Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
January 18, 2008
1. Top Items
GAO says farmers owe feds $450 million for
Irrigation district owes millions, report finds - Contra Costa Times
Valley growers owe $497m for water projects, audit shows -
GAO says farmers owe feds $450 million for
Associated Press – 1/18/08
By Garance Burke, staff writer
The report issued Thursday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says four large irrigation contractors owe the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation nearly $450 million for building pumps and canals.
The Westlands Water District, a coalition of giant agribusinesses in the
The farmers are in the midst of negotiating a proposal with the bureau that would forgive some of the cost of building the Central Valley Project, a vast irrigation system that serves the state's most fertile farmland.
The report makes public for the first time the official size of that debt.
"Taxpayers paid for these water projects decades ago," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, one of three legislators who requested the review. "This independent audit confirms that taxpayers are still owed an awful lot of money by some of the largest private users of water in the state."
Westlands sued the bureau more than a decade ago, after a botched federal drainage project caused the death or deformation of thousands of migratory birds.
The farmers claimed federal officials reneged on their obligation to help them dispose of toxic agricultural runoff. A federal judge ruled in their favor, leaving the federal government on the hook for the cleanup.
Last spring, the government signed off on a plan to pay $2.6 billion to treat the tainted water and resolve the lawsuit.
But by summer, farmers had offered up several alternate plans in which they proposed debt forgiveness in exchange for taking on the vexing drainage problem, which has left thousands of acres of farmland too salty to grow crops.
Since 1986, the water districts have repaid just $74 million of the $497 million they owe, the GAO said. A federal act specifies that the money must be repaid by 2030.
Neither the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation nor Westlands immediately responded to requests Thursday for a response to the report.
Details of the plans under discussion last year are not public, and have occurred in closed door meetings organized by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
A spokesman for Sen. Feinstein's office did not answer specific questions and said the senator hoped to schedule another meeting between the farmers, government officials and environmental groups soon. #
Irrigation district owes millions, report finds
Contra Costa Times – 1/18/08
By Mike Taugher, staff writer
Forty years after it started farming the west
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in its first update in a decade on the debt repayment status of the Westlands Water District and several smaller irrigation districts, concluded Westlands still owes $372 million, the bulk of the $449 million owed by the districts. The debt, which dates to the late 1960s, carries no interest.
"If they were homeowners, they would be foreclosed on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, one of three lawmakers who requested the report.
The report was commissioned to help lawmakers evaluate a proposal from Westlands and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that would turn ownership of pieces of the Central Valley Project over to the water district and forgive the debt. In exchange, Westlands would develop its own drainage disposal plan and relieve the federal government of its obligation to drain irrigation water from the region.
Miller said the GAO report showed the exchange, the details of which are still in flux, would probably be a bad deal for taxpayers.
"They want more forgiveness from taxpayers," Miller said. "It's a flat-out abuse of the taxpayer."
A layer of clay that underlies most of the Westlands district inhibits drainage and causes polluted water to build up, potentially into the root zones of crops. Before the district's drain was plugged in the 1980s, the polluted water emptied into the Keterson National Wildlife Refuge, causing a wildlife disaster of deformities and deaths in birds.
Without a place to dispose of its drainage, Westlands sued and in 2000 won a court order that requires the federal government to fix the problem.
The reclamation bureau has estimated the cost of draining the land at $2.7 billion, which is why Westlands has said the exchange would be a good deal for taxpayers: the government would not have to build the expensive project.
But if the government does have to deal with the drainage problem, Westlands would have to repay that $2.7 billion, or at least a substantial portion of it, although it might be under terms highly favorable to the water district.
Frustrated by Westlands' slow repayment of the original debt, Congress in 1986 passed a law that set a 2030 deadline for Westlands and the other, smaller, west
But 22 years after that law was passed -- and 22 years before 2030 -- Westlands still has repaid just 15 percent of the total.
Westlands and the reclamation bureau say the 2030 deadline to repay the interest-free loan could be met with a balloon payment or with some other financing plan.
"There are reserves in Westlands to pay that," said district spokeswoman Sarah Woolf.
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken said the details of debt repayment fall to Westlands.
"How they do that is really up to them," McCracken said. "They are meeting their contractual obligations and they have until 2030 to repay the capital costs."
The districts' debt is for their share of the San Luis Unit, the last piece of the massive Central Valley Project, a sprawling water delivery system that began with construction of a canal from the Delta to the Contra Costa Water District in the late 1930s and 1940s.
The amounts owed by Westlands and the smaller San Luis districts are the irrigation districts' share to build San Luis Dam, a major canal, water distribution works, pump plants and other facilities.
Under a separate repayment contract, Westlands has repaid $131 million of the $179 million cost of building the water distribution system within the district, the GAO reported. #
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_8007925?nclick_check=1
Valley growers owe $497m for water projects, audit shows
By Michael Doyle, Bee
Farmers in the giant Westlands Water District and three other smaller irrigation districts south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta owe $497 million, the Government Accountability Office found. The money must be paid by 2030.
It's no surprise that the farmers owe money. They've been gradually paying it back as part of their long-term water contracts with the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
The dollar amount, though, draws attention on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are considering expensive proposals such as restoring the
On the Valley's west side, a lack of natural drainage allowed irrigation water to accumulate, creating concentrations of dangerous elements leached from soil.
"Taxpayers paid for these water projects decades ago, taxpayers paid for the cleanup of some of the projects' worst environmental consequences over the years, and now the taxpayers are still waiting to be repaid," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez.
Miller is the former chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and a longtime critic of
In 1992, Miller used earlier GAO audits in his campaign to direct more
"Drainage is needed ... because a layer of clay prevents natural drainage, trapping salt and water in the root zones of crops and reducing the region's agricultural productivity," the GAO report issued Thursday stated.
The Bureau of Reclamation estimates one drainage option would cost the government $2.7 billion, for a combination of land retirements, evaporation ponds and soil treatments. A second option would transfer responsibility to the water districts. They would fund the drainage solutions in exchange for having their construction debt forgiven.
Water district officials and state and federal representatives have been meeting to discuss irrigation drainage options, but no solution appears to be imminent. Westlands representatives could not be reached to comment Thursday.
All told, the new audit notes, the federal government spent about $3.4 billion on the
A separate proposal has been made to restore water flows and salmon population to the
Though the irrigation drainage problems primarily affect the Valley's west side and the river restoration primarily affects the east side, taken together they illustrate the scope of the water problems facing the region.
On Thursday, reflecting the ongoing river struggle, Friant Water Users Authority Chairman Kole Upton said he would not run for re-election.
"This 'Neville Chamberlain' strategy of capitulation and surrender will doom the Friant service area to 20 years of hardship and involuntary land retirement,"
Democratic Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and other Friant-area water district directors contend the river settlement is the best long-term solution, offering certainty for both fish and farmers. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/332338.html
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