California agricultural-district lawmakers denounce water bond

Wolk says bill too heavy with earmark funding, too light in Delta representation

By WES SANDER
Capital Press

SACRAMENTO -- Two lawmakers representing agricultural districts say the huge water bond passed by the legislature in October is unworkable.

Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, represents a chunk of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the focus of a package of legislation focused on long-term management of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of the state's water-delivery system. The bond, one piece of the package, is scheduled to go before voters in November.

Wolk said voters will turn it down -- partly because of the state's dismal economy, and partly because the bill package as a whole is unworkable.

Enthusiasm for the package of bills "is not shared by many who live, work, fish or farm in the Delta or in Northern California," Wolk said. "And surprisingly, despite all the press conferences and a cascade of misleading economic data about unemployment in the Central Valley, it appears that a majority of Californians aren't ready to trust (claims supporting the legislative package) by voting for the largest water bond in state history."

Wolk and Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, R-Ceres, spoke at a Feb. 22 forum staged by Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

The $11.1 billion, general-obligation bond would pay for a host of statewide and local projects to develop storage and water-use efficiency. It would allocate $3 billion to new storage, which agricultural interests say is indispensable.

Wolk said the bond bill is too heavy with earmark funding, while the Delta is inadequately represented by the single seat awarded to Delta interests on the seven-seat Delta Stewardship Council, which stands to approve forthcoming Delta management plans.

Among those plans is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which proposes a huge canal or pipeline to divert river water before it enters the estuary. Delta residents, many of them farmers, say such a conveyance would ruin their livelihoods.

Berryhill, who represents a large chunk of San Joaquin Valley farmland, agreed that the bond's earmarks will sink it.

"When the pork starts to outweigh the money for the original intent of the bond ... then it's time that you have to reconsider the wisdom of passing such a bond," Berryhill said.

Increased storage capacity is a necessity for the state's long-term water plans, but the bond's language makes the prospects for new storage uncertain, Berryhill said.

"I don't believe that this plan will give us real storage," he said. "There are way too many loopholes that were allowed to be placed in the language of the bond at the last minute, and I believe that eventually they will kill any opportunity to build storage."

Berryhill said ways can be found to move necessary projects forward without the bond. Beyond new storage, the Delta conveyance and local water-efficiency projects also top the list of importance, and stakeholders will continue finding ways of funding them, Berryhill said.

San Joaquin Valley and Los Angeles-area water users have said they're willing to pay for the new conveyance.

"Whether it passes or whether it doesn't, it doesn't matter," Berryhill said. "We're going to continue to work on solutions because ... our farmers down south, they've got to get water and they need it now."