AquAlliance: Here is the news we expected – “Agricultural water service contractors south-of-Delta allocation of 5% of their [CVP] contract supply is not available for deliveryuntil further notice.’ The State Water Project projection for mostly urban contractors dropped to 5% delivery.
Major water transfers are in the works in addition to what the Bureau of Reclamation planned in the Long Term Water Transfer Program (2021 Sacramento Valley Water Transfers).
AquAlliance pulled our team together once more, so the Long Term Water Transfer Program is currently in court. We filed the lawsuit in May 2020. Unfortunately, but understandably, the virus caused all court activity to move very slowly with our opening brief finally due in August 2021. All briefs should be done in 2021 with a decision in 2022. We have a very strong case once again.
Currently we are evaluating how we may protect area groundwater from the additional water transfers.
Bureau of Reclamation Press Release follows.
For Release: March 23, 2021 Contact: Mary Lee Knecht, 916-978-5100, mknecht@usbr.gov
Reclamation updates Central Valley Project 2021 water supply allocation
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Today, the Bureau of Reclamation announced an update to the initial Central Valley Project 2021 water supply allocation for agricultural water service contractors south-of-Delta. Allocation amounts are based on an estimate of water available for delivery to CVP water users and reflects current reservoir storages, precipitation, and snowpack in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada.
“Although conservative hydrologic data was used to develop the initial CVP water supply allocation, inflow projections to CVP reservoirs have decreased from February forecasts, which further constrain available water supply,” said Regional Director Ernest Conant. “After careful consideration of water management options, we are adjusting the allocation for south-of-Delta agricultural contractors. As always, we will continue to monitor hydrology as the water year progresses and continue to look for opportunities for operational flexibility.”
Northern California has about 51% of average precipitation for this time of year; statewide average snowpack levels are at 63% of average. Ongoing dry conditions will require the coordination of federal, state and local agencies. Today, the California Department of Water Resources, which operates the State Water Project, is expected to announce a reduction in its anticipated water supplies.
Due to worsening hydrologic conditions, Reclamation is announcing the following update to the initial 2021 CVP water supply allocation:
Agricultural water service contractors south-of-Delta allocation of 5% of their contract supply is not available for delivery until further notice.
There are no updates to other CVP allocations at this time.
As the water year progresses, changes in hydrology and opportunities to deliver additional water will influence future allocation decisions. Water supply updates will be made as appropriate and posted at https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp-water/index.html.
The Bureau of Reclamation is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior and is the nation’s largest wholesale water supplier and second largest producer of hydroelectric power. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation opportunities, and environmental benefits. Visit www.usbr.gov and follow @USBR and @ReclamationCVP on Twitter.
An “Interbasin Coordination Group” (ICG) consisting of Northern Sacramento Valley agency staff and consultants has been meeting since May 2020.[1] But the public was not aware of the meetings until a consultant mentioned the Group in November 2020.[2] We were told that Interbasin Coordination Group meetings provided an opportunity for “informal” exchange of information and collaboration between staff and consultants working on Groundwater Sustainability Plans in subbasins throughout the region. Consultants facilitate both the non-public inter-basin coordination as well as public Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) committee meetings, so to exclude interested advisory committee members who represent the public is outrageous. The excuse that technical content is a barrier to public participation in IGC meetings is a smokescreen.
Butte County staff and regional SGMA consultants did not publish ICG summaries until November, when I asked about the undisclosed meetings. Staff and consultants assured me that public outreach would be extended to include participation in future ICG meetings. However, the December 1, 2020 summary illustrated that there was no opportunity for public participation. The meeting summary did indicate that there were discrepancies in the groundwater modeling of groundwater flow between the subbasins but failed to give examples. The reason: “It will be important to complete discussions as suggested and attempt to resolve or at least understand causes of substantial differences before distributing this information broadly.”
Added to the local secrecy regarding groundwater interactions across county boundaries is Governor Gavin Newsom’s 2020 Water Resiliency plan. The Governor’s plan seeks so-called Voluntary Agreements to create flexibility for groundwater sustainability agencies to trade/sell water from “regions of surplus” (targeting the Northern Sacramento Valley) to critically overdrafted basins (the San Joaquin Valley and Tulare basins). The Governor’s plan would enable and provide incentives for groundwater marketing and substantially reduce approval time for water transfers. Citizens, businesses (including groundwater dependent agriculture), and ecosystems that exist in the area of so-called surplus are vulnerable to short and long-term impacts to their water needs when streamlined review of water sales/trades by willing sellers with senior water rights are allowed.
AquAlliance represents you to protect local and regional groundwater and streams. Sign up for AquAlliance’s Blog, The Water Dig, to stay tuned (http://www.aqualliance.net/water-blog).
Acronyms CBI – Consensus Building Institute SGMA – Sustainable Groundwater Management Act passed by the state legislature in 2014. ICG – Interbasin Coordination Group
The so-called Delta Reform Act Legislation of 2009 mandated a policy of co-equal water management. “Coequal goals” intend to provide a more reliable water supply for California and to protect, restore, and enhance the Delta ecosystem. Unfortunately the reliability of irrigation water supply continues to supersede the intention to respect the Delta ecosystem. While the pumps continue to pull unreasonable amounts of water out, the fish populations have all but disappeared in the famous estuary.
In order to achieve the co-equal goals, the state recognized the need to reduce reliance on water exported from the Delta. But that reliance on pumping NorthState water out of the Delta has not diminished. The federal and state water projects were meant to reduce demand on the aquifer system. But demand for groundwater has continued to escalate.
The state has known for decades that valley wells were running dry, streams were leaking into drained aquifers, and that the land surface was collapsing as more water was removed from the ground – most especially in the San Joaquin Valley. Unfortunately, this pattern accelerated in the Sacramento Valley after 2000. In the second decade of the 21rst century California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The goal of this act is “management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon [2015 -2042!] without causing undesirable results.” The undesirable results include “chronic lowering of groundwater levels, reduction of groundwater storage, seawater intrusion, land subsidence, water quality degradation, and depletions of interconnected surface water.” While attempting to maintain a reliable source of rural irrigation and domestic water is obviously the goal of SGMA in the Central Valley, the act also mentions the need to consider impacts to Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs).
