[env-trinity] President Obama Signs Water Bill With Big Ag 'Poison Pill' Rider

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/16/1611898/-President-Obama-Signs-Water-Bill-With-Big-Ag-Poison-Pill-Rider



President Obama Signs Water Bill With Big Ag 'Poison Pill' Rider

by Dan Bacher

In a slap in the face to fishermen, Tribes, environmental justice  
advocates, conservationists and family farmers, President Obama on  
Friday signed the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation  
(WIIN) Act into law with its environmentally destructive Big Ag rider  
sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Congressman Kevin  
McCarthy (R-CA).

The controversial rider in the bill, opposed by retiring Senator  
Barbara Boxer, taints an otherwise good bill that sponsors water  
projects across the nation. The last minute rider, requested by  
corporate agribusiness interests, allows San Joaquin Valley growers  
and Southern California water agencies to pump more water out of the  
Delta, driving Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central  
Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other  
fish species closer and closer to extinction, according to Delta  
advocates.

The addition of the Big Ag rider to the bill caused a bitter rift  
between Boxer, one of the bill’s original sponsors, and Feinstein.

Also known as the Water Resources Development Act of 2016, the bill  
authorizes water projects across the country to restore watersheds,  
improve waterways and flood control, and improve drinking water  
infrastructure, according to President Obama in his signing statement.  
The law also authorizes $170 million for communities facing drinking  
water emergencies, including funding for Flint, Michigan, to recover  
from the lead contamination in its drinking water system.

“WINN also includes four Indian water rights settlements that resolve  
long-standing claims to water and the conflicts surrounding those  
claims, address the needs of Native Communities, fulfill the Federal  
trust responsibility to American Indians, and provide a sound base for  
greater economic development for both the affected tribes and their  
non-Indian neighbors,” said Obama.

In addressing the controversial rider in the bill (Title III, Subtitle  
J) that supposedly addresses drought in California by allowing  
agribusiness interests to pump more water from the Delta, Obama warned  
against “misttating or incorrectly reading” Subtitle J’s provisions.

“Title III, Subtitle J, also includes short term provisions governing  
operations of the federal and state water projects under the  
Endangered Species Act for up to five years, regardless of drought  
condition,” said Obama. “Building on the work of previous  
Administrations, my Administration has worked closely with the State  
of California and other affected parties to address the critical  
elements of California's complex water challenges by accommodating the  
needs and concerns of California water users and the important species  
that depend on that same water. This important partnership has helped  
us achieve a careful balance based on existing state and federal law.  
It is essential that it not be undermined by anyone who seeks to  
override that balance by misstating or incorrectly reading the  
provisions of Subtitle J.”

Obama also claimed the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would continue to  
be applied and implemented.

“Consistent with the legislative history supporting these provisions,  
I interpret and understand Subtitle J to require continued application  
and implementation of the Endangered Species Act, consistent with the  
close and cooperative work of federal agencies with the State of  
California to assure that state water quality standards are met. This  
reading of the short-term operational provisions carries out the  
letter and spirit of the law and is essential for continuing the  
cooperation and commitment to accommodating the full range of complex  
and important interests in matters related to California water,” Obama  
concluded.

Senator Boxer challenged the claim by Obama and bill supporters that  
the ESA would continue to be applied and implemented when she spoke  
out strongly against the bill on the Senator Floor last week. Boxer  
called  the rider a “devastating maneuver” and a “poison pill”  
designed to undermine the Endangered Species Act by changing the  
restrictions on the amount and time that water could be delivered to  
agricultural districts, including the Westlands Water District, in the  
southern San Joaquin Valley.

Under federal biological opinions, NOAA Fisheries biologists have  
determined flows to protect endangered and threatened species,  
including winter-run Chinook salmon and Delta and longfin smelt, that  
have nonetheless suffered dramatic declines due to the overpumping of  
water and poor management of Central Valley reservoirs during the  
recent drought.

Boxer also criticized the process in which the last minute rider was  
introduced, pointing out it illustrates why many Americans hate  
Congress.  “One of the things they hate about Congress is when we have  
a special interest rider dropped on a bill,” Senator Boxer said in her  
speech on the Senate Floor on December 9, 2016.

In a letter asking President Obama to veto the bill, Barbara Barrigan- 
Parrilla, Restore the Delta executive director, blasted the rider for  
the damage it would cause to fisheries and Delta water quality. “It  
will worsen water quality not only for San Francisco Bay-Delta  
fisheries, but for the hundreds of thousands of people who make up the  
Delta’s environmental justice communities," she stated.

