Florez on water crisis


question: 
California faces a water crisis. The Delta is deteriorating. Water supplies are shrinking. But the state is also broke. How would you solve the water crisis without deepening the state's budget hole?
answer: 

I believe that supporting a comprehensive water development program that includes environmental repairs, infrastructure and conveyance improvements and new below and aboveground storage is needed to solve the water crisis.

But we certainly need to do a better job of capturing as much water as possible. This is especially important during times of heavy or extraordinary rainfall. Even if you believe in underground water storage like I do, I believe that we still need a better above ground storage capacity to capture water so that we can then move it to our underground water banks. So building dams is an important part of comprehensive water storage program, no doubt about it.

With long-term projects that will benefit our entire state, we need long term financing and I would support using long term funding, such as bond funds, as well as user fees to finance a comprehensive water solution.