U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

57–837 u WASHINGTON : 1999

CALIFORNIA CENTRAL VALLEY WATER

MANAGEMENT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

MAY 20, 1999, WASHINGTON, DC

Serial No. 106–27

Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house

or

Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources

(II)

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana

JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

KEN CALVERT, California

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina

WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania

ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina

MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho

THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado

GEORGE MILLER, California

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia

BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California

CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO ́, Puerto

Rico

ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

ADAM SMITH, Washington

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana

DONNA CHRISTIAN-CHRISTENSEN, Virgin

Islands

RON KIND, Wisconsin

JAY INSLEE, Washington

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California

TOM UDALL, New Mexico

MARK UDALL, Colorado

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York

RUSH D. HUNT, New Jersey

LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff

ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel

CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator

JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director

SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER RESOURCES

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California, Chairman

KEN CALVERT, California

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas

GREG WALDEN, Oregon

MIKE SIMPSOM, Idaho

CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California

GEORGE MILLER, California

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

ADAM SMITH, Washington

DONNA CHRISTIAN-CHRISTENSEN, Virgin

Islands

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California

ROBERT FABER, Staff Director/Counsel

JOSHUA JOHNSON, Professional Staff

STEVE LANICH, Minority Staff

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held May 20, 1999 ..................................................................................... 1

Statement of Members:

Dooley, Hon. Calvin M., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California ................................................................................................... 3

Doolittle, Hon. John T., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California ................................................................................................... 1

Miller, Hon. George, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California ....................................................................................................... 4

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Radanovich, Hon. George, a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 192

Statement of Witnesses:

Babbitt, Hon. Bruce, Secretary, Department of Interior, accompanied by

Patricia Beneke, Assistant Secretary, Department of Water and

Science, Department of Interior ................................................................... 5

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 9

Gartrell, Gregory, Assistant General Manager, Contra Costa Water District, Concord, California .............................................................................. 133

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 136

George, Hon. Merv, Jr., Chairman, Hoopa Tribe, Hoopa, California ........... 164

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 165

Gleick, Peter, President, Pacific Institute, Oakland, California ................... 50

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 54

Guy, David J., Executive Director, Northern California Water Association, Sacramento, California ........................................................................ 65

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 67

Kaniewski, Donald J., Legislative Director, Laborer’s International Union

of North America, LIUNA–AFLCIO, Washington, DC .............................. 63

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 64

King, Dennis, Senior Research Scientist, University of Maryland, Center

for Environmental Sciences, Solomons Island, Maryland ......................... 103

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 106

McCormick, Steve, Vice President, Western Division, The Nature Conservancy, San Francisco, California ................................................................. 73

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 76

Nelson, Barry, Senior Fellow, Save the San Francisco Bay Association,

San Francisco, California ............................................................................. 147

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 150

Nelson, Dan, Executive Director, San Luis and Delta Mendota Water

Authority, Los Banos, California ................................................................. 170

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 173

Nichols, Mary D., Secretary for Resources, State of California .................... 25

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 27

Sprague, Stan, General Manager, Orange County Municipal Water District, Fountain Valley, California ................................................................ 47

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 48

(1)

HEARING ON CALIFORNIA CENTRAL VALLEY

WATER MANAGEMENT

THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1999

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER, COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:10 a.m. in Room

1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. John Doolittle [chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Subcommittee on Water and Power will come to

order. We’re meeting today to hear testimony on the California

Central Valley Water Management. First session of the hearing

will be devoted to issues regarding the California Bay-Delta program. And during the second half the hearing, we’ll discuss the implementation of the Central Valley Improvement Act.

This hearing concerns water management in the Central Valley

of California, it involves some of the most important issues we will

consider in this Congress. It represents a major Federal, State and

local commitment to solving California’s water needs and sets the

stage for future water management policies and facilities in the

State of California.

I believe that the participation of Secretary Babbitt and Secretary Nichols indicates both the importance of this issue as well

as an opportunity to discuss among some of the major policy leaders the steps we need to take to provide for California’s water management future.

While I recognize that there are other pressing issues we will

discuss, it is encouraging to see that the stakeholders have agreed

that $35 million of the CALFED funding for next year should be

allocated for activities that address water quality and water supply

issues. Although I don’t believe that this sum goes far enough in

addressing the needs for additional water supply, it does represent

an important acknowledgment and commitment for augmenting

California’s future water supplies.

Today I would like to address four areas of specific interest to the

Subcommittee regarding water management and the Central Valley of California. These areas include ecosystem criteria, and performance standards, the development of a cross-cut budget, augmenting our current water supply and addressing where we are

going with the CALFED program.

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We need to ensure that there are adequate criteria to evaluate

the effectiveness of CALFED’s restoration program. Not only do we

currently lack many of the project descriptions to be undertaken by

CALFED, but we have a shortage of measuring sticks to determine

when we have achieved a specified goal once the money has been

spent. The CALFED program must incorporate milestones and objective measurements that define the future essentials of success as

well as when specific goals have been met.

The Committee is concerned that the Federal agencies involved

in the CALFED program are not coordinating the myriad of activities going on in the watersheds under restoration. I am currently

discussing with the congressional support agencies a way to determine how fundings are currently being accounted for and how an

effective cross-cut budget should be prepared. Last night we receive

the long-awaited program-level cross-cut budget for the expenditures dedicated to the CALFED program. Today I seek Secretary

Babbitt and Secretary Nichols’ commitment to develop the more

comprehensive project-level cross-cut budget, which identify all

Federal and State expenditures being allocated to achieve the objectives being pursued by the CALFED program.

Our existing water management systems can no longer provide

a sufficient reliable water supply to meet the needs of the environment and our current water users. How are we going to develop the

process to meet the future California urban, rural, agriculture,

business, labor and environmental water needs if we can’t even

meet our current needs? Conservation, transfer and adaptive management are part of the solution, but they are not enough by themselves.

Storage needs must be addressed immediately for two reasons.

First, the demand for water in California currently exceeds the

supply during normal years, and according to the California Department of Water Resources and CALFED’s own documents, this

shortage will grow to between 3 and 7 million acre-feet a year in

the year 2020. If we do not immediately begin to address these

needs, we will lose the valuable time necessary to prepare for this

occasion.

Twenty years ago computer programmers knew the phenomenon

we now call the Y2K bug, and they knew that would have to be

addressed, yet policymakers failed to act until very recently. The

results are far greater costs and the risks of significant dislocations. Surely we have the wherewithal to avoid these mistakes in

water.

I do not believe that these concerns present insurmountable obstacles. Rather, they represent reasonable attainable goals which

should reflect the way government conducts its business. The

CALFED partnership represents potential funding in the billions of

dollars. It has the potential to be used to enhance the water quality

and environmental resources in the Bay-Delta as well as for other

water resource activities in California. Yet how it is administered

will be a test of government’s ability to transition to a smarter,

more efficient, less coercive mode of operation.

Finally, I believe that we need to continue our scrutiny of the

Central Valley Project Improvement Act. The implementation of

this Act not only has a significant impact on the CALFED program,

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but it also is an indication of whether or not the government can

approach these water problems in a constructive manner or will

continue to do so with a heavy hand.

In my conversation yesterday with Secretary Nichols I was encouraged with the spirit of cooperation that she extended. I look

forward to hearing the testimony and discussing the future of California’s water management with the witnesses and will now recognize our Ranking Member Mr. Dooley for his statement.

[The information may be found at the end of the hearing.]

STATEMENT OF HON. CALVIN M. DOOLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. DOOLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for

holding this hearing today to review the status of the CALFED

process and the implementation of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act. These two efforts are closely interwoven, and both

will have a profound impact on the future of California.

I would also like to thank all of our witnesses today for their participation. My constituents are greatly affected by the CVPIA and

have been active participants in the CALFED process because they

recognize that resolving the environmental problems associated

with water project development is the key to restoring and ensuring an adequate and reliable water supply for the future.

I continue to believe that a well-functioning, collaborative process

such as CALFED remains the most effective approach to finding a

long-term solution that addresses California’s water supply and

water quality needs while simultaneously protecting and restoring

this State’s unique ecosystems. From my perspective, a well-functioning process is a balanced one that produces tangible benefits for

all participating stakeholders.

It is clear to me, as I hope it is to all those involved, that this

process will not succeed if major concerns of key stakeholders remain unaddressed. It is also important that we recognize that all

policy decisions affecting California’s water supply have an impact

on our ability to devise a long-term solution through the CALFED

process. In that regard I have been impressed and encouraged by

the cooperative spirit displayed by the stakeholders with respect to

the appropriations request, and I have also greatly appreciated remarks by Secretary Babbitt in recent months which indicated a

continued commitment to a balanced process that addresses water

supply and quality concerns while we pursue ecosystem restoration. And I would just like to recognize that if it wasn’t for the active and personal involvement of Secretary Babbitt, I think we

might not have had the CALFED process maintain the momentum

that it was able to achieve in the last year, and I am deeply gratified and indebted to your effort there.

I’m also very pleased with the new State administration in California, who is represented here today by Secretary Nichols, who

also in the first few months of their administration have been very

constructively engaged, and I’m very confident about the leadership

that you’re going to provide in the upcoming years. I look forward

to this leadership and being a partner in this effort and as we

move towards a balanced, long-lasting and environmentally sound

response to California’s water supply and water quality needs.

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[The information may be found at the end of the hearing.]

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Miller.

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. MILLER. So I don’t shock people, but I would like to associate

myself with Mr. Dooley’s remarks, and if I could include my opening statement in the record.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yes, without objection, so ordered. And that will

certainly be the case for any of the other Members who wish to incorporate their statements into the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE MILLER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE

STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the participation of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt,

Assistant Secretary Patricia Beneke, California Resources Secretary Mary Nichols,

and all other witnesses who will participate in today’s hearing. We have an ambitious schedule today, and my remarks will be very brief.

