[env-trinity] Another Inspector General Report Slams Illegal Irrigator Subsidies - Fish & Wildlife funds mismanaged on the Klamath and Delta

[Dan Bacher]

Good Afternoon

Here's my latest piece covering the latest Inspector General's report  
about the use of taxpayers money designated for fish and wildlife to  
instead benefit already heavily subsidized irrigators.

Thanks
Dan


http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/25/1586696/-Another-Inspector-General-Report-Slams-Illegal-Irrigator-Subsidies


The Iron Gate Dam  on the Klamath River is one of four dams slated for  
removal on the river system. Photo by Dan Bacher.

Another Inspector General Report Slams Illegal  Irrigator Subsidies -  
Fish & Wildlife funds mismanaged on the Klamath and Delta

by Dan Bacher

Has the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation become a rogue agency within the  
Department of Interior? It’s beginning to look like that, based on  
recent Inspector General reports documenting the loss of millions of  
taxpayer dollars through Reclamation mismanagement in the Klamath  
Basin and Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.


On the heels of an Inspector General (IG) audit finding that  
Reclamation has “wasted” $32.2 million in illegal payments to Klamath  
Basin irrigators, a new federal report reveals that the U.S. Bureau of  
Reclamation has cost taxpayers millions of dollars by failing to  
collect moneys owed by Klamath Basin irrigators for nearly a decade in  
a $20 million-plus project to reduce harm to federally listed fish  
caused by the Klamath Project’s main diversion canal, the “ A Canal.”

The audits have spurred calls by Public Employees for Environmental  
Responsibility (PEER) and other groups to hold individual Reclamation  
officials accountable and to reform the embattled agency.

The latest audit by the Office of Inspector General (IG) for the  
Department of Interior, dated September 27, 2016 but released this  
month, concludes that Reclamation never collected “repayment of  
millions of dollars of costs incurred to design, construct, and  
operate and maintain new head gates and fish screens” within the vast  
Klamath Project.

These gates and screens are intended to keep federally protected fish  
“in the river and out of the Klamath project irrigation canals,”  
according to the IG report.

The report from Michael P. Colombo, Western Regional Manager for  
Audits, Inspections and Evaluations, made the following  
recommendations to David Murillo, MId-Pacific Regional Director,  
Bureau of Reclamation:

We recommend that USBR:

1. Identify USBR’s total costs to design and construct the A-Canal  
head gates and fish screens;

2. Identify USBR’s total cost to operate and maintain the A-Canal head  
gates and fish screens from 2003 to 2011;

3. Promptly notify the Klamath Irrigation District of its obligation  
to repay the cost to design, construct, and operate and maintain the A- 
Canal head gates and fish screens and the total amount that must be  
repaid, as determined by USBR in Recommendations 1 and 2; and

4. Negotiate and establish a repayment contract with the Klamath  
Irrigation District to secure timely repayment of USBR’s cost to  
design, construct, and operate and maintain the A-Canal head gates and  
fish screens, as determined by USBR in Recommendations 1 and 2.

Colombo asked Murillo to provide a written response to this report  
within 30 days.

Jim McCarthy, Communications Director & Southern Oregon Program  
Manager for WaterWatch, commented on the significance of the IG’s  
report.

“Under the terms of a 1954 contract for these facilities between the  
feds and the locals, those costs should have been absorbed by  
irrigators. Indeed, according to the letter, Reclamation was advised  
by the Office of the Solicitor in 2009 that recovering these costs  
would be the appropriate action,” said McCarthy.

“Instead, Reclamation apparently did nothing to recover this  
considerable expenditure as advised. According to the IG’s letter,  
Reclamation hoped this debt could be swept under the rug in the  
Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA), which finally expired in  
2015,” said McCarthy.

In another audit report dated October 11, 2016, the IG found that  
Reclamation improperly diverted $32 million in federal funds intended  
for drought contingency planning and helping endangered coho salmon  
and sucker populations to a Klamath irrigator’s group over several  
years.

“We found that USBR did not have the legal authority to enter into the  
cooperative agreement, resulting in $32.2 million in wasted funds  
spent by KWAPA (Klamath Water and Power Agency )under the agreement,”  
wrote Mary L. Kendall, Deputy Inspector General for the Office of  
Inspector General, in the audit report.

The report found that the program had done little to help endangered  
coho salmon, Lost River suckers and shortnose suckers, as it was  
intended to do.

