good morning ladies and gentleman this meeting is subcommittee and water and power will come to order the purpose of today's meeting is to hold an oversight hearing on water management and climate variability information support at my opening statement will recognize all other members of the subcommittee for any statement they may have any member who desires to be heard will be heard additional material may be submitted for the record by members by witnesses or by any interested party the record will be kept open for ten business days following today's hearing by monroe with our timer will be inforced green means go yellow indicates one minute remains and red means stop and you'll hear this  today we're very pleased to have our witnesses to address the issue of how the depart of interior through u s g s and bureau of reclamation collects managers and makes available water data for use by federal state and local water managers u s geological survey and the bureau reclamation are primarily responsible for the collection and management of data for the department of interior in their efforts and concerns it is their efforts and concerns that we are here today to discuss plummet change will be felt across the country and will directly affect the dynamics of a country's water supply these impacts will range from the amount of water available for agriculture municipal industrial uses the environment and for recreation changes are happening at an increasing and sometimes alarming rate having the information necessary to make the important management decisions is very critical today we're going to focus on four key questions one are we collecting the right information to meet water manager needs to is the integrity that it being maintained three is the data and supporting information of bailable to users and fourth do we have the funding quote unquote funding necessary to meet the basic data collection and measurement requirement our hearing today is organized to allow us to hear from interior on their water data management efforts from the n a s reviewers of the u s g s water program from the ne and c r s on their collection of snowpack information and finally from two groups from different parts of the country who are using the data to make important decisions related to management and use  water systems this subcommittee has many areas that we are responsible for one of them is aging infrastructure we have requested several maps from reclamation identifying the location of water for structure assets in the west the products that i have seen that we received was not to the level of detail we need and when addressing issues in specific water bases i'm not a technical logical expert i'm not an engineer and so for me to be able to read some of the what is submitted to us is not necessarily transcriber ball in my head we hope that history saw the days hearing that interior will be willing to work with us on these data requests in a more scientifically rigorous manner and that you will share with those important information regarding these water assets thank you very to all the witnesses for being here today and look forward to your testimony addressing our questions i now yield to my colleague  a statement he may have thank you very much madam chairwoman today's hearing is described as an oversight hearing on quote water management and climate variability that's an interesting concept in so far as the only constant in earth's climatology is change just within the brief period of recorded human history we know of periods when the earth's climate has been much warmer than it is today and others what has been much cooler we know for example  during the medieval warm period from nine hundred thirteen hundred eighty that wine grapes were grown in northern britain in newfoundland and the temperature in greenland was warm enough to support a prosperous agricultural economy for nearly five hundred years we also know that during the roman warm period from two hundred to six hundred eighty north africa was what enough to support bountiful grain production in the second century a d told me recorded year round precipitation throughout the mediterranean we also know there were other periods when  earth's climate was much cooler than it is today during the little ice age from about thirteen hundred to eight hundred fifty the thames river in new york harbor regularly froze over indeed during the little ice age a wave of religious zealotry swept europe blaming witchcraft for the dramatic climate changes of the era so given the cost of variability of the earth's climate proper water management requires accurate and abundant data and i certainly applaud any effort to assure that in planning for our future needs we do so with the scientific data necessary to make informed decisions i just want to make sure that it is science and not ideology that's driving the effort that's why i get a little nervous watching for example how the secure water act was rushed through this house without any debate or dialogue or hearings on this side of the capitol it was dropped into a twelve hundred page omnibus bill that could not even be amended under the guise of the secure water act the bureau of reclamation recently announced a new river basin study program that will quote better define options for future water management of western river basins the use of the term future water management raised concerns by many western water users this is a program his purpose is not to produce reliable data but rather to search for ways to justify increasingly draconian restrictions on water usage what we need is an open assessment of the most viable economical and certain options of suring an abundance of water for the people of these regions from the natural resources that we enjoy if the warming trend that began in eighteen fifty and peaked in one thousand nine hundred eight resumes the need for more dams and aqueduct will become acute i submitted a series of questions to the bureau of reclamation to clarify the intent of these studies and i've yet to receive answers the bureau of silence heightens concerns that this is a solution in search of data to support it rather than a search for data that will eliminate a solution chairwoman i've mentioned before the minority party believes that it should be the principal object of the federal government's water policy to assure abundance for the purpose of data collection and management service objective and not be used to justify cutting off water to users rationing water shortages or imposing wildly expensive recycling or desalination projects at a time when renewed commitment to public works would produce far more abundance of clean cheap and abundant water and that brings me to the fine point of it the house subcommittee on water and power can make time for it here bring on water data management while forty thousand families remain unemployed in the central valley of california due to the deliberate diversion of some two hundred billion gallons of water by this government i'm going to tell the subcommittee that i'm disappointed that we're not focusing on the plight of these families or that five hundred thousand of the most fertile agricultural in the entire hemisphere have been followed i know there are some who believe the government can control the weather there is some skepticism on that point but no one can question that we have it within our power to control the pumps on the delta as you know matter i'm sure when i sent a letter to you on friday asking for a hearing to resolve these matters and i hope of the subcommittee will act very quickly on my request there is no time to waste on reversing the plight of the san joaquin valley because what's happening there can happen anywhere in the west that's entirely within our power to solve it and to solve it mediately to ignore their pleas continues to give the impression that this subcommittee let's to san joaquin valley burn while the committee fiddles with lower priority matter matters like water data management very interesting mr mcmahon talk and let me tell you you're making it political minority party this is a subcommittee that is both of us working together to address the issues that we're talking about and the ability to water supply issues are certainly a challenge in my home state of nebraska water availability is a critical concern and much of my district works in a pivotal is the lifeblood of farmers a nearly decade long drought in nebraska panhandle has put a stream stress on water resources and those who rely on them as we well know balancing the various uses of water is a constant challenge as various groups demanded use for drinking water agriculture energy generation recreation and habitat especially for endangered species i want to ensure these demands are properly prioritized and as possible research the research dissemination of research and decision making are all essential to developing cost effective science based management policy decision what infrastructure tools are critical to this process development  and i just appreciate the opportunity to ask questions today and look forward to the remainder of the hearing thank you mr smith appreciate your testimony we will no hear from our witnesses and we have just one panel today  and witnesses will be introduced before you testify and after we hear from the panel we will proceed to the