The timing of this hearing is certainly interesting:

• A Federal judge in Fresno has just ordered the Interior Department to comply

with the Central Valley Project Improvement Act.

•The United States Supreme Court just refused to intervene in the case involving the Friant Unit contracts.

•The long-awaited Flow Study for the Trinity River will be released, perhaps

as early as next week.

• And CALFED will reach another milestone in a few weeks when the revised

draft EIS/EIR is released along with the draft preferred program alternative.

The convergence of these California water events is a reminder that California

water issues are a reflection of the vibrant growth and energized nature of our

State. Nowhere else in the West is water truly a statewide issue with direct impacts

on the daily lives of tens of millions of people. We have a real opportunity in California to demonstrate our ingenuity and to devise the best and most creative ways

to use our water resources responsibly. The CVPIA and CALFED are the tools we

have at our disposal, and we have to make them work together.

I continue to support the goals of the CALFED program, and I will work hard

to secure the funding we have requested for the coming fiscal year. I hope we can

get the entire California delegation to support us. The CALFED team has very effectively responded to the concerns raised during the last budget cycle.

I also look forward to working with Chairman Doolittle, the California Delegation,

and the CALFED stakeholder community, to promptly enact legislation to extend

the spending authority for the CALFED Bay-Delta programs. We cannot put this

critical program at risk by allowing the funding authority to expire.

While there are many benefits associated with the CALFED process, we have to

keep a close eye on where we are regarding implementation of the CVPIA. The

CVPIA is designed to make basic changes in the priorities of Federal water policy

in California, changes that inevitably impact traditional water uses and water

users. Implementation of the law has been proceeding, but at a slower pace than

many of us would prefer. I am working closely with Secretary Babbitt as we close

the gaps on CVPIA implementation, and I am confident the fundamental precepts

of this law are sound and that challenges to the implementation of the law will not

prevail.

There are too many issues, and not enough time. I appreciate the cooperation of

everyone who participates in the development of CALFED and the constructive implementation of the CVPIA. I look forward to hearing the statements of our witnesses today.

[The information may be found at the end of the hearing.]

Mr. DOOLITTLE. We have our distinguished first panel. I would

like to ask them to please rise and take the oath, and then we’ll

begin.

Will you raise your right hands, please.

[Witnesses sworn.]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

We welcome you both here today and appreciate your making

yourselves available to address these important issues.

Our first witness will be our Secretary of the Interior, the Honorable Bruce Babbitt, Secretary Babbitt.

STATEMENT OF HON. BRUCE BABBITT, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, ACCOMPANIED BY PATRICIA BENEKE,

ASSISTANT SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND

SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman and Committee members, I

come today grateful for the Committee’s hearing and inquiry into

the status of these related issues. I think it is very important and

very timely, and I think I speak on behalf of all the CALFED participants in saying we welcome the increasing involvement of this

Subcommittee and other portions of the United States Congress in

this issue.

The reason I emphasize that is because this is, in fact, a new

type of water management and development. It is a—what is going

on here represents a quite dramatic break from the tradition of

water development, which occupied so much time of all the participants during the century past. Now, it’s not surprising that California becomes, if you will, the lead ship in making this transition

precisely because of the importance of water resources in the State

of California.

The process that gave rise to CALFED and which now drives this

new kind of water project, in my judgment, is working very, very

well. The stakeholders, for reasons that I will comment upon, are

actively and deeply involved. It began in the Wilson administration

with a strong commitment from the political leadership, the Governor and the legislature. We have made a remarkably effective

and seamless transition with the coming office of the Davis administration, and I am particularly pleased with the Governor’s choice

of Mary Nichols as his resource Secretary. We have worked together on these issues for many, many years, and I’m confident

that together we are going to make this process work and, with

your help, bring in to being an entirely new way of meeting the

needs of all of the stakeholders in a process which you have emphasized correctly, I think, that we need to see improvement on all

fronts in terms of the needs of all the stakeholders.

The reason, if I may elaborate briefly, that this process and this

departure, if you will, this new chapter of water resource management opened in California is precisely because we had reached an

absolute impasse in water future of the State through years of contention, of impasse, of litigation. Finally, all of the stakeholders

came to one very basic conclusion, and that was simply that each

one of the stakeholder groups has absolute power to frustrate any

motion in any direction. Every stakeholder here today has demonstrated beyond a doubt its veto power over motion in any direction, and the stakeholders have finally discovered that that’s not

just a temporary phenomenon. That veto power that has been

given to stakeholders by the people of California represents a cultural change which is here to stay. And out of that we have put

together a process which recognizes that reality and says we are

6

going to sit down in this most excruciating process and find consensus, which is in the manifest interest of each group. I elaborate

on that because I think it’s of extraordinary importance in the dynamic of this.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I see a yellow light, and if I am held to that,

I will simply stop right there.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Secretary, let me say for this first panel

with you and Secretary Nichols, we will be liberal in our application of those lights. So you can just continue and just whatever you

want to say——

Secretary BABBITT. That is the first time I have ever heard that

word from your lips——

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And you won’t hear it often.

Secretary BABBITT. [continuing] with a positive connotation.

Okay.

Now, the progress that we’re making in the CALFED process

brings us back to the United States Congress with some very different sets of issues that I think very much are going to challenge

our ability to keep this going, because it’s going to require a different kind of process and response not only in the administration,

but also in the Congress, because what we have moving forward

now is a process of multiple parties which gives rise to some extraordinary budget issues, which you have very properly identified,

which in turn call forth a lot of new motion on the concept of costsharing.

The reason that I believe California is moving to the head of the

line is because of—well, in part, I guess, nobody has overlooked the

fact that there are 54 Members of Congress from California. Is that

the current figure? Correct? But it’s not a lot more than that. It’s

about a message from Sacramento, and the message is cost-sharing. And I believe that that fact is going to increasingly drive priorities in this Congress. And the State of California under the Wilson

administration and the Davis administration has demonstrated extraordinary capacity, the bond issue of 1994, in the forthcoming

bond debate and in the appropriation process, that it is committed

to that partnership. Now, in the last 2 or 3 years, that commitment

on both sides of this partnership, in the Congress and in Sacramento, has been made on the basis of continuing confidence in

the progress that we can make with this consensus-driven process.

You have already mentioned the concepts that are working on a

daily basis in this process: efficiency, markets, systemic changes,

the integrated supply study, which I’m sure you will want to talk

about at some more length. And the fact is that you can see the

progress that’s being made out on the ground. It’s happening right

now. The increased flexibility of the Delta issues that have been

dealt with in the south Delta in terms of improving the conveyance

system are now under way. The fish screening process is working.

Go up to Butte Creek, you’ll see something really extraordinary. If

I were to say to the press and to Californians, you want one specific example of what’s happening, go to Butte Creek. It is a sight

to behold. It is a statement that we can restore these fisheries consistent with stabilizing and guaranteeing agricultural water supplies and stabilizing and making more predictable the urban water

supplies as well.

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Now, what I would like to do is leave CALFED, because your resource secretary will devote her remarks to some of the details that

are unfolding in this very powerful and very unique state of Federal partnership. I would like to just say a word about two other

components. One is the Central Valley Project Improvement Act,

and the third is the Trinity River.

The CVPIA is now unfolding at an accelerated rate. This has

been a very tough issue. It’s been at the top of my agenda for 7—

nearly 7 years. I find it hard to believe that I have been coming

up here for 7 years, and I don’t know whether to celebrate or lament the fact that I am now near the end of this process. But nonetheless, in the 7 years we have worked this stakeholder process to

the point that the programmatic EIS framework for implementation of the Central Valley Improvement Project will be completed

during this year for accelerated implementation in 2000 and beyond.

As you look across the landscape, you will see the negotiations

over water service contracts are now under way, and I believe taking shape nicely. That’s a tough issue because it involves the water

resource for 90 percent of the agricultural water delivered by the

Central Valley Project. If you go out into Westlands, I think you

will see a remarkable arrangement there that was worked out

under the mandate of the land retirement issue out there, which

was mandated by the CVPIA because of the drainage and salinity

problems in that district. We have worked out a process in which

land has been retired, support of the land owners and the district,

and the water has been redeployed in a way that I believe is generous to the district and helpful to the stability of agricultural

water supplies. So to put it more directly, we bought the land, and

the district retains the water. It is, I believe, a thoughtful and useful way of going about this.

There is now (b)(2) water flowing in the system in aid of fisheries. There are a variety of other issues. There is litigation over

the exact extent of the so-called (b)(2) obligation. I don’t think

there’s any reason to get too excited about that. There is always

litigation. I guess my ultimate dream is the consensus would reach

the point where we absolutely all of us foreswore hiring litigators

or even going near the courts. We’re not quite there, but the

CVPIA is working. It can be made to work. The process is under

way. And we are acutely aware of the need to interface the CVPIA

with the CALFED process, because in the final analysis, they are

both aimed in the same direction. And I would just repeat that one

more time, that is that we can manage this system with not just

a few tools; all the tools at our disposal, conservation, efficiency,

reuse, transfers, and storage.

Lastly, a word about the Trinity River. The hydrological studies

of the Trinity River Basin will be released next week. Now, briefly

a bit of history. The Trinity River studies have been under way for

nearly 20 years. This is not a new issue. There was both legislation

and administrative action taken clear back in 1980. The issue was

simply this: The Trinity Diversion Project, which takes water from

the Trinity River into the—into Trinity Lake and across to Whiskey Town and down the Sacramento River in some years was—was

8

and is diverting as much as 90 percent of the flow of the Trinity

River.

