only $65 million -- 1% -- is for planning improvements to water supply, and none of the money is specifically for new dams or reservoirs.

And too much of the money, opponents say, would be dedicated to putting private land in government’s hands.

“What water bond?” said Assemblyman Doug La Malfa (R-Richvale). “You mean the land acquisition bond?”

If climate change shrinks the Sierra Nevada snowpack that supplies most of California’s drinking water, he said, the state will need more places to store water. And Proposition 84, by requiring a $350-million payment each year from the general fund, would limit the state’s ability to respond, said La Malfa.

“The mountains with snow sitting on them are a de facto dam right there,” he said. “If it’s getting warmer, then we have to be doing even more to capture rainwater, and this bond isn’t doing that; none of the other bonds are doing that.”

Water experts respond that California can stretch its water supply without the expense and environmental damage of a new reservoir.

Money from past water bonds, for example, has been used by Los Angeles County to help pay for temporary, inflatable dams on the San Gabriel River that spread water to increase seepage into underground storage areas. The West Basin Municipal Water District used $200 million from a 2000 water bond to expand a wastewater recycling plant so it could inject treated wastewater, rather than imported drinking water, into aquifers to keep seawater from intruding inland toward drinking-water wells.

Snow estimates that the money in Proposition 84 could stretch the state’s supplies by at least 1 million acre-feet -- roughly three times the capacity of Castaic Lake.

“The water we’re going to develop,” said Hall of the water agency association, “is just as wet as any water behind a dam.”

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nancy.vogel@latimes.com

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A steady flow of bond measures

Statewide water and natural resource bonds in the last decade:

*--* Borrowed Remaining Year Measure (in billions) (in millions) 1996 Prop. 204: Water supply and $0.95 $247 quality

2000 Prop. 12: Parks and coastal 2.1 19 protection

2000 Prop. 13: Water quality and flood 2.0 328 protection

2002 Prop. 40: Water quality, parks, 2.6 6 coastal protection

2002 Prop. 50: Water security and 3.4 353 quality, coastal protection

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Sources: Legislative Analyst’s Office, California Department of Finance

Los Angeles Times