The folks we elect and send to Sacramento had a strange, out-of-body experience this week. Democrats, Republicans and those somewhere in between agreed on a massive statewide water management plan.

It wasn't a simple process. For one thing, the process began many years ago, when it became abundantly clear that California's water demands had gone far beyond its ability to supply water. This week, the Legislature met all day, and then all night, hammering out a compromise package of five water bills.

The package will require voter approval, which is anything but a certainty these days. The vote likely will occur a year from now. Between now and then, be warned that you will be bombarded with valid reasons to support an $11 billion bond issue, and compelling arguments why you should not support the measure.

Here's what the package of bills approved by the Legislature would do - establish a statewide process for measuring if too much water is being pumped out of the ground; mandate a 20-percent reduction in our per-person water use by 2020; and create a new political entity to oversee management of the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta, the very heart of California's water supply.

It has been a half-century since lawmakers made any substantive decisions about statewide water management, so this latest agreement is, indeed, historic. It's also California's biggest stab at coming to grips with the reality that old ways of dealing with water issues and rights are gone.

There are a few things to keep in mind as we embark on this next water adventure. And these factors are sure to be at the center of the debate.

First, there is cost. The proposal is for $11 billion in bonds, which would be sold in increments, but which would still be a financial big gulp. Just the interest alone on such borrowing would amount to between $600 million and $800 million a year. To retire such a debt, taxpayers would ultimately be on the hook for about $25 billion. That's the big-gulp part.

Certain factions - mostly political - will be looking at that massive debt, and think to themselves, shouldn't we be spending that money on education, infrastructure, stuff like that? You also will likely hear from government employee unions that such huge sums of money might be better used for salaries and benefits.

Other factions likely to be sounding off include water users outside the Delta's sphere of political influence. How will this deal affect their access to water?

And then there will be a group protesting the earmarks written into the five water bills. There is, for example, a $100 million expense for cleaning up water pollution in Lake Tahoe, written into the package at the request of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and left in by lawmakers who surmise that such a cleanup would earn votes.

Lake Tahoe, however, is on the other side of the hill from the Delta, and any cleanup would also directly benefit the state of Nevada, whose officials, as far as we can determine, have expressed zero interest in helping their neighbor defray cleanup costs. Are Californians really prepared to fork over $100 million to help Nevada?

A close examination of the package of bills will likely reveal a considerable amount of pork - which is only pork if the benefit does not directly affect you - a fact that will be used in the heavy lobbying against passage of the bond measure.

California has, without doubt, old and inadequate plumbing. It has to be fixed, or our water problems will only get worse. Perhaps as part of the debate over the next 12 months, there could also be some discussion of viable alternatives, one of which might be the desalting of sea water.