[env-trinity] Fresno Bee- Funding of Sumner Peck Settlement Still in Doubt

[Tom Stokely]

CENTRAL VALLEY PROJECT
Pay source fought in water deal 
Lawmakers want to stop feds from tapping funds. 
Fresno Bee - 2/20/04
By Michael Doyle, staff writer
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration again wants to use Western water project funds to pay for a multimillion-dollar settlement with Westlands Water District farmers.

And California lawmakers, again, intend to stop the idea dead in its tracks.

Barely a year after the administration retreated in the face of a unified California congressional delegation, Interior Department officials have resurrected a proposal for paying for the Westlands land-retirement deal. For this latest $34 million round of payments, the administration proposes taking the money out of the Bureau of Reclamation's budget. This is exactly what Congress has previously ordered the administration not to do.

"We're going to fight that as much as we did last year," Mariposa Republican George Radanovich said.

The dispute involves settlement of a long-running lawsuit known as Sumner Peck v. Bureau of Reclamation. The Westlands farmers who rallied together in 1986 under the Sumner Peck name contend the government's failure to provide irrigation drainage led to the poisoning of some 34,000 selenium-laden acres. The December 2002 settlement involved the federal government agreeing to pay $107 million and the Westlands district agreeing to pay $32 million in order to retire the land from farming.

Fearing the Westlands land-retirement payments might starve some of their own favorite water projects, the California lawmakers insist the federal government's share be paid out of a Justice Department account rather than the Bureau of Reclamation's budget. It's not simply an accounting debate.

"If you take the money out of the Bureau of Reclamation, then that's less money to do things like water development," Visalia Republican Devin Nunes said Thursday. "Obviously, this has to be changed."

The Bush administration, for instance, only asked for $15 million to support California's Cal-Fed water program next year. This is half of what Congress provided this year.

Interior Department officials, though, say they are waiting for the Justice Department to complete an assessment of the law and its limitations. Until that happens, officials said Thursday, they have no choice but to tap Bureau of Reclamation funds. That plan is included in the Bush administration proposed budget issued this month.

"The Bureau of Reclamation is committed to fulfilling the terms of the Sumner Peck settlement," said Mark Limbaugh, the bureau's deputy commissioner. "We will work with the Congress and the Department of Justice to assure the agreed-upon payments will be made in full and on time."

The Justice Department asserted the money to pay for the deal could not come from the "judgment fund," which is typically used to settle federal lawsuits. Instead, Justice Department officials interpreted current U.S. law as saying the agency settling the lawsuit had to come up with the settlement money on its own.

That roiled lawmakers, particularly when the Interior Department identified which water projects would be sacrificed to pay for the settlement. Officials initially targeted studies at New Melones Reservoir, pump replacements in Placer County, San Jose water reclamation and maintenance throughout the Redding-to-Bakersfield Central Valley Project, among others.

"I'm not happy with the idea," Nunes said.

Both of California's senators and most of the state's 53 House members, Republicans and Democrats alike, warned the Interior and Justice departments last year not to use the Bureau of Reclamation funds. Congress subsequently used an annual appropriations bill to force the first $34 million payment to come from the Justice Department. Congress also revised the law governing judgments in an effort to force the Justice Department judgment fund to handle any payments more than $5 million.

Justice Department attorneys are now examining this legal restriction to determine how binding it might be as the second payment comes due this September. But Congress, Nunes said, is likely to move first with another unmistakable shot across the bow.#


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