Calif. lawmakers haggle over potential water fixes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Lawmakers kept haggling Tuesday in their effort to alleviate California’s water woes, as the Legislature prepared to vote on a package of bills that appears to lack the support needed to pass.

Differences among Republicans and Democrats on key elements threatened to sink a complex supply and management plan for the growing state.

“I think the only thing we can really say at this point is we’re the closest we’ve been to getting a compromise water solution, but we’re still not quite sure what’s going to happen today,” said Jennifer Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Assembly Republican leader Sam Blakeslee.

The state Senate on Monday approved a nearly $10 billion bond package to pay for new water storage. It included dams long sought by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his fellow Republicans.

The Senate also sent bills to the Assembly that would require California’s cities to use 20 percent less water by 2020 and change how the fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is managed.

But senators failed to get the needed votes for companion legislation that would create a new statewide groundwater monitoring system and increase penalties on illegal water diversions.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said all the bills must be passed or the whole package fails. That’s because Democrats legislatively linked the bills as a way to leverage votes for the most controversial pieces of the package.

In a statement late Monday, Steinberg said he was confident the Senate would adopt the remaining two bills. The Senate was scheduled to resume debate later in the day.

The Assembly briefly convened Tuesday but recessed while negotiations continued between the governor and legislative leaders. Lawmakers who represent the delta region vowed to oppose the water package unless their region was given more of a voice on a newly created council that would manage the delta.

“Local representatives should be entrusted to manage the natural resources they have in their own backyard,” said Alyson Huber, D-Lodi.

Lawmakers are trying to upgrade California’s decades-old water system by restoring the delta and creating a stable supply of water for cities in Southern California and farmers in the Central Valley.

The delta is the heart of the state’s water delivery system, but its maze of earthen levees is susceptible to earthquakes that could halt pumping for months to two-thirds of the state’s residents and thousands of acres of cropland.

Water conditions also have worsened for farmers, water districts and wildlife in the delta. Federal courts and agencies have ordered reductions in pumping to protect the delta’s collapsing ecosystem.

Speaking at a Tuesday breakfast in San Francisco, Schwarzenegger said a water deal was imminent, featuring a bond that would go before voters to provide some of the financing.

“This will be a historic accomplishment by the Legislature,” he said, but added: “It’s not over when the Legislature passes that because then it will go on the ballot.”

To get a bond measure on the ballot in 2010, legislative leaders need a two-thirds vote in the Democratic-controlled Legislature and will need some support from Republicans, who are likely to withhold their votes in the Assembly until the other bills in the water package are shaped to their liking. Some Democrats also have reservations about the bond.

The Legislature’s nonpartisan analyst’s office said the bond’s cost could force the state to spend 10 percent of its revenue each year to pay off debt.