Californian water divisive

Press, 27 June 1987, Page 22

Californian water divisive

JOHN HUTCHISON,

From

in San Francisco

If Northern California ever goes to war against Southern California it will probably be a fight over water. The issue is usually presented as a quarrel between thirsty Los Angeles and the river-blessed northern half of the state. It causes deep and serious ill will that underlies the superficial cultural rivalry between San Franciscans and Angelenos. But the battle in the legislature and at the ballot box is as, much over agriculture’s costly use and inefficient management of irrigation as it is over the urban draft of water by the south. The cartoonists’ image in Northern California is typically one of the Angelenos sitting by their lushly landscaped swimming pools while overflow from their lawn sprinklers floods the

streets. That image may not be far off the mark, but the heavy lobbying for more northern water is often the work of the big farming companies of the Central Valley. It became one of the most productive crop areas of the world only when water was brought to it — at great public expense.

The hackles are up again in the north. Some southerners, after having been soundly beaten in a popular referendum in 1982, have put forward a new legislative plan to import more water. Southern California is by far the most populous end of the state, and its legislators can outvote the northerners. But in the 1982. referendum, even the voters in the south turned down the water scheme, thinking it too costly and suspicious of its ecological consequences. If the legislature adopts the

new plan, a powerful coalition of environmentalists is ready to kill it with a new referendum. They call the measure an irresponsible assault on the water quality, the farms and the fishing. centered on San Francisco Bay. They also regard the plan to shunt more water to the south as a foolishly expensive, ill-planned system of pumps and canals.

An influential newspaper reminded the legislature that the voters throughout the state have shown their distrust of multi-biliion-dollar water schemes. It added that “as for the Southland going thirsty, there is plenty of water for residential users from present facilities and much opportunity for providing more, by changing wasteful practices in agriculture.” The bristling editor warned that the legislature risks a statewide confrontation from voters wary of grandiose projects.