California voters have rejected Proposition 3, the $8.9 billion water bond, sending a message to politicians. But what is that message? It can’t be that the state’s water problems have been solved. They haven’t been. It can’t be that Californians don’t care about water. Poll after poll shows we do. And it certainly doesn’t mean that more money – and potentially a lot of money – isn’t still needed to modernize our water systems. It is.
Where are the rains of yesteryear? The wet winter of 2017 is a distant memory as the county, like a thirsty desert survivor, staggers into its eighth year of drought. As of this month, the water level at Lake Cachuma, once the main water supply for the Carpinteria Valley, Montecito, Santa Barbara, and the Goleta and Santa Ynez valleys, has dropped back to 31 percent of capacity, a mark the reservoir hit in October 2014, on the way down to a record low of 7 percent in October 2016.
California voters have rejected Proposition 3, the $8.9 billion water bond, sending a message to politicians. But what is that message? It can’t be that the state’s water problems have been solved. They haven’t been. It can’t be that Californians don’t care about water. Poll after poll shows we do. And it certainly doesn’t mean that more money – and potentially a lot of money – isn’t still needed to modernize our water systems. It is.
For all of his accomplishments, when it comes to water issues, Gov. Jerry Brown is leaving Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom with a mess. What’s needed is a paradigm shift — a change in the conversation that doesn’t pit Northern California vs. Southern California and environmentalists against farmers and urban dwellers. Consider: What if Newsom borrowed a page from Brown’s climate change playbook, which called for a big move away from coal and oil in favor of renewable and green energy?
Local water officials went back to the drawing board Wednesday, looking for a way to fund needed repairs to the Friant-Kern canal. The canal is damaged and requires an expensive project to repair. Farmers and water districts hoped voters would authorize the state to foot the bill by approving Proposition 3. They didn’t. The Friant-Kern is like a big water highway. It delivers water from Millerton Lake to farms all over the south valley. An Eyewitness News analysis found that the canal is directly involved in the production of approximately $2 billion of crops every year.
Backers mourned the loss of Proposition 3 on Wednesday, the nearly $9 billion bond measure that would have modernized old dams, restored tainted watersheds and created desalination plants, among dozens of other water projects throughout the state. Prop. 3 — backed by state water agencies, farming organizations, social justice advocates and environmentalists, but not the Sierra Club — lost by 52 to 48 percent, a difference of 320,000 votes out of nearly 7 million ballots cast.
A river restoration plan that would restrict the water supplies of California cities and farms, including San Francisco, was put on hold Wednesday after Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom joined Gov. Jerry Brown in requesting more time for negotiations over the controversial initiative. The State Water Resources Control Board was scheduled to vote Wednesday on a years-long proposal to boost flows in the San Joaquin River and its tributaries, part of an effort to restore California’s declining salmon population and revive the languishing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Water managers along the Colorado River are trying to figure out how to live with less. Climate change is growing the gap between the river’s supply, and the demands in the communities that rely on it, including seven western U.S. states and Mexico. The federal government recently released proposals called Drought Contingency Plans designed to keep the Colorado River’s biggest reservoirs from falling to levels where water is unable to be sent through the dams that hold up Lakes Powell and Mead.
California voters on Tuesday rejected a water bond for the first time in almost 30 years, disregarding pleas from its backers that the money would fix crumbling infrastructure, bring clean drinking water to disadvantaged communities and kick-start badly needed environmental restoration projects. As of Thursday’s tally, 54 percent of voters had rejected the $8.9 billion Proposition 3 that promised funds to help repair Oroville Dam and aid Central Valley farmers facing groundwater problems, among a list of other expenditures.
Californians were leaning against borrowing $9 billion for water projects Tuesday in a state where water scarcity often pits city dwellers, farmers, anglers and environmentalists against one another. About 53 percent of voters opposed Proposition 3 with about 3.6 million votes counted. The bond measure devoted money to storage and dam repairs, watershed and fisheries improvements, and habitat protection and restoration. Much of the $8.9 billion was earmarked for conservancies and state parks to restore and protect watersheds, and to nonprofits and local agencies for river parkways.