There are long-standing plans by the California Department of Water Resources to consider the aquifer system of the northern Sacramento Valley as a source of water for farms and cities south of the Delta. The Department envisions turning the aquifer of our region into a wildly fluctuating reservoir that can be drained during dry periods and artificially refilled during hoped-for wet years with “surplus water”. Water purveyors would like to join this scheme by being the agents of groundwater recharge and subsequent capture of ownership of “water in storage”.
AquAlliance knows that the health of northern Sacramento Valley communities, economies, and the environment rest on a foundation of public trust in a stable watershed owned in common. SGMA requires consideration of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem [GDE] health. I am skeptical of SGMA agencies’ definition of GDEs and their intention to preserve ecosystem integrity. A future blog will follow on GDEs.
– J.R. Brobeck
Jim Brobeck is a water-policy analyst with AquaAlliance.
Chico, CA. AquAlliance filed a lawsuit in federal District Court against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) (Agencies) over their second attempt to disclose and analyze impacts from their long term water export plans. USBR and SLDMWA seek significant water from the Sacramento River Watershed and groundwater basins to ship through the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley.
The 2019 Long Term Water Transfer Program’s final approvals were made in April 2020. The Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) describes the Project as north-to-south transfers that could be as high as 600,000 acre-feet (af) per year in the six year project window.1
One of the many EIS/EIR failures disclosed in the complaint starts with the Project description. The EIS/EIR complicates something as basic to a project as its description by asserting transfers will differ from the disclosed 600,000 af and only reach 250,000 af per year,2 yet no legally enforceable element of the Project would compel the purported annual restriction. Further complicating the Project description is one assertion that transfers will take place in only two of the six years.3
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the Agencies’ Environmental Impact Statement/Report was arbitrary and capricious, ignored relevant new information and failed to meet minimum requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In addition to the wholly inadequate Project description, the Agencies failed to fully disclose the impacts from the Long Term Water Transfer Program and the numerous conditions affecting groundwater, subsidence, and species populations. The Agencies’ review also failed to consider the cumulative impacts from other significant actions such as the 1) Addendum to the Coordinated Operation Agreements of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project; 2) Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary Amendments and Voluntary Settlement Agreements; 3) Sacramento Valley Water Management Agreement; 4) Sites Reservoir project; 5) other water transfers; 6) California Department of Water Resources’ Delta Conveyance Project; 7) amendments to State Water Project water supply contracts.
AquAlliance Executive Director Barbara Vlamis explained, “Not just once, but twice now we find that USBR and SLDMWA refuse to face the real impacts that come from hoping to squeeze ever more water from the streams and groundwater basins of the Sacramento Valley. Clearly, they ignored their losses in the 2018 court ruling and pursued the very definition of insanity – using the same tools to reach the same conclusions. To represent the farms, fish, fowl and communities, we had to pursue our legal options.”
AquAlliance has been joined by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network, and they are represented by the Aqua Terra Aeris law firm. Co-plaintiffs in the litigation also include Central Delta Water Agency and South Delta Water Agency that are represented by the Soluri Meserve law firm.
Additional Contacts: Bill Jennings, CSPA: 209-464-5067; cell 209-938-9053 Pat Soluri, Soluri Meserve: 916.455.7300; cell 916.599.0474
AquAlliance is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public benefit corporation established to defend northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed to sustain family farms, communities, creeks and rivers, native flora and fauna, vernal pools and recreation. www.aqualliance.net
Background
A) 2015 10-Year Water Transfer Program History USBR and SLDMWA (Agencies) approved a Program that could send up to 600,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water south of the Delta – each year.4 When combined with additional state approved transfers, the total could have been over 800,000 acre-feet each year. With history as a guide, half of the transfer water would have come from groundwater substitution transfers. 5 Although widely opposed by NorthState residents and local government, the Agencies moved forward approving the use of groundwater substitution, fallowing, reservoir releases, and conservation to make the transfers possible. The Agencies proposed a thin veneer for mitigating impacts that depends only on monitoring the stressed hydrologic systems (groundwater, streams, and rivers). AquAlliance and partners sued in 2015 and received a favorable ruling in 2018. Successful claims included:
CEQA
The absence of performance standards for groundwater mitigation measure.
The FEIS/EIR failure to mitigate for land subsidence.
The inadequate cumulative biological impact analysis regarding reduced delta outflow.
The FEIS/EIR’s failure to analyze impacts to the giant garter snake and propose mitigation.6
NEPA
Failure to evaluate the effectiveness of groundwater mitigation.
1 “In addition, the biological opinions1 on the Coordinated Operations of the CVP and State Water Project (SWP) (USFWS 2008; National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service [NOAA Fisheries] 2009) analyze transfers through the SWP Banks and CVP Jones Pumping Plants from July to September that are up to 600,000 acre-feet (AF) in critical and dry years. For all other year types, the maximum transfer amount is up to 360,000 AF. For this Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR), annual transfers would not exceed the above capacities and would be pumped through Banks or Jones Pumping Plants between July 20 and September.” EIS/EIR p. 3.1-3.
2 “The transfers included in Alternative 2 would be up to 250,000 acre-feet per year…” p. ES-7. Also found on pages E-9, E-11, 1-4, 2-2, 2-9, 2-10, etc.
3 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion 2019. “After reviewing the current status of the snake, environmental baseline for the action area, effects of the proposed project, cumulative effects, and proposed conservation measures, it is the Service’s opinion that the two years of water transfers as proposed from 2019-2024, are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the snake.” [Emphasis added] p. 28.
4 600,000 acre-feet each year for 10 years is equivalent to what a city of 100,000 people would use in 300 years.
5 Groundwater substitution transfers take place when a water district sells its river water that is normally used to irrigate rice and instead continues growing rice by pumping well water. The grower makes money on both the water sale and the rice that is grown.
6 “This type of failure was deemed dangerous because the lack of analysis and findings about the extent of impacts makes it impossible to determine if the mitigation measures are sufficient.”
