Author Archives: Francine

Ninth Circuit Sides With Salmon

News2.2.15 – FriantWaterline.org: While the U.S. Supreme Court was deciding to let stand an appeals court ruling on one endangered species, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal handed another blow to valley agriculture and other beneficial water uses.

It reinstated a 2009 Biological Opinion regulating the Central Valley Project and State Water Project based on the impacts their operations have on endangered salmonids, including several types of salmon, steelhead, and green sturgeon that migrate through the Delta.
The opinion also considers the effects of Project operations on a small population of orca whales in the ocean that prey on salmon.
A three-judge 9th Circuit panel in December reversed a 2010 Fresno U.S. District Court decision, made by then Judge Oliver Wanger. Wanger had ruled that the government lacked scientific basis for its Biological Opinion regulating Delta export pumping.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) concluded in 2009 that the federal CVP and nearby SWP pumps near Byron and Tracy were killing too many endangered juvenile salmon.
The panel ruled unanimously in its 80-page decision that Wanger should have deferred to NMFS, a Commerce Department agency, and its expertise.
Earlier in 2014, a 9th Circuit panel overturned Wanger’s ruling in a Delta smelt case. The December decision, according to one of the justices, was “almost entirely controlled” by the findings in the Delta smelt case.

‘SO DO FISH’

“If the governments did not extract water from the Central Valley’s rivers, the valley could not support the farms that feed, the dams that power, and the canals that hydrate millions of Americans,” Justice Richard Tallman wrote. “But by extracting the water, people dramatically alter the rivers’ natural state and threaten the viability of the species that depend on them. People need water, but so do fish.”
“This case is about the competing demands for these limited water resources,” Tallman added. Tallman wrote that NMFS “used the best scientific data available, even if that science was not always perfect.” On that basis, the 9th Circuit upheld the Biological Opinion.

Little fish could be savior for overtapped delta

Editorial graphicThe following Chico Enterprise Record editorial (1.13.15) is excellent. The paper presents the big picture to readers in a very clear and readable manner. The arguments they present regarding impacts to the Delta smelt highlight how the fish have also helped slow down the draining of the NorthState – the goal of the many of the junior water rights claimants south of the Delta.

Little fish could be savior for overtapped delta

It took all of, oh, a couple of minutes for big water districts in the San Joaquin Valley to criticize the U. S. Supreme Court on Monday for choosing fish over people. If only the question were that easy.

Farmers and cities in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California like to dumb down the argument to just that — the delta smelt vs. the thirsty masses.

But it’s not just about the 3-inch fish. The smelt don’t get much support because they’re not even a sport fish. You can’t catch them with a rod and reel, or sell them in fish markets like the more celebrated salmon.

Delta smelt, though, are a marker species, the canary in the delta coal mine. When they start going away, it means the delta ecosystem is in bad shape and other species will follow. That’s what the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service said back in 2008. The U. S. Supreme Court upheld that biological opinion Monday, agreeing with an earlier ruling by the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals that was challenged to the highest level.

After the Fish and Wildlife Service opinion, what followed were restrictions on pumping of water from the delta to farmers and cities down south.

The farmers and cities howled. Who ever heard of a delta smelt, and why are they more important than feeding the world?

Well, first, that argument ignores the question of whether anybody south of the delta should have any expectation whatsoever that they were entitled to that water more than the salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, striped bass, sea lions — and yes, the smelt — that rely on at least some fresh water flowing out of the rivers and into the Pacific Ocean.

Farms and cities were plopped down in arid deserts without much thought given to reliable water supplies, particularly in summer and drought years. They figured the delta faucet would always be turned on. Bad assumption.

Then San Joaquin farmers compounded the problem by taking row crops such as beans, alfalfa, tomatoes and cotton, and replanting the land with more profitable orchards, such as almonds and citrus. The difference between row crops and orchards is that in a drought — always an inevitability in California — farmers can choose not to plant row crops if they aren’t going to get enough water that year. They cannot fallow the orchards. Water is needed yearround to keep the trees alive, and the trees are a significant investment.

The delta ecosystem — that includes the smelt — shouldn’t have to pay for the poor decisions of San Joaquin farmers and cities.

Then there’s the question of why fish matter.

Nobody should be surprised by environmental restrictions. The government and the courts have long recognized that you can’t just take whatever the environment has. Most have learned from the mistakes of the past, but those with dollar signs for pupils conveniently forget at times.

Even where water is more abundant — here, for example — farmers have learned to co- exist with the habitat in times of crisis. Sometimes they are forced to do so by the government. San Joaquin Valley farmers who feel put off by Monday’s Supreme Court ruling should know there is some precedent. When salmon stocks dwindled in the Sacramento River system, north state farmers made many expensive improvements — things like screening canals, or changing seasonal irrigation schedules, or leaving sensitive land fallow. It has helped immensely, particularly the work rice farmers did to aid the threatened spring-run salmon on Butte Creek.

