Bi-partisan triumph: Congress opens up water tap

Five years of tough negotiating by California legislators has resulted in the inclusion of provisions in a new federal infrastructure Act that will give drought-devastated, environmentally hamstrung Central Valley farmers relief at last.

Senate bill 612, the “Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act” (WIIN Act), which the Senate approved 78-21 on Dec. 10, 2016 and President Obama signed on Dec. 16, includes a section devoted specifically to California. The section mandates that water be made available as soon as possible.

Subtitle J of Title III of S. 612 reads: “[T]he Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of Commerce shall provide the maximum quantity of water supplies practicable to Central Valley Project agricultural, municipal and industrial contractors, water service or repayment contractors, water rights settlement contractors, exchange contractors, refuge contractors, and State Water Project contractors, by approving, in accordance with applicable Federal and State laws… as quickly as possible, based on available information.”

The Techachapi-Cummings County Water District is a State Water Project contractor.

The section also provides for water storage, clean-water projects and other infrastructure improvements in California.

In addition to experiencing the negative effects of the four-year drought, Central Valley farmers have battled environmental regulations put in place to preserve the habitat of the tiny Delta Smelt and to maintain salinity balance in the Sacramento Delta. Consequently, more than half of the Sierra watershed water is directed to the ocean while farmers beg for water and go bankrupt.

Inclusion of the California farmer-friendly section in the Act was a bi-partisan triumph.

Democrat California Senator Dianne Feinstein and Republican Representatives Kevin McCarthy (Bakersfield) and David Valadao (Hanford), together with Republican Devin Nunes (Tulare) and Democrat Jim Costa (Fresno) worked to keep pressure on Congress through the years and ultimately to insert the California water section in the wide-ranging Senate bill. The bill, sponsored by Republican Senator John Conyers of Texas, provides funds for, among other projects, improvement of U.S. waterways and expansion of harbors to meet the requirements of larger vessels that now can pass through the enlarged Panama Canal.

Retiring California Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer parted company with her long-time ally Feinstein in vehemently opposing the bill, based on environmental concerns.

“The Act will ease regulatory burdens,” Tom Neisler, acting manager of the Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District said at the Greater Tehachapi Economic Development Council Jan. 3 meeting at the Tehachapi Police Department Community Room. “It means more water for the people.”

In his Dec. 21 report to the water district board of directors, Neisler called the president’s signature that turned the bill into law “a surprising turn of events.”

“This is very positive news and bodes well for increasing Delta output among other items,” Neisler said.

Also at the water board meeting, Curtis Creel, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, said the water infrastructure bill generated 90,000 pages of environmental documents that would measure 33 feet high and weigh 1,000 pounds. He said that prior to the studies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while it had worked with the California State Water Resources Control Board, had never reached out to public water agencies – those agencies that pay the bills and with the capability to act locally on water issues.

For a good analysis of the political dynamics of the California provisions of the Act, see the Dec. 10, 2016, online story by Michael Doyle of the McClatchy syndicate.