US misuses taxpayer cash for Calif. water project
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. Interior Department improperly contributed $85 million in taxpayer funds to help pay for a giant California water project backed by Gov. Jerry Brown, despite pledges from Brown and other state and federal authorities that local water districts would bear all the costs, a federal audit said Friday. California law and an agreement by the water districts dictate that California’s politically influential water districts are supposed to bear the costs of Brown’s $16 billion proposal to re-engineer California’s shipment of water by building dozens of miles of tunnels to tap into the state’s largest river, the Sacramento.
In 2011, Brown and the then-secretary of the Interior Department reaffirmed that pledge of using no taxpayer funds in a joint public statement supporting the tunnels plan. Other top California officials have repeatedly insisted no tax dollars were being spent on the tunnels, often called a legacy project of the 79-yearold governor, now in his last term.
Asked if auditors wanted California water districts to repay the money, Interior spokeswoman Nancy Di Paolo said, “We certainly hope so.”
Brown’s office did not respond to requests for comment Friday, and state water spokesman Lisa Lien-Mager refused all comment, calling the audit and transaction a federal matter. The audit’s findings were appalling, said Doug Obegi of the Natural Resources Defense Council environmental group, which has opposed the tunnels on the grounds that it would speed up the extinction of endangered native species in and around the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay.
“The public is paying for what a private party is supposed to pay for,” Obegi said, who said the audit also raises questions overall about whether water districts can afford to take on the costly water project. “That is taking the public’s money, and that’s not OK.”
The proposed tunnels are part of Brown’s decades-long push to overhaul the complex system of pumps, aqueducts and canals by which California ships Northern California water southward, mainly for use by cities and farms in central and Southern California. Voters rejected an early version of Brown’s proposal, envisioning canals rather than tunnels, in a statewide vote in the 1980s.