Data Centers Win, Clean Water Loses Under Prop 43, Environmental and Water Leaders Warn

SACRAMENTO – LA Waterkeeper, the Association of California Water Agencies, Climate Resolve, the California Special Districts Association and a coalition of environmental, water and climate groups today warned that Proposition 43 would make it much harder for communities to fund clean water, open space and wildfire protection, and easier for data centers to avoid paying their share.

Prop 43 would require a two-thirds supermajority for special taxes that voters place on the ballot through citizen initiative. Today, those measures pass with a majority. That is how residents and land trusts funded safe drinking water, forest management and open space in Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties. Under Prop 43's rules, a one-third minority could block measures like those.

What environmental, water and local leaders are saying:

“Data centers are a fast-growing new demand on California’s water, and the largest facilities can strain the local systems that serve our homes,” said Bruce Reznik, Executive Director, Los Angeles Waterkeeper. “Imagine local residents putting a measure on the ballot requiring data centers to help pay for the clean water projects their demand makes urgent. Under Prop 43, that measure could fail even if nearly two-thirds of local voters said yes. As this industry grows, it should be getting easier for communities to ask data centers to pay their fair share, not harder.”

“Neighborhoods already bearing the brunt of extreme heat and flooding shouldn’t have to fight for basic protections at the ballot box,” said Enrique Huerta, Senior Director, Policy and Legislation, Climate Resolve. “Prop 43 is a surrender to climate inaction, allowing a minority to veto the urgent safety measures our communities need and deserve.”

“In the Sierra, wildfire is not a seasonal risk, it is the defining fact of life, and the forest work that keeps a spark from becoming a catastrophe gets funded one local measure at a time,” said Steve Frisch, President and CEO, Sierra Business Council. “Santa Cruz County voters chose to pay for forest management and wildfire risk reduction themselves. Prop 43 would let a one-third minority overrule that choice in every rural county in California. Our communities cannot afford to lose the one tool that lets them act before the fire instead of after it.”

“Special districts deliver the water, fire protection, parks and open space Californians count on every day, and they run on local dollars that voters approve at the ballot box,” said Neil McCormick, CEO, California Special Districts Association. “When a majority of a community votes to protect its own watershed or fund its own fire crews, that decision should count. Prop 43 would let one-third of voters override the other two-thirds, and the districts closest to the ground would feel it first. Vote no on Prop 43.”

Two measures show what is at stake:

Santa Cruz County Measure Q (November 2024) funds safe drinking water, clean beaches, forest management and wildfire risk reduction with an $87 parcel tax, about $7.5 million a year. Three land trusts put it on the ballot by petition, and it passed with 60.2 percent.

Santa Clara County Measure D (June 2026) funds open space, clean water and wildfire protection, about $17 million a year. The Peninsula Open Space Trust wrote it and gathered more than 43,000 signatures to qualify it, and it passed with 55.3 percent.

Under Prop 43, a measure like Q or D would need two-thirds of the vote. Both would have been blocked.

The damage would last for years

Prop 43 does not reach back to measures already decided. Its harm falls on what comes next:

• New climate measures. Voter-led funding for clean water, urban greening, extreme heat and wildfire resilience would face the same bar, including a parks initiative already filed in the City of Los Angeles.

• Who pays. As data centers expand from the Imperial Valley to Silicon Valley, the tool communities would use to make them pay their share would be much harder to use.
  
  

Background:

California is on track to have more than 300 data centers. A single large facility can use a million gallons of water a day, as much as 10,000 people use at home, according to University of California, Riverside research. Disclosure laws signed last month do not pay for a single pipe, pump or fire crew. Today, a majority of local voters can decide that the biggest water and power users in their community should help pay for clean water and wildfire protection. Prop 43 takes that decision away from the majority. The corporations funding Prop 43 are the ones that would otherwise be asked to pay their share.

Environmental, water and climate organizations opposing Prop 43

• 350 Bay Area Action

• Asian Pacific Environmental Network Action

• Association of California Water Agencies

• Beverly-Vermont Community Land Trust

• California Community Land Trust Network

• California Environmental Justice Alliance

• California Park & Recreation Society

• California Special Districts Association

• Californians Against Waste

• Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund

• Clean Water Action

• Climate Resolve

• Communities for a Better Environment

• Greenbelt Alliance

• LA Waterkeeper

• Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability

• Mountain View Community Land Trust

• San Diego 350

• San Francisco Community Land Trust

• Save the Bay Action Fund

• Sierra Business Council

• South Bay Community Land Trust

• Sunrise Movement Los Angeles

• Tierras Indígenas Community Land Trust

• T.R.U.S.T. South LA
  
  

The full coalition is listed at noprop43ca.com/our-coalition.