This is a well balanced approach, considering the long lack of needed storage and flood control projects and the chamber should be complimented on its participation, and one note, the Delta Vision Plan also calls for more water storage.
Editorial: Another day, another bad water bond proposal
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, February 10, 2008
Neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of deficits can stay the California Chamber of Commerce from proposing yet another multibillion-dollar water bond.
The chamber's latest – $11.7 billion – was filed Wednesday. Nearly a third of this borrowed money would go to new dams and water storage. Smaller pots of money would go to conservation (11 percent) and water recycling (2 percent).
There's no doubt that California needs to invest in its water future. The top priority should be the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Concerns about troubled fisheries – and cutbacks in Delta water pumping – are setting the stage for decades of more litigious clashes.
Sadly, this latest version by the chamber is only likely to further the divisions. It doesn't offer the balanced approach advocated by the governor's Delta Vision task force, which recently advised that ecosystem restoration and water reliability be "primary, co-equal goals."
