The California Water Commission’s recent

Yet after harsh droughts for much of this century, state voters were ready for a new direction in 2014. They approved Proposition 1, a measure placed on the ballot by the Legislature which allowed for the issuing of up to $7.1 billion in state bonds for water infrastructure projects. After a lengthy review process, nearly 40 percent of these funds were allocated by the water commission last week for eight projects with the potential to add enough water capacity to serve more than 5 million households a year.

But skeptics have already made the case that by far the single biggest project – the Sites Reservoir in rural Colusa County north of Sacramento – actually suffered a setback in the water commission’s deliberations.

If built as envisioned, the project by itself would have been responsible for more than 60 percent of additional water storage statewide. Yet after the complex “public benefit” assessments that water commissioners used to decide how much each proposal got in bond funds, only $816 million was designated for the $5.2 billion Sites project – much less than advocates hoped. This means at the least that local water agencies and their ratepayers will have to pony up more more than they had hoped for construction.

This led Jim Watson, general manager of the Sites Project Authority, to tell the Sacramento Bee that it was possible that major changes lay ahead. If participating water agencies balk at higher costs, in the “worst case, we could build a smaller reservoir,” he said.

Commission, regulators differ on water availability

Yet the Sites Reservoir’s prospects are complicated by other factors as well. Key details of the reservoir’s construction plan have so far faced little direct criticism from environmentalists – perhaps surprising for what would be the biggest new reservoir to be built in California since the 1970s.

But as a Bee analysis noted, some environmentalists question the basic wisdom of the project. They cite the schism between the Water Commission’s conclusion that Sites could divert 500,000 acre-feet of water from the nearby Sacramento River each year and warnings from some state regulators that less water – not more – should be diverted from the river and the ecologically fragile Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta (pictured).

One more obstacle also has less to do with Sites itself than the state’s fraught water policy fights. Critics of Gov. Jerry Brown’s California WaterFix plan – meant to shore up the state’s north-south water conveyance system – see Sites as an integral and thus objectionable part of Brown’s proposal.

The $17 billion project would build two 40-foot-wide tunnels to pump water from the Sacramento River some 35 miles south, where it would reach the water distribution network that allows wetter Northern California to provide much of the water used in desert-like Southern California.

The project appeared to be on the ropes until April, when the giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to commit its member agencies to covering $10.8 billion of the WaterFix tab – nearly two-thirds the total cost.

Brown is trying to win final approval of the project before leaving office in January. But Northern California environmental groups, local water agencies and farming industry groups are in a pitched battle to stall any final decision until after a new governor is elected.

Both remaining gubernatorial candidates – heavily favored Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Republican businessman John Cox of Rancho Santa Fe – are highly unlikely to embrace WaterFix if elected. Newsom thinks a smaller project makes more sense, and Cox is flatly opposed, according to the Restore The Delta website, which tracks candidates’ remarks on Delta issues.

After a 35-year stalemate stalled new California water storage projects, Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders agreed in 2014 to include $2.7 billion for such needs as part of

The then-raging drought persuaded Democrats to go along with major water storage creation plans after blocking new projects since California completed its last dam in 1979. Many Republicans saw the opposition as a back-door way for environmentalists to squeeze state farmers to limit agricultural pollution and protect native species, and to slow growth in urban areas. 

Groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council scoffed at these claims. They say encouraging water conservation is always a good goal in an arid state, and argue that state and federal laws that protect threatened species need to be fully followed.

This sharp disagreement reflects how water politics have long been fraught in the Golden State. And now that the California Water Commission must choose which of 12 qualified proposed projects to fund with the $2.7 billion kitty, officials’ decisions are sure to be buffeted once again by regional interests (Northern vs. Southern California), economic interests (farmers vs. developers) and environmentalists’ interests. With the 12 projects estimated to cost about $13.1 billion – $10 billion-plus more than what is available – some key water stakeholders are sure to end up unhappy. Some districts will be forced to seek all or nearly all funding from other sources, starting with their customers.

Greens quick to start push for preferred project

The 12 projects were unveiled last week. The water commission must make its final decision by June 2018.

