The Loma Prietan
September 2001
CALFED Legislation Undermines Efforts to Restore the Bay-Delta
by Carl Zichella
Regional Staff Director, California-Nevada-Hawaii
Just about a year ago, after decades of diversions, pollution and other abuses, it seemed that at long last some help was on the way for the troubled 738,000-acre San Francisco-San Joaquin Bay-Delta.
A massive effort to obtain consensus had reached fruition. All those with a stake in the Delta’s future had wrestled with the nettlesome problems of California water development, supply, quality, and wildlife issues, as well as proposed meaningful solutions. Hundreds of public meetings had been held to scrutinize ideas with the help of the public. The federal and state governments—16 or so agencies strong—were poised to jointly implement a resto-ration plan that would be the biggest in the nation (after the Everglades National Park).
A landmark agreement, known as the CALFED Record of Decision (ROD) was adopted, generally spelling out how things would proceed. Each side—environmentalists, large-scale agricultural interests, and urban water users—had made concessions. Hope for the Delta hit a high water mark. Now all Congress and the California legis-lature had to do was authorize the program and ante up the cash to make it work. A cease-fire in our state’s relentless water wars seemed very possible.
Now, CALFED may be on the verge of collapse—a victim of legislative proposals by Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Riverside, HR 1985) and our own U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (S 976). These proposals would split the ROD apart and play favorites with some of the special interests that
have reduced the once-rich estuary to a system in deepening ecological trouble.
All CALFED deals are apparently off for water users who are abandoning commitments they made just 12 months ago.
Instead of studying the need for proposed new water storage projects, as
the ROD specifies, Calvert’s bill would essentially “pre-authorize” them, greasing the skids of Congressional consideration, and making it difficult to impossible for Congress to reject unneeded or uneconomical projects. Two Congressional committees would have to reject the projects within 60 days or they would
be automatically approved under Calvert’s development scheme.
Projects that would raise Shasta Dam, enlarge the existing Los Vaqueros Reservoir, and develop a new Sites reservoir would be tough to stop. Once authorized, porkbarrel appropriations would likely follow and be very hard to prevent. Some water users—those in the agribusiness-dominated Westlands water district for example—would receive a new entitlement of guaranteed water shipments that never existed anywhere else before. They are not part of their present water supply contracts, and would of necessity come out of water that the CALFED ROD envisioned reserving for environmental restoration. There’s simply nowhere else the water could come from.
Representative Calvert justifies these dramatic departures from the ROD as
a hedge against possible water supply problems that he likens to the present energy crisis.
He repeats the mistakes made in President Bush’s energy plan by ignoring conservation and efficiency efforts—equally important for water consumption—in favor of a relentless push for more supply. In fact, his bill is largely silent on the environmental restoration provisions of the ROD.
If that weren’t enough, Mr. Calvert’s proposal abandons one of the most important provisions of the CALFED ROD—the principle that the beneficiaries of the water development projects, and
not the taxpayers, should pay for them. Essentially, Calvert’s bill continues the failed policy of subsidizing scarce water and encouraging its inefficient and environmentally harmful use.
East Bay Representative, George Miller, the environmental leader of the California House delegation on resource issues, has taken Calvert on, proposing his own legislation to implement CALFED. His California Water Quality and Reliability Act, HR 2404, reauthorizes CALFED without changing the program’s direction.
“My legislation does not seek to diminish the commitment of federal law
to the protection and restoration of the environment,” Miller wrote to House colleagues on June 26th.
Miller’s bill balances water development with environmental restoration as laid
out in the thoroughly negotiated CALFED ROD, and emphasizes and provides incentives for water recycling and conservation, while encouraging groundwater storage and management. Senator Feinstein’s proposal, while somewhat less harsh than the Calvert bill, repeats many of the same errors that Calvert makes. Senator Feinstein is extremely worried about water supply issues for agriculture and proposes similar guarantees to irrigation interests as Calvert.
Unlike Calvert, however, she is negotiating with Senator Barbara Boxer over language that could remove the one-sided guarantees, and back off provisions for the pre-authorization of water development projects. The situation is very “fluid” and there are broad areas of disagreement between the two senators. But Senator Feinstein’s bill is unlikely to advance without Senator Boxer’s support, and
both senators are still talking. Senator Boxer, for her part, is defending the environmental restoration portions of the CALFED ROD, and striving for more balance in the bill.
The Sierra Club and our allies in the Environmental Water Caucus have been working hard to make members of the Senate aware of the shortcomings of Senator Feinstein’s bill as introduced.
On July 16th, in a letter hand-delivered
to all 100 senate offices, Club Executive Director Carl Pope wrote, “The Sierra Club supports the CALFED plan to restore the San Francisco-San Joaquin Bay-Delta and to provide reliable water for the region’s farms and cities. For six years we have worked with a host of stakeholders from all interests and 16 state and federal agencies to come up with an agreement that resulted in the CALFED Record of Decision (ROD). All parties involved made difficult compromises. S. 976 is a retreat from that agreement that not only threatens the resources the ROD sought to protect, but threatens future efforts to arrive at such agreements on other thorny resource conservation issues. Rather than resolve outstanding conflicts as the ROD would have it, S. 976 sets up winners and losers between and even among stakeholders that dooms the process and leads inexorably to litigation and continued conflict.”
Many state opinion editors see the issue in similar terms. While everyone wants to see the CALFED process funded, many also decry the shift in emphasis taken by the Calvert and Feinstein bills.
In a July 28th editorial entitled: “Save This Vital Water Pact,” the Los Angeles Times opined that: “The interest groups have lined up to re-fight battles supposedly settled by Cal-Fed, such as a demand by farmers and water agencies for immediate approval of new reservoir projects. This should not be allowed to happen. The Bush administration and (Governor)
Davis need to exert united leadership
for a new authorization law based on the Babbitt-Davis agreement. Otherwise, Cal-Fed could collapse, with years of effort and opportunity wasted. There can be no winners in another water war.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Contact your Member of Congress and request that s/he co-sponsor the California Water Quality and Reliability Act (Miller, D-Richmond). Urge them not to support HR 1985, (Calvert, R-Riverside). If your representative has co-sponsored HR 1985, please ask him/her to withdraw support, and co-sponsor Miller’s California Water Quality and Reliability Act (HR 2404).
Contact Senator Feinstein and respectfully urge her to amend her bill to remove provisions that would pre-authorize water development projects, and to eliminate water supply guarantees. Urge her to pursue a more balanced approach that makes beneficiaries of water projects pay their own way, as well as authorize the water conservation and environmental restoration portions of the CALFED ROD. Ask her to respect the multi-year CALFED process, not subvert it. Senator Feinstein can be contacted at One Post Street, #2450, San Francisco, CA 94104. Her fax number is 415/393-0710.
Contact Senator Boxer and thank her for her leadership on CALFED. Urge her to demand that water conservation and environmental restoration portions of the CALFED ROD be treated equally in authorization legislation, and that water users be required to pay for capacity enhancements.