Some troubling news from Sacramento for Sheep Creek Water Company customers.\u00a0 Three bills currently making the rounds in the legislature – AB 1337, AB 460, and SB 389, all are aimed at curtailing and\/or giving the state more power over pre-1914 water rights.\u00a0 The water rights that SCWC has up in the canyon are indeed pre-1914 water rights, which have been considered very, very strong.\u00a0 So this move would give the state power to force Sheep Creek to ramp down production, most prominently during a time of water shortage, but theoretically at other times too.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, at the moment the company is nowhere close to pulling it’s full 3000 acre-foot allowance from the canyon.\u00a0 That has been the case for a while, ever since the state placed a compliance order and the moratorium on the company.\u00a0 That said, this is clearly a move to continue to centralize power of water resources with the state.\u00a0 California’s government does not have a good relationship with mutual water companies; they would definitely prefer if mutual water companies all went away.\u00a0 These bills will go a long way to make that more possible, and possibly endanger Sheep Creek’s very existence in a few years.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/calmatters.org\/commentary\/2023\/06\/water-rights-legislative-proposals-advance\/?mc_cid=2bbd438cc3<\/p>\n
Although advocates contend that the bills would merely give the water board much-needed managerial tools, a coalition of water districts and agricultural groups see them as a prelude to the wholesale abrogation of their water rights. The board could gain the \u201cpotential to strip public agencies of water rights that have been used to sustain communities for decades,\u201d with decrees of \u201carbitrary outcomes,\u201d they wrote in an opposition letter.<\/p>\n
All three measures, Assembly Bill 1337<\/a>, Assembly Bill 460<\/a> and Senate Bill 389<\/a>, survived initial floor votes but the political battle is just beginning. Their fate could rest in Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s hands as powerful interests clash over a bedrock issue \u2013 who prevails when there\u2019s not enough water to meet all demands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(h\/t Cheryl Rhoden for this news)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some troubling news from Sacramento for Sheep Creek Water Company customers.\u00a0 Three bills currently making the rounds in the legislature – AB 1337, AB 460, and SB 389, all are aimed at curtailing and\/or giving the state more power over pre-1914 water rights.\u00a0 The water rights that SCWC has up in the canyon are indeed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-waternews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}