Water Rights

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is quietly prospecting once again for land and water rights in the Owens Valley, sparking tense disputes among residents over the agency's influence on their economic stability. Unlike previous battles between Owens Valley residents and the DWP, which focused on the environmental and economic damage caused by L.A.'

This had been Sacramento's lost year, a stretch marked by a budget meltdown and hyper-partisan rancor, mass veto threats and mounting public distrust of state government as usual. But as the curtain dropped, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger performed as he has for half a dozen years in office: predictably unpredictable. After threatening a mass veto to spur a big water deal, the governor reversed course, revved up his ballpoint pen and signed a surprising slate of legislation. It included bills he had vetoed in the past and a flurry of measures that steered sharply away from the socially conservative Republican base the governor has rarely embraced.

The Legislature has taken many hits this year for ineptitude and inaction, and much of the criticism is well earned. But amid the fiscal disaster and the delayed response, the Assembly and Senate have moved steadily forward on a solution to the state's decades-long water crisis. That's significant. After voters rejected a plan to build a peripheral canal near the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in 1982, California's water arteries were largely neglected, stalemate replaced progress, the delta ecosystem degraded and leadership disappeared.

There is no more politically explosive issue in California than water, so we understand why it has taken a while for the Legislature to come up with a deal on how to fairly conserve, distribute and store it. But enough already. Legislative leaders have, according to insiders, resolved the most important issues on a series of bills to repair the state's crumbling water infrastructure, preserve ecosystems in the ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, mandate a 20% cut in per capita usage by 2020, create new storage facilities, monitor groundwater supplies and develop new penalties and enforcement mechanisms on illegal diversion.

Lawmakers have been chewing over water legislation for weeks, unable to seal a final deal despite threats from the governor, weekend negotiating sessions and their own deep desire to disprove the widespread perception that they can't get anything done. Many of the choking points involve often arcane details of water policy and regional self-interests that haven't always followed the usual partisan lines. "It's fear of losing water, fear of having to pay for stuff," said Ellen Hanak of the Public Policy Institute.