California lawmakers pass water plan to improve supply

Nov. 5, 2009 | Julie Small | KPCC

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After months of negotiation and a couple of all-night voting sessions, state lawmakers passed a cluster of bills Wednesday morning designed to improve California’s water supply. They’ve called the $11 billion package “historic” – and it is. The plan alters the way California manages water.

The plan attempts to tackle the river of problems in California’s water supply chain, starting with the state’s largest water source: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

CA/Local News

Water from the Sacramento River and the Sierra snowmelt flows into the Delta. Huge pumps drive some of that water into the California aqueduct, which sends to the Central Valley and Southern California. Bay Area counties also divert water from Delta.

Numerous studies predict that if California keeps pumping out so much water, the Delta’s ecology will collapse. A federal judge has already restricted pumping in an effort to preserve a tiny fish species from extinction.

Republican Senator Dave Cogdill says the Delta, and California, can’t go on like this.

“We have a system that was built for 18 million people,” Cogdill said. “There are now 38 million of us, and as a result of some pretty extraordinary technology and conservation efforts, we’ve been able to get by. But we all know that we’re all living on borrowed time.”

Cogdill spent three years working on a water fix. The Central Valley Republican authored the plan’s finance package.

One part of that package creates a new seven-member Delta Stewardship Council. Its job is to keep water flowing to thirsty parts of the state while it protects the Sacramento Delta eco-system.

The Stewardship Council would have say-so over whether to build a “peripheral canal” that would divert water around the Delta for Central and Southern California.

Voters rejected that idea in 1982. State Senator Lois Wolk still doesn’t like it. The Delta-area Democrat describes a peripheral canal as “the equivalent of a 100-lane freeway, 48 miles long through prime agricultural land, including five two-mile long tunnels to suck in the Sacramento River.”

Wolk says the water legislation puts the “peripheral canal” idea back in play, but takes the decision about whether to build it out of the public’s hands. She voted against the water package and urged her colleagues to do the same.

“You believe, many of you, that there’s a magic bullet here," said Wolk. "Storage, tunnels, canals – but the real solution lies in taking less water from the Delta because there just isn’t enough.”

But Barry Nelson with the Natural Resources Defense Council told KPCC the water legislation just passed is consistent with that view.

“The future of water supply is not trying to take more water out of the Delta,” Nelson insisted. “We don’t think this bill authorizes that. We think this bill moves us in a direction of a sustainable Delta.”

The water plan also pays for water recycling and groundwater cleanup. It sets goals for cutting urban water use by 20 percent in a little more than a decade. Farmers will be encouraged, but not required, to use water conservation technology.

Also new: the state government will mandate groundwater monitoring. Right now, some counties, cities, and water agencies do and some don’t.

Barry Nelson with the Natural Resources Defense Council calls the water package a huge and positive change.

“I don’t think there’s a package of state water reform legislation that’s this comprehensive that we’ve seen in 25 years,” Nelson said.

Now it’s up to California voters to decide whether to pay for the plan. Be on the lookout for an $11 billion water bond proposal on next November’s general election ballot.

peter gokey
3 months ago

Vermont to me
show details 12:05 PM (5 hours ago)

To Whom It May Concern:

This will fix all of your water problems. By putting unrefined sea salt from the ocean on the ground, you will never have a shortage of water again and your plants will grow better. Nothing will ever dry out again

Unrefined sea salts from the Atlantic ocean, dried in the sun put upon the ground will reflect the sunlight back to the sun and will put chloride in your ground that’s phenomenal for any plants in our planet. It kills all diseases.

When the salt conducts the sun during the day, it puts energy inside the salt. When you put water on top of it, or mix it with water, it creates energy. Then during the night time, the moon will pull the salt back to the surface with the water.

Every morning you will have fresh water, and fresh unrefined sea salts. Your plants will grow better than they ever have, you will never need fertilizer again.

You will not have problems with freezes any more.

When the salt is conducting energy from the sun, the sodium in the salt will convert from a +1 to a -1 during the day and at night, it will return to a +1 so the moon will conduct it.

Please give this to anyone who can use it. I do this for my family, the world.

Peter Gokey
208-699-5164
Pgokey1@gmail.com

Dumbfounded
3 months ago

Sir,
Putting salt on the ground is how you kill it. That is how the Romans destroyed Carthage. That is why large tracts of land have become unfarmable.

Pay attention.

peter gokey
3 months ago

you really need to learn about something before you say it.unrefine seasalt from is mostly choride .is very good for plants and human.learn before you say something.

thank dumbfounded,learn before you say something

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