As one of your representatives to the State Democratic Convention from Assembly District 1, this is one of a number of posts to come from me reporting on the Convention which was held last month. First up is the WATER FORUM, which was sponsored by the Rural Caucus on day two. There can hardly be a topic more important to us on the North Coast.

The panel focused specifically on the water infrastructure bond measure that will be on the ballot in November. The legislators on the panel were Mariko Yamada, 8th Assembly District ( from the Delta, con) Anna Caballero, 28th Assembly District ( Salinas, pro) and Dean Florez, Senator, 16th district ( Bakersfield and Fresno, pro). The other panelists were Steve Evans, Friends of the Earth (con) Debbie Davis, Environmental Justice Center (con) and Conner Everts, from the Southern California Watershed Alliance. (con).

Just reading the list of participants and their positions can give you a good idea of how the interests are lining up. Florez was one of the architects of the measure. In its defense, he said:

  • that California’s plumbing system is outdated and needs an overhaul
  • that we are losing most of our water to the ocean
  • that we, as good Democrats, should back the measure, which, in his opinion, is good for the whole state and will help Central Valley unemployment.

Despite his denials that the measure pits parts of the state against each other, once the forum went into the issues in depth, the conflicts were clear. There are issues of transfer, on a very large scale, from the rural north to the rural south, and from the rural coast to the Central Valley.

In contrast, the measure does not set up many urban versus rural issues. Here the problem is that municipalities up and down the state have already been conserving and recycling. In fact, the measure does not sufficiently reward urban areas for future improvement and it sets targets that many urban areas are already meeting.

Further,
· there are governance questions with regard to the water commission and the Delta Stewardship council.
· The energy costs of moving water around the state are not addressed.
· The measure favors reservoirs over ground water storage.
· The cost of the measure will be a huge burden on the state at a time when there are so many unfunded needs.


We, on the North Coast, must work against this bond measure in November. The reactions of rural caucus members from the Northeast parts of state, show that they are alarmed too. Agriculture in the Central Valley needs serious reform on many, many levels. This is not to say that we should turn a blind eye to the Central Valley unemployment, which I think is the driver of the politics around the bond measure, but the status quo is unsustainable.

Deborah Dobish