No Time for Politics as Usual : WATER WATCH: Showdown in Sacramento on Katz’s free-market reform

A showdown on state water policy in Sacramento Tuesday will have a profound effect on California’s future.

For one thing it will test the ability of elected officials to break into the the tight circle of hired water managers, who have dictated water policy for decades with only minimal concern for the wider public.

The centerpiece of the policy is a modified version of a bill by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) that would allow farmers to sell water to thirsty urban areas or to other farmers, whether their local water agency approved or not. There are strings attached that were not in the original bill, but the heart of the matter--making water available to growing urban areas in times of drought--is unchanged. The bill also would require water buyers to leave behind 10% of purchases to protect the environment.

Although Katz pushed his bill through the Assembly, what happens to it in the Senate probably will depend more on Gov. Pete Wilson than on the author. If Wilson wants the bill, it might well sail out of the Senate Agriculture and Water Committee with a good chance of passage. If not, it could founder. And it is hard to know when--or even whether--a coalition strong enough to make such basic change in water law could be put back together.

The Katz bill would apply at first only to about 2 million acre-feet a year that is pumped from the Sacramento River Delta and delivered by the State Water Project. A bill working its way through committee in Congress, sponsored by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), would expand the policy to 8 million additional acre-feet of water that flows through the federal Central Valley Project.

The bill would remove the strongest barrier to creating a relatively open market for buying and selling water as a commodity, with prices set much the way supply and demand set them for other commodities like gasoline or wine.

Wilson pioneered the market approach in California last winter by creating a state “water bank� to facilitate sales of scarce water to areas hardest hit by the drought.

The showdown comes with state reservoirs less than half full. A nearly normal rainy season this winter--not at all certain--would mean only that reservoirs would be no emptier after next year’s deliveries.

There are times when an issue truly transcends politics as usual. This is one of them.