The delta smelt have been listed as a threatened species since 1993. It’s not like the people complaining about the decision couldn’t see it coming. They just didn’t want to admit that they had to do their part to help a failing ecosystem.

It’s a lot easier to argue about water than it is to fix bad decisions, apparently.

Response to LaMalfa letter (Jan. 11, 2015)

LaMalfa focused on water as a commodity

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) failed to disclose important facts about the “House drought relief legislation” (E-R, Dec. 23). The benefits he touted for “California as a whole and the north state specifically” are really for a tiny number of river water districts and not “residents” or groundwater-dependent farms. The “north state residents” that LaMalfa asserted had received no water in 2014 were actually farms, not homes.

While we feel for neighbors who have taken risks planting permanent crops without a reliable water source, ultimately, business decisions that backfire must be faced. Unfortunately, a major beneficiary of LaMalfa’s bill is Westlands Water District in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley, hardly a neighbor. Westlands is the poster child for junior water claimants that expect publicly subsidized north state water for private profit — in a desert, no less.

LaMalfa also declared that “it increases the overall (water) supply,” but impartial review of HR 5781 found that, according to Congressional Research Service, “there are no estimates of how much more water might be gained if the bills were passed, nor is there information on how much might be made unavailable to varied interests compared with the status quo.”

Regarding so-called protection of “north state water rights,” HR 5781 is actually protective of the tiny number of senior, river water districts, many who regularly sell water to south-state interests. Instead of providing leadership that helps California and his district face hydrologic reality, LaMalfa remains entrenched in water politics that benefits a narrow group of agricultural interests.

Additional analysis at www.aqualliance.net.

— Barbara Vlamis, Chico

San Joaquin Valley farmers reach secret deal in water dispute

sfgate photoA staggering economic and environmental problem festering for three decades in the southern San Joaquin Valley would be addressed by a secret deal reached between the Obama administration and farmers — one that is sounding alarms for Bay Area lawmakers.

The deal would retire 100,000 acres of farmland damaged by salt and selenium in the Westlands Water District, an arid, 600,000-acre patch of farms running along Interstate 5 from Mendota in Fresno County to the Kings County town of Kettleman City. About 600 farms there produce $1 billion in food each year.

Congress agreed in 1960 to bring water to the area with the promise that the government would build a drain for the toxic brew that leaches from the mineral-rich soil. The drain was only partly built, due to opposition from the East Bay communities where the water was to be dumped.

Instead, the drain stopped at a place called Kesterson, where federal officials turned the ponds into a national wildlife sanctuary. In 1983, drainage water contaminated by salt, boron and selenium caused an environmental catastrophe there, killing thousands of birds and fish and causing grisly deformities among chicks.

The drain was closed, but decades of litigation followed in which Westlands sued the government for failing to provide farmland drainage. The courts have agreed that the government has an obligation to fix the problem, and the Obama administration and Westlands have now agreed on a plan.

Congressional approval

Details of the deal between Westlands and the federal Bureau of Reclamation have not been revealed to members of Congress, who would have to approve it. But according to a short “principles of agreement” document that has been made public, the deal would forgive $342 million in federal debt that Westlands owes for construction of the 1960s extension of the Central Valley Project to deliver water to the San Joaquin Valley farms.

In return, taxpayers would be relieved of an estimated $2.7 billion obligation to remove the contaminated water that results from the irrigation. Resolution of the drainage problem would be left to Westlands farmers.

Westlands would not have to retire any land beyond what it has already taken out of production because of salt buildup, even though federal agencies have recommended retiring more than 300,000 acres, or half the district, on the grounds that the only way to end the drainage problem is to stop irrigating the land.

Critics think Westlands should be required to retire much more land if taxpayers bail out its debt.

The more land is irrigated, the more pollution is produced, “at which point you need to treat the water in some way that’s very expensive,” said Michael Wara, a Stanford University law professor and former geochemist. “Or you cause Kesterson Wildlife Refuge 2.0.”

“We’ll take care of our own issues,” replied John Diener, a Westlands farmer who has won conservation awards for his efforts to deal with irrigation drainage on his 3,000-acre Redrock Ranch at Five Points in Fresno County.

‘Glunked up’

“When the government gets involved, as we found out, it just gets glunked up and so cumbersome, by the time you get done, you spend so much money just getting to the party that you go bankrupt,” Diener said.

Westlands officials did not respond to requests for comment and administration officials declined to discuss the deal, citing the pending litigation.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, criticized parts of the deal that could give Westlands farmers more secure water rights, and accused the district of “a three-decade strategy (of) endless litigation, endless lobbying and endless PR” to “leverage concessions from taxpayers.”

Huffman sits on the House Natural Resources Committee and would be among the Democrats leading opposition to any deal. He said he hopes to “shine a bright light on the huge giveaways that appear to be part of this.”

