Bush Administration Renews Central Valley Contracts At Expense of Fish

March 10, 2005
By Dan Bacher

More Editorials By Dan Bacher

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced its decision to perpetuate California's fish and water problems for decades by beginning to sign contracts with about 200 water districts and water contractors in the Central Valley Project last week.

Rather than heeding the pleas of fishermen, Indian tribes and environmental organizations to slow down the process so that the environmental impacts of these contracts could be properly reviewed with full public input, the Bush administration decided to proceed with a process that serves the Westlands Water District and other corporate water kings rather than the public trust.

On February 25, The Bureau began signing contracts for 25 or 40 years, depending upon the contract type. The contracts will provide water for 3.7 million acres of farmland in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, including vast tracts of corporate farms on the San Joaquin's west side that never should have been farmed because of the damage caused to fish, wildlife and the environment.

The water service contracts from Redding to Bakersfield account for approximately 5.6 million-acre feet of water annually. These contracts are being renewed for 25 years for growers and 40 years for municipal and industrial users. The Sacramento River Settlement contracts, which cover irrigators and water districts that were diverting from the Sacramento River under state water rights claims before the CVP was constructed, were renewed for 40 years. These contractors receive a total of 1.8 million-acre feet of water.

The contract renewals create a double whammy of environmental destruction. While increased diversions of water mandated by the contracts will result in declines of listed species such as winter run chinook, Delta smelt and steelhead, the farming of land laced with selenium and other toxic salts and minerals will result in increased drainage problems on the ravaged west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

"This has been a long, complex and demanding process and these contracts have been weighed and measured through two administrations," said Mid-Pacific Regional Director Kirk Rodgers upon announcing the signing of the contracts. "The results will bring continued stability to one of California's biggest industries - agriculture - and provide our growing cities, industries and businesses with the water they need for tomorrow."

However, the signing of the contracts, rather than bringing "stability," is only serving to reignite California's water wars and outrage those who are intimately acquainted with the Bureau of Reclamation's policies and its impact upon fish and wildlife, such as Felix Smith of Carmichael.

Smith, a retired wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, was a "whistleblower" that brought to national attention the consequences of the farming of selenium-laced land on the San Joaquin's west side in 1983. Smith documented the horror movie-style deformation of ducks and other birds resulting from selenium pollution in the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge caused by the drainage of toxic water from the Westlands Water District.

"The Bureau's supposed seriousness about protecting California fisheries is just a façade," said Smith, a board member of the Save the American River Association. "The only way now that we can make the federal government become serious about restoring fisheries is by suing them."

A coalition of conservation organizations filed a suit in federal court on February 15 against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, challenging the agency's recent biological opinion concluding that increasing exports from the San Francisco Bay-Delta to the San Joaquin Valley would have no major impacts on the survival of the federally protected Delta smelt. The contracts are being renewed on the basis of increasing the capacity for exporting water out of the Delta through the combining of state and federal pumping operations.

Smith noted that the renewal of the contracts, without an extension of environmental review as requested last year by Congressman George Miller and other Members of Congress, locks in this environmental destruction for decades. The renewal of contracts goes against the historic Mono Lake and Cal Trout court decisions, which mandate that water agencies protect fisheries before diverting water. It also violates state Fish and Game Code 5939 requiring that fisheries below dams be kept in "good condition."

Not only is the renewal of these contracts damaging to the environment, but it doesn't make any economic sense. Peter H. Gleick of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, in the Sacramento Bee on February 25, noted that "The use of 1,000 acre feet of water in California produces 9,000 jobs in the semiconductor industry, 2,500 jobs in commercial offices, 35 jobs in grape and wine production - but only three jobs growing cotton."

Rodgers and his cronies in the Department of Interior have not taken into account the severe impact that the signing of these contracts will have upon businesses and livelihoods that depend on fisheries and a healthy environment. The commercial and recreational fishing industries have been devastated by declines caused by water diversions - but have yet to be compensated for the damage.

Rather than urging water contractors to retire unsustainable agricultural land, the Bureau is giving them free reign to plunder California's natural resources at the taxpayer's expense as they have for over 50 years. An analysis in the Draft Trinity River Fishery Restoration Supplemental EIS (2004) showed that land retirement could save 793,056 acre feet in total CVP-contracted water, which would have been an actual reduction in demand of 568,373 acre feet in 2002, the same year as the unprecedented Klamath Fish Kill.

According to the Trinity County Board of Supervisors, permanent land retirement and dedication of water to other CVP project purposes would result in significant benefits from reduced pollution from drainage water, reduced CVP project power usage, increased ability to meet various water quality standards, increased water storage, increased municipal and industrial supplies, and more water for environmental needs such as Trinity River fishery flows and wildlife refuge.

A key linkpin in the contract renewals is the raising of Shasta Dam to expand the reservoir's storage capacity. The Winnemem Wintu Tribe and a large coalition of fishing and environmental groups are opposing raising the dam for the huge damage it would cause to the tribe's cultural resources and Central Valley fisheries. The proposed 18-1/2 feet raise would flood the Winnemem Wintu's sacred sites, causing "cultural genocide," said Gary Hayward Slaughter Mulcahy of the tribe.

The tribe, fishermen and environmental groups have been joined by Congressman George Miller, Senator Barbara Boxer, family farmers, the editorial boards of major metropolitan newspapers and millions of Californians in their opposition to the contract renewals.

"It's obvious that the Bush administration is disregarding the views of the majority of Californians by signing these contracts," said Mulcahy. "For the Bureau to do this, after all of the feedback that they got from California citizens and the Winnemem Wintu opposing the contract renewals, amounts to a hijacking of the California public trust by the federal government."

Since it is clear that the Department of Interior refuses to listen to the pleas of Californians fighting for water equity, the official signing of these contracts leaves decades of litigation, along with creative direct action campaigns, as the only alternatives to restoring our fisheries.