November 2021

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK!:

Jack Ainsworth, Executive Director of the coastal commission had the following statement regarding water in California.

“Drought in California is our new normal and the commission understands that responsibly designed desalination facilities will be an important part of California’s water portfolio going forward.”  “We don’t need to gut the Coastal Act in order to provide safe, reliable, affordable drinking water.”

Mr. Ainsworth’s statement is in response to a measure known as the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022.”  This measure if approved by a majority of voters would require that 2% of California’s general fund (about $4 Billion a year) be set aside to expand water supplies such as new dams and reservoirs, desalination plants, recycled water plants and projects like upgrading canals and pipes.  The measure needs 997,132 signatures of registered voters by April 29th to qualify for the November 2022 statewide ballot.

The money would continue until 5 Million acre-feet of new water supply was created which is an increase of about 13% in the roughly 39 million acre-feet used in an average year by all residents, farmers and businesses.  The analysis by the non-partisan State Legislative Analyst’s Office states that this could take several decades and cost $100 Billion. 

A spokesman for the campaign known as More Water Now stated: “We think conservation has an important role to play but you can’t get there any more just with conservation.  If you want to be resilient against a prolonged drought, you have to have new supplies.”

Reservoirs are needed to save water in wet years, particularly as hotter temperatures melt the Sierra Nevada snowpack. 

Environmentalists however, believe the measure goes too far and will fight it.  They believe that California’s environment could be destroyed due to the unsupervised spending of billions of dollars each year without environmental oversight.  Time will tell if the spending of billions will in fact be unsupervised.