She warned that the rider “will lead to further water quality  
degradation in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, and set the course for  
future raids by Federal agencies on freshwater supplies from the Delta.”

“Our fear is that if we continue to take too much water from the  
estuary, the end result will be a public health crisis for the  
millions of people who live in the Delta, and the hundreds of  
thousands of people who make up the Delta’s environmental justice  
community,” said Barrigan-Parrilla. “Over these last few years of  
drought, the Delta has seen a marked increase of toxic algal blooms,  
and without more cool water regularly flowing throughout the Delta,  
these outbreaks are expected to become a permanent feature of the  
Delta.”

Barrigan-Parrilla said the toxic bacteria from the algal blooms are a  
threat to: 1) groundwater wells that provide drinking and irrigation  
water to tens of thousands of people; 2) municipal drinking water  
systems that provide drinking water to hundreds of thousands of  
people; 3) subsistence fishers who in conservative estimates number  
between 20,000 and 40,000 residents of the Delta; 4) the ability of  
Delta farmers to safely irrigate their 500,000 acres of crops worth  
$5.2 billion annually; 5) and tens of thousands of recreational  
enthusiasts who regularly sportfish, boat, and swim in the Delta’s  
1100 miles of open waterways.”

“WRDA will increase water exports, especially during drought periods,  
creating increased opportunities for the proliferation of these  
dangerous toxic algal blooms, and increase public health threats,”  
noted Barrigan-Parrilla.

The rider would also give greater power to the Secretary of Interior.  
For example, it authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to construct  
Federally owned storage projects that are cost-shared 50-50 with non- 
Federal parties.

“The bill’s signing is disappointing, but understandable given the  
presence of the Flint Michigan lead-poisoning response and the large  
number of water project authorizations for local Congressional  
districts in the WRDA,” said Ron Stork of Friends of the River.

“The bill tries to push more water into the south state, and may or  
may not succeed in that effort,” stated Stork. “But the bill also  
breaks traditional notions of federal water project approvals laid  
down by Ronald Reagan.”

“Instead it gives the incoming Trump Administration Secretary of the  
Interior a pretty free hand to move forward on any damn dam projects  
they chose to ‘authorize’ and push. So hold on to your wallets;   
there’s almost certainly going to be efforts to raid the federal and  
state treasuries to subsidize these monsters,” noted Stork.

“Ironically, for an emergency drought bill, most of the provisions are  
not tied to a drought but to the next five years whether wet or dry.  
And today it’s raining and snowing in the mountains and valleys of  
California,” he concluded.

Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe,  
was appalled by passage of the bill with its rider.

“This is the tool California water districts need to deny the water  
for salmon and continue on with the Brown WaterFix for California,”  
said Chief Sisk in a Facebook post. “DiFi doesn't care about all the  
fishermen, Tribes and fish consumers. This is the worst thing that  
President Obama could have done to the California water wars.”

You can expect fishing organizations, Indian Tribes, conservationists  
and environmental justice advocates to launch lawsuits contesting the  
rider’s controversial provisions. As Senator Boxer said on the Senate  
floor:

“My view about water is that everybody comes to the table. We work it  
out together. I don't like the water war. He (Congressman McCarthy)  
has launched another water war battle for big agribusiness against the  
salmon fishery. It is ugly. It is wrong. It is going to wind up at the  
courthouse door anyway. Why are we doing this?”

The salmon industry is expected to be impacted dramatically by the  
rider, as the increased pumping of northern California water will  
result in further declines in collapsing salmon populations.  
California’s salmon industry is valued over $2 billion in economic  
activity in a normal season including economic activity and jobs in  
Oregon, according to McManus. The industry employs tens of thousands  
of people from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon.

The U.S. Senate approved the water bill by a vote of 78 to 21 on  
Friday, December 9.

It must be noted that  Jerry Brown, who constantly receives fawning  
coverage from the mainstream media over his allegedly “green”  
policies, did absolutely nothing to oppose the rider in the bill. That  
makes perfect sense, since Brown is trying to fast track the  
construction of his legacy project, the Delta Tunnels.

This rider will only make it easier for the incoming Trump  
administration to work with Brown on building the tunnels, potentially  
the most environmentally destructive public works project in  
California, by weakening the implementation of the Endangered Species  
Act and other laws.

Background: Resources bill opens new front in long-running water wars  
(Greenwire – DC) 
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