PUBLISHED: May 11, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: May 11, 2020 at 6:03 a.m.
An ambitious plan to build the largest new reservoir in California in 40 years to supply water to homes and businesses from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, along with Central Valley farmers, is being scaled back considerably amid questions about its $5 billion price tag and how much water it can deliver.
Sites Reservoir is proposed for construction in remote ranch lands in Colusa County, about 70 miles north of Sacramento. The reservoir, originally designed to be four times as big as Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park and nearly as big as San Luis Reservoir between Gilroy and Los Banos, received more money than any other project two years ago from a water bond passed by state voters during California’s historic drought.
But supporters still haven’t found enough to pay all the construction costs.
So, late last month, the agency planning the reservoir, the Sites Project Authority, issued new plans. Although Sites is among the most high-profile water projects in the state, they have gone largely unnoticed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the new approach, the price tag will be cut roughly 40% from $5.1 billion to $3 billion. The reservoir’s size will shrink from 1.8 million acre feet to 1.5 million acre feet. Plans to build an 18-mile pipeline east to the Sacramento River to fill the reservoir were dropped in favor of using existing canals. A hydro-power pumping station was cut. And significantly, the amount of water the reservoir is expected to deliver on average, known as the “annual yield,” was cut in half from 505,000 acre feet to 243,000 acre feet.
Backers say the reservoir, which would still be California’s seventh largest, nevertheless remains on track.
“This is a step in the right direction to making this project a reality for the state of California,” said Jerry R. Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority.
Brown, no relation to the former governor, was hired last month after previously working as general manager of the Contra Costa Water District, where he oversaw expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir.
Making the project more affordable, he said, will increase the likelihood that water agencies will contribute — from farmers in the Sacramento Valley and San Joaquin Valley to urban users like the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose, the Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore, and the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, all of whom have expressed interest.
So far, 21 agencies have put up $27 million for planning and studies. Another $19 million is due by Oct. 1.
“We took to heart what people told us and said we need to take a step back and re-evaluate this,” he said. “We’ve developed a right-sized project that is affordable and buildable.”
But the changes highlight how difficult it is to construct huge new water projects in California, even as the state heads into a dry summer following a disappointing winter rainy season.
“All of us have done something like this in our lives,” said Jay Lund, director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “You go out on the market and see how big a house or car you can buy at first, but then when you sharpen your pencil and do the finances more seriously, you decide you can only afford something a little smaller.”
Environmentalists were more blunt.
“To me it just shows it’s a project that’s struggling to pay for itself,” said Ron Stork, a senior policy advocate for Friends of the River, a group that opposes the project.
An aerial view taken September 2014 shows the valley that would be filled by the proposed Sites reservoir near (Maxwell. Kelly M. Grow — California Department of Water Resources)
The changes will delay the start of construction from 2022 to at least 2023, although planners say they still hope to finish by the original date of 2030.
“The probability of it happening at this price is much higher,” Lund said. “But the probability of any major new water project is always small in California.”
There are several reasons, he noted.
First, many of the best locations for dams are already taken. Second, environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act mean rivers can’t be dammed, wiping out fish and other wildlife, as they were generations ago.
Finally, it’s hard to fund them. Not only did California voters pass Proposition 13 in 1978, requiring a two-thirds majority to raise most taxes, but in 1986, former President Reagan changed federal law to require states to pay a greater share of the huge costs of building dams to curb federal spending.
The idea for Sites has been around since the 1950s. Politically, it has a big advantage: It would be an “off-stream” reservoir. Instead of damming a river, a remote valley 10 miles west of the sleepy farm town of Maxwell would be submerged, the water held in by two large dams and up to nine smaller “saddle dams” on ridges
The reservoir would be filled by diverting water from the Sacramento River — California’s largest river — in wet years, and releasing it in dry years for farms and cities, along with fish and other species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The project has multiple challenges, however.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife, which must issue permits, said the original plan would take too much water out of the Sacramento River, harming salmon, steelhead and other species. That’s in part why planners reduced the annual yield in the revised plans.
Then there’s money. Sites’ planners, who are mostly political and farm leaders in the Sacramento Valley, asked the Brown administration for $1.6 billion from Proposition 1, a bond passed in 2014 by voters. They got half, $816 million. They also were awarded a $439 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They also are seeking at least $1 billion in other federal loans, and $1.2 billion from water agencies that would buy the water.
But Sacramento Valley farmers already have groundwater and senior water rights. And because many grow low-value crops like rice, they can’t afford a project that is too expensive.
Silicon Valley and Los Angeles may be interested. But they have alternatives, like building local reservoirs, expanding recycled water and conservation, and cleaning contaminated groundwater, which may be cheaper.
“People are already saving water for rough periods,” Stork said. “That’s why this project is probably in trouble.”
To get the state bond money, the project must lock in 75% of its outside funding and finish its draft environmental studies by Jan. 1, 2022
If built, Sites would be the largest new reservoir in California constructed since 1979, when the Army Corps of Engineers completed construction on the 625-foot high New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River near Jamestown, in the Sierra Foothills of Calaveras County at a capacity of 2.4 million acre feet.
“It’s a steep hill to climb,” Lund said. “But it’s not as steep at $3 billion as it would be at $5 billion.”
Paul Rogers | Natural resources and environment reporter
Paul Rogers has covered a wide range of issues for The Mercury News since 1989, including water, oceans, energy, logging, parks, endangered species, toxics and climate change. He also works as managing editor of the Science team at KQED, the PBS and NPR station in San Francisco, and has taught science writing at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.
Foes say $5 billion project to severely degrade water quality
by Dave Waddell
James Murphy’s ranchland, which he’s owned for 35 years, would be under water if the long-discussed Sites reservoir becomes a reality.
photo courtesy of Sites Project Authority A conceptual rendering of the Sites reservoir west of Maxwell.
If the Sites Project Authority seeks to acquire Murphy’s property to build the reservoir, he’s going to make it as difficult for them as possible.
