California lawmakers are considering whether to approve a voluntary tax on water customers across the state. Revenue from the tax would be use to pay for cleaning up contaminated water in rural and low-income communities in the Central Valley. Supporters of Senate Bill 845 contend the tax is necessary to keep safe the one million Californians exposed each year to contaminated drinking water.
You have to hand it to Sacramento; they are very creative in figuring out how to take more of your money. You may or may not have heard about the proposed “Water Tax.” It is intended to place a monthly tax on your water bill, from $1.00 to $10.00, depending on your meter size or having multiple meters. The money will be sent to Sacramento and then used to make water system improvements to communities elsewhere in the state. However, this is a tax and will require a 2/3’s vote of the State Assembly and the Senate.
When California passed its landmark groundwater law in 2014, there was a collective “it’s about time” across the West. But even though California may have been late in issuing a robust groundwater management law, it does set a high bar in at least one key area. “In regards to the environment, it is actually quite progressive in that it actually explicitly mentions that groundwater-dependent ecosystems need to be identified and there can’t be impacts to them,” said Melissa Rohde, a groundwater scientist at The Nature Conservancy. If you’re not quite sure what a groundwater-dependent ecosystem (GDE) is, you’re not alone.
Hundreds of California farmers rallied at the Capitol on Monday to protest state water officials’ proposal to increase water flows in a major California river, a move state and federal politicians called an overreach of power that would mean less water for farms in the Central Valley. “If they vote to take our water, this does not end there,” said Republican state Sen. Anthony Cannella. “We will be in court for 100 years.”
San Francisco has maintained water rights to the Tuolumne River, a pristine source that originates high in the Sierra Nevada, since the early 1900s. Now, those rights are being threatened by a state proposal to rescue the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The state’s plan, which was first proposed in October 2016 and released as a final draft last month, would increase water flows to the Tuolumne and other rivers that support the delta.
Originating in a glacier at the eastern edge of Yosemite, the Tuolumne River runs into a man-made roadblock in the towering granite cliffs of the Hetch Hetchy Valley. A massive concrete dam captures its icy water and ships much of it through pipes and tunnels to the residents of San Francisco. Farther downstream, the Tuolumne is halted again, this time by a dam in the oak-covered Sierra foothills. From there, a network of canals spreads the Tuolumne’s waters over mile after mile of rich San Joaquin Valley vineyards, orchards and dairy farms.
The cold, rushing water of the Tuolumne River, piped from the high peaks of Yosemite to the taps of Bay Area residents, is not only among the nation’s most pristine municipal water sources but extraordinarily plentiful. This point of pride for San Francisco, which has maintained rights to the cherished Sierra supply since the early 1900s, is being threatened, however. Under a far-reaching state plan to bump up flows in California’s rivers, the city would be forced to limit its draws from the Tuolumne for the first time in recent memory.
Over the past decade, San Joaquin County and Delta stakeholders have spent thousands of hours fighting the Governor’s Twin Tunnels project, officially called WaterFix. This water transfer plan would have a disastrous effect on the agricultural industry in the region, and estimated costs have ballooned to $20+ billion. Unfortunately, the State is now pursuing yet another devastating water grab that is quietly making its way through the regulatory process. The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) will soon consider Phase 1 of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Plan update (Revised Plan).
Opponents of a state “water grab” are taking their political battle to the steps of the state Capitol building in Sacramento on Monday. From 500 to 1,000 people are expected at a rally to protest a state water board plan to double the amount of water taken from the Tuolumne River to improve water quality in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta and restore fish populations. The plan, also to take additional water from the Stanislaus and Merced rivers, is opposed by irrigation districts and cities that predict devastating effects on agriculture and the economy in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Let’s start with this: California WaterFix, Gov. Brown’s $17 billion twin-tunnels project, is the best and most affordable long-term solution to our great state’s water woes. If we’re going to call it a time machine, we should acknowledge it will transport us to a brighter future, where there’s clean, reliable water for generations to come. The boondoggle rhetoric that has recently appeared in these pages is classic political redirection. Opponents have been serving up nonsense for more than a decade in hopes of derailing California WaterFix.
