Proposed Water Bond Sinks from Lack of Leadership

Posted in today's Flash Report:

President Ronald Reagan was no stranger when it came to making tough choices. He was a true leader not only in words, but in actions, and helped inspire a generation of new leaders.

He once told us that; “A leader, once convinced that a particular course of action is the right one, must be undaunted when the going gets tough.” This is the kind of leadership we need in Sacramento when it comes to crafting a solution to California’s water crisis.

Democrat Governor Pat Brown had that kind of leadership when he pushed for building the California Aqueduct, but unfortunately, that kind of Majority Party leadership hasn’t surfaced on the issue of water for many years.

We know – all too well now – what the problems are. A lack of water storage and an endangered species law that judges have used to restrict delivery of water supplies to users south of the Delta resulting in a massive economic jolt to Central and Southern California this summer.

Unemployment in the Central Valley shot up and losses to agriculture-related businesses were estimated at $1 billion. 35,000 jobs were lost this year alone due to water shortages according to the Ag Water Council. Worse yet, the crisis is bound to repeat itself next year.

Leaders like Senator Dave Cogdill and the other Republicans I served with on the Legislative Conference Committee on Water know what needs to be done. We need new water storage. We need new reservoirs. We need a way to move that water to the consumers who need it. A water system built for 16 million people 50 years ago cannot provide for the needs of the 50 million Californians we’ll have in 10 years.

We know what we need. We know how to get the job done.

Unfortunately, we lack the Majority Party leadership needed to make those key decisions.

The series of hearings held by the Legislative Conference Committee drew input from every water-vested interest in California. And, like a scenario with too many cooks in the kitchen, what resulted from those hearings pleased no one. Senator Cogdill’s bond package, by far the boldest and most practical solution, was never considered. Ultimately, the five-bill package that came out of these hearings died from a lack of support on the final night of Senate session.

It failed for a variety of reasons. Several legislators from the Delta and the Bay Area and others representing coastal areas found the proposed bills did not go far enough on behalf of the environment. Other legislators voiced strong objections to unrealistic conservation mandates spelled out in AB 49, while others, myself included, were concerned about the protection of critically-important water rights.

No Republican was prepared to support the proposed bond on the final night of Legislative Session because it did not carry any guarantee – let alone language – that would have resulted in the construction of one new reservoir. Let me make this point very clear: you cannot conserve your way out of this water crisis. Additional storage is the only answer to solving the water shortages facing users south of the delta and it’s the only answer for the environmental problems facing the Delta.

This is a hard pill to swallow for the interests who oppose any new reservoir construction in California, but it is bitter medicine that must be taken.

Interestingly, we did have the water. During a “Fabulous February” of winter storm activity last year, the inflows at Folsom Lake were so strong that it would have filled a 2,000 square foot home from top to bottom in one second. In the space of just two weeks, the major reservoirs in my Northern California district were nearly at full capacity after they had sunk to levels not seen since the 1977-1978 drought.

What happened to most of that water? The sad thing is – most of that February rainfall went to waste. It washed into the Northern California rivers and streams that feed the Sacramento River, flowed into the Delta and out to sea.

We could have just as easily captured that water. It could have been stored in a proposed off-stream reservoir project called Sites Reservoir in Colusa County. It could have been saved and stored for later use in another proposed facility called Temperance Flat Reservoir in Fresno County. It could have been stored in a vastly expanded Shasta Lake Dam in Shasta County.

Unfortunately, we missed that opportunity. If we are fortunate enough to experience another heavy rain event this coming winter, or a record snow pack in the mountains, much of that will go to waste as well.

Although last minute negotiations failed to produce an agreement on a water bond acceptable to all stakeholders, the fight isn’t over. Negotiations continue. The Governor, to his credit, knows what needs to be done, and he can call the State Legislature back into session to work on the problem once again.

All we need now is the leadership, from both sides of the aisle, to make it happen.

Senator Sam Aanestad represents the watershed that supplies 80% of the water going south through the Delta to southern California -- the 4th Senate District that covers 12 Northern California counties.