questions and request answers your prepared statements will be entered into the record in all witnesses are asked to kindly summarize the high points of  testimony and limit your remarks to five minutes seeing as how we only have one panel and members here we may increase that ability so that we have more dialogue more opportunity for dialogue  the time or probably will enforce maybe not the rule also applies to all questioning members will have five minutes for questioning or additional time if necessary on the second round first we will have d matthew larsen director the water resources division united states geological sir in reston virginia accompanied by mr michael dunn who i met about a year and a half ago director of technical resources reclamation here in washington council the national academies here in washington d c thirdly dr michael strobel director of national water and climate center natural resources conservation service united states department of agriculture in portland oregon fourth mr anthony executive director the western state water council in midvale utah mr joseph k hoffman executive director of the interstate commission on the potomac river basin in rockville maryland we start off with dr matthew larsen if you chairwoman and members of the subcommittee i'm matthew larson associate director for water u s geological survey i appreciate the opportunity to provide the views of the department of interior on the challenges and opportunities of collecting and managing water resources information for the nation i would like also to introduce my go on from the bureau of reclamation who is with me today as a technical witness and whose agency supports a number of critical stream gauges in the west and i'm happy to see mike strobel from the r c s here and r c s is an important partner with the u s g s in supplying information to water managers throughout the west these federal networks snow invitation to asked the department to answer a number of questions which i will address today in a statement a more complete response is found in my written testimony the u s g s has played an essential role in monitoring the nation's rivers for well over a century providing stream flow information that is critical for protecting life and property from floods assessing and allocating water resources managing water quality supporting engineering design of water projects and ensuring the safety and enjoyment of the many people who fish and boat in the nation's rivers and streams the u s g s currently operates seven thousand five hundred stream gauges nationwide that transmit stream flow information accessible to the public in real time through the internet the u s g s operates several long term groundwater monitoring networks as well in partnership with state local and tribal water resources agencies we provide readily accessible data from more than one thousand real time groundwater monitoring sites and more than five thousand daily value sites all of our hydrologic information is stored and made available to the public through the u s g s national water information system this system currently stores over three hundred million daily values of hydrologic information that have been collected by the u s g s over more than one hundred years and these data are accessed by users at a rate of up to fifty million web page requests per month on the order of one or more than one hundred to three million per day the u s g s has an important role in long term service and groundwater monitoring monitoring data  scientific analysis and reporting are critical to informing regional and national policy makers and resource managers about the potential impacts of climate change on our nations water resources detecting early change in water quality quantity and stream ecosystems as a result of changes in climate requires long term surveillance and data at a range of spatial scales the u s g s reclamation and other agencies participate on the advisory council for water information which is charged with coordinating the collection and sharing of water data in order to ensure compatible data and networks and facilitate dissemination of the data in addition the u s g s and reclamation participate in the no data collection services technical working group which coordinates satellite radio assignments for environmental data almost all of our stream flow data for example is transmitted via satellite the national research council provided a number of recommendations for the u s g s water resources discipline in its recent report which dr snyder steiner will discuss later the n r c review offered several challenging recommendations to us yes including a specific recommendation that the u s g s assess the availability and use of the nation's water resources through a national water census in response the u s g s is developing a plan for a national census of water availability and use a draft implementation plan will be provided to external stakeholders for review and input through the spring of two thousand and ten with the goal of having a detailed implementation plan that meets both regional and national water information the n r c review in developing a new water resources strategic plan that will identify and prioritize issues of national importance upon which the u s g s should focus its future water program thank you for the opportunity to testify and i'll be pleased to water manager thank you at the washington suburban sanitary commission my day job and i serve as a member of the national research council committee on water resource activities of the u s geological survey  facilitate the management of the nation's resources the water resources of the survey this nation for water by providing reliable impartial and timely information our national research council committee was composed of members from the private sector and a water and waste water utility it was asked to carry out a review of the survey's activities provide constructive advice as to how to meet the nation's water information needs in so effectiveness we found the survey performed a leadership role in many areas of water science and technology as mentioned in our report in particular stakeholders surveys leadership and commitment to long term data collection which is fundamental to water science studies by other parties and critical to understanding the nation's water resources other u s disciplines federal departments and external agencies collaborative efforts of the water resources discipline the survey data and interpretive studies as mission critical information by other agencies and institutions including support for flood watches and warnings issued by the national weather service with regard to assessing cost effectiveness and in the absence of well defined metrics for evaluating scientific and intellectual programs we use our best professional judgment as an expert panel and various quantitative measures to evaluate their programs in conclusion the us we concluded that the us is run in a cost effective manner to serve a like all federal agencies a top town top down component of management however it also has a unique bottom up element in the form of science centers in every state provide insight to local water issues and identification of new and emerging national issues the mix of top down and bottom up input to management and priority setting has served the u s g s well however the committee is concerned that the balance between national priorities and local needs has skewed of budgetary issues looking to the future the survey will have to address significant national problems among them water availability concerns will become increasingly more serious climate change as mentioned earlier will make water resources challenges more difficult water quality impairments will continue to be a daunting issue particularly as emerging contaminants gain more attention water prices will rise and resolving water conflicts and policy debates will demand more water science in order to address these issues successfully and in addition to the water senses just discussed by dr larson our committee recommended that u s g s leadership should refocus its vision to define the national water priorities that they will address and develop a management approach to integrate their water programs to meet the needs a sharper focus on critical priorities will help to address these problems but to adequately meet the nation's water challenges resources will be needed therefore the national academy committee recommends and this is  one of the concluding recommendations of our report that to ensure a secure water future for the nation sufficient funding should be provided for the u s g s to perform its functions as a major science agency to ensure high quality data collection interpretive programs and development of of essential forecasting and predictive tools to support effective management of the nation's critical resources this concludes my comments i'll be glad to testify today about the u s resources conservation service perspective on water data management challenges and opportunities my name is michael strobel and i am the director of the national water and climate center in portland oregon the center directs the snow survey and expertise more importantly each agency utilizes the data provided by the other agencies and therefore both rely on depend on each other monitoring