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Support builde to buttress levees.

Published in the Stockton Record on 09/24/05

Support builds to buttress levees

Hank Shaw - Capitol Bureau Chief
Published Saturday, Sep 24, 2005

SACRAMENTO -- Momentum is building for a massive state bond to fix California's roads, bridges -- and aging levees.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signaled support for the idea in an interview with The Record on Wednesday, and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata said Friday he's edging closer to winning critical support from Republican lawmakers. The bond proposal also includes money to retire polluting diesel engines.

"It's kind of like selling air conditioning in the Sahara. People get this," Perata said in an interview. The Alameda County lawmaker said he had expected that the $10.3 billion proposal -- which includes $1.2 billion for levees and flood control -- he unveiled in February would need time to marinate with his colleagues.

"Now we are getting around to talking about our top priorities," he said.

Perata will highlight the need to borrow money for infrastructure in his weekly radio address today.

"Last February, I introduced SB1024 to present to the voters a statewide bond to strengthen California's levees, fund long-stalled highway transit projects, and make security and air quality improvements at the California ports," Perata says in a draft of the address. "Hurricane Katrina painfully shows why we need to act and act quickly."

Perata's proposal stalled when Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers balked at more borrowing. After all, California just put $3 billion on its credit card to subsidize stem cell research.

But Schwarzenegger now says borrowing might be acceptable because of the enormous financial risk a major levee break poses. Republicans in the Legislature are quietly discussing the same thing. Katrina's devastation did not escape their notice.

"I think that in this particular case right now, I think it is important that we find the money as quickly as possible from the state and to get the matching funds from the federal government and also locally," Schwarzenegger said.

"We've got to spend on those things that deal with the lives of people."

Just one legal settlement from a 1986 break in Yuba County wound up costing California taxpayers nearly $500 million. And that was in a small town.

At least 30,000 homes in San Joaquin County alone have been built or approved by local governments in flood-prone areas since the last major flooding, in 1997, according to a Record investigation in May.

"In addition to the immediate threat to lives and $47 billion in property in the region," Perata said, "major levee breaks would jeopardize drinking water for 22 million Southern Californians and irrigation water for 2.3 million acres of vital farmland."

He said Katrina has also drawn the attention of lawmakers living outside the danger zone, especially the Southern Californians who would lose much of their drinking water from a massive levee break in the Delta.

"It is a major, major accident that will happen -- it's just a matter of when," he said. "Everyone is highly sensitized to the fact that we are one California. Water is our common concern."

The Wall Street bond houses that would sell the bonds Perata is proposing are receptive, he said, adding that even $15 billion in borrowing would not damage the state's credit rating if it is parceled out over several years.

The goal is to get a proposal past the Legislature in time for the June 2006 primary election ballot. Perata said that would give everyone -- Schwarzenegger as well as lawmakers of both parties -- something to crow about before the fall election.

Contact Capitol Bureau Chief Hank Shaw at 916 441-4078 or sacto@recordnet.com

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