I wanted to walk you through something CalMatters Housing put out recently about how the next California governor might handle water management, since this is going to matter for all of us in the Bay Area and beyond. According to CalMatters Housing, the two candidates for governor, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra, have pretty different ideas about tackling California's water challenges, which is no small thing given how climate change keeps swinging us between droughts and floods.
Here's what's on the table: California's got serious problems brewing. We're overdrawing groundwater in our agricultural regions, fish populations like salmon have crashed so badly that commercial fishing got shut down for three consecutive years, and hundreds of thousands of Californians still don't have safe, affordable drinking water. Add in land subsidence from over-pumping and aging water infrastructure, and you can see why whoever wins is inheriting a real mess.
Hilton, according to CalMatters Housing, is pushing an ambitious approach centered on building more storage and conveyance infrastructure. He wants to expand reservoirs, including supporting the controversial Sites Reservoir project up north and even raising the height of the Shasta Dam. He's also backed by analysis suggesting that achieving water abundance could cost up to $150 billion if regulatory reforms are implemented. His pitch is that California has plenty of water but poor policies have stopped us from capturing and moving it efficiently.
Becerra, on the other hand, hasn't laid out specific water proposals. According to CalMatters Housing, one water policy consultant noted that detailed plans before an election might not benefit Becerra much since he'd face criticism no matter what he proposed. Becerra is instead leaning on his background as California's attorney general during battles with the Trump administration. He's notably opposed to Newsom's Delta tunnel project, which Hilton also opposes.
The tension here is real and it matters to everyone from farmers to fishermen to city dwellers. Hilton's more comfortable pushing environmental regulations aside to prioritize agricultural and urban water supplies, while those opposing increased water diversions worry about what it means for struggling salmon and ecosystem health. The powerful Westlands Water District, which provides agriculture with massive amounts of water, has historically supported politicians willing to prioritize farm supplies.
What I am seeing locally in our Bay Area market and throughout the East Bay is that water access and long-term reliability are becoming bigger factors in how people think about property values and where they want to buy. Whether the next governor goes Hilton's route of aggressive infrastructure expansion or takes a different path, it's going to shape development patterns, agricultural viability, and community sustainability for decades to come. Sellers in regions dependent on agricultural water should be paying attention to this race, and frankly, so should anyone buying property anywhere in California.