managing and understanding water resources is a vital tool to all aspects of our society and our agenc roles in providing this information today i would like to discuss and r c s is role in this process and r c s has been a leader in providing water resources information to assist agricultural activities and natural resource conservation since one thousand thirty five in that year the  hundred one the national water and climate center began the soil climate analysis network a soil moisture and climate information system consisting of one hundred fifty one stations in forty states and designed to provide data to support natural resource assessments and conservation activities for th including alaska the program provides water supply data modeled water supply and stream flow volume forecast for over seven hundred sixty locations in the west tells a reliable and cost effective means for collecting snowpack and weather data needed to produce water supply forecasts used by water managers the data and information are all important achieving the objectives of the western governors association has noted in their report water needs for a sustainable future with fifty to eighty percent of the water supply in the west arriving in the form of snow to provide critical information to decision makers and water managers the data becomes even more valuable when used in concert with partner organizations to provide water supply forecasting tailored to meet user needs reliable information helps reduce the uncertainty and making critical management decisions regarding annual multi year water supplies and stream flows within specific watersheds and some basins in the western u s some examples of the customers who use our water supply forecasts include agricultural producers to manage drought risk making crop decisions and determine irrigation allotments to companies to develop outlooks on water supplies related to hydroelectric power wildlife conservation to help manage habitat for threatened and endangered species climate researchers to develop risk management for long term water availability municipal officers to manage reservoir levels the river forecast center as part of the national weather service for the snowpack component in their data analysis and forecasting systems and recreation such a ski resorts stream flow and read for data in our water supply forecast equations and to verify forecasts accuracy the basins we analyze are tied directly to gauging stations and rez were made was provided by us ts and below are all three agencies make data available through the internet and that's how of the data is shared on a state and local level and r c s often works closely with p r and u s g s to provide data forecasts and product specific to the needs for certain areas when requested likewise the r and u s g s provided specific data to an r c s when requested the relationship has been one of collaboration and cooperation to provide information and analysis to benefit the public in summary and r c s produces critical data forecasting analysis for a wide variety of public and  private users rely on near real time data and unbiased forecasts to plan and execute decisions ranging from individual farmers to basin wide water management planning in the future we hope to increase the percentage of snow survey sites that are automated this would result in a more other members of the subcommittee appreciate the opportunity to testify and for your leadership in addressing the water challenges that affect the west and the nation my name is tony willard when i'm the executive director of the western states water council the council is an affiliate of the western governors association our members are appointed and serve at the pleasure of the governor as has been mentioned in two thousand and six the governors adopted a report which we prepared called water needs and strategies for a sustainable future the chairwoman has a copy of the updated two thousand and eight our next steps report many of those recommendations fall under the purview of the subcommittee and talk about the importance of summarizing our existing uses as well as providing universal access to water related data collected at the state local and federal level and calls for an accurate assessment of the nation's water availability and water demand in two thousand and seven we did a survey of our states asking them about their current water use projected needs and how they plan to meet those needs particularly with respect to future estimates of demand they were often characterized as unsubstantiated  estimates in two thousand and seven the federal subcommittee on water availability and quality prepared a report that summarized water needs and stated concluded simply stated quantitative knowledge of us water supply is currently inadequate we find ourselves in a situation of trying to use an analogy balance our bank account without knowing exactly where our income is our expenses or what's in our  savings our snow pack reservoir storage and groundwater our savings account precipitation stream flowing groundwater recharge represent deposits and again we write checks for different water use both economic and environmental use the council has been working closely with a number of federal agencies and one of the recommendations in that two thousand and eight report that has been implemented has been the creation of a western federal agenc office johnny howard your reclamation employee we very much appreciate the support of these agencies in helping us to address and implement the recommendations in the governor's report i'd point out to that the council has worked with these agencies on a number of different symposia and workshops addressing water needs and water management last month we were in colorado looking at water planning and land use planning just ten days ago we were in lincoln nebraska and held a workshop on drought  and the national integrated drought information system next month we will be in san diego in california looking at water news related to climate adaptation west fast also working with us a number of areas they are preparing an inventory on climate change programs they're also developing a strategy to update and revise reservoir operating plans in relation to climate change and as i mentioned also the drought  programs that are authorized i think it's important to recognize that there will be a need for additional financial resources to implementing accomplish that work we have supported strongly funding for the snow survey program  fifty match traditionally now that's about two thirds on federal and for the first time this year we saw a decline in the non u s g s cooperative funding in part because of the fiscal problems addressing many of the states as they try to pick up the share of the increase in costs for that program i mentioned that we had met and lincoln recently one of the interesting comments that was made during that discussion was from the corps of potomac river thank you madam chairman i appreciate the chance to be here and testify before the panel today i'm speaking on behalf of the interstate commission on the potomac river basin which is an interstate agency created by the commonwealth of pennsylvania virginia states of maryland and west virginia and the district of columbia and the united states congress we try to address water resource issues in the fourteen thousand seven hundred square miles of the potomac river basin our section on cooperative water operations on the potomac manages the distribution of stored water for the metropolitan washington area during periods of drought i know for the record also that i serve on the board of directors for the interstate council on water policy association of state and interstate water managers this organization has been working with the geological survey in the last several years in conducting a series a regional roundtables trying to bring cooperators and users of the cooperative water program the national stream flow information program together because i represent a river basin agency and the eastern part of the united states i don't have the perspective on the bureau reclamation that i will address the s only in my comments today we have multiple water challenges as we try to keep pace with expanding populations environmental and regulatory concerns of the construction of new reservoirs seems to point the need to find new methods of providing water resources but we need to know what resources we have today metropolitan washington water utilities have found that they conduct a demand and resource analysis every five years to stay current with growth and development to ensure that they can provide adequate water supply water managers at all levels are reliant upon us geological survey for a wealth of data for data management actions that support the sound science needed to make decisions about water resource development conservation and use the national stream flow information program is designed and amended to provide a national perspective and information that will protect  and property and contribute to this in hand science and management a nation's water resources currently the stream gauge network supported as part of the national stream flow information program is not stable because of funding issues changes occur in the funds available from partners because of funding difficulties at the