A worker installs an irrigation system at a farm in Southern California. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
The key theme of the package is that human and environmental uses of water are equal priorities.
But critics, including the environmental group the Sierra Club, have called the bills and an $11 billion bond a pricey sham that left a new council to govern the largest estuary on the West Coast without funding or power. They said it would spark more fighting.
The most populous U.S. state is one of the driest, yet full of thirsty industry from rice farms and the nation's largest fruit and vegetable crops to Silicon Valley microchip plants. It also frequently teeters on the edge of financial crisis and resorted to handing out IOUs earlier this year. There is no guarantee voters will approve the $11 billion bond passed by the legislature.
California is an environmental leader—from its car pollution standards to its climate change agenda—but lags much of the world in water. New conservation rules may change that.
Measures include monitoring water in the ground, requiring 20 percent conservation and setting up a council to run the Sacramento Delta estuary, the largest wetlands on the West Coast and a water supply for most of the state.
"We're working off of laws that were established in the Gold Rush era," said Environmental Defense West Coast Director Laura Harnish. "There was no sense of constraint."
She called the package common sense management strategies, like conservation and a mandate to finally determine how much water fish and wildlife need in rivers to survive. Harnish supported it despite last-minute cuts in the strength of a bill to curb water theft.
Her group and others avoided backing the bond and the new dam that is likely to follow.
Mountain Runoff Feeds Rivers
California's water system is simple: mountains in the eastern part of the state feed rivers from snow and rain.
Dams and the Delta trap water, mostly in the north, and then feed it to farms in the middle of the state and cities on the coasts—especially Los Angeles, whose willingness to do anything for water was fictionalized in the movie "Chinatown."
LA's real-life water grab created a wealthy agricultural industry from a dry wasteland and money was key to the new plan, too. In addition to a new multibillion dollar dam, billions in ecosystem restoration and billions more to help regions of the state share water, the plan could open the way to a new canal, potentially costing tens of billions, that would take river water around the Delta to other canals.
That factor led most Delta representatives to oppose the package, which could create the biggest set of water projects since a statewide canal started in the 1960s.
"We just want reliability," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, General Manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which backed the bills and the so-called peripheral canal. LA has cut water use while growing, and now it supports the environment as a way to avoid legal tangles.
"We look at it as very enlightened self-interest," he said ahead of the vote.
Sierra Club California water analyst Jim Metropulos has said key provisions, such as effective ground water monitoring, had been gutted during talks, and that what seemed to be a new group to coordinate policy around the Delta was an unfunded, powerless group appointed by a lame-duck governor with no accountability.
Lawsuits which have focused on environmental use of water would turn to interpretation of the new laws, he said.
"This is a Band-Aid. What the Delta needs is a heart transplant," he said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hailed passage of the package, calling it an historic achievement. Schwarzenegger called the legislature into special session in part for the water legislation, which has been the center of debate for months.
