Seventy-four percent of the state’s likely voters believe
passage of an $11.1 billion water bond in November is
”
very important
”
or
”
somewhat important,
”
according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of
California.
McClatchy News Service
Seventy-four percent of the state’s likely voters believe passage of an $11.1 billion water bond in November is “very important” or “somewhat important,” according to a new poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Nineteen percent said the bond was “not too important” or “not at all important,” while an additional 7 percent said they didn’t know.
The numbers, released late Wednesday, are the first indication since legislators passed the bond in November of how likely Californians are to accept more debt despite the bad economy. The bond would pay for new water storage, water recycling and groundwater cleanup, and environmental projects in the Delta, among many other things.
More than half of likely voters agree that water is a “big problem,” although when asked which of the state’s many issues was the most important, water lags behind jobs and the economy (61 percent), the state budget (13 percent), education (5 percent), health care (4 percent), immigration (3 percent) and government reform (2 percent).
While the institute numbers show support for a bond, an earlier poll by an advocacy group suggested otherwise.
Restore the Delta commissioned its own poll in August and found that 48 percent of voters said they would “oppose a bond for new dams, reservoirs and other water infrastructure that would cost the general fund approximately $700 million per year in debt service.” Forty-four percent of the voters in that poll said they would support a bond.
The Public Policy Institute has endorsed a peripheral canal as the best way to balance the state’s water supply with the needs of the Delta ecosystem.
The canal, however, must be paid for by water users and is not part of the $11.1 billion bond.
