In this story from today’s Contra Costa Times, a new water related bond measure has qualified but has no money for new dams.
Here is an excerpt.
Measure for parks, water set for ballot
Some Californians are frustrated that the bond issue does not include money for major new dams
By Mike TaugherCONTRA COSTA TIMES, June 14, 2006
A mammoth $5.4 billion parks and water bond measure has qualified for the November ballot, becoming the latest in a series of record-breaking environmental spending measures to come before California voters in recent years.
The bond would pay for drinking water improvements, levee repairs, habitat acquisitions and other projects.
It will appear on a ballot that is already asking Californians to approve a whopping $37 billion package of infrastructure improvements -- an unprecedented array of bond measures, said Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo.
"With so many competing ones, we haven't seen this before," DiCamillo said. "I would suspect voters will pick and choose" some bond measures to pass and reject others.
The parks and water bond, which would require majority voter approval to pass, would distribute money to specific regions of the state and give grants to projects to be awarded competitively.
It has $108 million earmarked for San Francisco Bay, for example. And it includes $130 million to improve water quality in the Delta, a key source of drinking water for 23 million people and the sole source for 500,000 residents of the Contra Costa Water District.
"This is a well-balanced bond measure that, for the first time in many years, would focus on Delta water quality improvements for drinking water quality," said CCWD general manager Walter Bishop.
Although the measure is likely to receive support from environmental groups and, to a lesser extent, water agencies, others are frustrated at the lack of state funding for major new dams in any of the recent water bond measures and will likely oppose this one.
"California's water infrastructure was built 40 and 50 years ago. It was for a population of 10 (million) to 11 million," compared with the state's 37 million now, said Assemblyman Michael Villines, R-Fresno. "To go forward with a water bond that doesn't have a comprehensive fix I think is a mistake."