Environmentalists wasted no time identifying their favorite project: The Contra Costa Water District’s proposal to increase the storage capacity at its Los Vaqueros reservoir by more than 70 percent – going from 160,000 acre-feet to 275,000 acre-feet. Contra Costa officials say the additional capacity could meet the yearly needs of 1.4 million people.

But that isn’t why the $914 million project already has the strong support of several environmental groups – including the Planning and Conservation League, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy. It’s because a chunk of the water would go to threatened Central Valley wetland refuges to shore up their fragile ecosystems, long a goal of state greens.

To boost the case for the proposal, Contra Costa water officials have lined up the formal support – and promises of funding help – from 12 other Bay Area water districts, which see the additional storage as “drought insurance.”

The most costly proposed projects are to build a $5 billion dam in Colusa County and a $3 billion dam in Fresno County.

Most of the projects proposed for Southern California are less ambitious. The exception is from the city of San Diego, which is asking for the water commission to help cover the $1.2 billion cost of a plant to recycle wastewater with advanced technology that makes it fully safe to mix with conventional water supplies. Officials believe the plant can supply one-third of city needs by 2035.

The project won final approval at San Diego City Hall in 2014, two weeks after Proposition 1 passed.

Call them Water Bond Czars.

They’re the nine members of the California Water Commission and will decide how to implement Proposition 1, the $7.5 billion water bond on the Nov. 4 ballot, should voters pass it.

While most media have focused on what’s in the bond, little attention has been given to who will oversee the first water storage projects built in California in 50 years. The bond stipulates that the Nine Water Bond Czars will decide where the money goes.

According to the commission’s website:

“Seven members are chosen for their general expertise related to the control, storage, and beneficial use of water and two are chosen for their knowledge of the environment.”

But eight of the nine current members hail from Northern California. Just one, Chair Joseph Byrne, hails from drought-parched Southern California.

In the official pamphlet sent to voters for Prop. 1, the impartial California Legislative Analyst explained the powers of the commission for picking water storage projects:

“The Commission would not have to go through the state budget process to spend these funds. For all other funding provided in the measure, the Legislature generally would allocate money annually to state agencies in the state budget process.”     

The power of the commission won’t be total because the $2.7 billion in bond monies for storage must be used as matching funds for water storage projects competitively proposed by other state, federal or local agencies.  In other words, the commission won’t originate storage projects, but will pick the winners from proposals submitted by other agencies.

And Prop. 1 does not provide for accepting proposals from private entities or joint venture projects with private entities.

Who are California’s Water Czars?

A Calwatchdog probe of the makeup of the nine Water Bond Czars found:

• Eight of nine commissioners are from Northern California.
• Three are Republicans: Andrew Ball, Luther Hintz and David Orth.
• Two are undeclared in political party, but liberal-leaning: Jose Del Bosque and Kimberly Delfino.
• Only three have any strong water policy experience before serving on the commission: Del Bosque, Hintz and Orth.
• Of those three, only two, both Republicans, have experience with statewide water issues: Hintz, and Orth.
• The past or present occupation of four of the members is environmental lobbying, education and political consulting: David Curtin, Delfino, Armando Quintero and Anthony Saracino.
• Two members are primarily labor and union lobbyists: Curtin and Del Bosque.
• Two are from agriculture, one Democrat, Del Bosque; and one Republican, Orth.
• Eight are men, one is a woman, Delfino.
• Interestingly, while anti-fracking activists have erroneously been trying to convince the public that hydraulic fracturing of oil is depleting California’s water supplies, there are no representatives of the oil industry on the Commission.

By clicking on the names in the table below, or going here, the biographies can be seen of each Commission member.

California Water Commission – Member Profiles

Conclusion

The Commission is far from a panel that reflects the diversity of water interests in California and six of its members had no prior water policy experience before serving on the commission.

If Prop. 1 passes, its implementation could turn out to be a major political controversy in the next several years.

Note: The water bond matching fund share is typically 50 percent.  This means the real tax burden of Proposition 1 is not $7.5 billion, but $10.2 billion, as another $2.7 billion will have to come from other agencies.  So while water storage comprises 35 percent of the $7.5 billion total bond funds provided in Prop. 1, the actual amount of funding for water storage will be $5.4 billion.  This would make funding for water storage about 53 percent of all funding.