“I don’t want to sell my land; there’s no reason for me to sell,” said Murphy, a retired rancher who leases his 1,600 Sites-area acres for cattle grazing. “If they condemn it, they’ll have to tear it out of my hands.”
The proposed reservoir is being promoted as means of capturing water in big storms for use during California’s inevitable dry stretches. Sites’ timeline has the project being reviewed by the California Water Commission in 2021 and becoming operational in 2029.
Among Sites’ benefits would be providing water for agriculture, human consumption, recreation, and to help fish and wildlife, its supporters say. Critics of the Sites proposal say it would harm rather than help the environment – potentially causing deteriorations in water quality that are alarming, unexamined, and likely to eventually drown the $5 billion-plus proposal.
Sites is owned by the authority, a public-private partnership of counties and local water agencies formed in 2010. As proposed, Sites would divert water from two existing canals, as well as from a new underground piping system to bring water from the Sacramento River, 14 miles to the east, during periods of peak runoff. The idea is to return the water in the pipeline to the river in dry times for multiple uses, including to aid migrating Chinook salmon.
The project possesses bipartisan political backing, a seeming rarity these days, including the blessings of the Trump administration. Momentum is seen in highway signs touting Sites that have popped up in the Sacramento Valley.
The proposed reservoir would be located about 8 miles west of the Colusa County community of Maxwell in a mountain valley once described as a “natural bath tub.” Sites’ location is about a 90-minute drive both from Sacramento to its south and from Chico to its northeast.
photo courtesy of Sites Project Authority Sites map
Those who oppose the project attack what they see as woefully inadequate study to date on Sites’ impacts, with its general manager acknowledging at a congressional hearing last year that the draft environmental impact report (EIR) was speeded up in order to move the project along.
photo by Karen Laslo Policy analyst Jim Brobeck: Sites would become a “biological wasteland.”
Some environmentalists opposed to a Sites reservoir question how it can deal with water-quality issues to the satisfaction of California regulators while still penciling out financial advantages for investing water agencies.
Jim Brobeck, a policy analyst for the Chico-based environmental group AquAlliance, goes so far as to predict that Sites, if built, will become a “biological wasteland.” AquAlliance fights what it sees as threats “to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed,” according to its website.
“The project has been considered since the middle of the last century and has never moved forward because it is not feasible economically, environmentally, technically or financially,” argues Brobeck. “But dry years inspire hope in leaders and the public that ‘new water’ can be found in the Sacramento Valley Watershed to meet the demand from the San Joaquin Valley.”
Two sprawling valleys, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, comprise California’s Central Valley, which roughly stretches 450 miles from Redding to Bakersfield.
Murphy, the retired rancher, said he isn’t losing any sleep over pleas for more water from San Joaquin Valley growers.
“I’m not donating to these big farmers out in the valley,” said Murphy, who lives in Arbuckle. “I don’t think I owe them anything. I’m 82 years old and I want to keep what I’ve got.”
photo courtesy of Sites Project Authority Location of proposed reservoir.
The 17,000 total acres that would need to be acquired to build Sites is mostly ranchland owned by about 25 people. Jim Watson, general manager of the Sites Project Authority, said use of eminent domain “does not have to be adversarial” and can include tax advantages for selling land owners.
“With the property owners, it’s what works best for them,” Watson said. “The acquisition process has a little more complexity and depth than most people realize.”
Water titans invest
While the state and federal governments are Sites’ largest financial supporters, investors currently include 21 local water agencies, of which 11 are in the Sacramento Valley. Two titanic water players — the Fresno-based Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — have bought into Sites, with Metropolitan in February committing $4.2 million for project planning.
That has occurred at the same time some Sacramento Valley water agencies have reduced their Sites’ stakes, due mostly to cost concerns.
Roger Patterson, assistant general manager for the Metropolitan Water District, said the district bought what amounts to a 10 percent ownership of Sites’ water after being encouraged to invest by other project partners. Most significant from Metropolitan’s perspective is that Sites, in its plan to provide water for environmental benefits, could relieve some of the strain on state and federal projects caused by the competing demands for California’s water.
“We want to see the project get built. It’s a good project,” said Patterson, who previously headed up the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation division that operates Shasta Dam.
In the midst of a drought in 2014, Californians passed Proposition 1, which includes state bond financing for water storage projects. Last year, the state Water Commission awarded $816 million to Sites in Prop. 1 funding – more than any other project but only about half the amount it originally sought. At the time, Watson characterized the funding level as “an opportunity lost” to provide additional cold water from Sites to assist salmon populations trekking the Sacramento River.
As for the federal government, Watson pegs the Bureau of Reclamation’s current total commitment to Sites at “over $1 billion towards construction costs and represents over 100,000 acre-feet per year” that would be used principally to help the salmon.
“This water is intended to benefit salmon runs by having Sites reservoir operate to enable Shasta (Dam) to maximize its cold water pool – especially in dry years,” Watson said.
A basic cost-benefit comparison of the Sites plan with another longtime proposal in the north state to increase water storage – raising Shasta Dam by 18½ feet – shows Sites would yield much less bang for the buck. Sites would provide a maximum of 500,000 acre-feet per year at a projected cost of $5.2 billion to build. The plan to raise Shasta Dam, which also has advanced during the Trump administration, would add up to 634,000 acre-feet in peak years for a purported price tag that is much less: $1.4 billion. (One acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons.)
Still, a bipartisan political push for Sites is ongoing in Washington, D.C., as two veteran north state politicians – Reps. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, and John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove — continue to seek tax funding for the project. In February, the two congressmen introduced the Sites Reservoir Project Act (HR 1453) that would direct the Bureau of Reclamation to finish a feasibility study of the proposed reservoir and, if Sites is deemed feasible, provide additional funding and technical aid. Watson told ChicoSol that Reclamation is “working to finalize” the feasibility report this year.
Wikimedia photo First congressional district Rep. Doug LaMalfa
Wikimedia photo Third congressional district Rep. John Garamendi
Boosting Sites’ chances at least in the short term is that David Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for both the oil industry and the Westlands Water District, has been promoted to the top of President Donald Trump’s Department of Interior. Claims have mounted against Bernhardt alleging use of his Interior positions to help Westlands, which is a big backer of raising Shasta Dam.
