Secretary Kempthorne announces $48 Million contract for Folsom Dam and reservoir modification project to improve flood control & safety
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 27, 2008 at 8:56 am
From the Department of the Interior, this press release:
Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today announced that the Bureau of Reclamation has awarded a $48,745,838 contract for Phase II of the Joint Federal Project at Folsom Dam and Reservoir. The award, which is the second in a series of construction contracts for a new auxiliary spillway at Folsom, went to Oregon Mt. Construction of Redding, California.
“This project significantly enhances flood control and dam safety for downstream communities, including Sacramento,” Kempthorne said. “Because we are doing this work as a joint federal-state effort, the project creates cost efficacies that save American taxpayers a significant amount of money.”
The auxiliary spillway, or Joint Federal Project, represents an unprecedented partnership among Reclamation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board, and the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency. When completed, the project will address the hydrologic risk to Folsom Dam identified through Reclamation’s Safety of Dams evaluation program. Hydrologic risk refers to possible overtopping of the dams and dikes during an extreme storm event. The project also achieves the Corps’ objective of increasing flood control at Folsom.
The initiative consists of a water-side approach channel, a control structure with six submerged gates, a concrete-lined spillway chute about 3,000-feet long, and a stilling basin which acts as an energy dissipation structure prior to discharges converging with the American River below the main concrete dam. The project will be constructed in three successive phases by Reclamation and the Corps.
The Phase II contract with Oregon Mt. Construction Company includes additional spillway excavation, construction of a stilling basin coffer dam, relocation of a 42-inch water supply pipeline, and ancillary access roads. Work will begin in mid-winter 2008-2009 and will be completed in the summer of 2010. Phase III construction by the Corps will follow shortly thereafter, and the project is expected to be completed by 2015.
In addition to the Joint Federal Project, Reclamation will complete additional dam safety work on Dikes 4, 5, and 6, and the Mormon Island Auxiliary Dam. Additional information on the project is available on Reclamation’s website at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/jfp/index.html.
# # #
Reclamation is the largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest producer of hydroelectric power in the United States, with operations and facilities in the 17 Western States. Its facilities also provide substantial flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. Visit our website at http://www.usbr.gov.
Smelt again at center of water conflict; Environmentalists want 3 dozen contracts canceled or reworked, threatening operation of CVP
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 12, 2008 at 6:39 amFrom the Fresno Bee:
Environmentalists want the federal government to cancel or renegotiate more than three dozen long-term water contracts in the Central Valley because they say they were drawn up using flawed data. If the request is approved by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, agricultural users both north and south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta say it would likely mean less water for them.
Some say the environmentalists’ request has the potential to turn the state’s intricately woven water world upside down. That’s because some Sacramento River users say that if there’s no federal contract, they should be able to reassert their longtime state water rights — a claim that could devastate the Westlands Water District and even hurt the Friant Water Users Authority and other San Joaquin River water users.
Wanger today will hear arguments in his Fresno courtroom on the request to cancel water contracts in a case involving the tiny delta smelt, which environmentalists say is facing extinction. They say the population decline is driven largely by reduced water coming into the delta, and also because increased pumping for users south of the delta has helped wreck critical spawning areas and is damaging the smelt’s overall habitat.
Environmentalists say they aren’t seeking to stop water deliveries; they want the new contracts to be based on the new biological opinion when it is issued. But this could have dramatic affects on the Central Valley Project:
More potentially explosive, some say, is language in a legal brief on the contract issue filed by 22 Sacramento River settlement contractors — water users who had used Sacramento River water before the federal Central Valley Project was constructed beginning in the late 1930s.
These users say in court filings that if there are no valid federal contracts — as environmentalists want — then they would revert to using water under those pre-existing rights, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s “ability to operate the CVP would be severely compromised.” That in turn could affect users south of the delta whose supply originates in the state’s far north.
Get the whole story from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.
Farmers hit with more unexpected water cutbacks; “Yields will fall, quality will decline, fields will be abandoned, trees may die and unemployment will skyrocket,” predicts farmer
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 11, 2008 at 6:02 amFrom the California Farm Bureau Federation:
Federal officials told hundreds of San Joaquin Valley farmers last week that they will get even less irrigation water this year than they had planned. Deliveries are being cut to 40 percent of contract amount from the 45 percent declared earlier in the year. The reductions affect farm customers of the federal Central Valley Project in both the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.
