In case you missed it…
The Sacramento Bee
Viewpoints: Calls for new storage ignore need for reforms of how we use water
By John A. Lawrence
Special to The Bee
Originally Published Thursday, Jun. 20, 2013
There are no politics like water politics. For Westerners, and Californians in particular, no issue excites passions, fuels regionalism or hits the economic bottom line like water.
Facing a dry year and the prospect of quite a few more in the future thanks to climate change, the demands for massive new water development once again are rising to fever pitch, especially from Gov. Jerry Brown and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both longtime proponents of water development. “The message is clear. … California needs a lot more water storage – and we need it now,” Feinstein wrote in a recent column in The Bee.
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I went to the ACWA Water Conference in May. Several times I heared officials talk about getting access to “enhanced spring outflow” to meet their water contracts. If water contractors are promised this spring water, that would make collecting water for storage a little difficult.
Second point to Mr. Lawrence’s article when he talked about cutting down water use. There is the “runoff.” Westlands, who sit in an alkali desert, continues to use excess water to flush out the toxins from their soil which gave us the Kesterson Reservoir ponds. Remember that mess. It’s still there. They use soil that is toxic and poisonous, not meant to grow crops.
It is time for serious action to combat the BDCP. Big money is involved and No. CA is going to end up paying the price by losing the Delta and all of the associated farmland along Hwy 160.