By Mike Taugher
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
FRESNO - In the heart of the nation's richest agricultural region, farm agency representatives said Friday it was time to rein in a far-reaching environmental restoration law and move faster to build new reservoirs to secure water for the state's many users.
"We got to stick together ... for the fight of our lives," Fresno Mayor Alan Autry said before a crowd of more than 200. "There is enough water to go around, but it's going to other parts of the state."
The Delta, an important source of water for Southern California cities, Central Valley farmers and numerous fish species that depend on it for habitat, is under intense scrutiny as competing users battle over who gets the water.
"Right now, we don't have enough water for the people who are already here," Autry added, predicting that failing to secure more water for farmers would leave the burgeoning San Joaquin Valley "the largest welfare state within a state that the world has ever seen."
For the second time in less than a month, a congressional panel gathered to look at problems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, this time focusing on frustrations over the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which farmers believe has cost them water and money.
The hearing was called by Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, to review the 1992 law, which was authored by Martinez Democrat Rep. George Miller and former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley.
San Joaquin Valley farmers who get water from the federal water project, one of the nation's largest, object to provisions that shift 800,000 acre-feet of water a year from agricultural use to the environment. That's enough water for about 1.5 million homes.
They also object to being charged for environmental restoration.
The law was meant to reverse environmental damage caused by the Central Valley Project since it began delivering water in the early 1930s, first to the relatively small Contra Costa Water District and eventually to sprawling corporate farms in the San Joaquin Valley.
"There were some very good politicians that wrote this in the dead of night, stuck it in a (larger bill) and rammed it down the throat of the San Joaquin Valley," said Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, one of four congressional members from the valley to attend.
After the hearing, Radanovich said his water and power subcommittee of the House Resources Committee might hold further hearings to consider amendments to the Central Valley Project Improvement Act.
Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District, a region of farms that runs 70 miles long and 15 miles wide in Fresno and Kings counties, said his district's water supply is far less reliable since the law was passed 14 years ago. He also questioned the use of some of the nearly $500 million that farmers and other beneficiaries of the project have paid under the act for environmental restoration.
But environmentalists, anglers and others say California's salmon and bird populations would be worse off without the law. And, with several open water species of Delta fish in a serious decline, they say this is not the time to ease environmental protection laws.
The Central Valley Project was operating for 50 years before the law was passed, noted Mindy McIntyre, a water policy specialist at the Planning and Conservation League.
"Of course, you can't fix all of the damage caused by the CVP already," she said.
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a commercial fishing organization, said the legislation was the most important federal law for California's salmon in the past 50 years.
In prepared testimony, Grader said the water delivery system prior to the 1992 legislation "ignored, and harmed, the environment, fisheries, drinking water quality, North Coast communities, indeed, most of California. The CVPIA (legislation) represented a modest attempt to restore some balance to the system."
Neither Miller nor Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, the Resources Committee chairman, was able to attend Friday's hearing. But more hearings on the Delta's problems are planned for the coming months, according to committee spokesman Brian Kennedy.
Last month, the committee met in Stockton to hear from scientists about why the Delta ecosystem appears to be unraveling. State and federal scientists said they were still uncertain why several species of open-water Delta fish have plummeted in recent years.
Next month, the committee is expected to examine fragile Delta levees and the risk they pose to the state's water supply. That hearing is expected to be in Washington, D.C.
The Delta is a source of drinking water for 23 million Californians and millions of acres of farmland. A series of levee failures could foul those water supplies because flooding into the subsided islands can suck saltier water into the Delta from San Francisco Bay.
Scientists and water managers have become increasingly worried about the aging levees because of recent projections that they are unreliable, and because the Jones Tract flood in 2004 and the flooding of New Orleans last year reinforced in their minds how devastating levee failures can be.
Radanovich said Friday that the committee might also take a broad look at CalFed, the troubled state and federal program that was meant to protect the Delta environment and water supplies but after more than five years and $3 billion has little success to show.