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GAO Report shows that Westlands & other farmers still owe taxpayers over $450 million for water infrastructure - *more added*

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 18, 2008 at 8:25 am

From the Associated Press via the San Diego Union-Tribune:

irrigation-canal-by-ben-werdmuller.jpgA federal watchdog agency said Thursday some of the San Joaquin Valley’s largest farms owe the government hundreds of millions of dollars for the cost of building California’s water infrastructure. The report issued Thursday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office says four large irrigation contractors owe the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation nearly $450 million for building pumps and canals. The Westlands Water District, a coalition of giant agribusinesses in the San Joaquin Valley, owes an additional $48 million, according to the report.

The farmers are in the midst of negotiating a proposal with the bureau that would forgive some of the cost of building the Central Valley Project, a vast irrigation system that serves the state’s most fertile farmland. The report makes public for the first time the official size of that debt.

“Taxpayers paid for these water projects decades ago,” said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., one of three legislators who requested the review. “This independent audit confirms that taxpayers are still owed an awful lot of money by some of the largest private users of water in the state.”

To read the full text of this article from the San Diego Union-Tribune, click here.

From Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org:

The Central Valley Project (CVP) is the largest federal irrigation system in the nation, and the beneficiaries of the CVP’s San Luis Unit include some of the most productive and lucrative farms in the world. The irrigation districts that were the subject of the report were assessed $523 million by the Bureau of Reclamation for the construction of the San Luis Unit, which was first authorized in 1960.

agriculture-fields-by-topherous.jpgBut due to the heavily subsidized and forgiving nature of antiquated federal western water policy, the water districts had repaid to the federal treasury only $74 million of that $523 million as of September 30, 2005, according to today’s GAO report.

The approximately 600 agribusinesses that make up the Westlands Water District – the San Luis Unit district that is often cited as the largest irrigation district in the world – were assessed an additional $179 million for the construction of their internal water distribution system. Including the remaining balance on Westlands’ account, the San Luis Unit contractors still owe the federal treasury approximately $497 million.

For the full text of this story from IndyBay.org, click here.

From Mike Taugher and the San Jose Mercury News:

Miller said the GAO report showed that the exchange, the details of which are still in flux, probably would be a bad deal for taxpayers. “They want more forgiveness from taxpayers,” Miller said. “It’s a flat-out abuse of the taxpayer.”

A layer of clay that underlies most of the Westlands district inhibits drainage and causes polluted water to build up, potentially into the root zones of crops. Before the district’s drain was plugged in the 1980s, the polluted water emptied into the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, causing widespread deformities and deaths in birds. Without a place to dispose of its drainage, Westlands sued the federal government and in 2000 won a court order that requires the government to fix the problem.

Last spring, the government signed off on a plan to treat the tainted water and resolve the lawsuit. But by summer, farmers had offered up several alternate plans in which they proposed debt forgiveness in exchange for taking on the vexing drainage problem, which has left thousands of acres of farmland too salty to grow crops.

The reclamation bureau has estimated the cost of draining the land at $2.7 billion, which is why Westlands has said the exchange would be a good deal for taxpayers: the government would not have to build the expensive project.

But if the government does have to deal with the drainage problem, Westlands would have to repay that $2.7 billion, or at least a substantial portion of it, although it might be under terms highly favorable to the water district.

Mike Taugher’s experience with this issue really shines in this story - excellent reporting and writing. He explains the situation much better than the AP story. To read the full text of this story from Mike and the San Jose Mercury News, click here.

From the Fresno Bee:

The Bureau of Reclamation estimates one drainage option would cost the government $2.7 billion, for a combination of land retirements, evaporation ponds and soil treatments. A second option would transfer responsibility to the water districts. They would fund the drainage solutions in exchange for having their construction debt forgiven. Water district officials and state and federal representatives have been meeting to discuss irrigation drainage options, but no solution appears to be imminent. Westlands representatives could not be reached to comment Thursday.

All told, the new audit notes, the federal government spent about $3.4 billion on the Redding-to-Bakersfield system of dams and canals known as the Central Valley Project. The CVP’s San Luis Unit serves the Westlands, Pacheco, Panoche and San Luis water districts, which stretch as far north as Merced County.

A separate proposal has been made to restore water flows and salmon population to the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam. The dam, which is not part of the San Luis Unit, is blamed for drying up the once-teeming river.

Though the irrigation drainage problems primarily affect the Valley’s west side and the river restoration primarily affects the east side, taken together they illustrate the scope of the water problems facing the region.

To read the full text of the article from the Fresno Bee, click here.

You can read the Governmental Accountability Office report by clicking here.

Picture of Central Valley irrigation canal by flickr photographer Ben Werdmuller. Picture of staggered fields by flickr photographer Topherous. Click on the pictures to visit the flickr website, which is very cool and worth the click through.

January 18, 2008 · Filed Under Central Valley Project, Westlands Water District

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