[env-trinity] Redding Record Searchlight- Tom Stokely: Water bill is bad for the north state

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.redding.com/news/2011/jun/01/tom-stokely-water-bill-is-bad-for-the-north/ 
Tom Stokely: Water bill is bad for the north state
         Tom Stokely

                  Posted June 1, 2011 at midnight

Westlands and its political allies are at it again. They want to permanently take our water. Take a stand and urge Congressman Wally Herger to oppose HR 1837.

Rep. Devin Nunes' bill entitled, The San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act (HR 1837) will be heard Thursday in the Water & Power Subcommittee of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. The bill is bad for Northern California's groundwater, farms, cities, reservoirs, fish, wildlife and rivers. Northern California politicians, regardless of party affiliation, should oppose this bill.

This bill will largely benefit junior federal water contractors — especially Westlands Water District — by giving them permanent contracts for water paid for by huge tax subsidies. Restrictions on the pumping of Northern California surface and groundwater though the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta would be basically eliminated, making it easier to deplete Shasta and Trinity reservoirs and transfer Sacramento Valley groundwater south, especially during times of drought when we need it most locally.

The authors claim these permanent water allocations are needed because of high unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley. Nunes claims this high unemployment is the result of bureaucrats out to take away "their" water because of legal restrictions designed to protect Northern California's senior water rights and heritage salmon runs. Economists' have debunked this false claim.

Those claims are part of a long-standing disinformation campaign by certain irrigators to rewrite history and move their current junior water contacts to the front of the line. They incorrectly blame water for fisheries and fishermen for unemployment that is actually the result of the housing and construction crisis, as well as fallowed acres on the San Joaquin Valley's west side because of growing soil/salt/selenium impairment.

Professor Jeffrey Michael, associate professor at the University of Pacific's Eberhardt School of Business, explains how farm job increases out-pace non-farm job increases and that the foreclosure crisis and housing crash are at the heart of the San Joaquin Valley's economic problems on his blog. More water won't produce more jobs in the San Joaquin Valley, but it will produce unemployment in northern California from the Bay-Delta northward. More water won't produce more jobs in the San Joaquin Valley, but it will produce unemployment in Northern California from the Bay-Delta northward.

There is plenty of water this year. All Central Valley Project irrigators north of the Delta and most south of the Delta received a 100 percent allocation. Only the more junior westside farmers such as Westlands got an 80 percent contract allocation, which is still their largest allocation since 1998. Despite claims to the contrary, Delta pumping restrictions currently allow more water to be pumped from the Delta than was pumped prior to 1997.

All of the water this year and the fishery protections of the past three years have resulted in reopening of California salmon sport and commercial fisheries and the return of jobs along the Sacramento River as well as up and down the West Coast. The National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies of Science performed an exhaustive review of the pumping restrictions, concluding that protections for salmon, steelhead and sturgeon were "scientifically justified." The full NRC report can be found at online here.

This ill-conceived legislation will not solve California's water crisis. HR 1837 would have disastrous impacts on the Bay-Delta, the Sacramento River salmon fishery, reservoir recreation, Sacramento Valley and Delta farms, and the prospects of making peace in California's Water Wars. It would increase water deliveries to Westlands at the expense of Sacramento Valley Central Valley Project agricultural service water contractors such as the Tehama Colusa Canal Authority, which recently filed an area-of-origin lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation for similar reasons. Water for Westlands was always intended to be limited to surplus supplies only.

The bill also removes significant barriers to water transfers from the Sacramento Valley that are part of a plan to raid the Tuscan Aquifer of its groundwater. Butte, Colusa, Glenn and Tehama counties are located above the Tuscan Aquifer, which is central to all the state and federal plans to provide more water for users south of the Bay Delta. If HR 1837 is passed, we can see a repeat of 1994, when groundwater sales brokered by the Department of Water Resources under the so-called Drought Water Bank coincided with drastic water level drops and pump strandings in numerous irrigation, domestic and municipal wells in Butte County.

Local politicians such as Congressman Wally Herger should vigorously oppose HR 1837 because it is bad for his constituents and bad for California. The answer to California's water problems is not increased water deliveries from Northern California. Instead, California's future lies with maintaining the priority of existing water rights, limiting water deliveries and public subsidies to toxic lands such as those in Westlands, as well as reduced reliance on the Delta's waters from Northern California.

Tom Stokely is water policy analyst for the California Water Impact Network. He lives in Mount Shasta.


Tom Stokely
Water Policy Analyst/Media Contact
California Water Impact Network
V/FAX 530-926-9727
Cell 530-524-0315
tstokely at att.net
http://www.c-win.org

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