The sobering news caught many who farm on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley by surprise. They had planted crops based on the percentage of contract amount announced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation earlier this spring.
This additional cutback, which has never before occurred so late in a crop year, was explained during a congressional briefing in Los Banos. Hosted by Congressmen Jim Costa, D-Fresno, and George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, the event drew hundreds of farmers, water district representatives and officials from all levels of government, including state Food and Agriculture Secretary A.G. Kawamura, as well as members of the press.
Riverdale farmer Mark Borba, who relies on water from the Westlands Water District, said crops produced within the district, like almonds, tomatoes and cotton, will suffer. “Yields will fall, quality will decline, fields will be abandoned, trees may die and unemployment will skyrocket,” he said.
“This unexpected cutback comes at the time of highest demand for water. In the next three months, our crops will be facing triple-digit temperatures and yet we’ll have a third less water to work with. For us, every day is another day lost in solving this problem,” Borba said. “What we don’t need from Sacramento is more talk about studies and alternatives and a laborious approval process. Our crops are dying.”
Processing tomato grower Jim Diedrich, a Westside farmer who relies on federal water deliveries, said after the meeting that there was a lack of specific detail in the information presented at the briefing. “That’s a concern because they keep talking about getting a little more water here and there, but we have less than a week to figure out what’s going on, if we’ll get a little more or have to let 1,000 acres of tomatoes go. We already have $1.2 million invested in establishing the crop and getting it to this point. Based on what they’re saying today, we may only be able to save 200 of those acres.”
Diedrich said he has taken a number of steps in recent years to reduce water use and better manage irrigation. “We put in drip systems, so now, instead of using 3.5 acre-feet of water, we’re down to 2.1,” he said. “But there’s no way we can make up through water management techniques for the kind of cuts they’re talking about. And, there’s no groundwater where we are so that’s not an option.
“We need water today, but an even bigger concern is that they also aren’t talking about what we’re going to do next year. Based on what I heard today, I’m not too eager to rush out and put a million dollars in the ground next year. I just hope if we have a problem with water supplies next year that they’ll come out and say so sooner,” he said. “That way we’ll know early?before we get a crop planted.”
Diedrich’s son Tod said, “We’ve already told three-quarters of our workers to go home. We shut down the water meters. We’ve tried to keep on the employees who’ve been with us the longest and the ones with families, but it’s possible in a week there won’t be any water so there won’t be any work. We’ll have to save what we can by ourselves?me, my dad, my kids and a foreman. We’ll focus on trying to save our almond trees. That’s the only way I can see to survive.”
U.S. Fish & Wildlife & National Marine Fishery Service consult on CVP & SWP
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 5, 2008 at 6:44 amFrom the California Farmer:
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fishery Service has been asked to begin formal consultation on Central Valley Project and State Water Project. A Federal judge invalidated a water plan that would have allowed more pumping from the San Francisco Bay Delta at the expense of five species of protected salmon and steelhead trout (June CF page 4). The same Fresno judge Oliver W. Wanger made a similar ruling in August 2007 to protect the delta smelt.
And as if that it not enough, the FWS has determined that a petition has presented enough information to initiate a status review to consider listing of the Longfin smelt under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Since last December, Fish & Wildlife Service officials have been meeting regularly with the Bureau of Reclamation & Department of Water Resources, working on salmon and smelt issues.
Salmon:
By regulation, FWS and NMFS have 135 days to complete the Biological Opinion, a clock that starts once all additional information is submitted and the Biological Assessment is complete. The Biological Assessment will describe the factors that may affect winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon and critical habitat. A significant factor affecting all listed salmon in the Central Valley is the loss of spawing and rearing habitat upstream of the major dams. Factors include, but are not limited to, high water temperatures, low flows and flow fluctuations and fish passage.
Delta Smelt:
The Service has determined that the following recommendation will be protective of delta smelt. The projects will implement a 7-day average target of -2,000 Cubic Feet per Second (cfs), and to maintain the flap gates on the agricultural barriers in the open position.
The smelt recommendations are meant to help with maintaining proper water temperature for spawning. Also, entrainment of smelt has been increasing, and they still have been found in the vicinity of the export pumps.
Find out more in this article from California Farmer by clicking here.