state and local level there are infrastructure issues with gage equipment mechanical and computerized device fail ready o and telecommunications equipment needs to be upgraded structures and house equipment and apartment facilities deteriorate become damaged and must be replaced or repaired earlier this year their mistake ounce and water policy coordinated letters signed by more than fifty concerned organizations to various congressional offices identifying the cost to fully implement the answer program has been one hundred and ten million dollars a year for the next five years significantly higher than the twenty million that was made available and that's why two thousand and eight more than that twenty seven point seven million requested for f y two thousand and ten recently i received a call from one of the water science directors asking for help on a specific gauge one that was identified as and then said station needed for the national interest because the national weather service uses it as a flood forecasting point he advises neither the weather service nor the g s had funding to cover the needed repairs to the station and the first year of annual operating costs to bring the station back up on line we have corps of engineer districts that have inadequate funding to maintain gauge a huge deficit of these that must be in the national interest since they were operated and maintained by a federal agency even these gauges or not part of the inseparable graham and rely upon the course operation and maintenance funded by the subject to the appropriation process the cooperative water program of the u s g s provides reliable scientific information about our water resources even with strong partnerships and co operative funding the once fifty fifty cost sharing is now about seventy percent non central co operative program needs about one hundred million dollars to make itself whole addition to stream guys and we need the expertise of the u s g s scientists we need maryland to assess coastal groundwater planning we need continued action by the science and such as i didn't pennsylvania to develop a water use tool to estimate the availability of water that small watershed scales to assist in making development decisions in conclusion we have lots of needs as we deal with some of the issues on climate change we can expect to see changes in our flow of our streams we need to geologic survey data collection efforts to maintain and continue this operation we can't be left without gauges we need to sound science that the g s produces and studies and co operative water programme efforts thank all right thank you thank you madam chairwoman and the committee for holding this hearing on the informational support of the u s geological survey the national research council recently completed their review of the u s geological survey water management program and identified specific recommendations ensuring that we can maintain data integrity and accessibility and i think the witnesses and their testimony as i've heard indicate the need for additional resources as it relates to monitoring engaging  techniques to ensure that we have a better ability to gauge watersheds as it relates to climate change that's occurring the focus of this morning sharing is on data availability to make policy decisions related to our water  supply data is the data scientifically sound as a comparable and number three how do we protect the integrity of our data networks and share that with all of the various water agencies that are part of the complex and very necessary  on my district which is ground zero restrictions of federal regulatory restrictions on both federal and state projects have created a further impact of a water shortage and it's a devastating effect to the farmers the farm workers and the farm communities living in the valley and in my straight in the middle of a crisis and we have a lot of challenges that we face equal concern as it relates to the climate change that you spoke about in your ability to monitor watershed is our ability to figure out how we balance ecosystem restoration and the biological opinions that we're operating under which i would argue are flawed do u s geological survey does have a regulatory does not have a regulatory role in this effort that we deal with in california but nonetheless you do have scientists that can offer expertise in review on water data that will serve as the basis for regulatory actions both by the bureau of reclamation an wildlife service in california you have that map up there the sierra nevada is mother nature's icebox and the snow that we get between november and march is really our  mainstay for providing water for the entire state and with climate change and studies that have been done on tree rings we have a number of experts that have determined that the last  years have been a particularly wet cycle compared to periods of time over the last thousand years based upon tree ring data so the climate change and how we operate our reservoirs and how we provide water for our farms and our  communities and for our cities in california is really critical in our ability to determine how we have that resource and the sound science and the scientific integrity cannot be stressed enough i've said time and time again that  biological pinions that are flawed are failing to account for other factors that are involved in basically species and population growth and on screen diversions powerplant diversions and discharges and toxic urban runoff all contribute to the health of our ecosystems as we're trying to look at the impacts of climate change and plan to how we balance water for a growing state and for the southwest in general although you cover the entire nation as i know there are a number of factors that we're dealing with here madam chairwoman i thank you for the time but i just want to make one final point that goes to say that trying to balance ecosystem efforts on a species by species effort i think is flawed and doesn't work and i think there's ample proof to that case as a result of this drought we are dropping our water tables dramatically because there's no other options for water so we're pumping and we're pumping and we're pumping so without a balance of using all the water management tools in our water toolbox without best water management and data collection that can be bought out not only by the bureau of reclamation by the u s geological survey which some of you have testified to today we will continue to zap her bait already horrific crisis that we're dealing with in which communities have the potential of drying up and i represent many of those communities so this information in this effort i appreciate i will look forward to opportunities to ask questions to the witnesses thank you very much thank you m holding this very important hearing i believe for very long time that the issue of sufficient water supplies and quality of that water supplies is one of the paramount challenges that we face in this century for this country and throughout the world and we have before us many of the representatives of the key agencies in charge of that very issue and it's going to be a challenge as we move forward and i appreciate mr willis and mr hoffman's testimony about the concern of funding for stream gauge data and whether or not we're going to be able to maintain it especially given the tight local budgets with the cost share requirements that we're seeing right now i hail from western wisconsin my congressional district has more miles along the mississippi river than any other congressional district so i've had a keen interest in focusing on water quality issues and just recently reintroduce the upper mississippi river basin protection act the goal of which is to get the science in place so we can do a better job of nutrient and sediment monitoring develop computer models so we can have a better job of coordinating between the public and private entities and agencies and reducing abating the sediment nutrient flows flowing into the river basin overall i have one of the premier science labs in the entire nation the u s g s science lab and across wisconsin that does a fantastic job i think one missing element i guess with the panel that we have here today is the incredible role that the corps of engineers plays to when it comes to water quality issues and saddam and issues in particular i  have some follow up questions whether i can ask them today or later on with some of the panelists here but just wanted to commend the committee for having this important hearing and thank the witnesses for their testimony in the work that they do in this very very important issue thank you ma district because of the chlorate groundwater a compromise without costly wells had treatment we would be in every worst situation everyone is aware of the drought conditions in california  change risk assessment precise water data collection is critical to our future that of our nation our country and our state appreciate your leadership madam chair in the area of water and you've always  baka any other statements allows water resource managers to make informed decisions about managing the resources is probably our greatest need and alluded to a collection of those  data are supported by a combination of federal funds and partner funds from state and local agencies and during this recent period of economic