Report: Taxes, fees needed to close Calif. water funding gap
By Jeremy B. White, Sacramento Bee
California will need to find billions of dollars annually to improve its water system, according to a Public Policy Institute of California report.
Lawmakers are currently debating several water bond proposals for the 2014 ballot, but the report cautions that the state cannot rely on uncertain bond money to improve water management. It advocates a “broader mix of funding sources” that includes new taxes and fees.
“Although this is a fixable problem,” the report says, “it will not happen without a bold, concerted effort on the part of California’s state and local leaders, who must convince California’s residents to support the necessary changes with their votes and their pocketbooks.”
How much more in taxes are the people of California supposed to pay? Where will it end?
Why can’t the State cut some programs somewhere instead of squeezing the life out of its citizens?
DOG. It is called Capital Improvements and even if the State collected zero taxes, someone would have to pay for improvements, wells, pumps, pipe etc. Why don’t the major water USERS – Agribusiness – flip the tab for new plumbing or desalination?
There can be no management for water that is not there. If indeed we are in a long drought in California, stringent conservation is the only way to handle it. I lived through the 1977 drought. A lot of lawns went un-watered and we survived, but there are another 15 odd million of us since then.
The lack of water problem will have multiple solutions and there will still be sacrifices required. Farmers will need to consider low water requirement crops. People may have to adjust their diets, eating what there is, not what they want. More storage is part of the solution, and I remind you all of the demise of the Auburn dam project. Priorities will need to be changed state-wide.
The people who say “Brown must fix the problem NOW” just blow me away with their ignorance.
Money cannot create water. Money can slow up its run to the sea, money can recover fresh water from the sea, money can drill deeper wells, but this is NOT going to do more than stall the problem.
Observer. We have to come up with an efficient way to desalinate ocean water at some point. We are loosing massive amounts of precious fresh water in the oceans every day. This loss is primarily from melting glaciers and the Ice Fields of Greenland, and it is being measured in the 10’s and sometimes 100’s of cubic miles per year.