Feds reduce water to Central Valley farms; Westlands Water District growers in crisis, to decide which crops to abandon
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 3, 2008 at 6:46 am
From the Fresno Bee:
Federal officials told hundreds of farmers in the Westlands Water District on Monday that they will get even less irrigation water — just days after the district announced a rationing plan. Farmers in the nation’s largest federal water district will be hit hard — many said they expect to abandon crops or even go out of business for lack of water.
Two members of Congress and district officials urged Gov. Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency. “Half the people in this room are going to go broke,” Tom Birmingham, Westlands general manger, said at a meeting that drew about 400 to the fairgrounds in Los Banos. “This is a crisis that has to be fixed now.”
A dry spring and the Wanger court ruling are creating a crisis situation. The Westlands Water District announced rationing plans last Friday, and on Monday, Bureau of Reclamation officials announced water allocations were being reduced from 45% to 40%. Farmers are also being hit hard by soaring fertilizer and fuel costs:
Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson said the crisis is certain to go beyond farms. He said it will affect small businesses that rely on farming. “There are many jobs at stake,” he said.
Milligan said the Bureau of Reclamation will ask the State Water Quality Control Board to adjust standards to allow more ground water to be pumped into the delta.
The Metropolitan Water District, which serves Southern California, also has found its supplies strained by a drought that cut back supplies from the Colorado River. But that district has built storage facilities that give it enough water to cover needed supplies for two years, reclamation officials said. They said they are talking with MWD officials to see whether they will agree to reduce the amount of water they get from the delta. “Their day of reckoning is coming, too,” said John Davis, the bureau’s deputy regional director.
From KFSN, ABC affiliate for Fresno, maybe there is a silver lining, though:
Congressman Jim Costa described the water crisis as the perfect storm created by a critically dry spring, a dry 2007, and a variety of regulations. But he said these desperate times may finally lead to legislative action.
Jim Costa: “Maybe, just maybe, this is the crisis necessary, I hate to say this, we need to try to get some decisions made both in Sacramento and Washington.”
Many farmers at this briefing called for improvements to the state’s water delivery system along with increased storage and relaxed regulations.
Tom Birmingham (Westlands Water District GM): “We have a very important decision. Do we want to sustain agriculture? And it’s going to be up to people in Washington and Sacramento to make that decision.”
Read the full text of this article from the Fresno Bee by clicking here. Read the full text (or see video) from KFSN ABC in Fresno by clicking here.
Conservation groups oppose San Luis Drainage Resolution Act
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 6, 2008 at 8:36 amFrom Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org:
Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and Carolee Krieger, President of the California Water Impact Network, on Friday sent a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein blasting the Proposed San Luis Drainage Resolution Act and Settlement Process.
“We unconditionally object to the process and the proposed legislation,” their letter states. “The proposal will in no way be sustainable, cost effective, environmentally responsible or successful. It is guaranteed to fail and cost the taxpayers literally hundreds of millions of dollars. The proposal will also enrich a small number of landowners within the San Luis Unit by giving them a perpetual water contract that they can then market to urban areas at an incredible profit, once these untested drainage solutions inevitably fail.”
The letter then says that the solution to the drainage problem of lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley is “massive land retirement in the Western San Joaquin Valley.”
This proposal occurs at a time when Central Valley salmon populations and California Delta fish, including delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass, threadfin shad and other species, are in an unprecedented state of collapse.
Two of the key factors behind the fishery collapses are increases in water exports out of the Delta and declining water quality. The land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, laced with selenium and other toxic salts, should have never been irrigated because of the massive drainage problem.
“This drainwater contains extraordinarily elevated concentrations of selenium, boron, chromium, molybdenum, and extremely high concentrations of various salts that disrupt the normal ionic balance of the aquatic system,” according to a 1997 report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Read more on this story from IndyBay.org, which includes a copy of the letter sent to Senator Feinstein, by clicking here.
Federal water managers begin wide review of canals in the West
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 6, 2008 at 6:46 amFrom the Summit Daily News:
Federal water managers are concerned the same deficiencies that caused a century old irrigation canal to fail and flood a northern Nevada town may plague other earthen embankments that carry water to farmers through nearly 8,000 miles of aging canals across the West.
