California Voters to Decide $7.5 Billion Water Bond Measure

At three years and counting, one of the worst droughts in California history shows little sign of abating. So it’s no surprise that water has become a hot issue this election year. In fact,a recent poll conducted this month by the non-partisan Public Policy Institute of California found that water and the drought rank as high as the economy and jobs when voters were asked what they thought is the most important issue facing the state.

On Nov. 4, Californians will be able to exercise their opinion about water at the ballot box when they vote on Proposition 1, a $7.5 billion measure that would authorize the state to issue new bonds to pay for a wide variety of water-related projects. The projects that could be funded include dams to underground storage, along with efforts to improve watersheds and groundwater management, along with increased conservation and water recycling.

Nearly $3 billion would be allocated for expanding California’s water storage, which would likely mean the construction of at least one new large reservoir.

The measure is being championed by Gov. Jerry Brown, along with the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Farm Bureau Federation and a variety of environmental groups, including Audubon California and the Nature Conservancy. A recent campaign ad features Brown speaking to the camera as he uses the metaphor of a pendulum to describe the swing between wet years and dry years, noting that Propositions 1 will save water  “to prepare us for drought.”

But the measure also has garnered opponents, including San Francisco Baykeeper and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which has stated that “the bond includes the largest appropriation for new dams in the state’s history.” In addition, opponents question what impact the new funding would have on providing immediate drought relief.

The Pacific Institute, a non-partisan think tank based in Oakland, issued a report this week analyzing the water bond. It found that only 1 percent of the bond’s funds would go to water conservation and efficiency efforts. Still, according to the report, the funding would help improve the state’s surface and groundwater quality.

Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, based in San Francisco, said the extreme weather patterns that will be produced by climate change have ratcheted up the pressure to better manage California’s water, the bulk of which comes from the Sierra snowpack. In recent years, not only has there been less precipitation, but the snowpack has been melting earlier, making it harder to capture  runoff and store it in reservoirs.

“It makes sense to build surface storage to capture that water, and that’s one potential answer, but another one is to manage the existing surface storage in conjunction with our groundwater storage,” said Hanak.

Managing California’s limited water supply with an aging infrastructure to meet the needs of growing cities and a multi-billion dollar farming industry requires a diverse array of efforts, she said, from asking people to cut back on their water usage to boosting the use of recycled water for irrigation and landscaping.

“There is no silver bullet when thinking about water policy and how to meet the demands of growing economy and population,” Hanak said. “Conservation, desalination and recycled water and new storage alone won’t do it.”

Meanwhile, Proposition 1 is polling well with likely voters. A poll released this week by the PPIC showed Prop 1 leading 56-32 percent.

Additional Links

• Watch the full episode of Science at the Ballot Box, a joint KQED Newsroom and QUEST report that examines the science behind some of the key issues on the November ballot.