California’s record rainfall has sparked a push for better water infrastructure.
A coalition of state Assembly Republicans recently met at the American River in Sacramento, where the group criticized Governor Gavin Newsom for failing to allocate any funding toward water storage sites in California’s new state budget.
“What’s ironic is this week the governor talked about the financial reserves that he has maintained in the budget, but we have no water reserves, we do not have adequate water reserves,” GOP Assembly member Diane Dixon said.
The budget currently has a $22.5 billion deficit. Dixon argues that by building and developing water storage sites, California can remove the burden of protecting resources from its citizens. Dixon says it is unfair to rely on citizens to constantly limit how often they do laundry.
“It’s not rocket science. Reservoirs exist all over the country, all over the world. Build the reservoir… help the people [sic] be better prepared for the next drought we know will come,” Dixon said.
Experts say that about 22 trillion gallons of rain will come down in California. Republicans’ main point of contention was a lack of infrastructure, causing the water to go to waste.
“It’s a failure in leadership,” Assembly Republican leader James Gallagher said. “The Democratic supermajority and the governor have failed to make investments in water infrastructure.”
Gallagher pointed out that state residents pushed for a water bond that permitted billions of dollars to go toward state water supply infrastructure and water storage projects back in 2014.
“These projects have been tied up in the bureaucracy of executive agencies,” Gallagher said. “And the governor has not pushed these agencies to permit these projects and get them going. And now here we are almost 10 years later without anything being built.”
Newsom revealed the proposed 2023-2024 budget plan. The plan highlighted more than $200 million in new investments for flood protections.