After an extensive Bureau of Reclamation investigation into the cause of the January breach that flooded nearly 600 homes, officials concluded the poor condition of the irrigation canal that crews started digging with mules and steam shovels in the early 1900s warranted a widespread review of similar canals.
The investigation into the Fernley flood found “evidence of numerous flaws in the embankment” including berms “riddled” with rodent burrows, some as deep as 25 feet, which officials concluded was the main reason the embankment unexpectedly gave way and flooded the growing bedroom community 30 miles east of Reno.
“A whole bunch of really smart engineers spent a lot of time looking at this canal,” said Jeffrey McCracken, regional spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation in Sacramento. “I suppose they could do this with a lot of canals throughout the West and come up with maybe the same findings,” he told The Associated Press. “As a result of this we are taking a look at our canals with a little more scrutiny. … We have an extremely effective dam safety program and we are in the process of developing a more aggressive canal safety program,” McCracken said.
The review is no small task. The bureau owns 7,911 miles of canals in 17 Western states, the vast majority of them managed and operated by local irrigation and water districts.
“We will focus initially on canals in those urbanized areas. There’s a lot in the Phoenix area,” McCracken said. “The other real old one out West is up in the Klamath Basin” in northern California and southern Oregon. The tragic situation that occurred on the Fernley canal is an impetus for these other irrigation districts and water districts to get on top of everything they can. And I’m not implying they are not, but let’s go look.”
Read the rest of this story from the Summit Daily News by clicking here.
Central Valley farmers crank up the groundwater pumps, “It’s going to be ugly when it comes to water supply”
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 26, 2008 at 5:44 am
From the Central Valley Business Times:
Water tables are dropping in the Sacramento Valley portion of the Great Central Valley as farmers respond to cutbacks in supplies from federal reservoirs.
Agricultural contractors in the Central Valley Project have seen allotments cut with the giant pumps turned down under court order to protect an endangered fish, the Delta smelt.
But another reason is more elemental: There isn’t as much water in storage, such as the state’s Lake Shasta. “Lake Shasta is still way down. As of a week and a half ago it was only 61 percent of normal,” says Mike Vereschagin, an almond and dried plum farmer and president of the Glenn County Farm Bureau.
“It’s not going to be a pretty year. It’s going to be ugly when it comes to water supply,” says Mr. Vereschagin. He says the ground water table is dropping because of the heavy pumping this spring by farmers.
Read the rest of this story from the Central Valley Business Times by clicking here.
Picture of aqueduct winding through fields by flickr photographer topherous.
Parts of the Central Valley Project nominated for historic status
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 14, 2008 at 11:41 amFrom Stockton’s RecordNet.com:
When is a concrete ditch historic? When it carries California’s lifeblood. That, in part, is why the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is applying to have dams, ditches, gates, pumps and canals from Shasta to Bakersfield listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Among the local structures nominated for listing are the Cross Delta Channel, which redirects Sacramento River water south across the Delta at Walnut Grove; the Tracy Pumping Plant, the massive heart that lifts the water so gravity can pull it farther south; and the Delta-Mendota Canal, through which that water flows 116.6 miles to Mendota Pool on the San Joaquin River near Fresno.
“Without the (Central Valley Project), it is doubtful that California’s agricultural economy could have reached the level that it has,” said Jim Bailey, a Denver-based historian for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation who spent three years visiting California dams and canals to gather information for the historic places application.
For the rest of this story from Stockton’s RecordNet.com, which includes a photo gallery of the CVP pumps in Tracy and other nominated structures, click here.
Bureau of Reclamation announces irrigation allocations; some contractors will receive 100% allocation
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 7, 2008 at 10:05 pmFrom the Capital Ag Press:
The federal Bureau of Reclamation’s official allocation for the Central Valley Project water supply looks slightly better than the agency’s predictions earlier this year, but it still means thin supplies for some areas of the state.
The allocation, announced Feb. 27, again includes two forecasts - a median forecast and one that is much more conservative. The agency also warned that it is implementing interim measures this year in order to comply with a federal judge’s decision last year which calls for protecting delta smelt. Bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken said pumping is being reduced through June because the smelt are spawning. “As most of these actions are identified, we will update our forecast.”
The bureau reports that ramifications from the possible endangered species listing of the longfin smelt aren’t yet unknown.
