Californian canal fight

Press, 21 October 1980, Page 20

Californian canal fight

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

in San Francisco

Northern Californians see glimmers of hope in their fight to keep the southern half of the state from stealing more of their water. They appear to have accumulated enough signatures of voters to require a referendum ■which, if adopted, would block legislation just signed by the Governor to authorise the controversial Peripheral Canal. This would be a giant 68-kilometre ditch diverting a large new flow from Northern California to the existing system which already . ; delivers vast amounts of water to agricultural and urban populations in the south. A successful referendum would repeal the law before it can take effect, . and merely meeting the qualification for -the referendum stymies operation of the law pending a state-wide vote... ..

The action is an early skirmish in a contest that may go on, bitterly, for years. The Governor, Mr Jerry Brown, must set a date for the vote. He is thought to be considering the day next April which coincides with a Los Angeles municipal election. The manoeuvre would presumably ensure that large numbers of pro-canal voters would be drawn to the polls by other issues. Anti-canal strategists hope, to stall the vote until the general election in June, 1982, or, failing that, to engineer for next April some additional measure which would attract northern voters.

Heaviest pressure for the canal has- come from farm and development interests in the. southern portion of the state. Leading northern opposition has come from environmentalists and econo-

mists who foresee general damage to natural resources, and from farmers in the rich lowlands behind San Francisco Bay whose crops are already threatened by subsurface intrusion of salt wajer during dry periods. Canal opponents can also assume that most northerners who go to the polls will exercise their traditional prejudice against giving away anything to their southern neighbours. A state-wide poll, just completed, has pleasantly surprised the anti-canal movement. It shows support for the canal weakening among urban voters in the south who are apprehensive about the taxes which the canal may oblige them to pay. Estimated price of the ten-year construction programme is $5lOO million at 1980 values, or about $75 million per kilometre.