No on Water Bond, California Proposition 1

California is in a drought, so what better time for the state legislature to put a big boondoggle water bond bill on the ballot?

The bill will waste over $7.5 billion dollars, not including interest. It is a hodgepodge, partly to service big business, with a few bandages for the environment in hopes of picking up the environmentalist vote.

California needs to conserve water. If we need more water for Los Angeles lawns in dry years it needs to come from outside of California. It needs to come all the way from Oregon, Washington State, or even Canada.

We need to reduce the population of California (and the U.S., and the world). California should adopt a one-child per family policy. Then in a couple of generations we would not have a perpetual water shortage.

What we don't need is a Proposition that allocates money without telling us what projects it is actually going to fund. The reality is water is likely to be pumped from northern California, where it is scarce, to southern California, where it is precious. Look at a aerial photo of Los Angeles area backyard swimming pools, and you will see what the project is really for. That and giant corporate farms in the Central Valley, which farmers have turned into a desert by using unsustainable practices.

We don't need more dams on the Klamath, Russian, Sacramento and Trinity rivers to divert water to be wasted in southern California.

Proposition 1 does not allow for spending money on water storage in the northern and central coastal regions. All the storage money is limited to being deployed in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys and in southern California.

Proposition 1 says it will safeguard the quality of water supplies for both humans and the environment, but throws just enough money at those ideas to assure us that the money will fund endless environmental litigation and "planning" of projects that in the end will be mostly left unfunded.

Instead of a giant boondoggle, show us a plan for each project, and fund each project that is truly worthwhile out of increases in water rates by the people who will actually use the water.

Vote NO on California Proposition 1

Text of California Proposition 1