Urgent Alert: Oppose the Schwarzenegger/Feinstein Water Bond!

We are asking for your help today to oppose Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Feinstein's Water Bond. You may know that the Water Bond debate continues in Sacramento. The latest volley is a new "compromise" bond proposed by Senator Feinstein and Governor Schwarzenegger.

Surprisingly, the language is the worst yet for disadvantaged communities. In addition to dropping the exclusion for Shasta Dam funding, the latest version adds "economically distressed areas" everywhere it says disadvantaged communities. The new language expands the pool of communities eligible for disadvantaged community programs - programs that already fall very far short of meeting the need.

For example, the latest language would provide $100 million for the small community wastewater program. Before expanding the pool of eligible communities there is $1 billion in need as evidenced in the grant applications already on-file with the State Water Resources Control Board.

Please have your organization sign on and send the petition out to your members, so we can get as many signatures as possible.Our goal is 1,000 signatures by Friday, August 8th! Attached you will find a copy of the petition. To sign onto the petition YOU MUST send your name, address, zip code and any organization affiliation you would like listed to Jody Zaitlan at jaz [at] lmi.net ASAP! If you are signing on for your organization please send us how many members you have as well. We need the signatures as soon as possible, so we urge you to sign on today and help oppose this water bond!

Thank you for your support!

Sincerely,
Kaleena Tuffo
Environmental Justice Coalition for Water
654 13th St.
Preservation Park
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 286-8400

August 4, 2008

Dear Senator Feinstein and Governor Schwarzenegger:

We, the undersigned, representing XXXX Californians, urge you to redirect your efforts from passage of another water bond, and to direct your considerable leadership towards the development and implementation of a comprehensive set of water policy reforms. Such a comprehensive policy package must be designed to reverse past damage, restore water reliability, secure climate-resilient water supplies, and to ensure that our precious water resources are managed in an equitable and sustainable fashion. Any future water bond or other, more sustainable funding source should be a component of such a comprehensive water plan.

We absolutely agree that California’s current water policies are failing to provide our people, our economy, and our environment with adequate supplies of clean, affordable water. However, after allocating $18 billion in previous water bond proceeds, these problems still remain:

• Californians still lack safe drinking water
• The Bay-Delta continues to decline
• Our salmon fisheries are disappearing, and
• Our groundwater aquifers are contaminated and over-drafted.

Water bonds alone have not brought California any closer to a comprehensive water solution. Asking Californians to spend billions more, without first addressing the underlying water management and policy problems in the state, can only produce the same disappointing results. For California to solve its water problems we must tackle, head on, the difficult policy and management needs that have resulted in our current crisis. Money alone won’t do it!

Without needed reforms, rushing California into another ineffective and expensive water bond will simply put the State further into debt, for little gain. While we recognize that implementing a comprehensive water policy package will require a shift in thinking about water in this state, we also trust that with your leadership we can resolve many of California’s water challenges.

We urge you to relinquish your attachment to a water bond this year, and to invite all those most directly involved in California’s water challenges to work together to reform our dysfunctional current policies, and to implement a water policy package that will serve all Californians for generations to come.

Attached are a set of principles that we believe should guide our discussions towards resolving California’s water crisis, and that provide a framework for the comprehensive water policy package that this state needs. We look forward to discussing these principles with you in greater detail, and to working together to develop solutions that will allow us all to look back on this period and appreciate the legacy of leadership you have the opportunity to demonstrate today.

Sincerely,

Debbie Davis, Environmental Justice Coalition for Water

Linda Sheehan, California Coastkeeper Alliance

Mindy McIntyre, Planning & Conservation League

Jim Metropulos, Sierra Club California


Principles for Comprehensive California Water Policy

1. California must respect, and adjust to meet, the natural limits of its waters and waterways, including the limits posed by climate change. We must fund only those policies and self-management strategies that incorporate such limits and shift our relationship with water, aquatic ecosystems, and our economy toward sustainability and equity.
2. Every Californian has a right to safe, affordable drinking water. Special effort must be made to provide ready access to this basic human right to disadvantaged communities, especially those currently without any safe drinking water.
3. California’s aquatic ecosystems have a right to exist and thrive, for their own benefit and the benefit of future generations.
4. California must maximize local water self-sufficiency in all areas of the State in order to achieve the goal of sustainable, reliable water supplies.
5. The quality of California’s waters must be protected and enhanced through full implementation of existing water quality and land use regulations, and improvement of those regulations where needed. Public oversight and clean-up should be funded in full through fees on pollutant dischargers and water users
6. All Californians should have immediate and ready access to decision-making processes for water. Interested and involved parties should be accorded full respect and influence in decision-making, particularly with respect to decisions affecting their communities.
7. California must institute a sustainable funding stream to support the most cost-effective water reliability and water quality solutions for the state, where “cost-effective” includes environmental and social costs. Public funding should not subsidize pollution or the wasteful use of water. Those who use and pollute California’s waters, especially for financial gain, must pay the full costs associated with those uses and impacts.
8. Waterway health should be addressed on a watershed basis. Local communities and watershed groups should be better supported as local water stewards.
9. California’s actions on water must respect the needs and interests of California Tribes, including those unrecognized Tribes in the State.
10. California must overhaul its existing, piecemeal water rights policies, which already over-allocate existing water and distribute rights without regard to equity. We must move away from the selling of water to the highest bidder and toward a thoughtful policy that meets all basic needs, rejects waste, and serves the Public and Tribal Trust into the future.
Back to top