That was a project which was authorized and completed under

the rules of the century past, and what I mean by the rules of the

century past is that project was authorized and completed with no

consultation with the Yurok and Hupa tribes as to their entitlement under the Federal reserve rights doctrine. It was completed

with no studies about the fisheries issues, and the fisheries have

collapsed. The reduction in anadromous fish in the system, I think,

is about the same as the water, about 90 percent, and that’s what

gave rise to the studies. Now, the Central Valley Project Improvement Act mandated, didn’t ask, it didn’t encourage, it gave us an

explicit mandate to restore the fisheries. That’s what this study is

about.

Now, lastly, a word about the study. I predict that the California

press, although it is among the most enlightened, progressive, insightful, studious of all media people in the entire world, is going

to be sorely tempted to write a story saying X acre-feet of water

are put back into the Trinity River, and that means the following

reduction in supply to the Central Valley. Anybody want to take

me on that, lay some odds? That’s the headline next week. Now,

that’s not what this is about. This is about a study showing hydrographic models related to fisheries biology. That study will be

translated into an environmental impact statement which will be

done in the course of this year and will be the predicate for a decision.

There will be a lot of issues between the boat and the dock in

this case that relate to how you manage stream flows: The profile

of the stream hydrograph, the amount of water that’s necessary in

dry years versus wet years, and the relationships between the storage capacity in the Trinity-Whiskey Town system and how that relates to annual flows. So what I am saying is before people pick up

weapons and head into battle, remember it’s not anything more

than a study. It has lots of possible scenarios, and we are dedicated

to trying to make this process work.

Mr. Chairman, I have egregiously exceeded my time. I think

even I know that there are limits to liberalism. So thank you very

much.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I haven’t often heard

that acknowledgment, but I’m pleased to note it.

[The prepared statement of Secretary Babbitt follows:]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. We are now pleased to have our Secretary of Resources of the State of California, the Honorable Mary Nichols testify.

Madam Secretary.

STATEMENT OF MARY D. NICHOLS, SECRETARY FOR

RESOURCES, STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Ms. NICHOLS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you

for inviting me here today to testify in support of the CALFED

Bay-Delta Program. I also want to thank you and the Committee

for your continued support of the program, and I am looking forward to continuing to work with you to ensure its success.

I, too, want to pay tribute to Secretary Babbitt’s leadership in

this process as well as to the good work that was done by my predecessors in the Wilson administration, including Secretary Wheeler, in paving the way for the seamless transition that Secretary

Babbitt referred to; and particularly to thank my colleagues in the

Federal Government, including Assistant Secretary Patty Beneke

and all of the directors of the regional offices within the Interior

Department for having helped to make the seamless transition, at

least appear to be seamless.

I think I could have done, though, without the Secretary’s reference to the many years that we have been working together on

these issues. I like to think of myself as brand new on the scene,

but, of course, I have had a history of working on these issues in

the past as well in other contexts.

I would just like to quickly move to the status of the program

now, and to try to address some of the comments that you have

made and your earlier questions to us. In particular, in these several months since the Phase II report was issued last December,

I think we’ve made some very significant progress in a number of

program areas, and that based on the briefing materials that we

have been able to provide to date as well as the reports that will

be coming out in June, that you will see that we have been able

to develop an integrated storage investigation program that breaks

the gridlock over competition between how groundwater and surface storage projects will be evaluated and how we will proceed to

move forward on addressing the storage issue.

We’ve also developed a draft finance plan that lays out both the

commitment that there will be a user-paid principle applied and

some of the options for assuring adequate funding for this program.

And we’ve developed a comprehensive set of environmental indicators in the design for the development of a comprehensive monitoring assessment and research program that will really enable us

to measure the success of the program. We agree with you that if

we can’t define success in measurable terms, we can’t say that

we’ve achieved it.

As I have indicated earlier we do intend to release the draft EIR/

EIS in late June for public comment. It will have been developed

with a very widespread stakeholder process, but the document as

a whole, of course, needs widespread review. And there will be a

series of workshops held around the State. The program will be

further defined and developed, and then the final plan is due out

in June of next year. And, of course, we have a period then of years

26

afterwards in which we will be spinning off specific projects and

specific EIR/EISs on those projects.

I want to call special attention to the level of scientific review

and the commitment to developing measures of success for this program. CALFED has relied on expert advice from some of the Nation’s leading scientists and natural resource managers to critique

and refine this program. The panel drew from expertise drawing on

the Chesapeake Bay, the South Florida/Everglades, Columbia River

and other programs in developing specific recommendations as part

of our strategic plan for implementing the Ecosystem Restoration

Program. The plan contains a comprehensive set of restoration

goals and objectives, measurable performance standards that define

the success of the program, and similar efforts are under way to

establish such measures for the water quality, water supply reliability and other elements of the CALFED program.

We’re also looking at ecological indicators that will measure the

integrity of the Bay-Delta system itself. The restoration program

includes three general types of indicators, indicators of ecological

integrity or health, scientific and management-oriented indicators

on the restoration program performance itself, and more public-oriented major indicators of progress on the program’s goals. These

are laid out in the draft EIR/EIS and will be available obviously

for public comment in June. And assuming that we survive that

process, we intend to use them throughout the remainder of the

process in our communications with the public as well as with the

stakeholders and the scientific community.

I also want to highlight the emphasis that has been a hallmark

of this process from the very beginning in partnerships with local

interests and landowners to find projects that have multiple benefits. You’ll be hearing more from the stakeholder groups represented here today. And, of course, the CALFED program itself

has showcased some of the major projects that combined fisheries

and habitat restoration, flood plain management, water quality,

and water supply reliability.

Secretary Babbitt referred to the Butte Creek Restoration Project

as one of our signal success stories. Five point six million dollars

has been approved there for fish screens, fish passage and small

dam removal, watershed support, and general restoration activities

on this tributary watershed. Last year more than 20,000 adult

spring run salmon returned to the creek after a low of only 200 to

1,000 in recent years, a really extraordinary recovery for the fish.

We could also point to the Consumnes River Project, Sacramento

River Conservation area, San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge and

the Battle Creek Restoration Project as very specific examples

where combined physical actions are working to improve water

quality and water reliability and to improve the habitat for fish.

And I think that it’s important to again reference the fact that

none of the individual agencies that are represented in the

CALFED process would have had the financial resources or the expertise in-house to have addressed these projects and worked with

the local communities as successfully as they have if it hadn’t been

for the umbrella of CALFED bringing them together.

Finally I need to emphasize the importance of continued funding

to maintain the momentum behind this program as well as to furVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00029 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
27

ther support the projects that are vital to the economy and the environment of California. As you know, the fiscal year 2000 appropriation will provide the third year of Federal funding under the

Bay-Delta Act authorization of $430 million for this program. To

date the program has approved $150 million out of the $160 million

that have been appropriated for projects and programs that will

have a lasting benefit for farms, families, and fisheries throughout

the Bay-Delta watershed.

The State’s share of this program has been provided through passage of Proposition 204 in 1996, which allocated $60 million for ecosystem restoration and an additional $390 million upon completion

of the final environmental documentation in fiscal year 2000. In addition, Governor Davis announced last Friday that he is asking for

another $10 million in this year’s budget to support the program’s

integrated storage investigation, including site-specific work on

storage.

The administration’s fiscal year 2000 budget request, therefore,

is essential to maintaining the Federal share and commitment to

this program. As you also know, we’ve worked closely with stakeholder groups to develop a consensus in support of the administration’s fiscal year 2000 budget year request for $25 million for support of the CALFED program. As a result of the discussions with

the stakeholders, a broad-based coalition of these groups has developed a consensus in support of allocating $60 million for ecosystem

restoration programs and $35 million for water quality, levee system integrity, and water supply reliability programs. I urge you to

support this consensus recommendation.

I recognize, as does Secretary Babbitt, the difficulty of funding

this program solely through Energy and Water appropriations, and

in response to this Committee’s strong urging, we are working

closely with the Department of Interior and other CALFED agencies to develop a meaningful project-level cross-cut budget to identify major expenditures that are directly related to the CALFED

program.

In conclusion, I just wish to repeat my thanks for your continued

support of this program and for inviting me here today, and I’m

pleased to answer any questions that you may have.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Nichols follows:]

STATEMENT OF MARY D. NICHOLS, SECRETARY FOR RESOURCES, STATE OF

CALIFORNIA

Introduction

Thank you for inviting me here today to testify in support of the CALFED BayDelta Program. I also want to thank you for your continued support of the Program,

and I look forward to working with the Congress, Secretary Babbitt, and the stakeholder groups in California to ensure its success.

Secretary Babbitt has outlined the key elements of the Program in his testimony,

and the CALFED staff have prepared extensive briefing materials, so I will focus

my comments on the areas of special concern to the State.

Importance to the Davis Administration

First, I want to emphasize the importance of this effort to the Governor and his

administration. In the area of environment and resources, there is no higher priority

than moving this program forward. Certainly, the level of staffing and financial resources devoted to CALFED far exceeds that of any other environmental program

in the state.

28

The Governor demonstrated his strong interest in water policy and the CALFED

Program early on by forming an Agricultural and Water Task Force from the leaders of the agricultural and conservation communities. I served on the task force together with CALEPA Secretary Winston Hickox and Bill Lyons, Secretary of the

California Department of Food and Agriculture, before we were appointed by the

Governor. I think it is a measure of the importance the Governor places on water

policy that he drew three cabinet members from this task force. The Task Force developed a set of recommendations that formed the basis for many of the key elements of the Phase II Report issued by the CALFED Program last December.

As the Secretary for Resources, I now co-chair the CALFED Policy Group, the

principal decision-making body for the CALFED Program, together with Assistant

Secretary Patty Beneke of the Department of Interior, and I have met several times

with Secretary Babbitt to discuss the key issues surrounding the program. The

other members of our leadership team include Tom Hannigan, the new Director of

the Department of Water Resources, Linda Adams from the Governor’s office, who

as a consultant with the State Senate was a lead negotiator and the principal drafter of Proposition 204, the bond Act that has provided the State’s share of funding

for CALFED, and Patrick Wright, my Deputy Secretary for Policy Development, who

formerly served as the Federal chair of the CALFED Management Team. In summary, we have a strong and growing management team at the State, and we are

committed to provide the leadership necessary to effectively manage the program.