contraction in the united states many of the data collection networks which are supported through that model have been threatened we've lost string gauges around the country on the order of two to three hundred gauges have been either lost or on what we call a threatened list at present time the national cost for maintaining our seven thousand five hundred agents is about one hundred forty million dollars right now and we partner with a number of federal and local agencies the army corps of engineers for example supports about nineteen million dollars worth of that gaging network the bureau of reclamation for example about seven million other federal agencies as well but the lion's share of the external funding comes from state and local county municipal water districts around the country and as they faced economic problems in recent years their ability support that network has been compromised and so we we've been faced with each budget cycle in the last year or two with states coming us and say we'll we're going to have to eliminate thirty gauges in arizona or fifty eight years in california so we do the best we can to work with these agencies and find other partners to support the gauges and it's a constant battle for us we use a huge amount of our effort to to sustain staying that network and it's not just a matter of losing a gauge you also lose the information for maybe fifty or one hundred years of it's an old age and those are critical information for making decisions about flood frequency for the weather service about building infrastructure if you're constructing a bridge or culvert or other infrastructure near a river you need to have the long term statistics to make those  committee that the u s g s has done a remarkable job and prioritizing what the key there are hiking up a mountain and they're holding on to things that are critical that's the good news the bad news is there are about cut to the bone any any further decline we feel will cause irreparable to the data collection and information system one of the things that we found particularly useful the users of information the assessment programs when they have the data they are asked can you tell us about this data can you answer questions using that data and that that's a very valuable resource without the data without the stream flow record that they can't provide the aging infrastructure we have that map prepared for us on that and it's very limited in what it really shows us what we do be able to play into us how you store and manage this type of information additional information that we may notations on the map that we would be providing as that data became available the way we're managing that information now and the way we archive it and retrieve it and use it as  area office basis so when we need to get that information for a bigger picture more of a bureau wide perspective we need to get out to those area offices and collect that data he will retrieve that information from those areas and we have an office in the denver that works in my part of the organization that does that we were able to collect that information and then provide it back to the water users or to members of y one area office may have that information where they can hit a button on the computer and off it goes to our headquarters in denver to archive that to collect that other officers may have it on a drawing that old construction drawing so one of the things we're doing now we have a group called board just below our g i s and what this group is tasked to do is to bring consistency within those area offices so that one office that may have it on a drawing is going to be consistent or bring that information and data up to the standard that maybe another office might have another where just to get doing we have some funding for boards right now in the denver office but each regional office or five regions they have a board just coordinate or in those offices and those are the ones that are coordinating back with the denver office to do exactly what what you're talking about and it's an effort it's not something that we're going to be able to do overnight it's a process right does that include all the information about aging not want to provide some of that information to the public just because of the security nature of the ability of specially water users to tap into this information doing information that's available now yes they do the information that we are collecting to get to where we have the uniformity across the nation that will also be available with the exception those limitations i mentioned dr larson how the department of interior recently authorized climate response centers utilizing integrate water resources data in the assessment of impacts to the river basin and the water supply we are in barking on a new program within the u s g s with some recent increase in funding to our global change science program one component that is called the climate effects network which is an effort to  put new monitoring stations at a number of locations around the country and then also use existing stations that we have in watershed locations where there's little to no effect from humans so that we can better detect whatever natural natural trends are occurring for example that's been commented on a little bit here today we've been able to detect in the western the season and through looking at our long term stream flow information we now recognize that starting in around one nine hundred seventy s the streams are flowing higher because of snow melt by about two weeks earlier in the spring so more water more snow is melting earlier in the season the annual rate isn't too much different the total run off through the year but the seasonal changes manifest so that means more runoff in the spring and less runoff in the later part of the year which is important for agriculture it's important for ecosystems sustainability this is one of the types of questions that is addressed by this climate effect effects network we have the ability to do some of that already and that ability will be enhanced by expansion of some of these sites thank you and as you're talking about the earlier melt is in any specifically focus on building the reservoir capacity or the aquifer recharge however we do have a fair number of studies that inform and over what time period and what volumes of water might be needed to raise aquifers one of the things that we work with activities that we conduct in cooperation with southern california water management  words it's injected into coastal areas to provide water fresh water barrier to salt water intrusion so it prevents salt water from incurring incursion inland and therefore protect the freshwater s has a number of studies in the same disco bay delta and works closely with the army corps of engineers in the bureau of reclamation to try to inform their decision making process with respect to the delta probably one of the most contentious areas for why resources in the united states right now and so i can't say that the u s u s has the absolute answer to those kinds of scientific challenges but we certainly  concern for the suffering in the central valley of california as somehow political i can assure the chairwoman i'll bet that my friend from the central valley mr costa would agree that the suffering in the valley is not political and republicans democrats and independents are all equally condemned to the chronic unemployment and poverty that's been caused by the deliberate decision of this government to divert two hundred billion gallons of water from central valley agriculture to enhance the environment of the delta smelt those higher grocery prices that result i can also assure will affect every third we you're the one that made the charge that somehow this was political i want to assure you it's not political it affects everybody and in this last administration the last eight years have done very little with it sir i'm not talking about the last eight years i'm talking about the water and power subcommittee addressing perhaps the most important water issue in the country and that a policy that this government could reverse instantly if it was of a mind to do so so i just hope that my friend appreciates the image conveyed to those tens of thousands of unemployed workers holding hearings over technical issues like data management while neglecting the immediate steps that could be taken to relieve that suffering that's not political that's humanitarian and i have every confidence that my friend will upon reflection be able to tell the difference these are the number of hearing  first question i'd like to ask mr gabbled on we've heard numerous references to conservation little about storage what's the administration's stance on building new surface  storage to reflect changes in water flow mr mcclintock we are not looking at building additional storage at this time we are doing the basin studies that have been referred to here already  we have a lot of information gathering data gathering that hopefully will provide some information such that we can make some informed scientific decisions on where those water needs are i mean analysis paralysis no one here questions the importance of additional water data while we're refining and gathering additional data i would be concerned that we are failing to act on the extensive data that we already