Westlands allies bristle at the suggestion that additional farmland should be retired. They point out that many valley farmers have switched from vegetables to wine grapes, almonds and other permanent crops that use less water than row crops, and pistachios, which tolerate saltier soil.

“A lot of our critics are living in a drainage world that’s long gone,” said Dennis Falaschi, general manager of the neighboring Panoche water district to the north.

Less pollution

When water was cheap and lavished on low-value crops, there was a lot of waste drainage, he said. Now water is costly and used sparingly, Falaschi said, reducing the amount of polluted waste.

“Just the conversion alone from row crops that took flood irrigation to permanent crops on drip irrigation in itself almost solves the drainage problem,” Falaschi said. “If you talk about just retiring land, do people really understand the environmental disaster that would be caused, with dust storms so bad you couldn’t even traverse Interstate 5?”

Diener said the retirement of about 110,000 acres of the most problematic lands has greatly diminished the drainage problem. In addition, sharply reduced water deliveries during the drought has reduced the need for drainage.

Although it is often hailed as some of the world’s most productive farm country, Westlands’ chief virtue is its temperate climate, not its land.

The soil consists of an ancient seabed full of minerals perched atop an impermeable layer of clay. Irrigation leaches the minerals, and the clay barrier traps the water. Unless it is drained, the land is ruined.

Salt buildup

Since ancient times, salt buildup has been recognized as a problem tht is endemic to all irrigated farming on arid lands. In Westlands, some areas are dusted with “San Joaquin Valley snow,” crystallized salt where no vegetation can grow.

Critics say Westlands is in the wrong place and should never have been irrigated. In a blistering full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times in December, Westlands President Don Peracchi retorted that if that’s the case, then Los Angeles is also in the wrong place.

Farmers and their allies said the drainage problem is vastly overstated and that promising new technology will solve the rest.

Salt-tolerant crops

Diener, for example, has created a system that reuses water on a progression of salt-tolerant crops, including forage grasses and even cactus. As the water grows briny, he hopes to harvest the salt for sale to glass makers and other industrial users. “We actually clean the soil up and recycle the water,” Diener said.

A pilot desalination plant in the Panoche district built by Bay Area startup WaterFX uses solar energy to process drainage water. The system produces distilled water and solid salts and minerals that have value for industry, all for $450 an acre-foot, half the cost of conventional desalination.

“We actually think we can solve the drainage problem,” said company founder and chairman Aaron Mandell. He said the system is well suited to places like Westlands, where farms are undergirded by a vast system of drain pipes, much like a city sewer that can collect the water.

“Some of these districts that have a lot of drain water could actually become net producers of water,” Mandell said. “There’s no limit to the scale we can achieve with this.”

But the full-scale plant scheduled to be built in 2015 would deliver just 2,240 acre-feet annually, a tiny fraction of the Westlands contract for more than a million acre-feet of water from the Central Valley Project. Even Mandell’s plan to process 10 times that amount in five years by building other plants would fall far short of the water that Westlands farms need.

Huge cost

Stanford’s Wara said that if the new technology proves workable, “that would change the ballgame for water in the western United States.” But he was skeptical, noting among other things that the capital cost of plants big enough to handle Westlands drainage would be huge.

The WaterFX demonstration plant was funded with $1 million in state grants and the new plant will cost $30 million; the company is looking for investors.

The Obama administration’s goal is to put an end to the government’s obligation to deal with the problem.

The Bureau of Reclamation has settled several San Joaquin Valley drainage claims for large sums in the past. The bureau has also consistently charged farmers less for federal water than is needed to pay the cost of Central Valley Project. That’s why Westlands has $342 miillion in debt that the administration plans to forgive.

Water districts like Westlands are quasi-public agencies created when a group of water users, in this case farmers, form an agency to buy water from the government. They are governed by a board of directors — the Westlands panel is made up of large landowners, many of them from families who settled the area. The district was formed in 1952, and is the largest water district in the nation, covering about 1,000 square miles. The district derives its revenue from water sales to its farmers.

Wara said Westlands farmers probably cannot repay the debt the district incurred for bringing Central Valley Project water to the district, because environmental restrictions have led to water cutbacks.

For that reason, he said, it makes sense for the government to write off the debt as a “stranded asset.” The question is what taxpayers should demand in return in the way of land retirement.

Dealing with damage

Critics also want the deal to spell out clearly what Westlands plans to do with the polluted drainage. Westlands is developing solar-energy parks on some of the impaired land.

Wara described the Bureau of Reclamation as an agency so close to its water contractors that it “simply cannot be trusted to ‘negotiate’ with its ‘clients’ without some form of oversight or transparency. If that isn’t happening, and it sure doesn’t seem like it is, then that’s a big problem.”

Several Westlands officials are former bureau officials, Wara said. He also questioned how Westlands can be held responsible for the astronomical cost of handling the drainage once the government washes its hands of the problem.

