By Rebecca Bowe
State lawmakers stayed up late last night working on historic legislation that will revamp California’s water system. The Senate OK’d a $9.9 billion bond, which includes $3 billion for the creation of new reservoirs, which would need to go to voters for final approval. It also approved a bill that establishes new statewide water conservation targets at 20 percent less water by 2020. Lawmakers are expected to continue debating other water policy proposals and could vote on the rest of the package today, but a deal isn’t certain yet.
The bills are meant to address a host of problems associated with the state water-supply system. Voluminous water pumping has wreaked havoc ecologically in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but farms in the Central Valley have had to fallow fields due to less water becoming available for irrigation during the drought. Meanwhile, aging earthen levees throughout the Delta are highly vulnerable to the effects of a natural disaster, which could interrupt a huge portion of the state’s water-delivery system.
Even as the deal enters the final phase of negotiation, a host of local elected officials, organizations representing the salmon fishing industry, Delta interests, and other conservation groups say they’re unhappy with the way things are shaping up. A key concern is that environmental protections will take a back seat to water infrastructure projects.