For a while, the numbers bandied about in the water debate have been in the range of $10-20 billion. Those are simply the general fund bond numbers. But the real numbers are much, much higher. How high?
According to a recent study by the Strategic Economic Applications Company, the numbers are between $52 and $78 Billion dollars for the entire Delta legislation package. (See Table 1 to the right for a portion of those numbers.) You can grab a full report on the package below the fold (or here).
I said earlier this week that the water construction costs should be paid by customers, and much of that money is going to be paid by customers in the form of revenue bonds. BUt in the past, about 3-5% of the bill has come from the general fund. We are now looking at anywhere between 20-45% being paid off of general fund.
But you won’t hear these numbers being bandied about by Sean Hannity, the Westlands Water District and the astroturf artists of Burson-Marsteller and their “Latino Water Coalition”. No, to them, this is just Democrats holding the farmers down.
But the biggest problem with all of this construction, is that despite all of the environmental havoc that we would create with these new dams and storage, we will have no new water. A dam won’t make the rain come nor the snows accumulate. We are fighting over a ever-shrinking pie, yet still avoiding discussing how we can use our resources better. We allow water to be wasted in the suburbs, and grow water-heavy crops in land that just isn’t suited for it.
We need to focus on both conservation and land management if we are to really solve the water crisis. We simply cannot build our way out of climate change.