California Water Alliance Issues Statement Supporting GROW Act
Today, the California Water Alliance, a statewide water-policy non-profit organization, released its statement concerning this week’s U.S. House of Representatives floor debate and vote on H.R.-23, The Gaining Responsibility on Water (GROW) Act of 2017:
The California Water Alliance (CalWA) urges members of the House of Representatives to support and vote for passage on The Gaining Responsibility on Water (GROW) Act of 2017 by Representative David Valadao (R-Hanford).
“Six years of epic statewide drought followed by a record wet year have stressed California’s dams, levees and other infrastructure to the point of collapse,” said Aubrey Bettencourt, Executive Director.
“Decades of deferred projects and neglect of facilities have crippled our state’s water supply, distribution system and its capability of protecting Californians from floods,” Bettencourt continued. “All these failures have critically impacted California’s water quality and reliability for all water uses – communities, farms, and environmental protection.”
She added, “More than a million people are forced to drink unsafe water known to be laced with harmful pollutants and contaminants, ranging from arsenic and lead to radioactive uranium and hexavalent chromium-6.”
“California is failing our state’s environment, its endangered and threatened species, its critical habitats and its wildlife, amphibians and fish. The promises offered by Gov. Jerry Brown while promoting the Proposition 1 Water Bond in 2014 have not been realized, and our situation is now even more dire.”
“In the past six years, alarming changes have befallen our state, including massive land subsidence caused by cessation of surface water deliveries, wildlife refuges gone dry and dead, vast mortality of salmon and steelhead and the worst water quality ever recorded in our state,” she enumerated.
“With our water supply faltering, the time to act is now rather than sometime years in the future,” Bettencourt went on. “H.R.-23, the GROW Act, authored by Rep. David Valadao and co-sponsored by 14 bipartisan members of Congress, is another important bill to help fix California’s water problems.”
“The California Water Alliance urges members to vote in favor of this bill to improve California’s ability to withstand drought, protect our water supply, and help improve both the reliability and quality of our water,” she concluded.
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About the California Water Alliance
The California Water Alliance is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the nature of water and promoting long-term, sustainable solutions that meet the health and security needs of families, cities, businesses, farmers and the environment. To learn more, visit www.CaliforniaWaterAlliance.org.