Commitment to Move Forward

Second, I wish to emphasize our commitment to move aggressively forward with

the key elements of the program. Just in the last several months since the Phase

II Report was issued in December, we have made significant progress in several important program areas:

• We have developed a programmatic-level preferred alternative that provides

benefits for all interests in the areas of water quality, water supply reliability,

and environmental restoration.

• We have developed a comprehensive plan to address water quality, fisheries,

and water supply reliability issues in the South Delta, the key to the State’s

plumbing system;

• We have developed an integrated storage investigation program to break the

gridlock over how groundwater and/or surface storage projects will be evaluated

and constructed.

• We have developed a conservation strategy that will provide regulatory certainty for all parties under the State and Federal Endangered Species Acts as

the program moves forward;

• We have developed a draft finance plan to secure adequate funding for the

Program; and

• We have developed a comprehensive set of environmental indicators and a design for the development of a Comprehensive Monitoring Assessment and Research Program (CMARP) to measure the success of the Program.

In late June, we intend to release a draft EIR/EIS for public comment and hold

a series of workshops throughout the state. We expect to further refine the program

and release the final plan in June of next year.

Goals, Objectives, and Measures of Success

Third, I want to call special attention to the level of scientific review and commitment to develop measures of success for the program. CALFED has relied on expert

advice from some of the nation’s most respected scientists and natural resource

managers to critique and refine the program. The panel drew from their collective

expertise in the Chesapeake Bay, South Florida/Everglades, Columbia River, and

other programs in developing specific recommendations as part of a Strategic Plan

for implementing the Ecosystem Restoration Program. The Plan contains a comprehensive set of restoration goals and objectives, the measurable performance

standards that define the success of the program. Similar efforts are underway to

establish clear measures of success for the water quality, water supply reliability,

and other elements of the CALFED program.

The Program is also developing a comprehensive set of ecological indicators to

measure the ecological integrity of the Bay/Delta system. The Ecosystem Restoration Program will include three general types of indicators:

• indicators of ecological integrity or health;

• scientific and management oriented indicators of ecosystem restoration program performance and success; and

• more public oriented major indicators of our progress in meeting the program’s

goals

29

These indicators will be fully described in the draft EIR/EIS to be released in late

June. They will then be used to describe and present information to the public,

stakeholders, and the scientific community on ecological trends and conditions, and

to translate the program’s goals and objectives into measurable benchmarks of success.

Partnerships with Local Communities

The fourth major point I want to highlight is our continued emphasis on partnerships with local interests and landowners on projects that have multiple benefits.

As you will hear from some of the stakeholder groups represented here today, the

CALFED Program has been a showcase for projects that combine fisheries and habitat restoration, floodplain management, water quality and water supply reliability.

Some of the most prominent examples include:

•The Consumnes River project, where more than 35,000 acres of riverside habitat along the lower floodplain of the Consumnes have been protected within a

rapidly urbanizing area. The preserve is a multifaceted program combining land

acquisition, land use planning, compatible economic development, agricultural

preservation, and community outreach and education.

•The Sacramento River Conservation Area, which encompasses approximately

213,000 acres along 222 miles of the main stem of the Sacramento River between Keswick Dam and Verona. This voluntary program, which grew out of

State legislation calling for development of a management plan for the river,

seeks to balance existing land uses and needs with preservation and restoration

actions. CALFED has dedicated more than $36 million towards preserving and

protecting riparian habitat, building fish screens, and conducting research within the Conservation Area.

• Expansion of the San Joaquin National Wildlife Refuge to reduce flooding, protect farmland, restore valuable wildlife habitat, and provide other local benefits.

CALFED has provided more than $10.5 to widen the floodplain, increase storage of flood water, recharge groundwater, and restore wildlife habitat.

•The Butte Creek Restoration project. More than $5.6 million has been approved for fish screens, fish passage and small dam removal, watershed support

and general restoration activities on this tributary watershed. Last year more

than 20,000 adult spring run salmon returned to the Creek from a low of 200-

1,000 in recent years.

•The Battle Creek Restoration Project, which seeks to improve fish passage for

four races of steelhead and salmon in the only Sacramento River tributary with

exceptionally high flows during the dry season and drought periods. The project

includes removal of five dams, screened diversions, increased flows, and other

actions to improve water quality and access to 42 miles of historical anadromous fish habitat. To date, CALFED agencies have provided $28 million in

funding for the project.

These are just a few of the most prominent examples of projects developed and

implemented by local agricultural and conservation groups to provide multiple benefits. These partnerships would not have been possible without coordinated technical

and financial assistance from the CALFED program. None of the individual agencies would have had the resources or the expertise to work with local communities

in putting together large scale projects with multiple purposes and funding sources.

CALFED Funding

Finally, I want to emphasize the importance of continued funding to maintain the

momentum behind the program, and to further support projects and programs vital

to the economy and environment of California. As you know, the fiscal year 2000

appropriation will provide the third year of Federal funding under the Bay-Delta

Act authorization of $430 million for the CALFED Program. To date, the Program

has approved $150 million from the $160 million appropriated to date on projects

and programs that will have lasting benefits for farms, families, and fisheries

throughout the Bay-Delta watershed.

The State’s share has been provided through passage of Proposition 204 in 1996,

which allocated $60 million for ecosystem restoration, and an additional $390 million upon completion of the final environmental documentation in fiscal year 2000.

In addition, the Governor announced last Friday that he is including $10 million

in the State’s fiscal year 1999-2000 budget to support the Program’s Integrated

Storage Investigation. The Administration’s fiscal year 2000 budget request, therefore, is essential to maintain the Federal share and commitment to the program.

As you may know, we have worked closely with stakeholder groups to develop a

consensus in support of the Administration’s fiscal year 2000 budget request for $95

million to support the CALFED Program. As a result of those discussions, a broadVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
30

based coalition of these groups has developed a consensus in support of allocating

$60 million for ecosystem restoration programs and $35 million for water quality,

levee system integrity, and water supply reliability programs. I urge you to support

this consensus recommendation.

I recognize, as does Secretary Babbitt, the difficulty of funding this program solely

through Energy and Water appropriations. Therefore, in response to the Committee’s request, we are working closely with the Department of Interior and other

CALFED agencies to develop an interagency cross-cut budget to identify all major

expenditures directly related to the CALFED Program.

Conclusion

In closing, I wish to reiterate my thanks for your continued support of the

CALFED Program, and for inviting me to appear before you today. I would be

pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. There is so much to talk about, I’m sure we’ll not

be able to get it all accomplished in one round of questions. But,

Mr. Secretary, I infer from your comments you believe that the

matter of the Trinity River flow is going to have to be integrated

into the CALFED and the whole the Bay-Delta program; is that a

fair statement?

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, the Trinity River mandate is

a distinct, defined, specific mandate in law which says I must make

a decision about water flows sufficient to restore the fishery. That’s

the baseline. Now, obviously, that decision has impacts in the Sacramento River Valley and indeed the entire system. And having

made—having once made the decision about what’s necessary for

the flow regimes and the hydrograph, I think it is then possible

and indeed imperative that we look at the management regimes in

a way that is designed, to the extent possible, to minimize the impact in the Central Valley.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Can you—could you indicate what steps you feel

are likely to be taken to mitigate for the loss of water in the Sacramento River system?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, Mr. Chairman, I think mitigation comes

in two packages. The first one is, as I suggested, that is, how we

manage the system and how it is the storage capacity in Trinity

Lake and Whiskey Town Reservoir is used in a multiyear mode

that buffers some of these impacts. The other thing I think we will

need to examine very carefully is I can tell you, without being familiar with the report, just from our prior experience with these,

the amount of water, the reduction in diversions in and through

the Central Valley will be largest in times of large flow, and the

impact will be smallest in times of drought. I think that’s a very

important fact because that does play into the operating flexibility

of the system, of the CALFED system, and the storage capacity and

flexibility. It isn’t just about what kinds of relationships in a given

year. It really does play into that. So that would be the second

piece of it, sure.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So you would contemplate, then, using stored

water in those reservoirs to provide—to augment some of the flow

presently that goes down to the Trinity so as to minimize or reduce

the impacts on the Sacramento River system.

Secretary BABBITT. What I’m saying is that is one of the operational flexibility issues that absolutely must be looked at.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay.

Secretary Nichols, tell us—I would like to hear what the Davis

administration thinks about the need for additional water storage

31

shed. It’s my understanding that the administration indeed recognizes the need for that and supports it.

Ms. NICHOLS. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The Governor has stated, I believe on a couple of occasions, that he believes that additional storage will be needed for California’s present and future needs. He

has not made any commitments to any particular sites or types of

storage, but he certainly recognizes that as we manage the system

better, one feature of that management is providing for storage.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So I take it he has not ruled out on-stream storage as one of the possible solutions?

Ms. NICHOLS. He has not specifically ruled out any particular

type of storage, that’s correct, although clearly both cost and environmental impacts will play a role in making a decision about what

types of storage will be chosen.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Can you—how about you, how do you feel about

on-stream storage?

Ms. NICHOLS. I think right now we’re in a peculiar situation

where we’re looking at actually eliminating some dams that in the

past were thought to be useful for various reasons. We have got a

lot of other dams that are being looked at for reoperation.

Probably the biggest single activity that’s going on in the area of

storage right now in California is the debate over the future of the

PG&E system and what will be done with that. I think we need

to take a look at that before we start talking about additional construction. But, again, as a matter of principle and in fairness to the

debate, there have been no solutions that have been eliminated

from potential consideration in this process.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Secretary, you want to jump in on this?

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, if I might just elaborate by

reference to the CALFED proposal for the integrated storage studies. The integrated storage studies have narrowed—they deal, obviously, with both groundwater and surface water.

