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<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><span style='color:black'>A
couple of worthwhile articles on the water legislation. Peter Gleick is
at the top as a scientist, in my opinion, and he has no obligation to any other
- completely non-partisan.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'>Byron Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'>Chair, Friends of Trinity River</span></i><span style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327</span></i><span style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'>415 383 4810 land</span></i><span style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'>415 519 4810 cell</span></i><span style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'><a href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net">bwl3@comcast.net</a></span></i></b><b><span
style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'><a href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org">bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</a>
</span></i></b><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:gray'>(secondary)</span></i><b><span
style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:gray'><a href="http://fotr.org/">http://www.fotr.org</a> </span></i></b><b><span
style='color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#0070C0'> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#0070C0'> </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#0070C0'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><b><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>California
water bills. Is the new water legislation better than nothing?<br>
<br>
</span></b>A lot of people have asked me my opinion about the new water
legislation just passed in Sacramento. Here is a longer version of <u><span
style='color:blue'>my piece in the New York Times Bay Area blog page</span></u>.<br>
<span style='font-size:13.5pt'>--Peter Gleick, Pacific Institute<br>
<br>
</span>After months of negotiations, wrangling, lobbying, and deal-making, much
of it behind closed doors and out of public view, the California legislature
has just passed a major new water package that includes both complex policy
changes and a huge bond request that the voters will be asked to approve.<br>
<br>
Despite the happy face being put on by some of the bill's supporters, including
Governor Schwarzenegger, I doubt anyone is truly happy with the end result.
Perhaps that's too much to expect for a topic as complex as California water
and for a bill that tries to do so much at once. I'm certainly not happy, but I
believe there was a (mostly) good faith effort on the part of the governor and
the legislators and all the other water interest groups to try and produce
something.<br>
<br>
What will be the ultimate outcome? Are we going to be better off with this bill
than with no bill? Will California legislators now say they are done dealing
with water, and refuse to tackle the unaddressed, partially addressed, or badly
addressed issues? If so, then this package isn't going to be nearly enough. But
if instead legislators and other water interests treat it as a beginning, not
an end, and work to build and improve on the good pieces, it could be a major
step forward. We'll have to wait and see how it changes our actual water
problems.<br>
<br>
The worst thing about the bill was the process. Too few powerful interests had
too much power to determine the content. Anyone who thinks the days of
smoke-filled, back-room deals are over is wrong (except, perhaps, about the
smoke). Too many other people, communities, and organizations were left out of
the process. And while many of us were pressured to support, or oppose, the
bills by various friends and colleagues, it became impossible to even
understand what bill we were being asked to support, as day by day, hour by
hour, good pieces were cut out or weakened and bad things inserted. Even at the
very last minute, the bill was significantly watered down in desperate deals
cut by a few special interests. This is bad, bad process.<br>
<br>
The biggest problems with California water have still not been addressed or
fixed in these bills and the most productive question is, how can we move
forward from here?<br>
<br>
<b>Water Number: Here are four key unaddressed issues:<br>
<br>
</b>1. The State must still figure out how to measure, monitor, and report
every single water use. As stunning as it may seem to outsiders, we still
aren't measuring and metering all water uses, and the new legislation doesn't
require us to. Imagine that you had a bank account, but you didn't know how
much money was in it, you didn't know how much money was going in each month,
and you didn't know how much was being taken out. That's our water use
situation. And while that ignorance benefits some special interests, it is
irresponsible. The modest requirements for comprehensive monitoring groundwater
levels in earlier versions of the bill were fatally weakened at the last minute
and there are still no requirements for reporting actual groundwater use or all
other uses.<br>
<br>
2. The State Water Resources Control Board, responsible for overseeing water
rights, enforcing allocations, and preventing water theft and unreasonable use
is far too weak. <u><span style='color:blue'>I've written about this earlier.</span></u>
The Board is hamstrung by politics and budget constraints. The new bill does
not fix those problems and, in the worst case of last minute, back-room
dealing, the modest efforts to strengthen the Board's ability to monitor,
enforce, and penalize were stripped out or severely weakened.<br>
<br>
3. Some bill supporters claim the bill will "implement the Governor's call
to improve water use efficiency by 20 percent by 2020." If only that were
true. Very modest targets for improving water-use efficiency were set in the
bill <b>for urban users only</b>, and even these are not mandatory or
enforceable. More outrageously, however, no such targets were set for
agriculture, which uses 80% of the water used by humans in California.