Due to good inflow into the Shasta Reservoir - projected to be about 3.8 million acre-feet - contractors who draw from that source will receive 100-percent of their water supply, the Bureau of Reclamation reported.
The bureau reported that the Friant Division deliveries for Water Year 2008 are projected to be 800,000 acre-feet, or 64 percent of 1.25 million acre-feet, which is the five-year average allocation. That results in a 100-percent allocation for Class 1 water and 0 percent Class 2 water. Last year’s allocation was 50-percent for Class 1 and 0 percent for Class 2, McCracken said.
Contractors in the Central Valley Project Eastside Division (Stanislaus River) will have 24,000 acre-feet (15 percent allocation) of project water available under the 90 percent and 50 percent exceedence forecast, the bureau reported.
For the project’s West Side, the bureau said water users south of the delta will receive 45 percent of their Central Valley Project contract under a 50 percent exceedence under its conservative forecast, down from 50 percent last year, McCracken said.
Get the rest of this story from the Capitol Ag Press by clicking here.
Early projection of water deliveries for Central Valley Project set at 25%
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 28, 2008 at 7:35 amFor the uninitiated, there are two major water projects operating in the Central Valley. The State Water Project, which delivers water to cities and farms, and the federal Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project, which delivers water primarily to agricultural users in the San Joaquin Valley. The Central Valley Project is twice the size of the Satate Water Project in terms of both reservoir storage and average water deliveries.
Here’s the forecast for water deliveries from the CVP, from the Central Valley Business Times:
Water shortages loom for many Central Valley farmers, according to a preliminary forecast Friday by the federal Central Valley Project. The CVP estimates it can deliver only 25 percent of contract water supplies to its farm customers. Its forecast reflects uncertainty about changes in operations required to benefit a protected fish, the Delta smelt, it says. But the Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the CVP, says allocations could rise because of storms that have boosted the Sierra snowpack.
Like the State Water Project, the Central Valley Project also operates pumps in the Delta, and so the CVP pumps are also subject to the same smelt restrictions as the SWP:
Reclamation is implementing interim court-ordered measures this year to provide additional protection for Delta smelt. The minnow-like fish were thought to be killed when sucked into the giant water pumps near Tracy. The actual actions will vary depending on a real-time assessment of Delta conditions and the location and maturity of the Delta smelt, the Bureau of Reclamation says.
This current allocation of 25% does not factor in the recent storms. The official allocation for the CVP will be made on February 15. To read the full text of this story from the Central Valley Business Times, click here.
Central Valley Agriculture photo by flickr photographer dadoll.
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 amFrom the Associated Press via the San Diego Union-Tribune:
A 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.
But 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.
Blogger reports on Shasta Dam politics and the Winnemem Wintu tribe
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 9, 2008 at 7:48 pmFrom California’s Capital blog by Greg Lucas:
The battle over the future of Shasta Dam surfaced this afternoon in the Assembly Governmental Organization committee in the form of joint resolution urging the federal government to reaffirm recognition of an Indian tribe along the McCloud River.
The Winnemem Wintu tribe, a dozen of whose members attended the hearing in native garb, opposes raising the dam on Lake Shasta which would inundate more of their holy places along the middle fork of the McCloud River, many of which were lost when the dam was completed in 1945.
They complain that the federal government stopped recognizing them and should reaffirm their status as a recognized tribe, which would give them more power to prevent potential destruction of their village sites and sacred places if the federal government decides to raise the dam.
“All we’re asking for is an even chance,” Mark Franco, the tribe’s headman, told the committee. “We have never seen the proof (our federal recognition) was terminated.”
Assembly Joint Resolution 39, basically a dandified letter urging federal officials to re-examine the case of the Winnemem Wintu, is carried by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, a former Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer.
To read the rest of this blog post from the California’s Capital blog, click here.
Photo of Shasta Dam taken from the Bureau of Reclamation photo gallery. Click on the photo see it enlarged and visit the Bureau of Reclamation website.
Time for government to fulfill its promises to the Winnemum Wintu Tribe
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 27, 2007 at 6:41 amIn a piece that demonstrates the interconnectedness of California’s water system, here’s an article which discusses the water rights of the Winnemem Wintu tribe, who live in Northern California, and how they are connected to the Westlands Irrigation District, located in the southwestern portion of the Central Valley:
Westlands’ receives its water from the Central Valley Project, a vast system that delivers water from Northern California to Central Valley agricultural empires. What Westlands and the federal government don’t realize is that the entire Central Valley Project rests on an unfulfilled act of Congress, a betrayal of the Winnemem people.