Now, with respect to surface water, the possibilities have been

whittled down to about, I think, 14 sites—Lester, am I about

right—for detailed feasibility studies. Now, there are no new onstream storage sites in those 14. I think that’s an important distinction. There are modifications to existing on-stream sites, specifically raising Shasta Dam, and there are a goodly number of offstream surface storage sites in that 14, essentially the balance of

them.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I might mention that the witness lights appears

to be not working—we better get these lights going, or we’ll be here

forever. But I don’t think I have gone much over my 5 minutes. Did

you want to add something?

Ms. NICHOLS. No. I think that was a helpful elaboration, because

I certainly wouldn’t want it to be thought that we were moving outside of the integrated storage investigation.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, I’m well aware there are no new on-site

storage sites discussed in CALFED, a fact that I find disappointing.

But in any event, there are—I have an interest in that, and I think

some of our Committee members do.

Let me just ask you in your experience do fish ladders generally

accomplish their intended purpose or not?

32

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, there is no simple answer to

that. We have been dealing with fish ladders now since really the

1920s and I would say that the extravagant expectations with

which fish ladders were viewed as mitigation have really not been

met, and there have been a goodly number of failures.

That said, in some cases, within some constraints, fish ladders

work pretty well. They never replicate 100 percent the predam conditions, but there are circumstances in which they are certainly

worthy of consideration.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I have been told that the Scandinavian fish ladders are built differently than ours. Typically they’re much longer

and the——

Mr. MILLER. Field trip.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Yeah, field trip.

But not only are they longer, but the dams are somewhat differently configured. But apparently they have a much higher success rate than our American fish ladders do. I just wanted to pose

that question to you if you have ever looked into that or considered

the possibility that maybe we could improve in this area.

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, the Fish and Wildlife Service

has a fish ladder research facility, I believe, in West Hadley, Massachusetts. They will be absolutely elated after years of working in

total obscurity to hear of your interest, and I am sure there will

be a request for budget support in the mail tomorrow morning.

But, seriously, Mr. Chairman, the design and technology of fish

ladders is really a very sophisticated subject. And you’re correct,

this isn’t just sort of a cookie-cutter kind of deal. It really involves

a lot of physics and hydrodynamics and stuff like that, and we

would be happy to have your support for the—for that laboratory.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, I only raise that matter because we’re now

hearing the proposal to tear down some of the dams and as a way

of improving the fisheries, but I was not aware of the situation in

Scandinavia apparently where that’s one way they’ve addressed

this problem, that it appears to be working. I would just like to ask

you to look into that and perhaps get back to the Committee with

what your findings are. Maybe this research laboratory already has

those answers.

With that, although I have other questions, I am going to recognize Mr. Dooley for his questions.

Mr. DOOLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the point I want

to stress, I think that one of the greatest responsibilities that all

of us have that have been following this process, as well as, I think,

the Federal and the State administrations have, is to, you know,

exercise our influence in keeping this CALFED process on track,

because I do believe that regardless of, you know, what constituency that we might represent, this is the best alternative for us to

resolve some of these long-standing problems we faced with California water issues.

And my first question to both Secretaries is a very general one.

Is that one of the critical issues, then, is to ensure that we can

offer a process, whether you’re in an environmental community or

agricultural community or municipal community, is that this is a

process that allows us all to perhaps get better together? And is

33

this, you know, an accurate depiction, I guess, of what you think

the CALFED process offers, Secretary Babbitt?

Secretary BABBITT. I believe Secretary Nichols and I would give

exactly the same answer, Congressman, and that is yes. These

processes must proceed in parallel. Now, what I would emphasize

is that doesn’t mean there isn’t a mathematical formula to determine that. And there—certainly I think it’s misleading to think of

it as some kind of equivalence in which the subvention grants are

given a label of fisheries, agriculture, water quality, and judged by

the relative level—the relative amounts of funding are driven by

the scheduling of events. Some have lead time, some have virtually

no lead time, others have 5 or 10 years’ worth of lead time.

Congressman, if I might, I would just like to interject one more

thing that I think relates to this. There is something, I think, quite

new in water management and development that arises out of this,

and that is that this Committee and the energy and water appropriation committees are now in the business of making block

grants to the Interior Department, and most—and indeed virtually

all of which is then awarded on a competitive, peer-review basis to

an enormous variety of Federal and predominantly State organizations. The money that gets appropriated in turn is subvented out

in this process.

I’m very comfortable with that, because I think the day in which

the Bureau of Reclamation sort of shows up in town and says, clear

out of here while we do everything, are gone. But it is quite different, and I would respectfully suggest that it is working and acknowledge that it puts a very important burden on us to be reporting back and setting benchmarks so that you can judge the efficacy

of this process.

Ms. NICHOLS. Maybe I could just add a word or two. The phrase

‘‘getting better together’’ was part of what launched CALFED, and

at the end of the day, unless the stakeholders who have given so

much of their time to this process all feel that they’ve gotten something that has made them better as a result, I think we will not

have succeeded.

The thing that I’m most optimistic about is that the projects that

have been funded to date through the mechanism that Secretary

Babbitt alluded to are projects that really have multiple benefits.

And one of the great accomplishments, I think, of the process and

the learning that people have engaged in together is that people

are seeing that projects that might have fallen into just one category in the past really will have benefits for other people’s agendas as well, and that’s what we need to be looking for in the future.

Mr. DOOLEY. Great. And I guess—that’s where I think many of

us are very pleased in the message that the Governor is sending

to the agricultural community and the municipal community in

terms of the commitment in moving forward with the ISI as well

as on specific sites, too. Certainly that is important in terms of the

water supply and water quality.

And, Secretary Babbitt, I appreciated your comments in the past

on that issue, too, and that’s important in terms of sending the

message to users that this process still holds a lot of promise and

opportunity to resolve some of their issues.

34

I guess also moving to the CVPIA side, on a similar question is

that part of the CVPIA in 3406, the (d)(5), dealing with the refuge

water supplies, also had a provision in it that requested or required

the Department to look for alternative supplies to those water

amounts that were provided and taken from contractors to the refuges. And I guess what is in terms of the state of affairs and

progress the Department has made in terms of identifying those alternative supplies?

Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, the major innovation that has

begun to emerge out of this intense negotiations and discussion is

what CALFED is now calling an environmental water account,

which is a way of looking at a variety of different water sources

and sort of setting it up the way you would put, you know, capital

in a bank, ready to be drawn down as a part of this process. It’s

still under way, and there is—and I’ll be frank with you, there is

an ongoing discussion which we should acknowledge about what we

mean when we say ‘‘acquiring water.’’ Does it mean purchasing

water? Does it mean the added increment of benefit from efficiencies that are driven by pricing structure or by that kind of

thing? To what extent are water transfers involved? I think these

are all legitimate issues.

Mr. DOOLEY. Just one last question on that line. The recent court

decision that was dealing with the (b)(2), does the Department—

and part of the basis of that decision was a determination that

there was some uncertainty in terms of how the Department was

accounting for water and how they were making up for water. Do

you see this as being—well, do you acknowledge that the Department needs to do a better job there, and do you also view, perhaps,

this environmental water account as also being a component of that

to provide greater transparency to both the environmental community as well as the water-user community in terms of, you know,

what water is being utilized for what purposes and how is it being

adjusted in terms of the contractor’s interest, I guess?

Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, it’s not about whether or not

the Department has done a good job. We have done our normal

peerless, unparalleled effort. Seriously. It is about a continuing difference about the best way to deal with (b)(2) water and other

water accounts.

One school of thought, which I would call the bean-counting

school, says you can go back and find a baseline and then start

counting and showing precisely how all subsequent actions have

added to or potentially subtracted from the—from this magical

baseline.

Now, with all due respect to Congressman Miller and Senator

Bradley and the other fathers of this Act, it ain’t possible.

Mr. MILLER. I thought you were going to say supporters.

Secretary BABBITT. We are examining the court decision very

carefully, and I will hasten to comply—add that we will comply

with the court’s mandate. But there is—I think what the Department tried to do in the (b)(2) thing was say, let’s get beyond the

bean counting and look at the maximum efficient deployment of all

these resources, and we’re not quite at closure on that, frankly.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Calvert is recognized.

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

35

I’m from southern California, so I’m kind of interested in getting

that water someday. And as you know, Mr. Secretary, we’re having

a problem down south. All our friends are moving to Arizona and

Nevada, and they’re wanting all the water from the Colorado River.

And I’m kind of curious in that where our negotiations are, because

this kind of all, as you know, relates to one another at one point

in time, with the Imperial Irrigation District negotiation with the

Cochelo Water District in San Diego on transfer of water to San

Diego and how that’s going to affect MWD for if we can get additional water.

I say that because that may be needed, it seems, sooner rather

than later if, in fact, this—the progress on the California BayDelta, which we hope will continue until delivery is in effect or

made down south to make up for some of these supplies that are

being lost, not only from the Colorado River, but, as you know,

from restoring Owens Lake, Mono Lake, and other environmental

priorities.

And in that context, the President’s fiscal year 2000 budget requested funding, as we know, $75 million for ecosystem restoration

efforts and $20 million for nonecosystem restoration such as water

use efficiency, water quality and groundwater storage. But, in fact,

the administration requested $65 million—or, excuse me, $75 million and $20 million, whereas the California Bay-Delta Water Coalition was a 65/35. Where did the administration come in with the

number of $15 million rather than the $20-?

Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, let me, if I may—first say a

word about your southern California concerns. The parties to this

issue have at my request been sequestered in Arizona where they

are currently meeting with Dave Hayes of my staff to see if we can

kind of coax people to see the light. I’m actually optimistic that we

are getting together. That is the central and crucial issue for southern California. And with all respect, I would urge all of the southern California people to say to their constituents it is imperative

that we close on this Imperial Valley transfer issue, and there

should be no escape for any of the parties. We got to get it done.