“Let’s just say it’s $2 billion,” Wara said. “It’s not clear to me how you would structure a contract that would force Westlands to spend the money necessary to really manage the problem on the lands they continue to irrigate.”

Even with such high-value crops as wine grapes and almonds, he said, “how much of that money can they really spend on this drainage issue … before farmers decide to get out of the business of farming?”

Diener said the drainage problem “costs money, no doubt. But what’s agriculture worth?”

By Carolyn Lochhead, Washington correspondent for The San Francisco Chronicle, e-mail: clochhead@sfchronicle.com

Click here to read full story with more pictures at SFgate.com.

 

Is LaMalfa Misinformed on Water Bill or Misleading the Public?

question mark iconIn his December 23, 2014 letter to the Chico Enterprise-Record (see below), U.S. Representative Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) failed to disclose important facts about the “House drought relief legislation.” The benefits he touted for “California as a whole and the north state specifically” are really for a tiny number of river water districts and not “residents” or groundwater dependent farms.

The “north state residents” that LaMalfa asserted had received no water in 2014 were actually farms, not homes. While we can feel for neighbors who have taken risks planting permanent crops without a reliable water source, ultimately, business decisions that backfire must be faced. Unfortunately, a major beneficiary of LaMalfa’s bill is Westlands Water District in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley, hardly a neighbor. It is also the poster child for junior water claimants that expect publicly subsidized NorthState water for private profit – in a desert, no less.

LaMalfa also declared that “it increases the overall [water] supply,” but impartial review of HR5781 found that, “[t]here are no estimates of how much more water might be gained if the bills were passed, nor is there information on how much might be made unavailable to varied interests compared with the status quo.” [1]

Regarding so-called protection of “north state water rights,” HR5781 is actually protective of the tiny number of senior river water districts in the Sacramento Valley, who regularly sell water to south of Delta interests and senior river water districts in the San Joaquin Valley, far from LaMalfa’s district. [2] The lion’s share of the NorthState population is not equally protected. The bill’s language in this regard also contradicts another assertion in LaMalfa’s letter that there will be “[n]o impact on salmon, steelhead and smelt.” [3]

Instead of providing leadership that helps California and his district face hydrologic reality, LaMalfa remains entrenched in water politics that benefits a narrow group of agricultural interests that includes his family’s rice production and the most aggressive junior water claimants that want to keep planting trees in the south-state desert.

Additional errors of omission or commission in LaMalfa’s letter:

  • HR5781 does nothing to stop Governor Brown’s Twin Tunnels project, which is on its own irrational track.
  • “Section 203(b) would protect public, local, and state agencies or subdivisions of the state and entities from incurring any costs ‘incurred solely pursuant to or as a result of this Act’ and which would not otherwise have been incurred, unless incurred on a voluntary basis. It does not address who or what entities should bear such costs if they occur. Nor does it address what type of costs. H.R. 3964 includes a similar provision; however it directs that no involuntary cost shall be imposed on any CVP contractor, ‘or any other person or entity.’”[4]
  • Entities that received zero water in 2014 have junior water claims. Senior holders were allocated 75% and even junior municipal/industrial users were allocated 50%.
  • Refuges are pushed to use groundwater, further impacting depleted reserves to free more water for junior water claimants.

[1] Congressional Research Service, 2014. Analysis of H.R. 5781, California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014. www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43820.pdf

[2] Bureau. www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Friant%20Division%20Project

[3] Congressional Research Service, 2014. Analysis of H.R. 5781, California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014. www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43820.pdf. “Both versions appear to address protection of senior water rights holders and to require supercedance of state water rights priorities over impacts from implementation of ESA (Section 7 only, for H.R. 5781; although the reference in parenthesis includes the full ESA citation).” p. 17.

[4] Id. p. 17-18.

——————————————————————————————————————–

Chico E-R Letter to the Editor, Dec. 23, 2014:

Congressman explains vote on drought water bill

The House drought relief legislation benefits California as a whole and the north state specifically. The 18-month emergency bill has just two components: allowing all Californians to access more water during winter storms like those we’re experiencing, and protecting and improving north state water rights.

Rivers are currently at levels that allow storage of additional water with no impact on salmon, steelhead and smelt, which remain protected under the bill. My support was contingent upon protection of our water rights. The bill doesn’t take anyone’s water, it increases the overall supply.

It directly improves access to Central Valley Project water for north state residents who received 0 percent allocations this year. Residents who currently receive zero CVP water in drought years would receive at least 50 percent under the bill. Rather than damage our water rights, the bill allows both north and south to access more water during high winter flows, water that otherwise simply flows out to the ocean. The bill repeatedly includes language protecting north state water rights and ensures that only excess flows are drawn upon.

Furthermore, the bill helps stop Gov. Jerry Brown’s dangerous peripheral tunnel by using existing infrastructure more effectively.

