California is in the midst of one of the worst droughts in its history, and while the billions raised through Proposition 1 won’t go towards buying rainwater, it still represents a positive step toward securing the state’s water future.
The $7.12 billion proposal has allocations for certain water projects like ecosystem and watershed protection and improvements in drinking water quality, with the largest chunk – about $2.7 billion – going to water storage projects.
The money will flow into California’s aging water infrastructure, while also helping to develop a system that can reliably supply water in future years.
Of course, the projects outlined in the proposition don’t come cheap. The bond proposal is expected to cost the state $360 million annually over the next 40 years.
However, not all the cost will be distributed to California taxpayers. A provision in the proposition requires certain projects to provide matching funds from non-state sources in order to receive bond funds.
Californians last voted on a water bond in 2006, approving $5.4 billion for water projects. In 2005, voters approved Proposition 50, which gave $3.4 billion for water projects.
All this goes to show that Proposition 1 won’t be the last hard decision voters will have to make to secure California’s water future, but the measure represents a necessary part of the solution of supplying water to an increasingly thirsty state.
Opponents of the proposition have said that it is a waste of taxpayer money and beholden to special interests who plan to use the funding for dams to benefit large agricultural companies instead of the average Californian.
But the current version of the proposition is already an updated version of an earlier $11.1 billion proposal which was pulled from the ballot and cut down for being too pork-laden.
The fund allocation for water storage projects also has no specific allowance toward dams. Instead, the independent California Water Commission is charged with identifying and supporting what they consider to be beneficial water projects.
An analysis of the proposition by the non-partisan Pacific Institute noted that the measure’s effectiveness in addressing California’s water issues is contingent on how the commission performs in finding and pursuing effective water projects.
Proposition 1 won’t solve all the problems surrounding the current drought, but it will put plans in place that will help the state weather future water woes.