Governor Schwarzenegger is renewing his call to build new dams in California. Likely sites include one on the west side of the Sacramento Valley and on the San Joaquin River east of Fresno. Monday at Friant dam, Schwarzenegger said the controversial projects are necessary to contend with a growing population and threats to the water supply such as earthquakes, storms and a melting Sierra snowpack:
Schwarzenegger : We need desperately above-the-ground water storage, and so we're going to go through that with the legislature with democrats and republicans, and as you've heard, it's not a democratic issue or republican issue. When you drink water, there's no democratic water or republican water -- it's just water.
Critics of the Governor's $6 billion water plan say the state could find more cost-effective ways to meet its water needs -- for example, through conservation.
