Package of five bills offers ‘clear path’ to forward progress

By WES SANDER

Capital Press

SACRAMENTO — California farm interests gave positive reactions to historic water legislation approved this week by the Legislature.

Legislation passed Wednesday, Nov. 4, consisted of five bills, including an infrastructure bond for $11.1 billion to pay for a wide variety of water management, conservation and storage projects. The package also includes the creation of a new governing panel to oversee the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and gives the state the authority to monitor groundwater levels.

Legislators want to require California cities to use 20 percent less water by 2020, although large urban areas such as Los Angeles and San Francisco would not have to meet such a high threshold because per capita water use is lower than other parts of the state.

It was described as the biggest achievement in California water politics since voters approved the State Water Project in 1960. Legislators have been wrangling over solutions to the state’s growing water woes for years.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was expected to sign the five-bill package, which he called a wise investment in the state’s future.

“This is without any doubt the most comprehensive water infrastructure package that has passed here,” Schwarzenegger said.

Doug Mosebar, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation, said the legislation is a step forward in serving the state’s central water needs: new storage, improved ability to transfer water, protection of water rights and Delta ecosystem protection.

“To maintain our ability to grow food for families, farmers and ranchers need real, verifiable improvements in water reliability and quality,” Mosebar said in a statement.

Sarah Woolf, spokeswoman for the Westlands Water District, a largely agricultural agency on the San Joaquin Valley’s westside, agreed with his statement.

“All those components needed to be addressed, and I think they were in this process,” Woolf said. “There was so much effort by all parties to come to a resolution, and we’re very grateful.”

Environmentalists have called the Delta governance structure laid out by the bills — involving a Delta commission with more representation, a conservancy and a stewardship council tasked with creating a stewardship plan — an improvement on ecosystem protections.

Farming interests, meanwhile — including Westlands, which helped negotiate the plan — have referred to the governance as a “clear path” toward a plan for a conveyance structure, known as the peripheral canal, to divert export water before it reaches the Delta.

Phil Isenberg, former chair of the governor’s Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force, said all sides were highlighting positives in a deal for which they had all compromised. While the governance requires stricter environmental approval, it also centralizes authority to provide a predictable path to approval for projects like the canal, Isenberg said.

“No law is either as bad as the opponents predict or as good as the supporters claim,” Isenberg told reporters in a conference call Wednesday, Nov. 4.

Woolf said Westlands was happy with the result. The district contracts with the federal Bureau of Reclamation to receive Delta export water. Much of its farmland was fallowed during this year’s drought conditions.

“Without question the peripheral canal is the biggest component for us in the entire water negotiation,” Woolf said.

Western Growers CEO Tom Nassif called the water deal “a great day in the history of the Golden State.”

“This legislation will help remedy the water supply crisis in our state and secure a domestic food supply for the nation, while supporting California’s co-equal goals of restoring the Delta ecosystem and improving water supply reliability,” Nassif said in a statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.