The Central Valley Project relies, in part, on the water that the Winnemem Wintu Tribe has been set on the Earth to take care: the McCloud River. “Winnemem Wintu” literally means “middle water people,” because the McCloud River is the middle of three rivers that flow into what is now the Shasta Lake Reservoir, above the Shasta Dam.
Shasta Dam is the keystone of the Central Valley Project. When the Shasta Dam began construction in 1938, more than 90 percent of Winnemem ancestral land was lost. Indian allotment land, granted by the federal government, was seized. Our sacred sites were flooded and the remains of our elders dug up and moved. Today, the federal government consistently disturbs our traditional prayer grounds by raising and lowering the water table behind Shasta Dam, without consultation or concern for our tribe.
The 1941 Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act gave the Winnemem lands in compensation for those taken and funds to replace the infrastructure that was lost when the Shasta Dam was built. To this day, we have not received any of these things. It is time the federal government lived up to its end of the bargain. We have paid many times over.
There has been talk about raising the height of Shasta Dam, the centerpiece of the Central Valley Project, but if this is done, the remaining tribal lands will be flooded.
To read the full text of this article from the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.
Editorial: A better solution for the Westlands situation
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 6, 2007 at 6:55 amHere’s an opinion piece from the Contra Costa County Times regarding the potential Westlands water deal:
Despite the formidable environmental and economic challenges facing California’s water policymakers, the federal government was considering granting generous water rights for billions of gallons of water to some politically influential San Joaquin farmers that could make matters worse.
Fortunately for California’s urban users and the Delta, there is no offer of guaranteed water rights. In the latest proposed settlement of a protracted lawsuit, federal officials want to extend to landowners in the Westlands Water District contracts for 1 million acre-feet of water. That is 15 percent of all the federally controlled water in California.
Even if dry weather persists and more water is needed to protect the Delta environment and there are no new reservoirs or other supplies, Westlands farmers would receive a substantial flow of fresh water. However, the water deal is not as harmful as one proposed earlier in which Westlands would get water ahead of urban users. Under the new proposal, Westlands farmers would be subject to cutbacks in dry years and would not be unduly favored over other users.
However, the article points out that this is not the only solution:
Another way to resolve the suit would be to retire about 200,000 acres of tainted Westlands cropland and clean up salty runoff from surrounding areas. This solution would cost the federal government an estimated $2.6 billion. Extending liberal water contracts to Westlands farmers lets the federal government off the hook for that expense. But the cost to the Delta environment and millions of California water users could be far greater unless water cutbacks are fairly distributed.
It would make more sense for the federal government to pay off Westlands farmers for the damage done to their property because of a lack of proper drainage in the federal Central Valley Project. Granting the farmers access to huge supplies of water in exchange for them paying to clean up their own farmland raises questions.
Retiring problematic farmland in the Central Valley would also allow this water to be transferred or sold to other districts facing shortages, a solution that has been proposed by many groups, including California Water Impact Network.
To read the full text of this article from the Contra Costa County Times, click here.
Sacramento Bee: Obstacles ahead for Westlands water deal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 1, 2007 at 9:44 amHere’s coverage of the Westlands water deal from this morning’s Sacramento Bee:
Negotiators are pressing forward today on what some are calling the biggest water transfer in the nation’s history, hoping to end a Central Valley irrigation dispute that’s defied solution for several decades.
The sprawling Westlands Water District would gain control of the water stored in San Luis Reservoir, under the revised proposal expected on Capitol Hill. Westlands could be free of the federal acreage limits meant to preserve small family farms, and would stop repaying the government for building the reservoir and associated canals. In return, the Rhode Island-sized water district and several others would assume responsibility for cleaning up a multibillion-dollar irrigation drainage mess. So far, the districts haven’t specified exactly how they might solve the drainage problem.
The Bush administration and Westlands officials who first floated the general idea earlier this year expect to present their latest, more polished version during a closed-door, two-hour session convened on Capitol Hill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I do not expect the meeting to be dispositive, but part of an ongoing effort to find a solution,” Feinstein said.
To read the full text of the Sacramento Bee article, click here.
