Governor ignites water bond controversy
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- California voters may get the chance to decide on whether to spend money fixing the state's water system.
Governor Brown rattled the Valleys agricultural community and elected officials in a recent letter which said the state can't afford spending more than $6 billion on a water bond, with $2 billion of that for water storage or dams.
Mario Santoyo of the Latino Water Coalition says that's not enough.
Santoyo explained, "We need above ground storage we need three billion dollars so we can actually build something."
That something is the proposed dam at Temperance Flat, on the San Joaquin River upstream from Millerton Lake.
Santoyo and other Valley irrigators, farmers and elected officials held a news conference attacking the governor's cheaper proposal.
Fresno City Council President Steve Brandau led the charge. "We are issuing a challenge to our governor to not be cheap and chintzy when it comes water infrastructure and the things the citizens across the state of California and in the Central Valley needs."
The Valley group has a list of priorities that total about $7 billion but also backs the $9 billion bond proposal drafted by state assembly member Henry T. Perea. However there are other bond issues being floated in the legislature, and Tulare County supervisor Alan Ishida is afraid the competing interests could result in no bond deal being put on the ballot.
Ishida said, "Right now we are at a stalemate and it looks like nothing may be done and we need to move forward and the governor came out with a program yesterday which substantially undermines what we are trying to do today."
The deadline for the legislature to approve a bond proposal and get it on the ballot is August 11th. If they cannot select the more recent proposals than a more than $11 billion water bond proposal that was approved back in 2009, but withheld from the ballot would end up on the ballot. That measure has been criticized for being bloated with projects unrelated to the state's water needs.
