Opinion: House should pull the plug on water grab
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the June 24, 2011, Sacramento Bee.
The first daunting fact about California water is that 75 percent of the state’s water supply comes from north of Sacramento while 75 percent of the demand comes from south of the region.
The other daunting fact is that the water system is dramatically oversubscribed – paper allocations of water are larger than actual availability in most years.
As a result, water-thirsty interests are constantly seeking to secure supplies from others, through proper means (such as water marketing) or less savory methods. The latter is at play with House Resolution 1837, proposed by Reps. Devin Nunes of Tulare, Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield and Jeff Denham of Atwater. It would explicitly favor one set of water users – farmers on the west side of the southern San Joaquin Valley – over all the others.
So what has been the reaction of Northern California members of Congress?
Oddly, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove, has promoted the bill as chairman of the House Water and Power Subcommittee.
But every other Northern California member of Congress opposes it.
I think the south should pay the north for the water and then split the state in two.
Use the money as a way to split up peacefully.
I am going to the south.
So McClintock really is a snake in the grass! He comes from the South, gets elected in the north and then works to give the North’s water to the South. When will people learn? Career politicians need to go!!
This is the reply to the editorial from Congressman McClintock;
Editor; Sacramento Bee
The Bee’s latest editorial on water accuses me of “promoting” a “water grab.” The Bee was well aware that as Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Water and Power, I intervened to stop the bill in question and announced it would not proceed until and unless it is amended to fully protect Northern California water rights. Yet the editorial made the accusation anyway while questioning my motives and integrity.
Last year, to meet radical environmental demands, 200 billion gallons of water contracted to the Central Valley were instead dumped into the Pacific Ocean. That act destroyed 250,000 acres of farmland and cost tens of thousands of jobs. Our sub-committee is grappling with a solution to prevent such lunacy in the future while fully protecting Northern California water rights and critical habitat. We’re not there yet.
I welcome the Bee’s constructive counsel, but all it has offered to date is distortions and invective.
Tom McClintock
U.S. Representative, 4th District
‘distortions’ you say? Let’s see who is in the distortion free club.
Cost tens of thousands of jobs you say? I’d like to see the evidence of that.
‘dumped into the pacific’? That is an extremely distorted view of it.
Whatever you say Tom.