The California public understands the severity of the lack of water (the drought is natural, the lack of water is government policy). During the Schwarzenegger years we voted for water bonds, to help build new water storage facilities—none have been built, but the money is being spent. Thanks to lawsuits, courts have used environmental laws to stop the building of dams. Last year we voted for $7.5 billion in water bonds, with money going towards dams. Jerry Brown allocated the first five hundred million of that, with not a dime going to dams—he lied to us. Why be subtle.
“When asked about letting the state government bypass environmental regulations protecting fish and the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta regions if residential or agricultural water users face serious shortages, 50 percent would give the state that power, with 46 percent are opposed, the survey says.
These results are similar to previous Field Poll measures on the topic conducted last year and in 1987.”
It does not matter what the people think, want or need. The Democrats will tease us with dams, then get bond money for special interest projects, mostly buying more wetlands and taking farm land our of circulation. Bait and switch—downright lies. This is why we need to vote NO on all bonds—why give government money when they lie about how they will spend it?
Growing concern about water storage and supply in California
Central Valley Business Times, 2/26/15
• Ready to toss environmental protections for Delta
• Survey shows support for storage facilities on government parklands and forest reserves.
Virtually all California voters appear to recognize the state’s ongoing water shortage with nearly 19 out of 20 voters (94 percent) describing the drought as serious, with 68 percent saying it is extremely serious, according to as recent survey by the Field Poll, which was released Thursday.
In 1977 when the state was in the midst of another long-term drought, fewer (51 percent) felt the situation was extremely serious.
But to enjoy more water, half of Californians would dump protections for the Delta and its fish and wildlife, the survey finds.
When asked about letting the state government bypass environmental regulations protecting fish and the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta regions if residential or agricultural water users face serious shortages, 50 percent would give the state that power, with 46 percent are opposed, the survey says.
These results are similar to previous Field Poll measures on the topic conducted last year and in 1987.
There are big differences in voter opinions about this across the major regions of the state. In the Central Valley, a 61 percent majority favors allowing the state to bypass these environmental regulations if farmers and residents face serious shortages. By contrast, voters in the San Francisco Bay Area oppose this idea nearly two to one (64 percent to 33 percent).
Just one in ten voters (10 percent) believe state water storage and supply facilities are more than adequate to meet the needs of California, while more than four times as many (43 percent) say the state’s existing water storage and supply facilities are inadequate. Another 38 percent think they are just barely adequate.
By comparison, in the 1980’s the proportion of Californians who described the state’s water storage and supply facilities as inadequate averaged 24 percent.
The Field Poll also finds that by a 51 percent to 38 percent margin voters support the idea of relaxing government restrictions on developing new water storage and supply facilities on government parklands and forest reserves.
In addition, by a 61 percent to 34 percent margin, voters continue to favor voluntary cut backs in water use over having the state impose mandatory rationing on users, although the proportion favoring mandatory rationing has increased seven points since last year.
Drilling into the numbers
While there is widespread acknowledgment of the seriousness of the water shortage across all regions of the state, concerns are greatest among voters in the Central Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area, and other parts of Northern California, the Field Poll says.
During the 1976-77 period California experienced the most severe drought in modern history. In a Field Poll survey conducted during the midst of that drought, half of the public (51 percent) described the state’s water shortage as extremely serious. By comparison, today more Californians view the current water shortage as extremely serious (68 percent) than did so four decades ago.
Only one in ten (10 percent) Californians now describe the state’s existing water storage and supply facilities as more than adequate to meet the needs of the state. More than four times as many (43 percent) think they are inadequate, while another 38 percent describe them as just barely adequate.
The number of voters who considers state water storage and supply facilities inadequate has nearly doubled from the proportions who felt this way the last two times The Field Poll posed this question in the 1980’s.
While there is widespread concern about the adequacy of California’s water storage and supply facilities in every region of the state, voters living in Central Valley, the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area and other parts of Northern California are more likely to believe they are inadequate.
Methodological Details
The findings are based on a Field Poll completed Jan. 26-Feb. 16 among 1,241 registered voters in California. Interviews were administered by telephone using live interviewers in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin and Vietnamese. In order to cover a broad range of issues and minimize voter fatigue, some of the questions are based on random subsamples of either 521 or 602 registered voters.
The survey included supplemental interviews among the state’s rapidly growly Asian American voter populations with funding provided by Professor Karthick Ramakrishnan of the University of California, Riverside as part of the National Asian American Survey project.
Individual voters were sampled at random from listings derived from the statewide voter registration rolls. The supplemental sample of Asian Americans was developed from voter listings targeting Chinese Americans, Vietnamese Americans and Korean Americans in California based primarily on their ethnic surnames. Once a voter’s name and telephone number had been selected, interviews were attempted with voters on their landline or cell phone depending on the source of the listing from the voter file and the preference of the voter. Up to six attempts were made to reach, screen and interview each randomly selected voter on different days and times of day during the interviewing period. After the completion of interviewing, the sample was weighted to align it to the proper distribution of voters by race/ethnicity and other demographic, geographic and party registration characteristics of the state’s registered voter population.
Sampling error estimates applicable to the results of any probability-based survey depend on sample size and the percentage distributions being examined. The maximum sampling error for results from the overall registered voter sample is +/- 3.2 percentage points, while the maximum sampling error for findings from the random subsample is +/- 4.1 percentage points. These estimates are based on survey findings in the middle of the sampling distribution (i.e., results at or near 50 percent). Percentages at or near either end of the tail of the distributions (i.e., results closer to 10 percent or 90 percent) have somewhat smaller margins of error. There are other potential sources of error in surveys of public opinion besides sampling error. However, the overall design and execution of this survey sought to minimize these other possible errors.
The Field Poll was established in 1947 as The California Poll by Mervin Field, who is still an active advisor. The Poll has operated continuously since then as an independent, non-partisan survey of California public opinion. The Field Poll receives financial support from leading California media properties, the University of California and California State University systems, who receive the data files from each Field Poll survey shortly after its completion for teaching and secondary research purposes, as well as from foundations, non-profit organizations, and others as part of the Poll’s policy research sponsor program.
The specific “foundations, non-profit organizations and others” that might have financially supported this poll were not identified.
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