Republican state senators want to make sure the West Coast state’s city main sources of delivering water do receive the repair and maintenance. The latest push came from all nine senators who sending a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom calling for a portion of the state’s projected $31 billion reserves to be using for repairs to regional canals and local area Divisions of the West Coast state aqueduct.
Republican State Senators Want Millions Allocated for the Repairs
In fact, the senators are calling for $685 million from the projected $31 billion surpluses for the 2022/2023 fiscal year. This is actually be setting aside for the three sources of water delivery in the state including Friant Kern County in California. The total would call for $3.285 billion from the surplus to go to the water infrastructure. Plus the storage with the bulk of that funding going to the Sites Reservoir. It would, in fact, be the state’s biggest water storage project in decades. Also, the senators are calling for $2.6 billion to be setting aside for the Sites Reservoir.
Overall Dry Winter and Forthcoming Drought Years
The senators did note in their letter an overall dry winter is really still possible. “In fact, California is in the midst of another dry winter. There is also an untold number of drought years ahead,” the senators wrote.
Moreover, they have added about the projected $31 billion surpluses: “As your Administration does deliberately with how to best allocate this surplus. In fact, we strongly urge you to address California’s drought crisis.”
In 2014, Proposition 1 was approving by voters, the state senators said. This proposition does association major funding for water infrastructure and storage. However, seven years later, the use of those funds from Proposition 1 has really gone nowhere. It is due to the ongoing wrangling over how water should be stored, the senators did note.
“Amazingly enough, the government inaction has ensured that not a single new gallon of water has been stored in the seven years since its passage,” the senators did write about Proposition 1.