Draft EIR accelerated
Watson was hired to manage Sites in 2015 at a reported beginning salary of $225,000. He previously worked for the Westlands Water District. At a congressional hearing on Feb. 14, 2018, in an exchange with Rep. LaMalfa, Watson described the project’s environmental strategy while noting that 33 agencies had invested $18 million up to that point in Sites.
photo courtesy of Sites Project Authority General Manager Jim Watson
“We used that money to accelerate the project, specifically the environmental document,” Watson told the House Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans. “We also took a strategy different than the state or (federal governments) by not trying to do a litigation-proof environmental document. Get what has been known and collected over the last 15 years … out for public comments and then advance the project by incorporating and responding to the public’s comments.”
The AquAlliance’s Brobeck said nearly 1½ years have passed since some highly critical comments about the adequacy of the project’s draft EIR were submitted, with no response yet from Sites.
Sites reservoir’s so-called “footprint” would ultimately inundate and denude a watershed of about 15,000 acres.
“I think the Sites project is … unfeasible, but continuing to plan (and) produce glossy promotional events gives politicians and water marketers the PR gain that they are doing something,” Brobeck said.
Watson told ChicoSol recently that Sites provided a relatively generous 150 days to respond to the draft EIR. Sites’ response to comments on the EIR will be provided in 2019, he said.
“That is going to start this year,” Watson said. “It’s time to respond to the comments. … We’ve received some very good comments on various topic areas.”
At capacity, as envisioned, Sites reservoir’s so-called “footprint” would ultimately inundate and denude a watershed of about 15,000 acres. It’s a landscape described by Brobeck as a mix of “oak woodlands, grassland, wetlands, riparian habitat, and croplands.”
“Once you flood something and hold water once, it kills the vegetation,” Brobeck said. “It’s going to be dead for any trees and any stabilizing roots for a long time. … And when it’s not full it’s even worse,” as accelerated runoff and extreme erosion “turn the footprint into a biological wasteland.”
photo courtesy of Sites Project Authority Area where reservoir would be built.
Brobeck argues that water flowing to the Pacific Ocean is not “wasted,” as LaMalfa and others frequently contend, but rather needed to improve the environmental health and counter the devastation to the fisheries of the San Francisco Bay Delta Watershed.
Mineral levels high in water
Supporters of Sites say the project would save precious water for use in dry times, including for crop irrigation, domestic water consumption, and helping fish and wildlife. Foes, however, predict it would produce declines in water quality that could harm living things and degrade Sacramento Valley agriculture.
The AquAlliance points to a 27-page response from Jerry Boles of Chico that addresses what Boles sees as numerous shortcomings related to water quality in the draft EIR produced for Sites in 2017. Boles is a former chief of the water quality and biology section of the Northern District of the state Department of Water Resources office in Red Bluff.
While in that role, Boles conducted tests in what would be the “source waters” for a Sites reservoir and found “high concentrations of a number of metals.” These substances, described as “the bad metals” by the AquAlliance’s Brobeck, are mostly naturally occurring. They include aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, selenium and zinc. The metal concentrations “exceed many water quality criteria and standards” and would detract from all of the benefits that Sites purports to provide, Boles wrote.
Sites’ Watson said he’s aware of concerns about selenium in the soils below the Coast Range where the reservoir would be located. To some Californians, selenium is associated with the killing and deforming of wildlife in the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in the 1970s. Surplus ag water with high levels of selenium was the culprit at Kesterson, which, like the Sites’ site, is located on the western edge of the Central Valley.
Watson told ChicoSol that Sites could provide water for existing Sacramento Valley wildlife refuges along the Pacific Flyway, as well as to fields adjacent to those refuges “to extend their reach.”
“Initial studies show the selenium (at Sites) is not at levels that would create a health hazard,” Watson said. “But we have to do additional studies to convince ourselves” there are no dangers.
Murphy, the longtime ranch owner, said he’s not aware of any health problems ever from his livestock drinking from area creeks.
“My cattle drink out of it and there’s nothing wrong with them,” Murphy said. “They all do pretty good on it.”
Due to its soil composition, the canyon in which Sites would be located is less conducive to crop growing than the more fertile Sacramento Valley lands to the east. As proposed, the reservoir would be created by the damming of what Watson described as two “seasonal” creeks – Funks and Stone Corral. The often sizzling summer temperatures on the west side can mix with some ferocious winds, which would heighten evaporation in a Sites reservoir and increase the mineral toxicity of its water, critics say.
Watson contends that the project offers “tremendous value for the salmon runs” in being able to pipe cold water to the Sacramento River at critical times to help the fish. That benefit assumes that Sites would be like other large Central Valley reservoirs that “stratify” – meaning the water is colder at lower depths. Watson said Sites would have the capacity to access that colder water to aid the salmon, while sending its warmer water out to farming operations.
However, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), which has regulatory authority over how much river water Sites could extract, says the project’s water temperature assumptions need more study.
“Most large reservoirs in the Central Valley receive runoff from snowpack, which is largely absent from the Funks and Stone Corral watersheds,” the CDFW said in a less-than-encouraging Jan. 12, 2018, letter responding to the draft EIR. “In addition, the proposed Sites Reservoir will be located in a shallow canyon, which will create a large reservoir with a large surface area making it more vulnerable to mixing from high winds.”
Chief among the CDFW’s worries in its 24-page letter are the potential impacts of water diversions to declining salmon populations. Spring-run Chinook salmon have been listed as endangered by the federal and state governments for 20 years.
While the consultants who prepared the draft EIR found there would be “no cumulative impacts” from Sites, the “CDFW considers that the additional extraction of water … would exacerbate concerns and generate cumulatively considerable impacts.”
The report by Boles, the retired water quality official, argues that, given the conditions, water released from Sites to the Sacramento River will be too warm or otherwise unsuitable for supporting cold-water fisheries.