Now, the legislature and the Governor have been very strong on

this issue through both administrations. The legislature in Sacramento put up a couple hundred million dollars for the lining of

the All-American Canal to help ease this transition. They put up

$30 million to help the Met with feasibility studies for a conjunctive use site out in that area. And we need to squeeze the parties

and say this is about the public good, and you got to emerge with

an agreement.

Now, with respect to the 65, 75, 35, 25, whatever it is, really goes

back to my earlier comments. These are judgment calls. And the

original numbers came in from CALFED. There was some subsequent churning around, and the numbers came out a little different. I think what the administration will say—I have not cleared

this with the Office of Management and Budget, and therefore everything I say from hereon is subject to immediate retraction and

disciplinary action—but it’s not important if everybody has come to

an agreement on a slightly different allocation, that’s fine, we’ll

support it.

36

Mr. CALVERT. Obviously from—we understand the work that has

to be done on ecosystem restoration as far as part of the negotiations to put this agreement together, but I guess from our perspective is we want to make sure that there’s water storage for times

in need and that the availability and the quality of the water is not

compromised and can be delivered. That’s one of the reasons why

we have this interesting coalition working together to get this thing

funded.

Secretary BABBITT. I understand. And in that spirit we agree.

Mr. CALVERT. Thank you.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Miller is recognized for his questions.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

And welcome, Mr. Secretary and Mary, to the Committee. Just

quickly go back to the Trinity River decision. And I think that—

I’m glad to hear we’re getting to the point where—to make a decision there. I think the earlier that decision is made so that it can

then be factored in to the rest of this process—I don’t think it

should be part of this process, and there’s clearly no requirement,

and the burden on you to make this decision is outside of this, outside of this process, but clearly it will have to be taken into account

as we think about the resources available to us.

Let me, if I could, just make sure I have some clarification of

what you said. The decision is made for the purposes of restoring

the fisheries in the river; is that correct?

Secretary BABBITT. That’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. That’s the requirement and that’s the burden?

Secretary BABBITT. That’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. There is no requirement to minimize—I mean, to

play that off against what the impact is on the CVP?

Secretary BABBITT. That’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. I mean, I think it’s rational that we would try to

do that, but that is not a requirement of the law.

Secretary BABBITT. That’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. And there is no requirement that—of mitigation for

this decision?

Secretary BABBITT. That’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. Okay. Because I think that’s very important. You

laid out how this water got into the system. It’s not very pretty in

terms of the political history, but just make sure that somehow we

don’t fall into the notion that there is some responsibility here to

mitigate that or that this is a balancing act between the CVP and/

or the fisheries.

And on the question that was raised on (b)(2), Mr. Secretary, the

problem that the court has is with the ambiguity in the accounting

system, as I understand that; that the law requires you take—you

take 800,000 acre-feet and no more, no less, no more. And an accurate accounting system is sort of what the court is now telling us

we need. Is that correct?

Secretary BABBITT. I’m tempted to refer that to counsel, but, yes,

I think in simplified form that’s correct.

Mr. MILLER. Essentially the court is affirming the law, but is

saying you have got to be able to account for——

Secretary BABBITT. Yeah. That’s right. Sure.

37

Mr. MILLER. Okay. On the—you all mentioned in your opening

statement that the process on contract renegotiations under CVPIA

is under way. Can you elaborate where you are in that process and

what your expectations are?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, I think the important thing is that

those negotiations, wrapping them up is explicitly tied to the completion of the PEIS. And I don’t have the exact—I believe that we

anticipate getting that wrapped up and going to a record of decision this fall, I think in the October-November time frame. Now,

the negotiations obviously are going along in parallel, but we cannot close and make the final cuts until we have signed the record

of decision.

Mr. MILLER. And your expectation would be what, then, after the

record of decision, that we would start renegotiating and consummating new 25-year contracts?

Secretary BABBITT. Absolutely.

Mr. MILLER. If that doesn’t happen, where do we go?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, I haven’t thought about that. I mean,

we intend to get it done.

Mr. MILLER. So your expectation at this point is that those negotiations will be for the long-term contracts, not one-year rollover

contracts.

Secretary BABBITT. Not at all. It’s time to bring this to closure.

And I believe that we can do that in late 1999 and then on into

the early part of 2000.

Mr. MILLER. The other—I think one of the basic tenets is we

have—we discussed it when we were all in Senator Feinstein’s office. I assume we’re still operating under the theory that much of

what comes out, what finally comes out of CALFED in terms of

construction and costs is on a beneficiary pay. Is that still holding

in this process as you understand it?

Secretary BABBITT. Yes. But, let me suggest, again, that that

doesn’t automatically translate into a bean-counting process, because the benefits of virtually every piece of this are distributed

in—to multiple stakeholders, and there is also a factor here of the

larger public benefits that accrue from all of this. So the documents, I think, in the CALFED process are quite clear; yes, beneficiary’s pay is the guiding principle. There are going to be judgment calls on the margins of those decisions, and I absolutely think

there should be.

Mr. MILLER. I assume there would be some delineation project by

project or feature by feature as to what those beneficiaries and who

those beneficiaries are. There would be—not all projects in the system would be treated the same.

Secretary BABBITT. Oh, yeah, I think, sure, it will go down to

that level of analysis.

Mr. MILLER. Your first statement reminded me of a former Member of Congress from California on this Committee at one time—

actually two of them who were actually very good at getting these

resources, Mr. Sisk and Ms. Johnson. And when it came time that

we were going to apportion out the costs for some of these expensive projects in California, they would put on their environmental

hat and say, 89 percent of this project is for the environment, he

says, and we—the fish don’t have any mailboxes, there’s nowhere

38

to send the bill. We will have to send it to the public. We’ll just

write this off. And it worked, much to the chagrin of some of the

taxpayers in some other parts of the country.

But I think it’s very important in recognizing what you said,

there clearly will be a general benefit to the State of California if

we can iron this all out. And there will be benefits that flow into

more than one direction, if you will; the environment, the water

users, municipal, agricultural, what have you. But I think it’s also

very important that we keep in mind that where we can, we do

have cost-sharing arrangements, we have asked others to do that,

and that we would work to try and delineate how those—how those

costs are borne. I know that there’s been a number of suggestions,

one by some rather large water users, that they are in no way prepared to pay, nor can they pay, for some of the projects that they

want.

There has also been discussions in the State legislature—and

correct me if I’m wrong, Secretary Nichols—but in the State legislature that some of this would just be covered by a bond issue. And

the State is certainly free to make that decision, but at some point

in this process I think we have to demonstrate to the public what

the costs are going to be and where the burdens of those costs lie,

and when—we get down to the end here. I take it there’s no disagreement here.

Secretary BABBITT. Well, yes, I—I’m a little hesitant to subscribe

to that eloquent monologue in every nuance. I think there might,

in fact, be a—some space between us on how far you go in an attempt to count the beans. Now, let me just say that——

Mr. MILLER. These are very, very significant dollars, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I certainly understand that. I

have been through these exercises before, and I’m just cautious. I

have seen these cost allocations misused in many ways, and I’ve

seen them become highly artificial. And I believe that it is an important point of departure to attempt to identify costs and benefits,

but I do not believe that that can be a mechanical process.

And I believe that in the final analysis, that in this consensus

process there will be judgments made as part of the consensus

process. To the extent that you find that unsatisfactory, I hasten

to remind you that I will be long gone from my job as Secretary

of the Interior by the time this process starts. So my opinions——

Mr. MILLER. You’re abandoning the Gore Administration? That

can’t be.

The fact is that I agree with everything you just said, that very

often, in fact, these allocations have been misused, inflated, speculated about and all the rest, and they’ve cut both ways. Sometimes

it’s hard on the taxpayer, sometimes it’s hard on the user, and back

and forth.

All I’m saying is that we use that kind of judgment and we provide—we use some transparency in this process, because I don’t

think we want to simply go out and make this kind of commitment

of money and believe that we’re going to let the guidelines of the

old 1902 Reclamation Act tell us how we’re going to do this or

something. That’s all I’m saying. I think there’s an obligation here,

because at some point CALFED is going to add up, you know, to

39

a very substantial amount of money, and I just think that that

transparency has to be there, the delineation has to be there. And

it’s not about, you know, goring somebody’s ox, it’s about laying out

where, in fact, these burdens lie, and let the people of the State decide whether or not that’s a reasonable alternative or not.

Secretary BABBITT. Well, I think——

Mr. MILLER. I agree with you, but you don’t agree with me.

Secretary BABBITT. I can come pretty close to that.

Ms. NICHOLS. I just wanted to add with respect to the water

bond discussions that are going on in California right now, I think

it’s a good illustration of the principle that the two of you are sort

of honing from your respective chairs here in that as we work on

developing a potential water bond to go on the ballot, it’s clear that

projects that will be included in such a bond are projects where

multiple beneficiaries can be identified and where people will come

together and agree on how the allocations of those benefits should

be viewed.

And I think that reflects the fact that while we do need to keep

improving both the quantity and the quality of analysis that we’re

doing on costs and benefits, that there will be an element of political judgment that gets brought to bear in the end on whether anything actually gets done.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Pombo.

Mr. POMBO. Thank you.

Mr. Babbitt, I would like to get back to the storage issue. We’ve

talked a little bit about on-stream and off-stream storage and what

the administration’s position both at the State and Federal level is

on that. One issue I am curious about is the groundwater recharge

issue in terms of water storage and environmental restoration on

some of the overdrafted areas. I know that in some of the planning

documents for CALFED, they have talked about doing groundwater

recharge projects. I would like you to address that in terms of the

support of the administration for those kind of projects.

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Pombo, groundwater recharge is one of

the most underutilized, most efficient and effective ways of managing water systems for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which

is there is no evaporation losses. It has long-term flexibility. You

are effectively refilling the lake.

