State may give away water resources

Despite the recent crisis in the Delta and the governor's push for new dams, the state Department of Water Resources (DWR) is proposing to give away one of the largest water-storage facilities in the state and to eliminate drought safeguards for urban areas in California.

This proposal, outlined in a recently released draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR), would result in the adoption of water-contract amendments which were secretly negotiated in 1994. These amendments will affect the water supplies for the 23 million Californians who receive a portion of their water from the State Water Project. The original secret deal was successfully challenged in a lawsuit by the Planning and Conservation League (PCL), Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara, and Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District in 1995 (Planning and Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 Cal.App.3d). While DWR has been allowed to operate provisionally under these `Monterey' amendments since 1995, the PCL lawsuit forced DWR to analyze the impact of the amendments and to get input from the public before determining if they should become permanent water-management rules.

The EIR reveals that these amendments would significantly impact water reliability to those who rely on SWP water.

The amendments would eliminate contract provisions safeguarding urban areas in drought years. DWR's own analysis shows that in dry years like 2001, water supplies for homes and businesses in urban areas would be reduced by over 400,000 acre-feet (26% of total urban water deliveries from the SWP). These areas would instead be forced to depend on "surplus" water from the Delta in wetter years for storage in the dry years. The recent fish declines in the Delta and the resulting court ruling closing down the SWP pumps for a few days, however, demonstrate that such "surplus" water, which urban areas now depend on, is actually just "paper water" (imaginary water) that cannot be delivered in the future.

The amendments would also give away the state-owned Kern Water Bank, one of the largest water-storage facilities in California. The Kern Bank would instead be operated by the Kern Water Bank Authority, an organization operated by particular interests in Kern County.

The proposed changes would eliminate the common-sense provision requiring DWR to determine the realistic water yield of the SWP. Without knowing its actual safe yield, DWR has promised and will continue to promise to deliver paper water. Already the promise of paper water has resulted in over-reliance on and over-pumping of Delta water, leading to cutbacks in water supplies, and decreased water-supply reliability.

The amendments would encourage the over-pumping of Delta water in the winter and spring months, which has already, under the provisional use of the Monterey amendments, contributed to the massive decline of the Delta smelt and other Bay/Delta fish populations. Meanwhile millions of dollars in costs would be transferred to taxpayers, with millions rebated to individual water agencies.

WhatYouCanDo

Fortunately, these amendments are not final. Submit your comments to DWR by Mon., Jan. 14, and tell them to implement better alternatives for California. Comments should be submitted to:

Delores Brown, Chief
Office of Environmental Compliance
California Department of Water Resources
901 P St.
Sacramento, CA 95814
delores -at- water.ca.gov

Urge DWR to reject the proposed amendments and instead provide a realistic assessment of the safe yield of water from the Delta. Urge DWR to assist communities to decrease demand from the Delta and increase drought water reliability - through aggressive implementation of urban water conservation, agricultural water conservation, and water recycling.

You can see the draft EIR here

For more information, contact Mindy McIntyre, water program manager, Planning and Conservation League, at (916) 313-4518 or email mmcintyre -at- pcl.org

Mindy McIntyre