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<h2><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Governor
proposes water storage plan<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>Legislature
would pick one of three projects in an effort to break a partisan impasse.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<h4><b><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>By
Andy Furillo -- Bee Capitol Bureau<br>
<i><span style='font-style:italic'>Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, March 14,
2006</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h4>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>In an effort to break the infrastructure deadlock, Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger has offered up a $500 million surface water storage plan in
which the Legislature would be asked to pick from three proposed projects,
according to Republican and Democratic legislators. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Democrats
are supporting a dam restoration project in <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Riverside</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType> that could add up to 425,000
acre-feet to the state water system, while Republicans are pushing for massive
new storage locations in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Colusa</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> and along the
Madera-Fresno county line that could top a million acre-feet each. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>According
to legislators, the governor's $500 million would pay for actual construction
or assorted environmental and engineering studies and would leverage other
possible funding sources to create what would amount to projects costing in
excess of $1 billion each. The Legislature would need to approve the spending
on a two-thirds vote, and if it could not decide on one of the three sites by
2018, the money would go toward a groundwater storage plan. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
three of them would go into a competitive bid for that money, and one or all
three would get some of the money to proceed with everything they need,"
said state Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley, providing details Monday on the
governor's water plan. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Representatives
of the Governor's Office did not immediately comment on the water plan. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
Assembly, meanwhile, remained on standby late Monday night in hopes that
Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders would hash out an infrastructure
agreement that got held up in an early-morning vote Saturday in the state
Senate, in large part over disagreements on the water storage issue. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Assembly
Speaker Fabian Núñez, D-<st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City>,
and Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, R-Irvine, emerged from the governor's
office around 10:30 p.m., saying there would be no vote and that they were
sending their members home for the night. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>State
Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata raised multiple objections to the new plan
taking shape in the Assembly in a memo released to his caucus and reporters.
Among other things, he said the <st1:place w:st="on">Northern California</st1:place>
water projects "are years, and billions of dollars, away from
feasibility." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Perata
also objected to proposed Assembly amendments that would reduce the amount of
urban park land, ease environmental restrictions, add funding for Highway 99
improvements at the expense of other Northern California road projects, and
change the distribution of transit funding in the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:City> area. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Schwarzenegger
proposed a $222 billion infrastructure plan in his State of the State speech
that would be jump-started with $71.5 billion in bond funding approved by
voters over the next 10 years. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Legislative
Democrats proposed a $48.6 billion package to be approved over the next four
years. But in early Saturday action, that plan fell three votes short of the
two-thirds passage needed in the state Senate. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Secretary
of State Bruce McPherson initially established last Friday as the deadline to
get a plan on the June ballot, but has since suggested lawmakers could take more
time. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In the
Democratic plan unveiled last Friday, the state would put the $500 million into
rehabilitating an improved <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Lake</st1:PlaceType> <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Perris</st1:PlaceName> dam in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Riverside</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>,
which represents the far southeast repository of the State Water Project. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Seismic
studies in the region had determined that the dam could not withstand a major
earthquake, leading the state Department of Water Resources to draw down the
lake's capacity from 125,000 acre-feet to 75,000, said agency spokeswoman Sue
Sims. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>A new
dam, Sims said, could maintain the lake's current size, go back to its old
capacity or expand it to 500,000 acre-feet. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We're
really at the early stages of looking at all of that," Sims said. "At
the moment, we're proceeding with a retrofit to return it to its existing
size." <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Republicans,
meanwhile, have pushed for two surface storage sites further north, one along
the San Joaquin River above the Friant Dam on the Madera-Fresno county line and
the other in the Coast Range west of Maxwell in Colusa County. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Joaquin</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">River</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> site at Temperance Flat could
create space for up to 1.2 million acre-feet of water. Ron Jacobsma, the
general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, said the district wants
the site to recover water it expects to lose in an impending settlement of a
federal lawsuit brought by environmentalists to rehydrate dry stretches of the <st1:place
w:st="on">San Joaquin</st1:place> below Friant Dam. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"In
our minds, the best long-term solution to recovering most of that water supply
hopefully would be surface storage," Jacobsma said. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Barry Nelson,
a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which
brought the suit to force the water releases down the San Joaquin, said a new
dam "is the single most expensive option" for the Friant district to
solve its water problem. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
proposed Sites Reservoir in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Colusa</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> was one of five
storage facilities suggested over the years in the state-and-federal Cal-Fed
process that has sought to balance water needs among cities, farmers and the
environment. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>No water
agency has yet stepped forward to offer a concrete proposal to pay for the <st1:place
w:st="on">Sacramento River</st1:place> diversion project that could produce 2
million acre-feet of water annually. But David Guy, director of the Northern
California Water Association, said there is still "lots of interest"
in the project. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I
think it could be one of the great water projects for the 21st century,"
Guy said. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But the
NRDC's Nelson said, "It's a mystery to us why the public should be asked
to invest a half a billion in projects when water users are not willing to
stand up and say, 'We'll write a check to help build it.' " <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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