There are some really striking examples of the efficacy of groundwater recharge. Without waving the flag of localism, the best current example is in Arizona. The amounts of water that are being

recharged into groundwater storage is now up in the hundreds of

thousands of acre-feet per year.

Now, my sense in California is that it’s difficult because there is

not a regulatory framework that defines a meaningful approach to

the rights to groundwater, and it’s going to be much more complicated in California, and we’re going to have to work that. But

I believe that it’s a vastly underutilized tool, and we should support

it to the limits of its efficacy and economic viability.

Mr. POMBO. So we should expect support out of you and the administration on some of these groundwater recharge projects that

have been discussed over the past several months?

Secretary BABBITT. Would you be referring to Madera Ranch by

any chance?

40

Mr. POMBO. No. I’m waving the flag of locality as well. I have a

couple in my district that I believe are very, very important for a

number of reasons for the region.

Secretary BABBITT. Okay. Well, the reason I asked about Madera

Ranch is because I think it’s a—it’s a case study in what happens

when we get ahead of the process and start a debate which is not

centered on the facts and the comparative analysis.

So the answer is yes, I support it. You should send your advocates to CALFED to make sure that this analytical process and the

ISA process is looking carefully at your particular projects.

Mr. POMBO. Mr. Snow and I have had a number of discussions

on that, and I know that my local people have had a number of discussions with him on that. I would like to turn to a somewhat different issue and—involving the CALFED process. I have supported

the CALFED process because I do believe that it is one of the only

ways that we are going to have any kind of movement on water

policy in California. But one issue that does concern me is the issue

of land retirements. In my area it is a significant number of acres

that would fit into the definition of CAL—within CALFED of lands

to be retired, to the effect that the number of acres that would be

retired would have a severe impact on agriculture in my area. I

represent an area of California that is predominantly agriculture,

that is its economy, whether you’re looking at the city of Stockton

or any of the neighboring communities is predominantly driven by

agriculture.

If we had the numbers of acres of land retired from agriculture

and into ecosystem restoration, wetlands, whatever they would be

retired into, there would be a severe impact not only on the economy of my area, but also a severe impact on local government as

a result of that. How would you and the administration propose

that you mitigate the impact on local government and on the surrounding communities of retiring what would literally be hundreds

of thousands of acres of land?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, I don’t share that conclusion, and I

would respectfully suggest that the hundreds of thousands of acres

is nowhere to be found in the CALFED documents.

Mr. POMBO. If I could interrupt you there. That is taken directly

from testimony from a previous hearing that up to 400,000 acres

of land would be retired.

Secretary BABBITT. Well, it’s not in the CALFED documents. The

CALFED documents do contain some estimates. Now, there may be

some confusion here as a result of other issues. There’s a separate

provision in the CVPIA legislation, for example, with respect to

land retirement in the Westlands District. But that’s a separate

issue and that’s a——

Mr. POMBO. That is a separate issue that has nothing to do with

this particular issue.

Secretary BABBITT. Good. Good.

So we go back to CALFED. The CALFED documents and discussions and the reality, the estimates are that we may be talking in

the ecosystem restoration piece about impacts on about 30,000

acres, and of that 30,000, about 26,000 would not be taken out of

agricultural production.

41

So the best estimates right now are that the ecosystem restoration issues would impact by taking out of production several thousand acres, 4 or 5,000 acres. The economic benefits that will flow

from that will—to all the communities, I think, will overwhelm any

conceivable argument that there’s any detriment. I don’t see it.

Mr. POMBO. What you’re testifying to today is in direct conflict

to testimony we have received earlier in this Committee. It’s in direct conflict to what a number of people have testified to in terms

of what’s included in the CALFED document. If we are talking

about 4- to 6,000 acres of land that would be retired, I think that—

although it would still concern me, I think it would be manageable

in terms of an economic impact. But your numbers of 4- to 6,000

aren’t even in the ballpark of what everyone else that has testified

before this Committee has come up with. It’s not even close.

Secretary BABBITT. Well, Mr. Pombo, I think you will be happy

and satisfied because those are the numbers. They appear on either

page 6 or 7 of my testimony, and I would be happy to back them

up. I think you’re going to be quite pleased.

Mr. POMBO. I would like you to do that. Because the—and I

would provide to you—as a matter of courtesy, I would provide to

you previous testimony that we have had before this Committee,

and you can run it through your shop and——

Secretary BABBITT. Sure.

Mr. POMBO. [continuing] and try to see how you come up with

so different figures.

But just—I know my time is up. Just in conclusion of that, if the

numbers are what has been estimated by everyone else to be substantially higher than to what you are testifying, I would just like

to say that has a substantial impact on my area; and the Department of Interior, the Federal Government and the State government are going to have to be very aware of what kind of an impact

that is going to have on my particular area of the State. So I do

want, as a matter of the record, to have that noted, that if everybody else that testified is accurate, it would have a severe impact

on our region.

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Pombo, it may be—the discrepancy may

in part be—I just want to acknowledge that I am talking about

lands which have been impacted by specific site-specific plans that

have been approved in the process. Now, I concede that there may

be a variety of estimates about what the future holds.

Mr. POMBO. I’m talking about long term in the future. I’m not

talking about what’s been approved up to this point.

Secretary BABBITT. Okay. I misunderstood you. And I guess what

I would say is that the estimates about the future are pretty speculative. I understand your concerns and will be responsive to them.

Ms. NICHOLS. Mr. Pombo, could I add a comment on behalf of the

State?

Mr. POMBO. Yes, please.

Ms. NICHOLS. I met with Secretary Lyons of the California Department of Food and Agriculture this week actually, and Mr.

Snow, to discuss this issue and how we’re going to reconcile the

State’s commitment to preservation of prime agricultural land,

which is a policy of this administration as it has been in the past,

and indeed we have significant programs in my agency that are deVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
42

signed to encourage preservation and protection of agricultural

land. And we certainly don’t want to be in any way suggesting that

we’re encouraging people to convert that kind of land to noneconomic purposes where it’s productive.

I would just say that the environmental impact report is going

to be spelling out how that—I believe the number that you gave

is the extreme end of what I have heard as a worst-case assessment that will be looked at under the EIR/EIS for purposes of evaluating what could be the worst environmental possible case, if

every person who had agricultural land chose to sell the water

away from that land and to fallow it for purposes of selling their

water for, you know, a higher economic use if that was what they

chose to do.

I don’t think anybody believes that that’s a realistic scenario, but

we need to clarify what our policies are in that respect. And I think

it is clear that it’s not something that CALFED is looking to—

CALFED is not about the business of trying to encourage good agricultural land to be idled in California.

Mr. POMBO. Well, and I realize you were not yet in office, but the

testimony on the 400,000 acres was an official person who testified

to that. The extreme end of that I believe was a million acres, was

a different definition of what could be retired, that up to a million

acres could be retired out of that.

Most of this would be within my congressional district, within

the area that I represent. I would only tell you that there are only

approximately 650,000 acres of irrigated land within my congressional district, and they’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 400,000 acres that would fit into the definition of what

could be retired under CALFED. When we receive that kind of testimony, it’s obviously going to be a huge concern to the people that

I represent because that would have a severe impact on my region

of the country.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mrs. Christensen is recognized.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As the only member here present who is not from California, unless you want to count my year of internship in San Francisco, I

really don’t have any questions. I just—I am here to listen. Because

even in my small district that is surrounded by water, water supply and distribution is an important issue for us. And primarily I

want to just welcome you, Secretary Nichols, and of course our Secretary of the Interior, Secretary Babbitt, good friend of my district

and of all of our districts.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary, the PEIS that was supposed to be released almost

four years ago, is now scheduled to come out in September, correct?

Secretary BABBITT. Yeah.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So—and it’s my understanding there have been

some modeling problems——

Secretary BABBITT. That’s correct——

Mr. DOOLITTLE. [continuing] which may result in further delay.

Do you contemplate that it may delay it beyond September as you

go through the modeling problems and then once you come up with

43

what you think is the answer, is this going to be recirculated

again? And finally, what’s likely to be the possible impact of delay

on this?

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I think the modeling issue

has been resolved to the satisfaction of all of the participants. So

that’s already been factored in.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay.

Secretary BABBITT. I think we’ll be okay.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So are you quite confident, then, you would be

able to get that done and get the timetable for these—renewing the

contracts under the long-term renewal would be—was it December

of this year you were saying?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, my estimate in response to Congressman Miller’s question was that I believe we move to a record of decision approximately November.

Am I okay on that?

Hearing no dissent, it’s November.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay.

Secretary BABBITT. Now, what I would like to do is—what we’re

aiming at is to get those long-term contracts finished up before the

beginning of the next water year, which means early on in the year

2000.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Mr. Secretary, you won’t be here for the

third panel’s testimony, but that is written testimony submitted,

and it will be oral testimony when we get there. Could I just read

you a paragraph from Daniel G. Nelson’s testimony, who is the Executive Director of the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority? I would like to get your response to it, if I might. It’s on page

5 of his testimony.

It says, ‘‘Now the most recent PEIS data suggests that even before full implementation of CVPIA, the CVP is so inflexible that

water available to contractors will be decreased to zero in all water

years that are less than normal years. The wide discrepancy between this data and earlier information contained in a draft PEIS

threatens to derail the current work plan schedule. That is, the

new PEIS data appears to indicate that the assumptions that have

guided the PEIS give the fish and wildlife obligations of the CVP

significant priority over contractual obligations, contrary to the

CVPIA’s purpose of achieving balance between project purposes.’’

Could you comment on that?

Secretary BABBITT. Sure. I have great regard for Mr. Nelson and

his advocacy and his judgments. But he is an advocate, and even

Dan Nelson can get a little bit overheated from time to time. And,

you know, the mandate of CVPIA is to put wildlife restoration on

parity as a project purpose. And——

Mr. DOOLITTLE. But not superiority.

