[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 11/6/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

November 6, 2008

 

3. Watersheds –

 

 

Opinion:

TAL CLOUD: San Joaquin settlement not worth the risk

Fresno Bee – 11/6/08

By Tal Cloud

 

Tal Cloud is president of Sunburst in Fresno and Families Protecting the Valley, protectthevalley.org. Cloud can be reached via e-mail at tal@paperconverter.com.

 

If the San Joaquin settlement becomes law, it could force more than 300,000 eastside acres out of production and may cost more than a billion dollars to implement. It would bring the cost of water to well above $100 per acre foot. In short water years, it would even require farmers to pay for water with a risk of no water delivery.

Irrigation district managers may tell you that it is better to settle this lawsuit now rather than risk going back to court. This might be true if we were still dealing with the "original" settlement that was signed in September of 2006, which included the water management goal (recirculation of water from the Delta to our counties), and equal priority given to the restoration goal. The original bill required the federal government to pay for the improvements required to move more water down river channels.

 

The original settlement between Natural Resources Defense Council and Friant turned out to be a ruse, which allowed NRDC to gain a legal position to extract more water for fish.

 

With three lawsuits filed against Central Valley water rights since the original settlement was adopted in 2006, we have no certainty that more suits will not be filed to increase water flows for salmon. In one such lawsuit, Judge Oliver Wanger reduced pumping in the Delta and ended any possibility that recirculation could be part of the settlement.

 

This means water will run down the San Joaquin River to the ocean, lost forever. This is different from the 2006 agreement, which allowed for the water to be recirculated back to Friant for use on farms and in cities, achieving the second component of the settlement: the water management goal.

 

The Wanger decision mandates that pumping out of the Delta will be reduced from January to June to the San Luis reservoir.

 

If this ruling stays in effect, in critically dry years the exchange contractors could be forced to call on their historical water rights. Friant could lose 800,000 acre feet of the water that farmers have relied on in the past.

 

The settlement will give away 250,000 acre feet of water with no assurance that farmers would not lose future water because of Wanger-type rulings. The current bill calls for no federal funding but will require the federal government to turn the San Joaquin River into a cold water fishery even though NRDC'S own report "In Hot Water" indicates that the water from behind Friant Dam is too warm to support a viable salmon population.

 

Passing this federal legislation would set a historic precedent that would require additional water to be sent down the San Joaquin River if the 500 prescribed salmon do not return.

 

Senate Bill 27 is set to return to the Senate on Nov. 17 for final markup before going to the House for a vote. Reps. Jim Costa and George Radanovich are sponsors of this bill, even though they say they oppose the removal of the funding and the fact that recirculation is not possible in the current bill.

With no scientific proof that salmon will live in a warm water river like the San Joaquin, why are we willing to set a historical precedent when we could go back to court and fight for a sound and comprehensive water policy?

 

The detrimental effect of this folly will be further exacerbated by the method the Bureau of Reclamation has arbitrarily chosen to assign water losses. Friant contractors will be required to supply restoration flows based on their total contract supply rather than what they have historically received.

This results in those contractors having large Class 2 water contracts (Fresno Irrigation District, Tulare Irrigation District, Madera Irrigation District, Gravelly Ford Irrigation District, Arvin-Edison Water District, Chowchilla Water District and Lower Tule Irrigation District) suffering disproportionately larger losses than the Class 1 districts. These Class 2 districts represent 67.2% of the Friant service area.

 

If you live in the Friant service area, you should contact your local Friant District board members and ask them how they voted on the settlement in 2006. Ask how they plan to vote in the next few days on the updated settlement that includes all of these amendments.

 

The amended settlement includes no recirculation, no federal funding, no certainty of capping water losses, farmers paying for water in years without deliveries and priority of funding to downstream exchange contractors before any funding in the Friant service area. #

http://www.fresnobee.com/287/story/991211.html

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

DWR's California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff, for information purposes, by the DWR Public Affairs Office. For reader's services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news. DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of California.