Issue Position: Water and Flood Control

Issue Position

Protecting our north state water rights and increasing water storage and flood protection are all crucial to our local economy.

Our forefathers had the great foresight to develop and harness our natural resources. They built the great waterworks projects that provide water to our farms and cities. They reclaimed farmland from the swamp by building our levee system and keeping back the floodwaters. These systems are in bad need of upgrade and repair. We need to ensure local levee projects like the Feather River West Levee Project, Marysville Ring Levee, and the Hamilton City J-Levee are brought to completion.

The 2011 Water Bond is flawed in that it contains billions of dollars for environmental projects that would not improve our water situation in California and, in the case of the money for dam removal in Siskiyou County, would actually make the problem worse. Its only redeeming feature is the $3 billion allocated for new water storage and the "area of origin" protections. Now politicians in Sacramento are proposing to reduce that $3 billion down to $1 billion, effectively killing any new storage project. I believe the bond needs to be greatly reduced, removing the money for bugs and shrubs and dam removal, and focusing the money on new water storage.

The Peripheral Tunnels are a double barrel shotgun pointed at our water rights. Furthermore, it will cost $25 billion dollars when a $6 billion bond would build us two new water storage projects. We need to work to stop this expensive fix and instead work on a system of new water storage, and explore concepts like desalinization and recycled water to meet the great demands on the system south of the Delta.

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