Boles contends that “the little analyses presented in the EIR misconstrues, misinterprets, and ignores water quality data that amply demonstrate” the potential for major environmental impacts from Sites. The water-quality section of the EIR draft, Boles writes, “must be completely rewritten with an objective analysis of the data and potential adverse impacts to water quality both within the (Sites) reservoir and to downstream resources in the Sacramento River.”
Watson equated his job as Sites manager with the peeling back of an onion, examining one issue at a time.
“If you find a fatal flaw, the project off-ramps,” Watson said. “So far, we haven’t found one.”
Dave Waddell is a contributor to ChicoSol. This story was reported and written with support from Ethnic Media Services.
Waddell honored for police shooting, Sites stories
ChicoSol contributor Dave Waddell has won four honors, including two first-place awards, and ChicoSol Editor Leslie Layton was named a second-place winner in the 2019 California Journalism Awards competition.
photo courtesy of Sites Project Authority A conceptual rendering of the Sites reservoir west of Maxwell. Dave Waddell’s first-place story was supported by an Ethnic Media Services fellowship.
The results were announced Tuesday by the sponsoring California News Publishers Association, which cancelled its planned spring awards gala because of coronavirus risks.
Waddell captured top honors in the in-depth reporting category for a series of stories on law enforcement killings in Butte County. He also placed first in land-use reporting for an extensive story on the proposed Sites reservoir.
Dave Waddell
A judge in the land-use category lauded the depth of the Sites article: “One story tells you everything. Strong reporting, great quotes and you linked nearly the whole state with one topic.”
Layton’s runner-up award came in the feature-writing category for a story about Chico attorney Sergio Garcia’s 25-year journey to U.S. citizenship. A contest judge praised the story’s relevance, clarity and organization.
Two other of Waddell’s entries – in the investigative reporting and public service categories – garnered fourth-place awards for several stories in 2019 related to law enforcement shootings.
In the public service competition, a judge wrote that “ChicoSol went above and beyond an initial news story. The ongoing nature of the story and keeping the issue in the public’s eye is at the very heart of great journalism.”
Vernal Pool Landscapes: Past, Present and Future is the newest book, Number 20, from Studies from the Herbarium, California State University, Chico.
Edited by Robert A. Schlising, Erin E. Gottschalk Fisher, C. Matt Guilliams and Barbara Castro
This book is a collection of articles derived from talks presented at the vernal pool landscapes conference, “Vernal Pools Landscapes: Past, Present and Future,” convened by AquAlliance, in Chico, CA, April 11-12, 2018.
In October 2019 Newsom pledged to join fishing groups in court to sue the federal administration’s attack on California’s environment: “…Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to sue the Trump administration to block stepped-up federal water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to agribusiness and urban areas further south.”[1] However, once Fresno based Westlands Water District threatened to abandon voluntary negotiations with the state to restore the Bay-Delta ecosystem, months passed without a lawsuit. The December 24, 2019 Los Angeles Times editorial pressed Newsom, “The Governor said he would sue the Trump over water diversions from the delta. Why hasn’t he done it yet?” Still no lawsuit.In JanuaryAquAlliance initiated a campaign to contact the Governor to press him to fulfill his pledge that would also protect NorthState rivers, groundwater, and species. Countless people accepted the challenge.
Pressure from the LA Times to concerned Californians seems to have helped. “We are thrilled that the Governor initiated the lawsuit to confront federal permits that allow increased water exports. The permits were approved despite what federal biologists confirmed: elevated exports will be a disaster for salmon, steelhead trout, and even killer whales, which rely in part on salmon for food,” said AquAlliance’s executive director, Barbara Vlamis. “Not only will the litigation strive to protect vulnerable fish species, but it will also stave off threats to NorthState groundwater that supports communities, family farms, and the environment,” she continued.
The new federal rules could allow additional exports annually of 600,000 acre-feet of water from our region[2] – enough water for Chico for 30 years – and potentially kill every single salmon in the upper Sacramento River for three years in a row. The Feather River would also be seriously affected, allowing Oroville Dam to reach what is called “dead pool” where there is so little water that none can be released. What could that do for fish and local communities?
[1] LA Times Editorial 2019. Newsom can’t have it both ways on California water. December 24, 2019. [2] REMINDER – 600,000 acre-feet is the same amount the feds sought in the 10-Year Water Transfer Program. In 2018 AquAlliance’s litigation stopped the Program.
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NEWS ARTICLE by Alexandra Hall – February 21, 2020
A day after President Trump visited Central Valley growers to celebrate providing more water to farms, California sued his administration to block the new rules that would do so.
The contentious new rules govern how much water can be pumped out of the watersheds of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which flow from the Sierra Nevada to the San Francisco Bay, controlling irrigation for millions of acres of farmland in the country’s biggest agricultural economy, drinking water for two-thirds of Californians from Silicon Valley to San Diego, and the fate of endangered salmon and other fish.
President Trump ceremonially signed a memo on federal water infrastructure plans at a rally on Feb. 19, 2020 in Bakersfield. (David McNew/Getty Images)
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, argues that pumping more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farms would drive endangered populations of delta smelt, Chinook salmon and steelhead trout to the brink extinction.
“California won’t silently spectate as the Trump administration adopts scientifically challenged biological opinions that push species to extinction and harm our natural resources and waterways,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who filed the suit in partnership with the state’s Environmental Protection and Natural Resources agencies.
The rules have been under fire for more than a year, as President Trump first ordered them to be prepared with unprecedented speed, then removed and replaced the federal biologists who had concluded the rules would threaten endangered salmon. Last fall, when the Trump administration announced the plan, officials couldn’t promise it would, in fact, deliver more water to agriculture.
Ernest Conant, regional director for the Bureau of Reclamation, says the plan will have to be in place for awhile before he could say whether it will give more water to farmers.
“It could very well in certain years decrease it,” he said.
The rivers that feed the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as well as the Delta itself, are home to a variety of state and federally protected fish species, whose numbers have been dwindling since humans began building dams and reservoirs to control flooding and send water throughout the state.
Two massive networks of dams and canals determine how much water gets taken out, with one system run by the state and the other run by the federal government.
