California Drought: Girl Scouts Help Bring Donated Water as Lawmakers Eye Nov. 4 Vote
Girl Scouts from Bakersfield are among those helping to bring donated water to drought-impacted residents in the Porterville area of Tulare County in California.
Bakersfieldnow.com reported that while hundreds of rural residents in the region don't have running water because of the extreme drought that continues to worsen in California, donations from other areas are pouring in.
Girl Scouts of Central California, including Fresno and Bakersfield, delivered about 620 gallons of water to Porterville.
While the region struggles to deal with the worsening drought, which has dried up wells, lawmakers are tackling the issue of how to deal with this in the future.
A $7.5 billion water package, Proposition 1, will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot, and lawmakers hope the drought will persuade voters to approve the project, according to The Associated Press. If approved, the state will issue a new $7.1 billion bond and use $425 million from past ballot propositions.
The package includes $2.7 billion for new reservoirs, and the remainder will be used for recycling water, conservation and groundwater cleanup.
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, criticized the effort saying that the Proposition will not be enough to repair the aging water system.
Grader told AP he agreed that there should be a project but feels the current package is not thorough enough.
The Nature Conservancy's director of external affairs and policy, Jay Ziegler, told AP that he supported the package and that voters increasingly understand the magnitude of the drought and its effects on the system.
But some are concerned with the price tag associated with the project.
Repaying the water bond could cost more than $14 billion over a period of 40 years, according to the state's non-partisan Legislative Analyst's Office, AP reported.
The idea of having to pay for the project over a number of decades could be justified if the system lasts longer than the payments. In addition, the bond does not guarantee that some aspects of the proposed project will be built, Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly said.
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