California can invest in climate resilience now, or Bay Area can pay price later

“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way,” John Steinbeck wrote in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

California’s climate is enjoying a rich spell.

We’ve been blessed with two consecutive wet years. Our reservoirs are mostly full and the horrors of the 2017-2021 drought-fueled wildfire seasons are fading. Yet we can’t let this brief good fortune lull us into complacency. A changing climate means drought and wildfire are always lurking.

The time to prepare is now. We do that by passing Proposition 4 on the November ballot.

The Bay Area economy is significantly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

Seven of California’s most destructive wildfires burned either directly in the Bay Area or in our immediate vicinity, destroying thousands of homes while filling the sky with toxic smoke. The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season wiped away emission reductions California made over nearly 20 years. During an 11-year period, exposure to wildfire smoke caused more than 50,000 deaths in California and more than $400 billion in economic impacts.

The Bay Area’s water system is highly dependent on climate-fickle surface water; very little comes from drought-resilient sources like recycled water and desalination. This summer, state water officials warned advancing climate change could cause a reduction in deliveries from the State Water Project by nearly a quarter over the next 20 years. This scarcity will strain 27 million Californians, including about 30% of the Bay Area; 750,000 acres of farmland; and thousands of businesses statewide.

Perhaps most concerning, the San Francisco Bay is expected to rise 13 inches by 2050, threatening 59 miles of highways, 48 miles of freight railway lines, 20 miles of passenger rail lines, 780 acres of seaports, and 30 wastewater treatment plants, among other critical infrastructure. A major storm event could inflict $10.4 billion in damages to our region’s economy under today’s sea levels.

The Bay Area cannot lead in the 21st century if we cannot provide clean and reliable water supplies to our employers, or if our economy is regularly hobbled by wildfire smoke and sewage failures from increasingly high tides.

Proposition 4 provides $10 billion to make strategic investments in our most pressing climate challenges — preventing wildfires, providing safe drinking water, and strengthening our resilience to drought and rising sea levels.

To prevent wildfires and toxic smoke, Proposition 4 provides $1.5 billion to create fire breaks near communities, improve forest health, support specialized firefighting equipment, and deploy early detection and response systems. To protect safe drinking water access, it provides $3.8 billion to prevent or treat groundwater contaminants, recharge aquifers, recycle wastewater, and restore watersheds. Proposition 4 also provides $1.2 billion to confront rising seas, including matching dollars for the Bay Area’s highly successful wetland restoration and flood protection initiative began under Measure AA in 2016.

The longer we wait to act, the greater the consequences and costs. Proposition 4 gives us a chance to invest in proven solutions now to prevent paying more for natural disasters later.

Skeptics contend California cannot afford Proposition 4. Yet, the most recent analysis from California’s State Treasurer pegs California’s debt levels at near 20-year lows . Much better to invest in rationally reducing our climate risks upfront than to pay for an erratic piecemeal system of ad hoc disaster response.

With Proposition 4, we can invest to increase our climate resilience at scale and protect our communities and economy while keeping down long-term costs for taxpayers.

Jim Wunderman is president and CEO of the Bay Area Council.