The bill’s critics, primarily Bay Area lawmakers whose districts import much of their water from the Sierras, certainly don’t have the north state’s interests at heart and have always opposed increased water storage. My priority will always be fighting for policies that protect our water and improve economic opportunities in the north state.

— Rep. Doug LaMalfa, Richvale

Barbara Vlamis’ Jan. 11, 2015 response to LaMalfa’s letter  (heading written by Chico E-R Letters staff):

LaMalfa focused on water as a commodity

Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) failed to disclose important facts about the “House drought relief legislation” (E-R, Dec. 23). The benefits he touted for “California as a whole and the north state specifically” are really for a tiny number of river water districts and not “residents” or groundwater-dependent farms. The “north state residents” that LaMalfa asserted had received no water in 2014 were actually farms, not homes.

While we feel for neighbors who have taken risks planting permanent crops without a reliable water source, ultimately, business decisions that backfire must be faced. Unfortunately, a major beneficiary of LaMalfa’s bill is Westlands Water District in the southwestern San Joaquin Valley, hardly a neighbor. Westlands is the poster child for junior water claimants that expect publicly subsidized north state water for private profit — in a desert, no less.

LaMalfa also declared that “it increases the overall (water) supply,” but impartial review of HR 5781 found that, according to Congressional Research Service, “there are no estimates of how much more water might be gained if the bills were passed, nor is there information on how much might be made unavailable to varied interests compared with the status quo.”

Regarding so-called protection of “north state water rights,” HR 5781 is actually protective of the tiny number of senior, river water districts, many who regularly sell water to south-state interests. Instead of providing leadership that helps California and his district face hydrologic reality, LaMalfa remains entrenched in water politics that benefits a narrow group of agricultural interests.

Additional analysis at www.aqualliance.net.

— Barbara Vlamis, Chico

Feinstein shuts off California water talks until 2015

Washington 11.20.14 — By Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau

NewsDemocratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California on Thursday pulled the plug on secret, high-stakes negotiations over a water bill for her drought-plagued state, saying she and fellow lawmakers will try again next year.

Feinstein’s unexpected move ends, for now, what had become an increasingly contentious fight over ambitious drought-fighting legislation whose details few people have seen.

“You’ve got to work with people to get something done,” Feinstein said in an interview. “I’m going to put together a first-day bill for the next Congress, and it can go through the regular order.”

Right up until Thursday, Feinstein and Republicans in the House of Representatives had been pushing hard to beat the Capitol Hill clock, as the lawmakers and their staffs swapped text language and haggled over details in hopes of completing a bill before a scheduled Dec. 11 adjournment. The negotiators had taken care of “a lot of low-hanging fruit,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, a Republican from Butte County.

Now, the clock will be reset when the 114th Congress convenes, with Republicans controlling both the Senate and the House.

“We’ve come a long way,” said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare. “These type of things happen in negotiations.”

Nunes, who wrote the original version of the bill eventually passed by the House in February, said “we’ll continue to try to work together” and that “we appreciate that Sen. Feinstein has negotiated in good faith.”

Nunes also said he and his fellow House Republicans wouldn’t stop trying to accomplish water legislation this Congress. With time so short, that long-shot effort would probably require trying to add language to a must-pass spending bill, a dicey proposition for anything ambitious and controversial.

Responding to the state’s devastating drought, the GOP-controlled House passed a far-reaching bill in February on a largely party line 229-191 vote.

Introduced by freshman Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, and drawing largely on a bill previously introduced by Nunes, the House bill rolls back a landmark 1992 law that directed more water to protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The bill removes wild-and-scenic protections from a half mile of the Merced River, and it authorizes new water-storage projects on locations that include the Upper San Joaquin River, among other provisions.

The House measure also repeals the expensive San Joaquin River restoration effort, which has cost more than $100 million to date and is anticipated to go higher. The bill replaces the restoration plan with something more modest.

The legislation was passed without the usual committee hearing and markup, as House members insisted time was of the essence.

“We have to make sure the crisis we’re facing today is addressed,” Valadao said at the time. “If the other side has a solution, bring it to the table. I’m happy to negotiate.”

Feinstein countered in May with a slimmed-down bill passed through the Senate by unanimous consent, also without a committee hearing. Ever since, Democrats who voted against the 68-page House bill, and whose congressional districts span part of the 1,100 square-mile delta, have complained they have been shut out of the subsequent negotiations, in which Feinstein has taken the lead role.

“She’s doing the bidding of a very small group of people,” Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, said Thursday, prior to Feinstein’s decision becoming public. “This is just money and politics talking.”

In particular, Miller and other critics have contended that the legislation has appeared to be getting written for the benefit of the 600,000-acre Westlands Water District, whose general manager, Tom Birmingham, has been in Washington, D.C., this week for potential negotiations.

A Westlands representative declined to comment Thursday.

