PD Editorial: The new general in state’s water wars

There’s an old saying in the West that whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting.

As the state’s next water resources director, Grant Davis will be on the front lines of California’s water wars.

Davis, the general manager of the Sonoma County Water Agency since 2010, was tapped 10 days ago by Gov. Jerry Brown to head an agency with a $3.2 billion budget and responsibility for one of the world’s largest water delivery systems, serving more than 25 million people, businesses and farms as well as wetlands, wildlife habitat and other natural resources.

The competing interests and shifting alliances awaiting Davis if - as expected - he is confirmed by the state Senate are almost as complicated as the web of dams, reservoirs and canals that move water around the state.

Besides the long-running feuds between North and South, farmers and fisherman, the Delta and the Valley and a complicated hierarchy of water rights that dates to the Gold Rush, there are burgeoning clashes over groundwater, dams, conservation and recycling.

House Republicans, meanwhile, are scheming to usurp California’s authority over its own water supply.

As if that isn’t challenging enough, emergency repairs at Oroville Dam must be completed before winter rains renew the threat of a catastrophic failure.

Davis isn’t a stranger to political challenges.

While steering Northern California’s largest wholesale water agency, he had to manage dams and diversions to meet the needs of 600,000 users while leaving enough water in the Russian River and its tributaries to protect endangered salmon; develop a groundwater monitoring system; and balance the competing and sometimes conflicting interests of agency contractors.

Along the way, he made a priority of greenhouse gas reduction and pressed the ?U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to adopt modern weather modeling techniques in place of the outdated management protocols that curtailed water storage at Lake Mendocino and exacerbated the impacts of the drought.

The Water Agency under Davis also was instrumental in the creation of Sonoma Clean Power, which now provides greener, less-?expensive electricity for nearly 200,000 homes and businesses in Sonoma and Mendocino counties.

In Sacramento, he will be a point man for one of Brown’s legacy projects - twin tunnels, 30 miles long and 40 feet in diameter, to divert Sacramento River water before it reaches the Delta to the canals servicing Central Valley farms and Southern California cities.

Davis says he favors the ?$17 billion project, formally known as the California WaterFix. We remain opposed, but we’re encouraged that someone with Davis’ record of supporting strong protections for San Francisco Bay and the Delta will be on the inside.

California is in the midst of a record water year. It’s a welcome respite, but it’s also time to prepare for the next drought. In Davis’ new job, that’s likely to mean leaving the whiskey drinking to others while the fights about water roll on.