have you know we know that the water flow on the sacramento is larger than the colorado and yet we store seventy million acre feet on the colorado and only ten million acre feet on the sacramento require additional data that requires action what do you what is the administration's position on that as i stated earlier mr mcclintock we are not looking at that at this time as far as the the data gathering efforts underway right now we are always gathering data from a day to day water management standpoint and one hundred years ago when we started building dams and water infrastructure there would have been some obvious need to back then you're stating some perhaps obvious needs today those  are areas that we at least where i work we are not looking at those right now getting that information or looking at that river system and saying ok we need to build a new dam or a new facility at this location  i think that's what concerns me because because we have extensive data on this subject already we know of the imperius need of additional water storage on the sacramento system and yet there is no action on it one wonders what additional data is going to be providing in terms of the necessary action there's a difference between studying and acting there's a time for both we've got extensive data right now on the water needs in the sacramento delta  system i should say why aren't we acting on that i don't know why we're not acting on that we do not all i know is we are not looking at can you direct me to somebody who would know the answer t question in the administration would i would be glad to provide that information for the record and give you a name or a contact that would have that information but i do i can tell you that we are we are not looking at storage facilities at this time and  perhaps madam chairwoman when we get around to acting on the valley suffering we might also invite that individual whoever it is to come here and explain why we aren't getting action on all of the data that we're already collecting what would you from an operational standpoint from our existing facilities and how we manage and operate those we've talked about aging infrastructure that's what our emphasis is is making sure that those facilities we now have in place are working and operating for for the future we are not looking again at those new facilities what kind of complaints you getting from your water customers with respect to lack of  or data or of insufficient data or improper inaccurate data what what are the complaints you're hearing i'm not hearing any complaints about inaccurate or improper data from our stakeholders or insufficient data or insufficient data well i thought this whole hearing was about the need to produce additional data hearing that is a subject of the hearing  dry by twenty twenty one under their current climate change scenario did the bureau of reclamation agree or disagree with the scripps conclusion interpretation of the data we looked at and based on the data that they used to come up with that conclusion we could see how they came up with that conclusion however we do disagree with the findings if they were to use information that's available out there for example the interim guidelines on the colorado river my understanding is that the authors of that report have now took another look at that based on the information from the interim guidelines and from other information that's available and they are they have a different opinion now the authors do and i do not have that information readily available but i would be glad to provide that for for the record my concern is that it indicates how will obviously different individuals looking at different data can come to different conclusions and sometimes eroni its conclusions and that gets back to the  overall policy objectives that we're serving and there seems to be a growing divergence in defining those objectives one moving toward abundance the other moving toward the rationing of shortages caused by our abandonment of abundance is a central objective of the federal government's water policy what are your thoughts on that on that report that you referred to that part of the basis of that is the underlying data that they used information or i should say assumptions that they used were not what we would have used to come up with that conclusion thank you madam chair and thank you for the them later for the record and we've also just concluded as of september thirtieth a set of studies of the great lakes region looking at water availability lake levels ground water levels and a general  overview of the water resource there as you know it's a it's a contentious area the states and canadian provinces bordering the lakes are very concerned about any outside  resource even to the point of not permitting water bottling plants within the within the watershed of the lake one of the concerns that we've noted is that one of the lakes levels is dropping and some of the initial science indicates that that is a result of less ice cover in the winter warmer temperatures leading to a shorter period of ice cover allowing more evaporation from the lake service this is an ongoing there's a number of ongoing studies in this area so i can provide you more information and also a set of reports that address the larger great lakes issue  thing to do i can't provide much detail on that although i can say the army corps of engineers is addressing that and related problems in terms of the flow of water in between the various lakes and out to the s lawrence seaway and we work closely with them and providing the stream flow data for the for those studies and the army corps supports a lot of the costs of those gauges and there's an assessment being led by the army and other federal agencies in progress right now that would probably greatly inform your some of your questions and we can give you an update on that assessment for the record but i appreciate that and then the say that  of knowledge and expertise is as it relates to the various groundwater basins in the country but gets back down to the comments i was making earlier about the depletion in the in the   groundwater basins even where there is brackish water that is being used and can you describe the problem in more detail i can provide a little bit of comment although i'd be hesitant to go into much detail without impacts to those ground or basins even where there is brackish water does the geological survey dr larson have a formal regulatory mention of my comments it doesn't have a formal regulatory role i know that in the biological relates to with fish and wildlife service on these biological binion's i know the national academy of science is doing a review you know we have a number of biology offices in california and in the region that are providing a consultation role well our scientists are called upon to provide interpretations and you provide that information as to how you're providing that interpretation as well in addition to that  congressman mcclintock made a note about the watershed numbers and i'd like to verify that because i've got some numbers from memory but they may not be accurate that the sacramento san working river water  systems in california provide on an average of about twenty four million acre feet of water these are short rivers and with the set up with the sierra nevada by comparison we used to think that the colorado provided with twenty four million acre feet on an average flow we have about twelve million acre feet of storage could you confirm those numbers in terms of a comparison analysis for subcommittee that would be something the  and consulted with the state of california has been studying a reservoir for a number of years called temperance flat that would be constructed above miller tin lake and that and i'd like to get an update as to where we are in the study of that potential reservoir site glad you brought that up i wanted to correct because i think you were in error in your earlier statement i was when i was asked about those studies provide that information for the record i don't have that update on that but we are looking at not just the update on temperance flap but that's needed for the ground water storage that many of us support we just saw the rise to groundwater bank frankly storing two hundred fifty thousand feet on the ground water bank i think will be largely dependent upon our ability to provide additional storage because with the climate change and the rapid melt off that dr larson mentioned a bit earlier the ability to have that water then distort underground is a two step process we will be glad to provide that update on all those things for the record all right you know where my time is ok well thank you i appreciate that  and i think those include my questions there and but the the the operations madam chairman and all of our reservoirs not just in california but around the west with climate change and how we have operated  traditionally is really critical in terms of how operate them in the future because our ability to provide water for power water for farms water for cities with rapid melt off in the spring time make it much more difficult to operate these projects as they have been traditionally operated in the past so this information's important so i thank you thank you mr costin and certainly as we get some recognized by the harvard school of