Westlands Irrigation District deal making news across the country
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 1, 2007 at 6:44 amThe possible deal for the Westlands Irrigation District story has worked its way across the country, and here it is on the Chicago Sun-Times:
The U.S. government appears poised to turn over the rights to billions of gallons of water to a politically connected group of farmers in California, where most people are being asked to conserve.
Landowners in the Westlands Water District would gain the rights to 1 million acre feet of water under a proposed settlement federal regulators are likely to present today. An acre foot translates to the amount needed to cover one acre with a foot of water. That’s 15 percent of the federally controlled water in California — the largest grant to irrigators since 1903.
The Westlands Water District, a coalition of giant agribusinesses in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, draws its water from the Central Valley Project, a vast irrigation system that also supplies drinking water to about 1 million households.
If drought-like conditions persist in the West, the deal would guarantee the farmers’ irrigation pumps will flow, even if that means some cities in the San Francisco Bay area will get less drinking water.
”Can a proposal that appears to put a small group of farm operations ahead of the taxpayers and our fish and wildlife resources be justified because it may help one federal agency deal with a specific drainage problem?” said Hal Candee, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
To read the full text of the story from the Chicago Sun-Times, click here.
Here’s a reprint of a 2001 San Francisco Chronicle article on the Westlands Irrigation District, which talks about the long-term problems facing the district, and discusses some of the issues that the proposed settlement is meant to solve:
Westlands, the nation’s biggest irrigation district, where almost 1,000 square miles of semidesert in western Fresno and Kings counties bloom with crops grown with cheap federal water, may have to shrink to survive. A diminishing water supply and an intractable drainage problem have the area’s farmers cornered, but they’re not going down without a fight.
Westlands Water District has been a matrix for political controversy since the late Democratic Rep. B.F. “Bernie” Sisk began lobbying for its creation in the early 1950s, asserting that it would create 6,000 “family farms.” It is moving with characteristic aggressiveness to avoid reducing its acreage, which was mostly arid rangeland before the arrival of low-cost irrigation water from Northern California rivers.
The district is suing to increase and stabilize its federal water ration, attacking the Cal-Fed program created to end California’s water wars and pressuring the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to build the sites it needs to take care of its wastewater.
To read the rest of the 2001 San Francisco Chronicle article, click here.
Westlands District farmers negotiating sweet water deal (edited)
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 31, 2007 at 4:30 pmHere’s an interesting article from the San Jose Mercury News about the negotiations going on between the Westlands Irrigation District and federal regulators that involves settlement of a lawsuit filed by the district against the federal government. The feds are trying to make a deal to settle the lawsuit, one that could involves millions of gallons of water with priority rights. Here’s the story from the San Jose Mercury News:
The U.S. government appears poised to turn over the rights to billions of gallons of water to a politically connected group of farmers, even as residents across the West are being asked let their lawns go brown and adopt other emergency measures to conserve water.
Under a proposed settlement federal regulators are likely to present Wednesday in Washington, landowners in the Westlands Water District would gain the rights to 1 million acre feet of water, or 15 percent of the federally controlled water in California. That would make it the largest grant to irrigators since the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was created in 1903, agency officials said.
If drought-like conditions persist, the deal would guarantee the farmers’ irrigation pumps will flow, even if that means some cities in the San Francisco Bay area will get less drinking water. That prospect has alarmed environmentalists and others seeking to preserve the state’s water supply for cities and an estuary inhabited by an imperiled species of fish.
“This new proposal appears to increase the opportunity for water diversions to the biggest farms of all,” said Hal Candee, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who is participating in the negotiations. “Can a proposal that appears to put a small group of farm operations ahead of the taxpayers and our fish and wildlife resources be justified because it may help one federal agency deal with a specific drainage problem?”
To read the full text of this article from the San Jose Mercury News, click here.
It is important to point out that, according to the DWR, 80% of developed water goes to agricultural uses. The California Farm Water Coalition puts this percentage at 43% agricultural and 46% for the environment.
Here is more on this from Indybay.org:
Last Friday, the Planning and Conservation League released an action alert regarding a draft memorandum of understanding between the Westlands Water District and the Bureau of Reclamation. The “idea” behind this proposal, according to its negotiators, is to find a way to clean up lands that have been contaminated by improper drainage, resulting from the government’s failure to follow through on installing an agricultural drain as promised with the Central Valley Water Project. Because a significant portion of Delta fresh water is exported to the Westlands Water District and other San Luis Reservoir Contractors, Restore the Delta agrees with PCL’s alarm over a number of items covered in this memorandum of understanding.
