[env-trinity] Fresno Bee Editorial San Joaquin Settlement

[Byron Leydecker]

Editorial:

River settlement closer

Congressional OK would be hard to swallow for ag, but it's necessary.

Fresno Bee - 11/12/08

 

 

The 20-year struggle to resolve the question of San Joaquin River
restoration may be nearing the finish line. Federal legislation essential to
the effort appears headed for a vote, either in the lame-duck session of
Congress now under way, or by the new Congress early next year. 

 

It's not a solution that pleases everyone, but it is in everyone's best
interests to settle this issue and move on. 

 

The legislation grew out of a settlement of a case brought by
environmentalists in 1988. The suit charged that construction of Friant Dam
illegally diverted water needed to maintain historic salmon runs in the
river. 

 

Farmers and water agencies in the Valley reached a settlement in the case
that will reduce water for farming as it restores the flow of the river in
an effort to bring the salmon back. But they feared they might lose even
more if the case ended up being decided by a judge. 

 

The settlement requires federal approval and funding. The money was the
hang-up over the past two years, as many in Congress balked over the $250
million price tag. 

 

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who sponsored the Senate version of the
legislation and worked to sort out the knotty details, rewrote the bill to
provide $88 million in guaranteed river restoration funding. That helped
break the logjam, but it means the balance of restoration funds must be
sought in future years. 

 

This has been a difficult two-decade passage. It might have saved everyone a
great deal of costly litigation if Friant Dam hadn't been built and water
diverted from the river. 

 

But then a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy wouldn't have grown up
and down the east side of the Valley. Dozens of small communities rely on
the farms that are supplied by water from behind Friant Dam, and there are
plenty of anxieties about what will happen if that water is restored to the
river. 

 

In this case the law was clearly on the side of the environmentalists, and
there was every indication that the courts would have ordered even more
water restored to the river if the case had proceeded. It is galling to many
in agriculture, but the settlement is almost certainly the best deal they
could get. 

 

The restoration bill has bipartisan support in Congress, in addition to
Feinstein, from Reps. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, Jim Costa, D-Fresno,
and Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, although Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, who
represents much of the Valley's east side, has been a persistent foe. 

 

It may not feel that good, but it's better than the alternative.

 

 

Byron Leydecker, JCT

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810

415 519 4810 cell

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary)

http://fotr.org 

 <mailto:bwl3 at comcast.net>  

 

 

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