Agriculture remains largely unaccountable for how they use water.<br>
<br>
4. The only sustainable way to support effective water management is through a
user fee on water use. In the long run, asking the voters for bond after bond
will not work. We pay for electricity; we pay for milk. The more we use, the
more we pay. All users should pay a fee for water use based on the volume of
water used. This too was stripped out of early versions of the legislation.<br>
Two additional key uncertainties stand out in the current bills:<br>
<br>
- We don't really know how the new institutional management structure for the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is going to play out or whether the bill's
environmental improvements -- strongly supported by some in the environmental
community -- will materialize. It's a big unknown. But the health of the Delta
is central to the problems we face and while key elements of the bill may lead
to ecosystem restoration, they may not. For some supporters, those potential
successes were enough to outweigh the other liabilities. But it is a gamble.<br>
<br>
- We still don't really know if there is going to be a major new
"peripheral" canal, what it is going to look like, where it is going
to be built, and how it is going to be operated. Nor are there any guarantees
that ecosystem protections will be strengthened enough to save the Delta if
such a canal is built. Some supporters believe (and some bill opponents fear)
this bill will smooth the way for a new canal. Time will tell.<br>
If the new California water bill is all there is, it will not be enough to
solve our water problems. If this is a first baby step toward fixing problems
that have been ignored for a century, then I look forward to the next steps.
Soon.<br>
<br>
Peter H. Gleick<br>
<br>
Read more: <a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?entry_id=51071&o=3&rv=1257476713921>a=commentslistpos#commentslistposixzz0W2tKtBNl">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?entry_id=51071&o=3&rv=1257476713921>a=commentslistpos#commentslistpos#ixzz0W2tKtBNl<br>
<br>
</a>----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
<b><u><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:blue'>“Historic” Water Bond Would Contribute to Historic Debt<br>
<br>
</span></u></b><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>by
Greg Lucas<br>
</span></b><span style='font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Published November
5th, 2009 <br>
<br>
Passage of an $11 billion water bond by the Legislature comes just a few weeks
after the state treasurer warned that lawmakers cannot keep issuing debt
willy-nilly and need a master plan to set priorities for its issuance.<br>
<br>
Apparently, lawmakers didn’t read the treasurer’s report on debt
levels.<br>
<br>
The water bond, which began at $9.4 billion in the Senate and was inflated to
$11 billion in the Assembly, is part of what Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger touts
as an “historic, comprehensive” plan to improve the state’s
water delivery system.<br>
<br>
Legislators wouldn’t have needed to wade too deeply into State Treasurer
Bill Lockyer’s <u><span style='color:blue'>2009 Debt Affordability Report</span></u>.
His admonition is contained in the fifth paragraph of the report’s first
page:<br>
“The current debate about how to finance improvement to
California’s water infrastructure system provides timely and pressing
case study,” Lockyer writes.<br>
<br>
“Some have suggested paying the entire cost with state general obligation
bonds, which must be repaid from the General Fund.<br>
<br>
“But this report makes clear that further increasing the General
Fund’s debt burden, especially in the next three difficult budgets, would
require cutting even deeper into crucial services already reeling from billions
of dollars in reductions.<br>
<br>
“The case for user-funding for most water system improvements is
compelling, both as a matter of equity and fiscal prudence.”<br>
<br>
Lockyer hasn’t taken a position on the water bond but his views about the
need to set priorities on issuing bonds hasn’t changed nor has his
position on who should pay for water system improvements, said Tom Dresslar,
Lockyer’s press secretary.<br>
<br>
“It makes more sense, as a matter of budget management and fairness, for
users to finance most water works improvements, instead of placing the entire
burden on taxpayers and the General Fund,” Dresslar said.<br>
<br>
The water bond stipulates that no more than 50 percent of the $11 billion can
be sold during the next five years — assuming the bond measure is
approved by voters next November — which reduces the increase in debt
service in the short term.<br>
<br>
However, Lockyer’s debt affordability report shows the amount of debt
service the cash-starved General Fund pays will already double from $6 billion
this year to more than $12 billion in seven years.<br>
<br>
That $12 billion in debt service in the 2016-2017 state fiscal year represents
nearly 10.5 percent of the General Fund, up from 6.7 percent this year.<br>
<br>
Most of that higher level of debt service stems from already issued bonds so
“balancing the budget will have to be accomplished with little help from
the debt service side of the ledger,” Lockyer’s report says.<br>
<br>
“At a minimum, the passage of this water bond highlights the critical
need for a master plan that sets priorities for infrastructure development and
lays out a plan to pay for it,” Dresslar said, echoing the debt
report’s conclusions.</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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