Water bond measure faces uphill climb

When Gov. Arnold Schwarzene­gger signed an $11.1 billion water bond package this week, it was hailed by many Kings County leaders as absolutely necessary to meet critical farm water needs.

Selling it to the general public is a tougher road.

California voters will decide in November 2010 whether they think it’s worth the cost.

The stakes are huge for some local farmers. The dry Westside, which depends on Northern California water pumped down through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta, is desperate to see a peripheral canal built that will bring that water to them without it going through the delta, which is plagued by major environmental and endangered species issues.

The package includes the promise of a bypass partly funded by users like the giant Westlands Water District, but by no means guarantees that it will be built.

Other Kings County farmers seem generally supportive. Many have argued that passage of the bond will lead to new dams in California such as one proposed at Temperance Flat on the San Joaquin River above Millerton Lake. Though the package does earmark $3 billion for water storage projects, it doesn’t specifically guarantee any dam projects, which would face opposition from some environmentalists and a competitive bidding process with no guarantee of success.

Supporters think they have good arguments. But getting the public to buy into them is another matter, according to several who spoke at an infrastructure conference Thursday at West Hills College Lemoore.

Record voter distrust of Sacramento combined with ongoing unemployment, a stalled economy and California’s fiscal crisis makes it particularly challenging.

David Orth, general manager of the Kings River Conservation District, said initial polling numbers aren’t encouraging.

“We’re starting about as far down as you could ever want to start,” he said.

Opposition to the bond is beginning to coalesce, and some of it is coming from agriculture. Farmers in the delta region aren’t happy about a peripheral canal, which they fear could siphon water away from their cropland and weaken the levees they depend on to keep their farms from being flooded by the maze of channels in the delta area.

The prospects of ag fighting ag is a real one, said Congressman Jim Costa, D-Fresno.

Although Kings County’s elected representatives in Sacramento — Republican Assemblyman Danny Gilmore and Democratic Sen. Dean Florez — support the bond, other San Joaquin Valley leaders, including many Republican lawmakers, are against the measure.

State Sen. Jeff Denham, R-Merced, issued a scathing condemnation of the bond this week, calling it “a dam shame.”

Denham predicted that voters will “likely reject the ‘Christmas tree’ water bond as the state faces a $20 billion plus deficit.”

The opposition stretches across the political divide. Major public employee unions in California, which are heavily allied with Democrats, have signaled opposition to the bond because it would be financed from the same general fund that provides their paychecks. The general fund has already been slashed in budget balancing efforts (and will likely get slashed again as the state heads into more deficits).

Still, supporters believe their ace in the hole is the argument that if Californians let this chance at comprehensive water reform die, it will condemn the state to disaster.

In different ways, every supporter of the bond at Thursday’s conference pounded away at this point.

Mario Santoyo, director of the California Latino Water Coalition, called in an “opportunity that hasn’t happened in 40 years.”

“I don’t think we can afford not to have this kind of infrastructure [bond],” he said.

“This isn’t the sexiest thing on the ballot. But it’s vital,” said Aubrey Bettencourt, a director at the California Water Alliance.

Costa called the bond a “milestone.”

Other water experts with ties to Kings County offered similar assessments.

“We haven’t done this for 40 to 50 years, and we may not do it again,” said George Soares, Hanford resident and attorney.

Soares said the key is to convince people that the bond is a “once in a generation” kind of plan.

Soares noted that voters last year approved a $10 billion bond for high speed rail. Once the electorate decided the need was there, the were willing to support the cost, he said. The water bond “fits into that kind of analysis,” he added.

But many supporters of the bond cringe at what they perceive to be its drawbacks.

There is concern that California won’t be able to pay for the bonds it has issued already, said Mike Nordstrom, a water attorney in Corcoran. Nordstrom said that when voters see what he called the “layers of pork” in the water bond, they may reject it out of hand.

Such a move would be “devastating” for farmers reliant on delta water, he said.

“If this [bond] is the only way we can get water flowing again, of course we’re going to support it,” Nordstrom said.

But Nordstrom pointed to another problem: Farmers may have to pay so heavily out of their own pockets to get the peripheral canal built, that in the end the water may be too expensive for farming.

“By the time we get finished with the peripheral canal, the real question is going to be, is the cost of water going to be so high that agriculture won’t be able to afford it?” he said.

(Nov. 13, 2009)