government and given an innovation and government award just recently for its potential there i think there's tremendous as an example as was mentioned here the shortage sharing agreement on the colorado river which would allow a lower base or extraordinary water savings or intentionally created surplus water that's described the verification of that  has not been agreed to by the different states so this is one technology which for instance could allow you to observe from year to year the water use in the imperial valley or other areas as we between the council recognizing that water is moving from ag to other urban and other uses environmental purposes as well as we need to be very careful about the impact that that has on agriculture and  not our data are inaccurate or insufficient the problem is rather that as a network of gauges seven thousand five hundred string gauges or several thousands of brown water wells when our state and local partners are unable to support their share of the cost to arrangement we are forced to discontinue those so we get holes in the network and if those holes happen to occur for example on a river where flooding is common  testimony how does your agency interpret that statement i think tony religion expressed it probably as well as anyone could with which is to look at our water resources as a sort of a bank account what's in your bank account what's what are the deposits coming in monthly or weekly and what are the extractions going out and our problem as a nation is that we do not have any comprehensive way to do that we have some  information to address those kinds of questions at the state and local level not every state not every municipality but we don't have it at a national level we don't really know how much water we have how will state and local water census activity is to enhance the state's ability to collect and archive and track those types of data right now about a third of the states in the us do a pretty good job at collecting water availability and use information making it publicly available and using it for water resource decisions another third do a marginal job and another third very little so we have a very uneven approach right now on the secure water act has a provision that calls for some support of that effort but without a renewed commitment to providing additional surface water storage which we already have plenty of data on we know the need is dire and we know testimony very that the questioning or the issue area just a little bit here i know mr willis and mr hoffman did touch upon the adequacy or lack of funding for the stream gauge program in that but maybe i can ask the agency representatives from u how serious of an issue is this in light of some of the funding shortfalls that we're seeing at the state and local and the impact that might have on the overall stream gauge data collection system that exists right now mr l n the seriousness varies with the national economy and right now it's dire in some parts of the country arizona and california and some of the western states that have had particular severe economic contraction are seeing their water management agencies budgets being reduced substantially and that is immediately translated into elimination of stream flow stations and brown water wells and water quality monitoring site then collection if they shut down and they're not able to be adequately funded unmonitored we do our best to work with other state agencies to try to sustain those stations but in many cases we're not successful and so we have to close the station and if you lose  site where we've had fifty or one hundred years of record you lose the ability to make statistical statistically based forecast for flooding or infrastructure development when it is a little parochial approach here because obviously as to overriding issues one is the adequacy of water supplies overall but then one of quality of that water supply is more specifically now even mention this with my colleagues on the diet but back in wisconsin we've got one of the wettest october's on record is so wet right now that we can't get corn and soybeans harvested because the fields are all muddy and that's going to set back the harvest state but i've also noticed a tremendous amount of public private partnership when it comes to water quality monitoring that's taking place and data collection from your perspective how effective is that coordination especially with the private entities that are out doing their own thing and are there ideas we can better coordinate the collection of that data between the public and private entities that are doing some of this cultural interests for example in your part of the country and we have several studies now nearing completion that will help you be a value a water the what are the top one hundred watersheds in the mississippi bas are the source of the most nutrients that are reaching the gulf of mexico that's one example of an effort to coordinate is u s g s having greater reliance on computer monitoring and modeling of nutrient sediment flows at the sub basin level we've been working for a number of years on a model we call the sparrow model especially spatial analysis regression model that uses water quality data from sites along rivers to model the larger river system to make those predictions and those models are increasing and let me give you a more specific example u s d a just announced much to our gratitude of the three hundred twenty million dollars program for the mississippi river basin to better utilize the conservation title funding in order to reduce sediment nutrient flows and they're planning public private partnerships and doing it now my concern is you know it's great that there's going to be this focus but if the thoughts no no no ok well i could comment that we do work closely with the department of agriculture and with this recent new activity we will we will step up our efforts to make sure that we can provide the amount of nutrients that are flowing into the overall river basin in the mississippi we want to maximize value better utilize limited resources that are available and i think a lot of this is going to stem from better monitoring in developing the computer models so we know how to best to address the sediment nutrient flows in that sub basin level so i think at some point we're going to want to continue to work closely with us g s the experts in the field on how we can best coordinate this approach as we products in motion shampoos all kinds of things like that in addition to prescriptions pass into into wastewater through showering and so forth   another problem is things like i understand that deet the compound in many mosquito repellents and so forth is common in are now able to detect these contaminants at low levels and we're not sure what impact they're having on on human health and environmental health but i am aware that the u s geological survey is that water is recycled the more the opportunity is for those those types of contaminants to concentrate and therefore even more important that methods of removing them from from the recycled stream will become more common thank you the doctor strobel in your opinion are there any examples of where we have lost critical water information river basins that may impact our ability to predict  our program when we do water supply forecasting is directly tied to a station so when we do a water supply forecast for a basin or we rely on the information of that gauge to validate the accuracy of our forecast long term assessment on climate and on water resources having that long term record having forecast years after year after year continuously this is critical and so because of this there was a site that the u s g s is looking at actually moving the site from above the reservoir down to at the confluence of one of the rivers down below the reservoir and in doing it in this case is not a discontinuation but it is a disruption and so that would set aside valuable information for the city of portland for others that uses this data for doing the forecast but looking at the list here i can give you a lot of examples but just real briefly things such as the elk river clark forecasting that have been discontinued in many situations the states have tried to pick up some of these sites but their resources also are limited and so it has impacted our abilit hofmann also commented it's oversubscribed it's at about a seventy thirty match so in other words the fed side is about thirty percent the state side is about seventy that's not because we've cut back on our funds it's but it's because those funds have been flat funded for a number of years so the states have been willing to put in higher and higher share each year over the last two decades so that creates an imbalance but nonetheless we do a mechanism that authorization in place to help support the states in their interest in collecting water information and conducting assessments but if they can't even afford the thirty percent share and you're losing valuable information how critical it's absolutely critical and not just to us as a federal agency but all of our state and local partners who depend on those data to make their water management decisions in up in washington i represent washington when those are up and running will they be able to tell irrigators in the acma valley what supplies look like