|
Farmworkers, state officials urge passage of water bond at Capitol rally
BY JAKE HENSHAW
SACRAMENTO — To chants of "agua, agua," water returned to the spotlight
at the Capitol Wednesday in a rally of mostly San Joaquin Valley
farmworkers and officials calling for passage of a water bond that could
help fund a new dam on the San Joaquin River.
"I will never sign a bill that does not have below-the-ground and
above-the-ground storage," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the crowd on
the Capitol steps.
Earlier this month the governor and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
proposed a $9.3 billion bond for, among other things, cleanup of
contaminated groundwater, improvement of the San Joaquin-Sacramento
Delta, conservation, recycling and new reservoirs like one proposed at
Temperance Flat on the San Joaquin River.
Environmentalists generally have been skeptical of past proposals for
new dams, arguing that the best sites are already developed and
questioning the role of state funding.
But Wednesday the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental advocacy
group, said the new bond, which forces above and below ground water
storage projects to compete for funds, is better than past proposals
that more closely tied funds to specific new reservoirs.
"We see that as progress," said EDF official Laura Harnish, though she
stressed that her group still wants changes in the new bond on control
of funding decisions and detailed studies of any proposed dams.
Schwarzenegger's staff tried to emphasize the state's water problems by
distributing data on crop losses caused by the drought through July 11,
which has reached $3 million in Tulare County.
The largest county losses were in Fresno, $73 million, and Kern, $69
million. The total statewide since the spring was $245 million.
Measure's future
The governor and legislators have until Aug. 16 to place a measure on
the ballot if they are willing to shorten the public comment period and
increase costs to send out a supplemental ballot pamphlet, according to
a letter sent Wednesday to the governor by Secretary of State Debra
Bowen.
Depending on how close the Legislature pushes the deadline, the
additional cost likely would range between $4 million and $11.7 million,
Bowen said.
But the Legislature's Republican leaders, who attended the rally, said
work on the bond likely will have to wait until lawmakers and the
governor enact a new state budget, which is already three weeks overdue.
"There's no tying these [budget and water bond] together" in
negotiations, said Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines of Clovis.
But Senate GOP leader Dave Cogdill of Fresno, one of the legislative
leaders pushing a new water bond, said "we've got to [put a water bond
on the ballot] this year."
Luciano Hernandez, a farmworker from Five Points, Fresno County, said he
came to Sacramento with a few hundred farmworkers to stress that the
cutbacks in crops such as tomatoes and cotton because of water shortages
have left him and others out of work.
"We need water because there is no work," Hernandez said.
He and other farmworkers traveled on buses paid for by the Mendota
Drought Relief Fund, which is funded through with donations from
business, labor and others, according to Patrick George, a spokesman for
the California Latino Water Coalition, which organized the rally.
|