Ballot push for water projects off table for now

Supporters of a proposed November ballot measure to provide billions of dollars to build dams, desalination plants and other large water projects in California announced Feb. 1 they are ending their campaign due to lack of signatures and funding.

“Despite crafting an initiative that would solve California’s challenge of chronic and worsening water scarcity, and despite recent polling that indicates over 70% of California’s voters support increased state spending on water infrastructure, the campaign has been unable to attract the financial support necessary to gather the required 1 million signatures,” the campaign said in a statement.

The initiative would have required that 2% of California’s general fund, or about $4 billion, be set aside every year to expand water supplies until 5 million acre feet of additional annual water supply was created. Dams and reservoirs, desalination plants, recycled water plants and other projects such as upgrading canals and pipes could be funded, as could some conservation efforts.

Supporters had hoped that California’s ongoing drought would provide political momentum. But it failed to take off.

The measure, known as the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022,” needed 997,132 signatures of registered voters by April 29 to qualify for the November statewide ballot.

Volunteers obtained “less than 100,000,” campaign spokesman Edward Ring said last week.

And while the campaign estimated it needed about $10 million to hire paid workers to collect signatures and build a statewide effort, it raised only about $165,000, mostly from Central Valley farm interests. It never could win the funding of large construction labor unions, who were seen as key to its success.

Andrew Meredith, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, one of the state’s largest construction unions, said Friday the campaign did not gather enough momentum.

“We need to be diligent and ensure that our contributions translate to a net benefit for our members,” he said.

The measure was endorsed by 27 state lawmakers, including 18 Republicans, one independent and eight Democrats, including one from the Bay Area, Assemblyman Tim Grayson, D-concord.

Environmentalists, however, made defeating it a top priority. Groups including the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife said the measure would have been a giveaway to agricultural interests by abandoning a long-held tradition of requiring local supporters of new dams and other water projects to help pay a significant amount of their costs.

“From our perspective, the beneficiary should pay. That was championed by governors Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan and others,” said said Ron Stork, a senior policy advocate with Friends of the River, an environmental group in Sacramento. “It’s an important test on whether projects are important enough to build, judging by whether people are willing to pay for them.”

The campaign’s organizers included Wayne Western Jr., a board member of the California Farm Water Coalition; Geoffrey Vanden Heuvel, director of regulatory and economic affairs for the California Milk Producers Council; and several supporters of building a new desalination plant in Huntington Beach: Steve Sheldon, president of the Orange County Water District board of directors and Shawn Dewane, a member of the Mesa Water District board of directors in Costa Mesa.

The campaign said Tuesday it will rework the measure and try again to make the 2024 state ballot.