A Golden Opportunity Down the Drain

SACRAMENTO —  The state of the state is soggy, Gov. Pete Wilson noted as he began his annual speech to the Legislature. “My heart and prayers go out to flood victims,” he said. Then he called for a special legislative session to quickly “address [their] clear and immediate needs.”

So far so good.

Next, the governor introduced a National Guard hero. Medic “J.J.” Moore had dangled from a helicopter cable near power lines to rescue an elderly man off a rooftop. Later, he plucked another man off a sunken pickup. “Nature’s worst, it seems, brings out our best,” Wilson observed.

Nice touch. Go on. We’re listening.

How about nature’s worst bringing out the politicians’ best? Now’s the time to lay aside old positions and rhetoric and paranoia--rethink how to prevent future floods while providing more water for wetlands, salmon and an ever-growing human population.

They keep coming, remember?

In 1960, when Gov. Pat Brown sold the Legislature and voters on new waterworks, 16 million people lived in California. Today, we basically have the same waterworks but double the population. By 2020, the experts are projecting 49 million. They’re pouring into the flood plains of the Central Valley, a geological inland sea.

If we’re going to allow people to live there, we’ve got to protect them.

Beyond that, even with extensive conservation, California’s going to need at least another 3.7 million acre-feet of water annually by 2020. That’s the equivalent of another Oroville Dam.

So yes, while we need to provide emergency relief now, we also need to agree on long-term solutions for the next century.

But there’d be none of that in the governor’s State of the State address Tuesday.

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Wilson would orate--in a strong, normal voice for the first time in two years--about corporate tax cuts, welfare reform, class size, truancy and computer fluency, about a “towering beacon of opportunity” in California and the need to “seize” it.

But there’d be no seizing of a rare opportunity to promote public and political support for new, expensive waterworks. And when all’s said and done, there aren’t many public policy dilemmas in California as vexing as water--both lack of and too much.

You can’t cram everything into a 30-minute speech, Wilson’s aides say.

Right. Let’s face it: Tax cuts, welfare cheats and school kids are politically sexy. Water is a political quagmire. It’s a risky place to lead the people. Too many fiercely competing interests there--cities, farmers, environmentalists, all believing they’re doing God’s work.

Actually, the Wilson administration has been working quietly with the federal government and these competing interests to find a long-term solution for the delta, which supplies drinking water for two in three Californians. Called the CalFed Bay-Delta program, the goal is to draft a plan by next October and adopt a final version by late 1998--just before Wilson leaves office.

The governor privately has told people he’s counting on this water plan to bolster his legacy.

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Proposition 204, which Wilson backed and voters approved last November, provides a $1-billion down payment for fixing the delta--shoring levees, upgrading water transfer facilities, cleaning up pollution, enhancing wetlands and protecting fish.

Negotiators are discussing several possibilities, including a smaller version of the controversial peripheral canal flanking the delta. There’s also serious talk of building two large off-stream reservoirs to store surplus water, one up north near Colusa and another south around Los Banos. Additionally, there’s underground storage potential in the Sacramento Valley and Kern County.

Other pols are bent on building the contentious Auburn Dam above Sacramento on the American River. “We’re still probably one [Sacramento] levee break away,” Senate Water Committee Chairman Jim Costa (D-Fresno) candidly told Auburn advocates at a flood briefing Monday. “It’ll take that catastrophe.”

Eventually, says state water Director David Kennedy, “We’ll desalt the ocean.” That will supply enough water for Southern California’s growth.

But it won’t stop flooding in the north.

Flood prevention, water supply--we’re talking billions. The common wisdom is that government no longer has that kind of money. That’s ludicrous. We’re awash in money. We spend $2.2 billion for each B-2 Stealth bomber; $3.5 billion for an aircraft carrier. The S&L; bailout cost $130 billion.

As Wilson noted in his speech, California has a trillion-dollar economy. Too bad he didn’t begin lobbying us to invest some of our money on new waterworks.