The bond is part of a package of water policy bills passed by the Legislature that would set new rules for water conservation.
By Olivia Damavandi / Assistant Editor
In the midst of a statewide water shortage and financial crisis, local agencies are bickering over a controversial package of water policy bills passed by the state earlier this month, which includes a budget-shattering $11 billion bond that will appear on the November 2010 ballot. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is in line to receive a total of $120 million if the bond is approved.
The water policy package is composed of new rules for water conservation-requiring most localities to reduce water use by 20 percent during the next 10 years-and a new system of governance for the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta that proposes the construction of a delta canal that would move more water south to the Central Valley and Southern California.
Though the bond contains billions of dollars in earmarks for statewide projects pertaining to water conservation, water recycling, reclamation of polluted groundwater and ecosystem restoration programs, it also provides billions to build new dams and expand existing dams that directly threaten California’s rivers.
The bond is comprised of more than $1.7 billion in water quality and watershed protection funding allocated for state conservancies (which are dependent on voter-approved funding), certain agencies and groups. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy plans to use its $120 million for various projects, including $75 million to “protect the Los Angeles River watershed,” $25 million for Santa Monica Bay watershed projects and another $20 million for “habitat connections in Ventura County,” SMMC Executive Director Joe Edmiston confirmed Tuesday in a telephone interview.
But while the SMMC and other bond supporters, such as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, say the policy package will greatly benefit the environment, other environmental groups, such as Heal the Bay, say it is filled with loopholes and vague language that make it weak and ineffective.
“Heal the Bay opposed the overall water deal because we felt there wasn’t adequate equity between urban water users and agricultural users and it didn’t go far enough on water rights reform,” Mark Gold, the organization’s executive director, said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
Gold said that though the policy package requires urban and residential water users to reduce water consumption by 20 percent, agriculture, which consumes 80 percent of developed water in the state, according to a Nov. 15 report in The Sacramento Bee, will remain exempt from any quantifiable reductions in use. The policy package also excludes mandatory monitoring of groundwater, which, according to the Bee report, is the largest single source of water consumed in the state. (California is one of few states that does not regulate groundwater, which has led to groundwater overdraft in many regions).
Another problem with the package policy, Gold said, is that it does not demarcate exactly how the bond money must be spent.
“While the [bond money] must go toward water cleanup, it doesn’t say how much will go toward the San Fernando Valley or San Francisco,” Gold continued. “It’s unclear. Even when you vote on it in November, you won’t know how the money will actually be spent. You get the broad category but not the specific projects. “The state is in such economic disarray…it wouldn’t make sense to add more indebtedness to it.”
Edmiston, however, said the uses of the bond money are “very specifically outlined,” and that policy package oppositionists are simply turned off by the potential construction and expansion of dams, which, he said, is highly unlikely because they are not cost effective.
“The main thing we [the SMMC] do is acquire land for parks and habitat improvement; land acquisitions that would prevent urban development,” Edmiston said. “Environmentalists are not typically your tightwad fiscal conservatives. If this measure did not have the possibility of new dams and all $11 billion was for the cleanup of Santa Monica Bay, restoration for habitats and fisheries, all the environmentalists would agree and say the bonds are a good way of doing that.”
In regard to whether he thought it was prudent, given the state’s financial crisis, to enact an $11 billion bond from taxpayer money, Edmiston said, “The long-term impact [on the state budget deficit in five years] is going to be one or two percentage points. To me, that’s a worthwhile investment. I’d rather do that than pay for more prison guards.”