 

Miller called the exclusive negotiations “outrageous,” and the closed-door sessions prompted, in recent days, a flurry of negative newspaper editorials that Feinstein said Thursday were based on “misimpressions.” Draft copies of the legislation, some marked “confidential draft language, do not distribute,” were beginning to circulate on Capitol Hill in recent days, further prompting alarms in some Northern California circles.

“It is good news Sen. Feinstein has indicated she wants to work with all interests to craft a bill and not circumvent the regular committee process,” environmental activist Patricia Schifferle said in an email. “To that end, Sen. Feinstein needs to release a copy of her current draft, the agency comments and issues that remain unresolved so everyone can comment.”

Feinstein’s California Democratic colleague, Sen. Barbara Boxer, has played second fiddle on the secret water talks, saying in public only that she thought a consensus bill was possible. Gauging the enthusiasm of Boxer’s support has been complicated by the fact that a number of her traditional environmentalist allies are unhappy with the bill efforts.

“I’m really glad that Sen. Feinstein is taking the time to get more feedback on her updated legislation,” Boxer said. “As I have said from the beginning of this process, we need to hear from all the stakeholders who rely on a fair allocation of California’s water supply.”

Mark Grossi of The Fresno Bee contributed to this report. Contact Michael Doyle: mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com, (202) 383-0006 or @MichaelDoyle10 on Twitter.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/11/20/4245563_feinstein-pushes-california-water.html?sp=/99/217/&rh=1#storylink=cpy

 

Is Dianne Feinstein Crafting a Secret Water Deal to Help Big Pistachio?

UPDATE 11.20.14: Sen. Dianne Feinstein has called off her backroom negotiations to push a California water bill through the current, lame-duck Congressional session, The Fresno Bee reported late Thursday afternoon. But she’s not finished trying to make a deal with Big Ag-aligned GOP reps. She vowed to “put together a first-day bill for the next Congress, and it can go through the regular order,” the Bee reported. 

———————————————————————————————————-

By Tom Philpott 11.20.14: Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is negotiating a behind-closed-doors deal with Republican lawmakers to pass a bill that would ostensibly address California’s drought—an effort that has uncorked a flood of criticism from environmental circles.

Feinstein’s quiet push for a compromise drought bill that’s palatable to Big Ag-aligned House Republicans has been in the works for six months, Kate Poole, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told me. And it has accelerated recently, as the Senator hopes to pass it by year end, during the “lame duck” period of the outgoing Democratic-controlled Senate.

Feinstein spokesman Tom Mentzer wrote in an email that “draft language continues to be negotiated between House and Senate offices and nothing is final.” But he would divulge no other details—not even a timeline for when a broad outline of the controversial legislation might be released to the public.

The main issue involves management of the Central Valley Project, a federally owned irrigation system that moves water from California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range to farmland in the state’s main growing region, the Central Valley.

The state’s high-powered farm interests, particularly those in the desert-like zones of the Central Valley’s southwestern corner, want to maximize their access to these federally controlled water flows. This is precisely the part of the Central Valley that’s in the midst of a huge expansion of water-intensive almond and pistachio orchards.

“We’ve taken our vow of secrecy,” Rep. Valadao, who sponsored the House bill, said Tuesday.

Environmental groups like NRDC, meanwhile, seek to ensure sufficient water for the ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which lies at the heart of the Central Valley Project, at the confluence of the state’s two largest rivers. The US Fish and Wildlife Service lists 19 Delta-dwelling species as “endangered” or “threatened.” The most famous of the threatened fish is the tiny delta smelt, which is what scientists call an “indicator species,” meaning that their health serves as a barometer of the larger ecosystem’s robustness. The delta smelt occupies the base of the area’s food web, feeding on simple organisms like plankton and providing forage for larger fish.

Back in February, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill that would effectively end efforts to reserve substantial water for the Delta and permanently allocate more water to farmers. Central Valley-based Rep. Devin Nunes (R.-Calif.), a major champion of the bill, had sponsored similar bills before the current drought set in, only to see them languish, Poole says. This time, Nunes, along with the bill’s sponsor, freshman Central Valley-based Rep. David Valadao (R.-Calif.) “used the drought as an excuse to pass a bunch of wish-list rollbacks these guys have had for a while.”

The bill drew widespread derision from Democrats. Back in Sacramento, Gov. Brown condemned it, declaring it would “override state laws and protections, and mandate that certain water interests come out ahead of others.” President Obama vowed a veto if the bill made it to his desk, claiming “it would undermine years of collaboration between local, State, and Federal stakeholders to develop a sound water quality control plan for the Bay-Delta.”

Meanwhile, Feinstein went to work on a companion Senate “emergency drought” bill. The effort “started out not-so-bad,” Poole says. But then, as the sausage-making process went on, it started taking on more agribusiness-friendly provisions, she says—like one that would redirect water from refuges to agricultural water districts, and another that would allow water transfers to farms to occur during critical salmon migration months—despite  federal and state protections.

