The Hun punches out Davis school marm, again

10-8-10
Stockton Record
Kill Bill, starring Arnold...Michael Fitzgerald

http://blogs.esanjoaquin.com/stockton-metro-columnist/2010/10/07/kill-bill-starring-arnold/
I am at a loss to explain Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s baffling veto of Sen. Lois Wolk’s sensible water recycling bill, SB 1173.
There seems to be no argument against this bill – and virtually nobody was making one.
Wolk’s bill would have compelled industries using “raw” (natural, untreated) water or “potable” (treated, drinkable) water for such industrial purposes as cooling to use recycled water, if it’s available.
Wolk’s logic seems irreproachable: drinkable water should be drunk, not squandered on unnecessary uses.
The state’s own water plan says recycled water could provide nearly 1.5 million acre feet a year of new water for California.
Enough water for 3 million California families.
Parched California desperately needs the water; recycling is infinitely cheaper and less destructive than construction of leviathan new dams and canal systems; implementation of the bill would cost nothing; even big water players such as L.A.’s Metropolitan Water District registered no opposition (why would they? More water for them).
Yet Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill.
In his veto message Schwarzenegger said the switch to recycling would be so costly (that’s right; Wolk said there is no cost) waiting for the “Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012,” which includes $1.25 billion for water efficiency measures, is preferable.
The real deal of the water package is language that restructures the state’s water system to give water rights to Big Ag and Southern California that they do not enjoy, and do not deserve.
The water package so pork-laden the governor took it off the ballot for a year because he knew voters would kick it to the curb.
I called Sen. Wolk to see if her understanding of the veto is less cynical than mine.
“I agree with it,” Wolk said of my interpretation. “There’s no other explanation, frankly.”
Well, maybe one. “I think the fact that he mentioned in his (veto) statement something about the water bond … that indicates my opposition the water bond was in his mind.”
Payback, in other words.
It was evident Gov. Schwarzenegger has utter disregard for the Delta in his quest to bolster water supplies to Big Ag and the part of the state he favors. The water package, which gives the store away to special interests that do no care whether the Delta lives or dies, and the processes behind it, which consistently exlude Delta stakeholders, proves that.
Now it appears he’s so hell-bent to grab Northern California water he won’t even let inevitable water solutions get in the way.
“We’ll do it again,” Wolk said of her bill. “We’ll have a new governor soon. Republican, Democrat, I don’t care, as far as this issue goes.”