Lying at the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers,
Sacramento is known as the “river city.” It’s a good moniker for
the rest of the region, whose communities are located in all or
parts of numerous watersheds including the Cosumnes, lower
Mokelumne and Yuba rivers, as well as the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. These rivers provide the region with much of its surface
water, but groundwater also is an important resource for many
area cities and rural landowners.
Clinton Leong, 92, of Sacramento, peered into an alley behind
his T Street home the other day to watch a city crew busy at
work. He was about to be an important footnote in Sacramento’s
water history, one of the last Sacramentans to be forced by
California to have his water use measured. Sacramento’s
opposition to the metering of water is one of the policy
cornerstones of the city. Voters in 1920 went so far as to
cement the prohibition of residential water measurement into
Sacramento’s city charter. But as the 20th Century was coming
to a close, an emerging conservation ethic was isolating a
Sacramento without water limits. The city fought back against
meters, but eventually, it was forced into measurement in 2004.
Sacramento’s opposition to water meters appears to have been a
political stunt for a single election that hung around for
decades. —Tom Philp, editorial writer and columnist with The
Sacramento Bee