In May, over the fierce objections of environmental groups, Feinstein pushed her bill through the Senate by unanimous consent, avoiding a floor debate. The San Francisco Chronicle called it “the product of months of closed-door negotiations with various interests, including House Republicans…Bay Area Democrats, who voiced their concerns, and various stakeholders including farm groups.”

The House bill’s sponsors applauded, expressing confidence that the two chambers could “come up with a bill for the president to sign, so we can fix this problem.”

Soon after, Feinstein’s behind-the-scenes negotiations with those GOP lawmakers began. They never bore fruit, sidetracked by generalized partisan wrangling in the run-up to the November elections. But now that the election is over, Feinstein is pushing hard to ram a compromise through Congress in the lame-duck session. California’s senior senator isn’t the only one who refuses to reveal details of the effort. “We’ve taken our vow of secrecy,” Rep. Valadao, who sponsored the House bill, told McClatchy news service Tuesday. Meanwhile, Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District, arrived in Washington this week to weigh in on the deal, McClatchy reported. The nation’s largest water district, Westlands supplies irrigation water to more 1,000 square miles of ag-rich, water-poor farmland in the southern Central Valley.

Environmentalists, stung by the lack of transparency, fear the worst. Patricia Schifferle of Pacific Advocates, a long-time observer of California’s water wars, notes that what’s being worked out is a compromise between a House bill that is “very detrimental in terms of water-quality protections and environmental protections” and a Senate bill that’s not much better—meaning that any likely compromise is likely to “take more water from the environment and give more to the west side of the southern San Joaquin [Central] Valley.”

Feinstein has long-time connections to some of the biggest players in the southern Central Valley agriculture, including the Resnick family, which owns a vast agricultural empire built on pistachios, almonds, and pomegranates.

The NRDC’s Poole says it’s anyone’s guess whether Obama would sign such a bill. She said the president would likely look to high-level California Democrats for guidance. Obama’s vow to veto the House bill came after Gov. Brown’s announced his fierce opposition to it, she pointed out. I asked Brown’s office for the governor’s take on Feinstein’s latest effort. “We have not taken a position on this legislation,” a spokesperson replied. I followed up to ask whether Brown or his team had seen drafts of the legislation, but got no reply.

Feinstein, it should be noted, has long-time connections to some of the biggest players in the southern Central Valley agriculture, including the Resnick family, which owns a vast agricultural empire built on pistachios, almonds, and pomegranates. According to the money-in-politics tracker Open Secrets, the Resnicks donated $9,800 to Feinstein’s campaign in the 2011-’13 period, and $17,900 to Rep. Valadao, the sponsor of the House bill. Westland Water District has also donated to Feinstein, Nunes, and Valadao (see its 2012 and 2014 contributions).

And Feinstein has certainly carried water, so to speak, for the Resnicks before. Back in 2009, according to the investigative website California Watch, Stewart Resnick “wrote to Feinstein, complaining that the latest federal plan to rescue the Delta’s endangered salmon and smelt fisheries was ‘exacerbating the state’s severe drought’ because it cut back on water available to irrigate crops.”

Feinstein promptly forwarded Resnick’s complaint to two US Cabinet secretaries, adding in her own letter that the administration should spend $750,000 “for a sweeping re-examination of the science behind the entire Delta environmental protection plan,” California Watch reported. The result: “The Obama administration quickly agreed, authorizing another review of whether restrictions on pumping irrigation water were necessary to save the Delta’s fish.”

Ultimately, protections for the Delta survived that maneuver. Whether they’ll survive these latest machinations remains to be seen.

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/11/feinstein-secret-water-deal-drought-california

 

Talks on drought bill underway on Capitol Hill

Wwashington, 11.18.14 — by Michael Doyle and Mark Grossi

NewsCalifornia’s water future is boiling below the surface this week.

Only the chosen few have a clue about details. Bill documents, currently about 50 pages, are stamped “confidential draft language, do not distribute.” Capitol Hill doors are shut, congressional timetables are opaque and negotiators are strictly mum.

“We’ve taken our vow of secrecy,” Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., said Tuesday.

The coming days, though, could be crucial.

House Republicans and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California and their respective staff members have been amicably swapping proposed language and coming ever-closer to agreement. On Thursday, California’s GOP House members received a detailed briefing at their weekly lunch.

In a potentially telling move, Westlands Water District General Manager Tom Birmingham arrived in Washington this week. The water-hungry Westlands district stands to be a big winner in the legislation, and Birmingham’s presence enables him to weigh in, and possibly sign-off, more quickly.

“We’ve been talking about this legislation for months,” Birmingham said Tuesday.

Like most other farm contractors on the federal Central Valley Project, the Rhode Island-sized Westlands Water District was left with a zero allocation of Northern California river water. Farm leaders challenged the way state and federal officials divided up the little water that was available in this intense drought.

