KCBS Campaign 2014 Special: Is Proposition 1 The Answer To California's Water Crisis?
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — Surveys show California voters are strongly in favor of Proposition 1, the state water bond on next month's ballot, and Gov. Jerry Brown is making Prop 1 the centerpiece of his re-election bid. Opponents, however, say it's a colossal waste of money that won't solve the state's water shortage.
KCBS Campaign 2014 Special: Is Proposition 1 The Answer To California's Water Crisis?
Brown has said that water, or the lack of it, has always been a critical issue for California, and that it's long past time to do something about it.
"We have a water problem and people should not be, in anyway, complacent about it," Brown said.
The governor is so sure of winning the re-election that instead, he is campaigning for Proposition 1, a $7.5 billion water bond that is a smaller version of the bond measures the legislature pulled from the ballot in 2010 and 2012. The assumption was that voters wouldn't approve new debt until the economy bounced back. This one includes a $ 2.7 billion to expand Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County, enlarge Shasta Dam and build two new dams in the Central Valley.
"If wer're going to maintain our agricultural bounty, if we're going to have a reliable supply for Santa Clara and Silicon Valley as well as people further south in California, we need a reliable system," Brown said.
Californians are getting better at turning off the tap and the governor hopes to tap into that concern about the drought to get voters to pass the bond measure. After four years of delay, California voters will finally get to decide.
But Adam Scow, spokesman for Food and Water Watch—one of the environmental groups opposing Proposition 1, said it will cost the state $360 million a year for 40 years, with little public benefit in return.
"Proposition 1 is not going to fix California's water problems and it's going to take public money to enrich private interests. In particular, I'm talking about corporate agribusinesses on the hot, dry west side of the Central Valley who have been long demanding more water at public expense." He said.
Scow says too much of Prop 1 is vague and will be left to state lawmakers to haggle over and that voters shouldn't be fooled into thinking it will do anything to ease the drought.
"Spending money, ain't going to make it rain and building new dam projects ain't going to create new water," he said.