“Our goal continues to be to realize enforceable voluntary agreements that provide the best immediate protection for species, reliable and safe drinking water, and dependable water sources for our farmers for economic prosperity,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement Thursday. “This is the best path forward to sustain our communities, our environment and our economy.”
On Wednesday, Trump visited Bakersfield to fete the rule change, and signed a memo that goes further, directing “the Secretaries of the Interior and Commerce and the Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality to help deliver and develop more water supplies in California’s Central Valley,” according to a U.S. Interior Department press release.
‘Four More Years’
On a stage adorned with a giant American flag, stacks of produce boxes and large blue tractors on either end, Trump addressed an audience of local supporters and growers who stand to benefit from the directive.
“I’m going to be signing a very important piece of legislation that is going to give you a lot of water and a lot of dam and a lot of everything,” Trump told excited members of the audience. “And you’ll be able to farm your land — you’ll be able to do things you never thought possible.”
Trump was joined onstage by California Republican Reps. Devin Nunes of Tulare and Tom McClintock of Elk Grove, as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and other active and aspiring local Republican politicians. At one point, Trump called up former Central Valley Republican Rep. David Valadao, who was ousted by a Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections and is now running to regain his seat.
The event, in a hot, crowded hangar at Meadows Field Airport in Bakersfield, had all the signs of a campaign rally. Chants of “four more years” rang out from a crowd of well over a thousand supporters wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats, “Women for Trump” shirts and “Trump 2020” swag.
In an effort to show he had fulfilled his 2016 campaign promise to deliver more water to Central Valley ranchers, Trump brought several local farmers on stage to talk about the importance of water to the region’s agricultural economy and laud the president’s support of America’s farming families.
The day before the event, officials with the federal Bureau of Reclamation signed a record of decision that formally adopted the biological opinions unveiled by the Trump administration last year, dictating how much and when water can be pumped out of the Delta.
Battles Ahead
It also set the stage for more court battles between the administration, on one side, and environmental groups and the state of California on the other. Environmental groups have fought to limit pumping because of the danger posed to endangered fish.
The administration’s revised biological opinion was unveiled in October 2019, after federal scientists, who had found the Delta water plan would jeopardize endangered salmon, were removed from the project.
A coalition of environmental groups, including the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and Natural Resources Defense Council sued the administration in December in an effort to stop the plan.
“These new rules sacrifice the Bay-Delta and its most endangered species for the financial interests of the President’s political backers and Secretary Bernhardt’s former clients,” NRDC said in a press release following Trump’s visit Wednesday. “The Newsom Administration has the tools it needs to protect California from Trump’s latest assault on the environment, and we’re looking forward to working with the Governor to do so.”
Kate Poole, senior director of the Nature Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that if the administration’s plan goes into effect, it will cause significant harm and possibly the extinction of salmon and other species in the Delta.
“What he signed was actually just a memorandum that doesn’t really do a whole lot other than say they’re going to try to further increase water deliveries even beyond what these biological opinions do. And they’re going to pursue more water storage,” Poole said.
Trump’s Supporters: He ‘Gets Things Done’
Farmers and other local residents who waited in a long line of ticket holders to see Trump in Bakersfield were ecstatic that he would make time to revisit the Central Valley. Many told KQED they are pleased with the president’s actions on water and his performance overall, as a leader who “gets things done.”
“We’re here to support the Trump administration and their efforts to help us get more local water supply to our growers,” said Aaron Fukuda, general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District.
“These biological opinions that we’re looking at, we believe they improve our habitat and bring more water down to our farmers. It’s a win-win for everybody.”
Jim Erickson, director of the Madera Irrigation District, and a fourth-generation farmer who grows almonds, olives, grapes, pistachios, oats and prunes, agreed.
“It’s going to give us more flexibility, give us some more water, which we are all in dire need of in California,” Erickson said.
“He came out, he said he was going to work on this, he listened and he’s doing it,” Erickson added, referring to Trump’s 2016 campaign visit to Fresno when he committed to delivering more water to local ranchers. “I’m hopeful that [the state will] back off and realize that this is good for all of us and keep the economy going here in California.”
Central Valley politicians also reacted to Trump’s actions.
State Sen. Andreas Borgeas, R-Fresno, said he appreciated Trump visiting the San Joaquin Valley and the federal government “finally taking action to provide more water for valley farmers.”
“The ball is now in Gov. Newsom’s court to provide clean, reliable and ample water supplies to valley farmers and communities,” Borgeas said. “The state must ensure that infrastructure and storage are a top priority. It’s simple: no water, no farms, and no food.”
Two freshman Democratic congressmen who flipped their districts in the 2018 midterm elections took a more diplomatic stance, rather than committing to one side of the issue.
“The biological opinions needed to be updated with better, newer science,” TJ Cox and Josh Harder said in a joint statement, “We would prefer the parties work together in a meeting room rather than square up as rivals in the courtroom. … We stand ready to help all parties reach a resolution in any way we can.”
Even before he was sworn into office, Gov. Gavin Newsom threw his weight behind a series of tentative deals, brokered by his predecessor, that were intended to bring lasting peace to California’s never-ending battles over water and endangered fish.
The deals, designed to reallocate water from the state’s
major rivers, have yet to be finalized a year later.
Now, one of the nation’s most powerful farm irrigation
districts says it will back out of the agreements completely if Newsom follows
through with a pledge to sue President Donald Trump over a federal plan to pump
more water to farmers from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the fragile
estuary on Sacramento’s doorstep.
The agreements are intended to resolve a more than
decade-old dispute over how much water should be left in the state’s major
rivers to prop up endangered fish populations. Those same rivers also supply
California’s massive farm belt and cities from San Francisco to San Diego. It’s
one of the most contentious, complicated issues facing the new governor.
Last week, Tom Birmingham, the general manager of the
Westlands Water District, told Newsom’s top environmental policy appointees the
massive Fresno-based water district was going walk to away from the
water-sharing deals if Newsom sues Trump.
