Vote near on California drought relief

A $687 million drought relief plan is headed for floor votes in the California legislature on Thursday after winning quick approval Wednesday in committees.

The legislation calls for immediate action on the drought, including $15 million to address emergency water shortages and an additional $1 million for a public awareness campaign. Most of the money comes from bonds previously approved by voters and will accelerate existing or planned water conservation and recycling projects.

California is facing its driest year on record, putting 17 communities at risk of running out of drinking water while forcing farmers in the nation's agricultural heartland to fallow fields and uproot orchards.

Assembly and Senate budget committees passed the bills a week after the package was announced by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democratic legislative leaders. Both houses of the Legislature are expected to vote on Thursday, and if Brown signs the bills, as expected, they would take effect immediately, even as a series of storms brings some relief to parts of the parched state.

AB 79 makes changes to the state's 2013-14 budget, creating grant programs for agencies and local governments to bid for project funding. Some specific projects received more funding, such as an additional $25 million in bond money for Folsom Dam modifications.

"I imagine we'd walk right into a veto if we added any earmarks," said State Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about how quickly the legislation is moving and pointed to language in AB 80 they say could affect existing water rights.

Assemblyman Richard Bloom, D-Santa Monica, countered that the package was thoughtfully put together.

Under the legislation, the State Water Resources Control Board would have new powers to issue fines for illegal diversions of water. The bill was amended in the Senate to stave off fines for unintentional diversions, calming some Republicans concerns.

Representatives of the governor's administration say existing water rights laws will not change, and that the new powers are only in effect during the state of emergency.

The legislative package also will draw $47 million from the state's general fund to provide food and housing assistance for Californians hit hardest by the drought, primarily in regions heavily dependent on agriculture.

The 2009 drought, one that was less extreme than this year’s, caused the loss of 6,000 jobs and $350 million in lost crops, Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, told Al Jazeera.

This year it has been projected that up to 10 percent of the 8 million irrigated acres in California will lie dormant, about double the amount from five years ago.

“If acreage that’s fallowed doubles, the economic impacts will probably more than double because it will move in to high-value crops,” Michael said. “I could see that $350 million could be close to $1 billion — 6,000 jobs could be 15,000 this year.”

How many jobs will be lost won’t be known until summer, when the full impact of the drought can be calculated. But everyone is expecting the worst—and if previous droughts are any indication, an estimated 15,000 jobs on farms and in farm-related industries could be wiped out.

“I think we’re frankly in uncharted territory,” Rob Lapsley, president of the California Center for Jobs and the Economy, told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press