The Monterey Plus Amendments fundamentally alter the State Water Project by:
• eliminating the “urban preference” that prioritized water deliveries to city dwellers during drought, resulting in widespread urban water shortages and higher utility rates for Southern California ratepayers;
• illegally transferring state property in the Kern Water Bank to private entities and undermining the California Water Code by masking the purpose and place of water use;
• increasing water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, thus worsening water-quality problems and triggering the collapse of the Delta's ecosystem and fisheries;
• authorizing a new, deregulated market for buying and selling “paper water” — water promised by contract that can never realistically be delivered;
• opening the door to privatizing the publicly financed State Water Project.