The Klamath Water and Power Agency was a water and power authority in  
Klamath Falls, Oregon that received water from federal water projects  
in northern California and southern Oregon. KWAPA was forced to close  
its doors on March 31, 2006 due to “disorganization” and complaints  
filed by PEER.

You can read my piece on that report here: www.counterpunch.org/…

Reclamation has not yet responded to the IG audit regarding head gates  
and fish screens,  but it disputes the IG report on the $32 million  
wasted on irrigator subsidies and “refuses to change its practices or  
recoup moneys illegally spent,” PEER said.

“Reclamation maintains that the reimbursement program has been an  
important tool in dealing with water issues in an over-allocated  
basin,” the Bureau claimed in a written statement.

Interior appears to to be disarray as these scandals unfold. This  
intra-agency dispute regarding the misspent $32 million has been  
referred to Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and  
Budget for resolution. “But that post has been vacant since 2014,”  
PEER points out.

Meanwhile, Kristen Sarri, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary,  
departed Interior on October 24 for her new position as President and  
CEO with the  National Marine Sanctuary Foundation. “Interior  
Secretary Sally Jewell has delegated her authority to respond to a  
related probe by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to the  
Commissioner of Reclamation,” according to PEER.

“It looks like the Interior Secretary is letting the inmates run the  
asylum,” stated PEER Senior Counsel Paula Dinerstein. “If the current  
Secretary will not impose adult supervision, we will urge that her  
successor commit to implementing obviously overdue reforms of the  
Bureau of Reclamation as a condition of confirmation.”

Dinerstein’s organization is representing Reclamation employees who  
are blowing the whistle on what she says are “illegal and  
environmentally tone-deaf actions by the agency.”

Dinerstein said “other shoes are also expected to drop” on  
Reclamation. These include a pending IG audit of how Reclamation is  
allowing the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to  
illegally siphon off over $60 million in funds that are supposed to  
benefit fish and wildlife to instead prepare the Environmental Impact  
Statement (EIS) for Governor Jerry Brown's controversial Delta Tunnels  
plan, a project that will principally benefit corporate agribusiness  
interests and Southern California water agencies.

Whistleblower complaints funneled through PEER also prompted this  
pending investigation.

That PEER complaint charges that:

• Those funds, over $60 million, are earmarked for fish habitat  
improvements under the authority of the Fish and Wildlife Coordination  
Act. However, they are instead being expended on work that “will harm  
critical habitat for at least five endangered and threatened fish  
species. Out of millions spent not a dime went to habitat improvements;”

• The state double-billed for work it supposedly already did with an  
earlier $50 million grant;

• And the state collected all of the federal funds when the agreement  
was executed, in violation of a 50/50 matching requirement.

The Delta Tunnels project, now called the California WaterFix by state  
and federal officials, is deeply connected to the Klamath River  
watershed. The two 35-mile long tunnels under the Delta would hasten  
the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River winter- 
run Chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other  
fish species.

The project would also imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on  
the Trinity and Klamath rivers, a fishery that for thousands of years  
has played an integral part in the culture, religion and food supply  
of the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley Tribes.

You can read my piece on the “Tunnelsgate” scandal here: www.counterpunch.org/ 
...

“The unmistakable pattern in all these investigations is that  
Reclamation is ripping off fish and wildlife assistance to further  
reward already heavily subsidized irrigators, often for activities to  
the detriment of fish and wildlife,” concluded Dinerstein. “Both  
taxpayers and the environment are utterly ill-served by current  
Reclamation policies and leaders. Fundamental change in Reclamation is  
imperative.”

To fully understand the Delta Tunnels plan, you also need to recognize  
the deep connection between the privately funded Marine Life  
Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected  
areas” in California and the California WaterFix, formerly called the  
Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). In spite of some superficial  
differences, the two processes are united by their leadership,  
funding, greenwashing goals, racism and denial of tribal rights, junk  
science and numerous conflicts of interest.

To read my report, Deep Regulatory Capture Exposed: The Links Between  
Delta Tunnels Plan & MLPA Initiative, go to: www.dailykos.com/...;

Read the latest audit report

Look at audit report on Reclamation illegal irrigator subsidies

See related Special Counsel probe

Note ongoing audit on Reclamation’s improper Delta Tunnel payments

View departure of last remaining senior Interior Policy, Management  
and Budget official 
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