“The state’s threat of litigation places those far-reaching
changes at risk, and until the issues that gave rise to this threat are
resolved, it will be impossible to reach a voluntary agreement,” Birmingham
said in a December 10 email to Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the Natural
Resources Agency, and Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the state Environmental
Protection Agency. “At this point, the ball is in the state’s court.”
Jeff Sutton of the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority in Willows,
a major Sacramento Valley irrigation district, made a similar threat to state
officials the same day. Neither Sutton or Birmingham could be reached for
comment. A Newsom spokeswoman said the administration remains committed to
brokering a deal.
On Thursday, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a longtime ally of
the farmers in Westlands’ district, waded into the debate by posting a letter
to the Trump and Newsom administrations on her official Twitter account, urging
the factions to work together.
“I’m worried that we’re on a disastrous course for
California’s water management that will harm our communities and environment,”
she tweeted. “There’s only one way to avoid this potential crisis, and that’s
for (Newsom) and (Interior Secretary David Bernhardt) to work together.”
The new threats significantly complicate the tentative deals
brokered by former Gov. Jerry Brown shortly before he left office. His
administration described them as a grand water-sharing agreement that would
bring an end to the dispute between farmers, cities, fishermen and
environmentalists over how much water should be left the state’s two most important
rivers, the Sacramento and San Joaquin, which flow into the Delta and out under
the Golden Gate Bridge.
Under Brown’s proposal, farm irrigation districts and cities
would surrender water to prop up fish populations and kick in about $800
million for habitat restoration projects. The state said it would contribute
$900 million to the projects. The farms and cities agreed to the plan because
they felt it was less onerous than a dramatic restriction on water use favored
by the State Water Resources Control Board.
Newsom, who had just been elected governor, said at the time
the “voluntary agreements are preferable to a lengthy administrative process
and the inevitable ensuing lawsuits.” This week, the administration continued
to stand by the deals. Newsom’s Natural Resources Agency spokeswoman, Lisa
Lien-Mager, said in an email Wednesday that the tentative settlements “create
more opportunities for species to survive and thrive.”
With the threat last week, Westlands has aligned itself even
more closely with Trump and his aims for California’s water system, which would
send more water from the Delta to Westlands. The water district already has
close ties to the president — their former chief lobbyist is Bernhardt, Trump’s
Interior secretary.
Fish populations at
risk
From the start, Brown’s agreements have been controversial.
Environmentalists argued the plan didn’t go nearly far enough. The State Water
Resources Control Board last December, just before Brown left office, sided
with environmentalists and voted in favor of a more aggressive plan to increase
flows in three key San Joaquin Valley rivers, in spite of Brown’s compromise.
Environmentalists say that for far too long, too much water
has been sucked from the state’s rivers by farms and cities up and down the
state. For instance, in some summers nearly 90 percent of the water in the
Tuolumne River is diverted to farms and the city of San Francisco, leaving
precious little for imperiled cold-water native fish like salmon and steelhead.
The board said it would revisit its ruling if a settlement
was ever finalized.
Last week, a consortium of major environmental groups said
the settlement talks aren’t progressing nearly fast enough and they urged the
water board to “move forward rapidly” on a similar flow plan for the Sacramento
River and its tributaries in order to save fish populations.
Newsom, meanwhile, has made numerous overtures to farm
interests since taking office in an effort to the get settlements finalized. He
started by replacing the chair of the water board, Felicia Marcus, who was
viewed by farmers as tied too closely to the environmental movement.
Since then, negotiations among the various parties to the
settlements have continued behind closed doors, and little has been said
publicly beyond a July 1 white paper posted on the Natural Resources Agency’s
website.
The document reports “substantial progress” had been made
but also made clear that lots of work remained: Environmental reviews, for
example, wouldn’t be finalized until 2021.
Keeping the negotiations on track also was central to
Newsom’s decision to veto a bill in September that was backed by some of the
state’s most influential environmental lobbyists. He infuriated
environmentalists by vetoing Senate Bill 1, which would have used state law in
an attempt to block every environmental initiative launched by the federal
government since Jan. 20, 2017 — the day Trump took office.
Newsom said the bill would have derailed the settlement
discussions. Westlands and other California water exporters feared SB 1 would
create a new legal barrier that would have prevented California and the federal
government from working together to manage the state’s fisheries and water
supplies.
Westlands a ‘bully’
At the heart of the debate are the two massive Delta pumping
stations near Tracy that supply water to irrigation districts like Westlands
and to the state’s major cities as far south as San Diego. One set of pumps is
run by the state; the other by the federal government. Environmentalists say
decades of pumping have ruined populations of salmon, smelt and other species.
As Newsom has tried to balance these forces, the Trump
administration had been moving ahead on its own Delta pumping plan designed to
send more water to Westlands and other farm districts, fulfilling a pledge
Trump made to San Joaquin Valley farmers while campaigning in Fresno three
years ago.
The plan, developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and National Marine Fisheries Service, would overhaul the rules governing the
Delta to allow more water to be pumped south to San Joaquin Valley farms such
as Westlands.
On Thursday, the Trump administration released its final
environmental impact statement on the pumping plan, saying it will “optimize
water deliveries and power production for California communities and farms in
an environmentally sound manner.”
Last month, Newsom’s administration said Trump went too far,
and he promised to sue to protect the environment.
“As stewards of this state’s remarkable natural resources,
we must do everything in our power to protect them,” Newsom said in a prepared
statement at the time.
Roger Patterson of the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California — who’s been involved in the negotiations and received
copies of Westlands’ email — said he doesn’t believe the talks are doomed.
Patterson said he’s been told separately by Birmingham, the
Westlands general manager, that his email threatening to back out of
negotiations was intended to prod state and federal officials to figure out a
compromise.
The process “has had a lot of bumps over the last year,”
said Patterson, assistant general manager of Metropolitan. “It’s hard stuff,
and I don’t think anybody’s saying they’re giving up on the process.”
But Doug Obegi, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense
Council, said Westlands’ threat to walk away from the talks — so soon after
threatening to walk during the SB 1 debate — amounts to the farm-water agency
trying to “bully the state into backing away from fighting the Trump
administration.”
“It does feel like we’ve seen this dance before,” Obegi
said.
