Posted on 03/02/2009 12:42:44 PM PST by NormsRevenge
With the budget passed, the water wars are back.
Focus is returning to California's seemingly perennial struggle to find a solution to its water woes. On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a formal drought proclamation, a move to raise awareness of the state's water shortage.
Last Thursday, Sen. Dave Cogdill, a Modesto Republican, introduced a water bond bill (SB 371) after similar efforts stalled last year. Sen. Dean Florez, the No. 2 Democrat in the house, introduced a counter measure (SB 301).
Even the federal government is getting involved. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack created the Federal Drought Action Team to work with the state last week.
"This is very encouraging news," Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in a statement of the task force. "California is in the grip of one of the worst drought emergencies on record."
Interest groups are mobilizing, as well. The business lobby is already backing Cogdill's plan, saying the state's current water system is "faltering." The Florez measure totals $15 billion in bonds, while the Cogdill measure is worth nearly $10 billion.
"We must pass a comprehensive plan this year that will increase storage, improve conveyance, provide important environmental protections and conserve resources," said Allan Zaremberg, president of the California Chamber of Commerce.
The battle lines in the water storage fight are well drawn: Agricultural interests (and usually Republicans) favor building more reservoirs, while environmentalists (and usually Democrats) don't. There's also the issue of who should pay, as in whether the costs for new storage should be borne by those who use the water or by the state as a whole.
And, of course, there is the question of whether or not a peripheral canal should be included to divert water from the Delta.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
I think we shoud just go harvest ice chunks falling off ice shelfs as an interim gap
Call it the Ice Corps
I can do it for 2 billion. ;-)
next...
The only solution for SoCal is DESALINATION.
GOD is destroying the “wicked land”.
why not build some more damns and store water instead of letting it flow into the ocean.
reuse the sewage water too.
Solution: stop sending Central Valley water to SoCal via Los Banos Reservoir. Give it to the farmers instead. LA can build desalinization plants if it wants to.
I agree!!!!!!
Please elaborate.
Desalination is not cost efficient.
Answering is all caps doesn’t tell me squat.
Even the Chambers of Commerce are being infiltated by too many GANG-GREEN Commonists to suit me!!!
Yet another example of government by a never ending series of crises that require BILLIONS, nay TRILLIONS in bondage with no longer any Investment Banks on Wall Street to underwrite their sale.
The last dozen bashes of bonding have all been squandered on these so-called "water bonds!" And Dianne Fienstein is totally full of it when she calls this BOGUS "drought" any kind of a record breaker. The keep pouring the water out of our reserviors because as lientenant Governor John Garamendi, once Bruce Babbit's lieutenant, "the fish come first."
Zaremberg came out of Pete Wilson's administration. Cal Chamber has backed a lot of Arnie's big biz projects. They are about as useless as the US COC, IMO.
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