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Feinstein's Right on Water

Democrats need to get over their antipathy toward building new dams

Sen. Dianne Feinstein got a little grumpy the other day with the slow pace of work on a state water bond she and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have proposed. She singled out members of her own Democratic party for their intransigence when it comes to new surface water storage projects. Good for her.

Ideological conflicts threaten to throttle any action on California's water crisis. We run the risk in California of remaining philosophically pure and politically correct while we dry up and blow away.

We must increase our water supply. Demand grows with our growing population, and simultaneously our existing supplies are threatened by the pace of global climate change. When winter snowfall diminishes in the Sierra Nevada, as it has for two years now, the slowly melting supplies we once counted on are no longer available. More precipitation falls as rain, and we haven't sufficient capacity to collect it for use in cities, industries and agriculture.

We have long advocated a three-part approach including new dams, increased use of underground water banking and more aggressive efforts to conserve. In addition, existing supplies that are already contaminated, or at risk of becoming so, must be cleaned up.

No serious observer argues that we have enough water now, at least not the way it is distributed and used. The argument is over the manner in which we can best increase available supplies.

Environmentalists and their Democratic allies in the Legislature oppose new dams, for the most part. They argue that dams are too expensive, take too long to build and do too much damage to the environment. There's no question about the expense and the lead time, but that's not a compelling argument for doing away with the idea of new dams altogether. It's rather an argument for starting right away, to bring new supplies on line as soon as possible. We'll still need those new supplies in 10 or 20 years -- maybe even more than we do now.

There is no question that building dams can seriously affect local and regional environments. But we know a great deal more about engineering, the environment and the hydrology of the state than did the earlier generations that built our existing dams and conveyance systems. We can do a better job of mitigating environmental impacts.

More immediate savings -- which amount to increases in supply -- can be had from conservation. We waste a great deal of water in this state, in cities such as Fresno that have only begun to install water meters for residential use, in fields where state-of-the-art irrigation techniques haven't yet been employed, in industrial processes that are relics of an age when water seemed eternally abundant. We have to do better, and right away.

Underground storage is also promising, to capture supplies in wetter years than can be pumped out later in time of need. Such storage facilities also have the virtue of helping to replenish our seriously overdrafted aquifers.

The $9.3 billion water bond proposed by Feinstein and Schwarzenegger isn't perfect. No measure will ever be. But it is a useful start, and we can't afford to wait for perfect solutions that will never materialize.