Salinas Californian

Dams at heart of water issue

Lawmakers are split on whether the state needs to build more of them

October 4, 2007

SACRAMENTO - After three weeks of closed-door meetings, California lawmakers will start to go public today about their special session debate over water issues - including groundwater contamination in the Salinas Valley.

The Assembly Special Committee on Water is expected to conduct a hearing today regarding a multi-billion-dollar water bond, which includes funding for new dams.

Other bills propose ways to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of previously approved bond money. They include funding that would address groundwater contamination in the Salinas and San Joaquin valleys.

At the urging of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate leader Don Perata, D-Oakland, the legislators are working toward an Oct. 16 deadline to get a bond on the February presidential ballot.

But it was far from clear Wednesday whether the governor and lawmakers can meet this deadline.

The primary flashpoint in the debate is the dams. Proponents argue dams are necessary to ensure an adequate water supply for a growing population, provide more flood protection, control flows for environmental needs such as salmon runs and to capture more runoff as global warming reduces snowfall and increase rainfall.

Opponents said the best dams already have been built, any new ones would take too long to build to deal with current problems and they may end up in the wrong places as the effects of global warming begins to take effect.

Assembly Republicans said they won't support any package of water legislation that doesn't also include new surface storage.

Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, a member of the special Assembly water committee, added that a key issue is dam financing, since the governor wants the state to pay up to half of the dams' cost.

"I keep saying the dams aren't the issue. It's who pays for them," Laird said.

As far as the Sierra Club is concerned, the facts are in - and the state shouldn't be building any more dams.

"Dams have caused a lot of damage to river systems," said Jim Metropulos of the Sierra Club.

It takes a two-thirds vote in the Assembly and Senate to approve bonds for the ballot, which means some Republican votes are necessary.

"I think this was always a hard thing to do in a matter of days," Laird said.

"We have three elections next year, so we still have a chance to get somewhere for the June or November ballots."

If a bond measure including dams does get to a ballot, Metropulos said, "we would oppose it."