Responding to farmer unrest, the GOP-controlled House passed a far-reaching bill in February. Drawing largely on a bill previously introduced by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., it rolled back a landmark 1992 law that directed more water to protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The bill also removed wild-and-scenic protections from a half mile of the Merced River and authorized new water storage projects, among other provisions.

The Senate countered in May with a slimmed-down bill passed by unanimous consent, also without a committee hearing.

Democrats who voted against the 68-page House bill, and whose congressional districts span part of the 1,100 square-mile delta, have complained they have been shut out of the subsequent negotiations. Some have seen scraps of language, such as a draft that cited the “significant public interest” and “urgency” over completing water storage project feasibility studies.

One draft version was 48 pages; by the time it’s put into formal legislative language, the final bill could be upwards of 60 pages or more.

Environmentalists, fishing and wildlife advocates also want a public hearing on any drought legislation. They say they hear rumors of a bill that ignores environmental law to get more Northern California water for Westlands, a 600,000-acre district based mainly in Fresno County.

Jerry Cadagan, longtime water activist, said many groups do not want such a bill to pass quietly through the Senate.

“If there’s no opposition, wham! It could go through,” he said. “That’s what we fear.”

Seven groups have written their concerns and opposition to Feinstein. The groups include the National Resources Defense Council, Audubon California and Ducks Unlimited.

 

“With decades of experience, Sen. Feinstein knows the importance of being inclusive on controversial and complex pieces of legislation that impact not only the state of California, but other Western states,” environmental activist Patricia Schifferle said Tuesday.

Feinstein’s spokesman, Tom Mentzer, said Tuesday only that “draft language continues to be negotiated between House and Senate offices and nothing is final.” Feinstein’s California colleague, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, has yielded leadership on the water issue to Feinstein.

Republicans add that the House Democrats who represent the Delta and Northern California are never going to vote for the final bill anyway, so it makes no political sense to let them into the room where the deals are cut. One of the few Democrats besides Feinstein who’s privy to details is comfortable with this calculation.

“I’d like to see if we can get an agreement by the end of this week,” Rep. Jim Costa of California, one of the few Democrats to vote for the House bill, said Tuesday. “If we’re successful, then we can share the language with others.”

The one-sided secrecy is also a kind of mirror image of what happened in 1992, when Democrats stiff-armed Republicans in writing the environmentally oriented Central Valley Project Improvement Act. Republican and farmer anger over the 1992 CVPIA contributed to years of litigation, restlessness and, ultimately, backlash.

Mark Grossi, a staff writer for The Fresno Bee, reported from Fresno, Calif., Doyle from Washington. Email:mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @MichaelDoyle10.

Read more here.

 

Feinstein freezes out north state in water bill talks

Editorial graphicSacramento Bee, 11.19.14: Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Republicans have been secretly negotiating drought relief legislation that could severely alter California water policy. She should know better.

Any legislation on the topic of water would have far-reaching implications, and ought to receive a full public airing before a congressional vote.

California’s senior senator is negotiating with Central Valley representatives and agencies that rely on water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and is shutting out House members who represent the Delta and Northern California.

The fear among environmentalists and Northern California congressional members, including Feinstein’s fellow Democrats, is that the legislation would override environmental protections so more water could be pumped south to Central Valley farmers and Southern California residents.

They worry that a bill could be pushed through Congress without committee hearings, possibly this week or the week after Thanksgiving. That is no way to make policy, especially when the varied interests of Californians are at stake.

Michael Doyle of the McClatchy Washington Bureau and Mark Grossi of The Fresno Bee reported that only a few congressmen and staff members have seen the documents stamped “confidential draft language, do not distribute.” California’s Republican House members received a briefing last week.

Feinstein issued a statement through her press secretary saying that “the plan has always been to seek broad input.”

“We expect to have draft legislation ready for public comment soon, at which time public input will be sought,” she said.

That sort of top-down manner of legislating might work on national security matters, but will make it difficult for Feinstein to generate trust from the individuals who are not at the table but have a legitimate stake in California’s water future.

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, said in an interview that the opaque process is “wrong. It’s not the way to do this.” He cited concerns that the legislation could damage the Delta and the fishing industry, and water down the Endangered Species Act.

While Garamendi and other Northern California congressional members are frozen out of the talks, Tom Birmingham, the general manager of Westlands Water District, which depends on water pumped from Northern California, has a seat at the negotiating table.

Westlands clearly has an interest in any legislation. Westlands farmers received no Delta water allocations this year. But Northern Californians have an interest as well, including environmentalists and members of the fishing industry.

There is a fundamental imbalance if interest groups and Republicans have a seat at the table but the congressional member who represents the Delta is left out.

If Sen. Feinstein won’t embrace an open debate on such critical issues, Sen. Barbara Boxer, who will remain chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee through the lame duck session, ought to stand up and object.