you know with when  was in a couple orders of magnitude changes twenty years from now that be within our realm of possible predictive capability we're a little unsure of your question  right we have just begun an effort in the last year or so to try to weave together the challenges that are presented by changing climate temperature and precipitation and how that affects ecosystems in the natural environment and our biology discipline has the lead on that and i can certainly provide you more detail for the record it is an effort that's being developed right my understanding the science i think it's highly likely that your gaiters in the aqua valley which is on the apple capital world amongst hops and a whole bunch other wonderful products will have decreased irrigation supplies in the summer months because we'll have a decrease no packing we'll have an earlier runoff and we don't have the storage capability right now to capture that runoff so that later in the seasons there will be decreased irrigation supplies that's my understanding of the state of the science the question is how much more acuity will we be able to give irrigators about how much that decrease will be twenty years out fifty years out and the reason i ask is those irrigators are now making decisions in the communities or making decision about storage investments whether they're justified to make them i just wonder if you could give us any feeling of how good our science is in that regard how good will it be a year or two from now  well it's obviously a big challenge particularly in your area where the water resources are not as a bun as you culturally just would like the what you're referring to is something called climate model downscaling this is a big effort that's going on all over the world in the scientific community for taking the general circulation models which predict precipitation and temperature for th the future they do it at a pretty coarse scale though maybe a kilometer or tens of kilometers and so many scientists now in the academic and federal sector are working with these models to try to downscale them in other words scope them down to a much smaller footprint so that an area say the size of the yakima valley would have more accurate information if you talk to that community you'll get a variety of opinions on how well they're doing i would say that we've we've got a ways to go before these  experienced is your projection of what the next eighty years or fifty years or twenty years are going to bring and what areas are we doing to prepare for that i suppose i'm on the hot seat for that that's clearly a pretty challenging question to address and there is there is scientific literature using various  general circulation miles to make those types of predictions one of the things that we are pretty confident about from a number of different peer reviewed scientific studies is that by the middle of the twenty first century in on predictions of slight increase in temperature causing more evaporation of water and less recharge of aquifers and so reducing the overall amount of runoff what exactly are we doing severe they might be other other scientists don't view the reductions quite that level of extreme so we're still dealing with a lot of uncertainty in the climate modeling business and it's  thank you for that information and i certainly would hope that the bureau and the army corps and some of the scientists are looking at what is happening california and being able to address it sooner rather than later any comment idea they were going to be hit by a drought for so long critical for them and they know they have more water than they can use so there is very much evidence of climate change impact on a lot of our states so while they a reclamation r c s collecting the right water information and are we doing so in a manner that is robust enough to meet the needs of the member states to date data being funneled into the climate change plans for the individual state that's a good question i think they're doing everything that they can we've heard about some of the challenges that exist particularly in funding for the basic data gathering we think that's where the emphasis needs to be so that we can continue to make that kind of analysis moving that into the decision making process is a challenge the issue of downscaling was we are becoming  that this is the same folks that bring you the five day forecast so you know our our accuracy is not there yet and will not be there in my opinion for a long time as far as climate change and what that's going to meet on a local basis which makes the stream gauging the snow survey program so much more important other issue i think to recognize it is really as is mentioned in the title of the hearing climate variability we will see changes but those changes will be masked by the variability the variability in those peak and low flows that we have to deal with no matter which direction the climate is moving i think there is a general consensus of the warming and the impact that  will have a lot of apple transpiration and water supplies and stream flows there is no consensus in the scientific literature that i've seen by and large on rainfall and what it means as far as precipitation and so it's very difficult for us to predict what our future water supplies are going to be again making it very important that we understand what we're using now how we can conserve and looking at alternatives for the future a couple of those have been mentioned here i think we will be in our planning process having to diversify we've relied in the past on surface water storage we think there will be more examples where we will need water storage but also we have the ground water alternative and recharge conjunctive water reuse in the colorado river basin another area looking at weather modification desalination and those are  existing water uses well right now that's through the west through state water rights which are property rights and i think we're seeing some recognition of those rights and some of the court as to how far we can go  adopted a couple of resolutions on climate change one on adaptation and they have a climate change working group as well so we are trying to answer some of those questions and bring them in but the real issue is that we're dealing with a lot of uncertainty and how do we make cloudiness tuesday through thursday rain on friday and i wake up this morning and it's raining now so i has difficulty making a weather forecast for a specific area twelve hours into the future probably can't be entirely relied upon to not fall prey to that concept of analysis paralysis we already know what a lot of our needs are and we simply haven't acted on those needs which madam chair and brings me back to the principal point we've got a major crisis in the central valley that we can address through government action immediately if we choose to do so i would implore you please to make that choice this is perhaps a comment more than a question but i do think it's important in our discussion of these issues to separate weather from climate and it's really really important because those who think we can prove the planet is because it's one hundred sixty degrees that particular day in washington d c are wrong in those who believe global warming doesn't exist because it's twenty eight degrees that day in washington d c are wrong and those who may suggest that we can't predict the weather twenty years from now are entirely correct we cannot predict the weather twenty years from now but we can make some unfortunately very dire forecasts of the climate and the climate clearly is going to be changing twenty years from now and that's why we hope to arm the federal government with much resources we can to try to predict what the climate may be which is an overall accumulation of weather i just wanna make that appointment point i think it gets lost sometimes in this debate and thank you for that chance thank you mr inslee and anybody  you're reclamation know and the army corps of engineers that addresses water resource challenges in the face of climate change so i make the point that we are as a family of federal agencies in the water resources arena working closely together in a number of areas including trying to address some of the questions that you've raised about how do we best predict climate and other effects on on our water resources it's not just climate that we have to face we're  also in the midst of a big national experiment where we're putting we're growing our population of three times a national rate in the southwestern states which are the most water scarce of the country we're also moving your culture from western and midwestern states which are going to be helpful to some of our water users so they may not have had access to those web sites and you're so right so how do how do we continue to work to be able to ensure that water most precious resource is affected by climate change all the variables that we've talked about well thank all of you for your insightful testimony this concludes the subcommittees oversight hearing on water management and climate v for additional material for the record should be submitted within ten business days after today's hearing your cooperation in replying promptly to any questions submitted to you in writing will be greatly appreciated i hope it isn't ten years