Governor Schwarzenegger isn’t the only celebrity weighing in on California’s water future. He may be promoting Proposition 18, a massive $11 billion water bond to help big agribusiness at the expense of essential services (see our Terminator video), but most of Californians know the water bond is all wet.
With Prop 18 sagging poll numbers, the Governor and legislative leaders are trying to move the measure until 2012. We asked a few of our friends in Hollywood what they thought of the water bond and the prospect postponing it for two years. They all had the same reaction – they spit in disgust – and we captured it all on video!
Coined by its backers as the Safe, Clean and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act, the only thing the $11 billion water bond is guaranteed to do is increase the state’s $19 billion deficit leading to deeper cuts in education, healthcare, public safety and
state park funding, build new dams, and lay the ground work for a peripheral
canal around the San Joaquin River Delta. In reality, it should be named the Expensive, Dubious and Deceptive Corporate Subsidy Act.
To highlight the need to scrap rather than delay the water bond, Food & Water Watch teamed up with creative geniuses Nancy Hower and John Lehr who put together this clever spot featuring well known television personalities. The ad features David DeLuise from Wizards of Waverly Place, Anna Belknap of CSI: NY, Kelli Williams from Lie
to Me and formerly on The Practice, and Justine Bateman, best known for Family
Ties.
“We love Food & Water Watch so much, we happily wiped our celebrities’ spit off the plexi-glass protecting the camera,” said Lehr. “We support keeping water publicly owned, pure, accessible and drinkable…straight from the tap. Proposition 18 is a massive waste of money and won’t help California’s future water needs.”
“I love water,” said David DeLuise. “Without it I would smell funny and be thirsty and I might die.”
While the ad makes a serious point, it also had side benefits for some of the actors. Said Kelli Williams, “I have never in my life drunk that much water in one sitting. I was marvelously hydrated.”
The spot is part of the No on 18 campaign to scrap the water bond rather than have it delayed until 2012. To take action and get involved, go to www.nowaterbond.com/spit. Help spread the word by sharing the video. Together we can work to stop this bond, and get back to work on real solutions to California’s water future.