In this proposal:
The State would reassign Westlands Water District a direct water right (No. 12860) for 1 million acre feet of water; (Water that Restore the Delta maintains should remain within the Delta.)
The Bureau would grant Westlands Water District and other San Luis Contractors the title to and operational control of the San Luis Reservoir in coordination with DWR; Transferring a public asset to a small group of special interests to work hand-in-hand with a state agency that has failed grossly to protect the California Delta.
The United States would forgive the Westlands and other San Luis Contractors of their Central Valley Project capitol debt, and; (Gifting public property to a small group of special interests.)
Westlands Water District and other San Luis Contractors would assume responsibility for the drainage obligation. (The Federal Government has failed to meet this obligation. What assurances and recourse would citizens have if this obligation continues to not be met?)
The letter below asks Senator Dianne Feinstein to reject this fatally flawed proposal because it inappropriately transfers public assets to a small group of special interests and undermines water supply reliability, water quality, and habitat conditions in the Bay-Delta ecosystem and its watershed. We are asking her to, instead, consider an alternative drainage solution that would include more extensive retirement of drainage impaired lands, enhanced water supply reliability for California, and dedicated water resources for Bay-Delta needs.
To read this article from IndyBay.org, click here.
Here’s an article that was posted last month on an online website called Estuary, that explains more:
The latest chapter in the long-running effort to solve drainage issues in the San Luis Unit has the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation considering handing over ownership of a large section of the Central Valley Project to farmers and water districts.
A 20-page proposal, “Concepts for Collaboration Drainage Resolution,” proposed by Westlands, suggests that Westlands and other water districts on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley assume responsibility for developing a way to collect and dispose of the salty, selenium- laced water that drains off the land after irrigation. In exchange, Westlands would receive less water-1 million acre-feet instead of 1.4 million acre-feet per year. Westlands would be assigned a permit for a water right instead of a contract-the water right would no longer need review and renewal every 25 years unlike the water contract.
This change from a contract to a water right is one issue that concerns many CVP watchdogs. The California Water Impact Network’s Tom Stokely says that by attaining a water right-vs. a contract-Westlands and the other San Luis water districts don’t face the prospect of having deliveries of water cut to as little as zero-as agricultural service contractors do-in the event of a bad drought. In other words, says Stokely, they’re becoming exchange contractors with higher water rights-and that poses a big problem for the Delta. “If [Westlands] gets a water right, are they then not responsible for Delta water quality?” asks Stokely.
To read the full text of the article from Estuary, click here.
And I thought it was a slow water news day ….!!
Opinion: State has better options than more dams
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 30, 2007 at 11:34 amHere is an article from Redding Searchlight, written by Mark Franco of the Winneman Wintu Tribe. Here is an excerpt:
There is a growing need for water. Maybe the “world famous agriculture” should be tuned to fit the environment: Watermelons grown in the desert do not make sense to me. Maybe developers should invest in programs that run all gray water to filtration systems that can then replenish the groundwater instead of running in the gutters to the sea. They could follow the governor’s vision and design “greener,” environmentally friendly communities, invest in planning for what is good for the developed land.
This is a great state. We should all be proud of it, but we should also look at water as a gift: We may not have it long if the water miners of the new “blue gold rush” keep taking it and selling it to make a profit and polluting the rest.
To read the full text of the article on Redding Searchlight, click here.
Exports from Delta to be cut next year as plans are filed in federal court
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 25, 2007 at 8:01 amThe interim pumping plans for managing the Delta while new, permanent plans are drawn up have been filed now in federal court, and both plans call for a reduction of about one million acre-feet per year. From Stockton’s Record.Net:
… the environmentalists go further. They want more reliable surveys to find the tiny fish and less drastic reverse flows on rivers that run backward toward the pumps.
The proposed export reductions are misguided, say those who receive the water. Slowing down the pumps might make no difference for the smelt, they argue. The contrary points of view come as officials debate how the pumps should be operated next year. A judge in May threw out the old rules, and it will take a year to write new ones.