[env-trinity] Redding Record Searchlight Editorial: On water bill, Herger stands with enviros

[Tom Stokely]

Editorial: On water bill, Herger stands with enviros

http://www.redding.com/news/2011/jun/18/editorial-on-water-bill-herger-stands-with/ 

It's a political event rarer than a green-sturgeon sighting: Rep. Wally Herger this week lined up with his usual nemeses at the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental groups and against a farm-friendly water bill promoted by some of his fellow House Republicans from California.

That bill — the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act, sponsored by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare — had already drawn widespread opposition from environmentalists and fishing groups. The measure would boost water supplies to San Joaquin Valley farms primarily at the expense of set-asides for California's ailing fisheries, which motivated the environmental outcry. In the process, though, it would also put the north state's senior water rights at risk and generally topple California's tenuously balanced water-priority system. Both of California's Democratic senators — including Dianne Feinstein, no foe of agriculture — also opposed it.

Herger? Until Wednesday, he'd taken no official stand. Loyalty to GOP colleagues and Herger's philosophy that resources should be put to productive use would argue in favor, but his own district's direct interests pulled in the other direction.

In the end, the hometown voters won. Herger announced that even as he shared Nunes' goal of getting more water to farms, Nunes' bill "would negatively impact Northern California water rights and preempt state water law. As I have long stated, California's area of origin protections are clear and unambiguous — our water needs must be met first, before excess water is allowed to flow south."

He added that any bill to address Central and Southern California's problems "must fully protect and respect Northern California's superior water rights." Amen.

In a divided Congress, Nunes' bill is likely to go nowhere, but the larger lesson is that when it comes to water, north state residents share tremendous common interests that transcend our neighborhood squabbles. Farmers who need orchard irrigation, fishing guides who rely on thriving salmon and steelhead, and city dwellers who just want to keep their lawns green — all would lose if misguided laws bumped the Sacramento Valley from its place at the front of the line.

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