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Flawed Water Policy California politicians such as Governor Schwarzenegger and Senator Feinstein are backing a water bond measure proposed for the November 2008 statewide ballot by the California Chamber of Commerce. Once again corporate agribusiness and developers will spend millions to convince California voters that dams are the only solution to the perceived water crisis. This is simply not true. While we are certainly facing challenges such as global warming and demand is increasing this is not a time to waste money building dams. According to the State Water Plan report building a dam today costs 50 times more than projects such as recycling and conservation programs. We already have more than 1400 dams in California and building another one won't make it rain so why continue to destroy our rivers with these extremely expensive projects? What we need is a common sense solution that will work. Saving water is a conservation approach that in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area has already saved enough water in the last 40 years to serve double the population. Recycling water and using it for irrigation and other non-potable use can also save more water than a any dam would provide. We do need to store water but storing it in our underground aquifers by eliminating excess runoff from impervious surfaces and by using bio-swales and cisterns is far more cost-effective and has a side benefit of reducing floods. But the major wasters of water are the giant agribusiness concerns such as the Westlands Water District who uses more water than LA to irrigate the desert to grow subsidized crops. New proposals to allow for growing more corn crops for ethanol production will further the water crisis while doing little or nothing to help with the oil crisis. Agriculture in California uses more than 80% of our water and pays a low subsidized rate for it. • We must reduce water use, • We must recycle more water. • We must store more water underground. • We must reduce irrigation in arid areas and make all water use more efficient. Dams will not save us, just ask the salmon. |
