John Nejedly's last appeal on behalf of California Water

We offer the article as his last effort to protect California water resources.

California voters are being asked to approve $4.1 billion in water bonds on the Nov. 7 ballot with no assurance that the money will be used to avert any of several disasters facing our delicate water systems.

What's more is that the money would go to the state and federal agencies which have squandered $3 billion in the last 10 years and come up with virtually nothing to advance the cause of providing much of the state with the quantity and quality of water it needs.

Instead, we are closer to disaster as our levees are not maintained, with no specific plan to improve them in spite of the Jones Tract levee breaks and the Katrina disaster in Louisiana.

After the precedent-setting drought of 1976-77, and the 1982 defeat by voters of the Peripheral Canal bill, the state and federal governments established CalFed to jointly manage the huge state and federal water programs, including overseeing projects to strengthen the ancient levees integral to the operation of the joint system.

Thanks in part to legislative and judicial interference, it has done nothing of the sort. Our levees are still at the breaking point and there is no assurance that a major break, bringing saltwater into the Delta, wouldn't leave us without fresh water for months or years.

Instead, it is their obvious intent to build the Peripheral Canal, a peripheral pipeline or similar means to secure control of the Sacramento River and take it from local landowners in defiance of historic riparian rights. They also are considering tearing down the small Los Vaqueros Reservoir near Brentwood, built to assure a high quality supply to nearly half of Contra Costa County at ratepayers' expense, and building a huge reservoir in its place to serve the state-federal system. It should be noted that both the state and federal agencies, as well as other local water systems, rejected the Contra Costa Water District's invitation to join them in building a larger reservoir for diverse needs.

Now they want the larger facility that would allow control with which they could operate the system to accommodate the state and federal water contractors -- not local users or the environment -- as they did in the drought.

Measure 1E on the November ballot would allot money for unspecified projects, with the provision that current lists of proposed projects, which do not include a peripheral delivery system, could be amended afterward the election.

CalFed, in its decade of resource administration of the two great water projects, has failed to recognize that all issues relating to resource management originate in the Delta. Even the Jones Tract flood railed to provide CalFed into action to protect the drinking water for millions of Californians.

CalFed and the State Water Resources Control Board, the other agency overseeing California's water resources, have been set up to fail in their goals of protecting hose resources.

Current officials of the water agencies commendably have indicated that Delta levees are not being given priority by the state and CalFed process, although they acknowledge they are a critical element in Delta planning. They know that a large earthquake or long, huge storms would cause a massive breakdown of Delta levees, yet recent breaks consistently occur not because of storms or earthquakes but because of faulty or non-existent maintenance. Any Delta levee protection now under discussion is lumped in with protection of levees along the Sacramento River protecting low-lying subdivisions, including very recent housing, in the city and county of Sacramento. There is not enough money for both. Guess which ones will be strengthened first!

The Peripheral Canal, which could kill the Delta fish habitat and other ecosystems by denying them fresh water, is another part of the equation. Many current voters won't remember the election of 1982 when Contra Costa County and a coalition of environmentalists and farmers successfully convinced voters to overturn a legislative measure to build the canal to take fresh Sacramento River water around the Delta. That would have prevented it from going through the Delta, an action which repels saltwater coming in from San Francisco Bay. This natural action limits the amount of water that can be taken by customers to the south but a peripheral system would allow agribusiness south of the Delta and Southern California cities to take much more of the fresh water and leave the Delta a salt marsh. Destruction of the levees would allow the agencies wanting more Northern California water to do just that.

CONCLUSION

It has been well established through public records that CalFed, the board of which represents the interests of state and federal water contractors who want more water, and the state Water Resources Control Board, both with political appointees representing the big water interests, have been unable to fulfill the functions they have been given to protect the water resources of California.

As a result, there is no governance of this critical resource, organized through a process of representative government, serving exclusively the broad public interest of California. The structure of these agencies make effective management impossible. Tenure is limited to that of the governor or the president with every election, meaning a new administration may be making the appointments.

Even after years of support, the state's governors have set aside critical decisions, while others have been set aside by the judiciary and by lack of support from the Legislature. The power not exercised created a political vacuum that those to be governed, the state and federal customers exporting water from the Delta, assumed, without concern or question by the establishment, the authority to regulate themselves through CalFed -- with is now composed exclusively of the water export agencies which vote to serve their interests.

The expenditure in the past decade of $3 billion with no project record of performance and other examples of CalFed indifference to responsible management require, let alone support, the removal of CalFed as manager of these activities and as administrator of water resources.

Despite the CalFed history of inaction and lack of understanding of problems underlying their administration, Proposition 1E proposes to give the agency another $4.09 billion. The money would go towards a variety of projects that include a peripheral water delivery system which could be built with no approval required of the public.

We must vote "no" on Proposition 1E and demand the structural changes needed to bring about true water reform that serves the needs of all the people of California.

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For further information on the state's water problems, see Sen. Nejedly's website: www.californiawatercrisis.com .

November 2, 2006