Drought Budget Trailer Bills

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The measures that CLFP and the coalition are opposed to include:

• Public Well Logs. This proposal would make well construction reports, including altered, abandoned or destroyed well reports (well logs) available to the public.  Well logs are already required to be submitted to the Department of Water Resources and are available to the appropriate public agencies.  No beneficial purpose could be gained by making this confidential data available to the public.  The coalition has proposed amendments to existing law to assist those few that could benefit from access to the data for water quality purposes, but do not currently have access.
  
  
• Drought Expanded Local Enforcement Authority. This proposal gives local agencies the authority to assess a $10,000 fine for a violation of a water conservation ordinance.  CLFP believes that a progressive enforcement and penalty schedule must be spelled out to reflect fairness for those receiving municipal water supplies, particularly food processors that must use these water supplies during the harvest season and meet public health standards set forth in the Health and Safety Code.  It does not seem likely that the governor intended a $10,000 fine to be assessed for the first potentially minor offense of watering on the wrong day.
  
  
• Drought Monitoring and Reporting. CLFP believes this measure is unnecessary and overreaching. Current provisions in the Water Code already address the importance of reporting and monitoring.  A blanket grant of essentially unlimited authority to the State Water Board to adopt even more burdensome reporting and monitoring requirements via emergency regulations with little public process is not justified.

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