Secretary BABBITT. No, parity. Now, that’s what this process is

all about. And we will in due course have a document out in the

light of day for everyone to judge the quality of our efforts.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, do you share Mr. Nelson’s conclusion that

the water available to contractors will be decreased to zero in all

waters years that are less than normal years?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, I would have to go back and look at it,

but I’m a little skeptical of that sweeping a conclusion.

44

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, even if it weren’t zero, it’s likely to be substantially reduced, right?

Secretary BABBITT. Well, implicit in CVPIA is some water reallocation. I mean, that’s the whole premise of the exercise. And

our job is to see if we can do that in a reasonable way, consistent

with the statutory mandate.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Dooley, are you ready to begin your questions?

Mr. DOOLEY. Yeah. I just wanted to revisit this issue in terms

of, you know, the CVPIA and the actions that are supposed to be

undertaken to provide for offsetting the yield that might be lost for

environmental purposes. And I guess I go back to the 3408-I where

it basically states that in order to minimize adverse effects, if any,

upon existing Central Valley Project contract water contractors resulting from water dedicated to fish and wildlife under this Title

such and such, the Secretary shall, not later than 3 years after the

date of enactment of this Title, develop and submit to Congress a

least cost plan to increase within 15 years after the date of enactment of this Title the yield of the Central Valley project by the

amount dedicated to fish and wildlife purposes under the Title,

which would seem to be a pretty specific, you know, mandate that

the Secretary and the Department determine, you know, how we

do increase the yield offset allocations that might be lost to the environment.

I guess, you know, what progress has the Department made in

terms of identifying these, you know, opportunities for enhanced

yield?

Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, that really takes us back into

the CALFED process inevitably it seems to me. Because that’s the

purpose of this exercise, is to find ways to reoperate the system,

to store water, to find efficiencies, to—precisely this purpose for all

users, including CVP users.

Mr. DOOLEY. And I appreciate that. But the point I guess I want

to clarify is that there is a mandate within the CVPIA for the Department in which you are now using the CALFED process as a

way to achieve that outcome to identify ways in which we can increase yield to offset water that has been utilized for the environment. And you would agree with that.

Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I hear you. I agree. I think we

owe you a response that is specific to the mandate of the statute,

even if the major part of the response is a discussion of the CVPIA

impacts.

I am also advised by my loyal staff that that report was done 3

years ago and is now under consideration by CALFED. My previous answer is inoperative.

Mr. DOOLEY. If we could move on. There’s been some discussion

in terms of the renewal, long-term renewal of the contracts; and I

share those concerns because the PEIS has not been completed.

You know, the first draft had some modeling assumptions in it

which I think were determined by all parties to be flawed, and we

put in place some new modeling that is going to be embodied in the

PEIS. But I’m a little concerned that that is going to be released,

and I have to believe it’s going to be subject to some controversy

and discussion. And yet we’re expecting that we can get through

45

that exercise and have a final rule on this thing accepted and then

be able to get the long-term contracts renewed prior to the next

water year. And as being involved in this, you know, in previous

years, I’m very, very cautious about and not necessarily optimistic

we can achieve that.

And, in part, my concern on this is that I’m not convinced that

we have given adequate consideration to some of the issues that

are going to be a part of the long-term contract renewals. And with

specific issues there is that, as I understand it, the Department of

Interior is involved in a process to determine the basis of negotiations, which I think is appropriate, but what I’m concerned about

is how can you make a determination what the basis of negotiation

is for an issue such as tiered pricing when there hasn’t necessarily

been that dialogue and interchange between users and the Department that can really allow us to come to some level of consensus

on tiered pricing.

And what I would also say, that that has a direct impact in the

earlier discussion we had on underground recharge, which you’ve

acknowledged is one of the best alternatives for water storage. And

yet if we’re not careful to how we structure this tiered pricing, we

are in fact putting one of the, you know, the greatest, you know,

disincentives in place for water contractors to engage in conservation measures and storage measures that utilize the underground.

And I’m a little concerned that the Department hasn’t engaged

in a process to allow us to address some of these critical policy

issues prior to identifying a basis of negotiations that will have a

significant impact on how the long-term contracts are negotiated

and renewed.

Secretary BABBITT. Congressman, I hear your concerns; and I’ll

do my best to factor them into this process. I do think that we are

ready to proceed to conclusion on that time frame, and I will do my

best to make sure we deal with these issues in a, you know, public

or in a stakeholder communication process that gives everybody a

chance to be heard.

Mr. DOOLEY. I guess my specific concern again on this tiered

pricing, though, is, if I understand the Department’s process, if you

do in fact determine a basis of negotiations as it relates to tiered

pricing, you are setting the parameters there. And it’s an arbitrary

decision by the Department to set the parameters in negotiation as

it deals with tiered pricing. I’m a little concerned that the Department makes a decision like that before—on a difficult policy issue

such as this which has ramifications on water conservation as well

as utilization that—before we really have had this dialogue. And

I’m hopeful that the Department would have a process to allow us

to engage in a discussion on this issue prior to that finalization of

the basis of negotiation and prior to us entering into the negotiations on long-terms contracts.

Secretary BABBITT. I will do my best to do just that.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Secretary, I assume from your testimony

and responses to questions you believe that CALFED’s cooperative

approach to problem solving is better than the traditional government command and control approach that’s been used in the past

to solve these problems.

Secretary BABBITT. I do.

46

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Can you commit to having your department

using its discretion to minimize the negative impacts on water

users when attempting to reach the goals of water management in

California?

Secretary BABBITT. Mr. Chairman, I respectfully submit that this

afternoon if you question the stakeholders as to my involvement in

this issue, you will hear answers that reassure you on that score.

Of course. Of course.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. There’s so many things here, as you pointed out,

about the Trinity River and so forth in your answers to Mr. Miller’s

questions. I mean, we’ve got so many laws involved in all of this

that—in fact, that’s the whole reason we had the Bay-Delta Accord

and CALFED, is to resolve the apparent conflicts in managing for

single purpose objectives and trying to coordinate the whole thing.

But to a certain extent we still have this tension because of what

happens in the Trinity River, as you and others have acknowledged, is going to impact what happens in the whole Central Valley. So while there may be no legal requirement, there may never

not have been a legal requirement dealing with the Trinity, but at

least it’s reassuring I think to hear your commitment to try and

minimize any adverse impacts to the extent that that’s possible

within the parameters.

Secretary BABBITT. That is certainly my intention.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, I think this has been a very useful hearing

for us. I’m going to call on Mr. Dooley one more time if he would

like to—okay. You’re set.

I am sure we may have further questions by way of follow-up.

I appreciate and express to our distinguished guests our appreciation for their appearance here, and the length of the questioning

so forth has been useful to this Subcommittee as we seek to make

progress in this most important issue of the Central Valley water

management. So we will now excuse this panel, and thank you

again for your appearance.

Secretary BABBITT. Chairman, thank you very much. I do very

much appreciate the spirit in which this hearing has been conducted. Thank you.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

Ms. NICHOLS. Thank you for your support.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. We’ll call up the second panel and ask them to

assemble themselves at the table. And just to announce, just for

everybody’s information, there is supposed to be a vote in 5 or 10

minutes. So at that point we will take a 15-minute recess. If that

vote doesn’t happen, I think at least by 1:30 or so we’ll take a recess anyway for that time. But I’m anticipating that everybody can

get a break at the time the vote happens.

So do we have everybody assembled up there? I think we do.

Okay. Let me ask you gentlemen, please, who are forming Panel

II, if you would rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Let the record reflect each answered in the affirmative.

Gentlemen, we welcome you as our second panel on this hearing

today. And in the first go-around we were a little liberal in how we

ran the lights. I think just because of the time of the afternoon and

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the size of the panel we’ll try and adhere a little more strictly to

it. But don’t cut off in mid-sentence if the light goes on and you’re

not finished. We want to hear your testimony. And appreciate your

making yourselves available to the Committee.

We’ll begin this panel with the testimony of Mr. Stan Sprague,

who is General Manager of the Orange County Municipal Water

District from Fountain Valley, California. Mr. Sprague. Welcome.

STATEMENT OF STAN SPRAGUE, GENERAL MANAGER, ORANGE COUNTY MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT, FOUNTAIN

VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

Mr. SPRAGUE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee.

As you already mentioned I am from the Municipal Water District of Orange County. I am here today as a representative of the

Bay-Delta Urban Coalition, which consists of the 11 major urban

water supply agencies in California, providing over 22 million people with their water supplies in California. I would also mention

if I were just here representing the municipal water district solely

from Orange County my comments would not be much different.

The Coalition really represents a unified voice of both southern

and northern California urban water agencies. In fact, we’ve moved

to the concept that we are urban water agencies and we don’t in

our discussions even depict where we come from. Northern California now is in Redding for the purposes of our urban discussions.

The basic urban message regarding the CALFED process is supportive and optimistic. We believe that CALFED continues to have

the highest potential of any alternative for achieving a comprehensive plan for restoring the Delta and establishing a long-term management plan which balances all interests which depend on water

from the Bay-Delta region.

During the last part of last year the Federal agencies, under the

leadership of Secretary Babbitt and under former Governor Wilson,

moved forward with a significant effort of investing time in what

was called the so-called Phase II report, which is essentially a draft

preferred alternative for a long-term plan. A completion of the

Phase II document should be considered as a significant accomplishment.

Our positive views about CALFED programs, however, are not

without qualification. One of the principal reasons it was possible

to get closure on this document was that many of the toughest BayDelta issues simply were not decided. These include several issues

which relate to the single most important objective to urban water

suppliers and the improvement of drinking water quality. Urban

agencies accepted this deferral of decision on the basis that these

programs would be resolved shortly into the beginning of this year.

We have not seen that significant closure on those particular issues

at this time.

Following the release of the report, however, promised action on

water quality issues have not been forthcoming, as I mentioned. As

a result, the urban agencies are deeply concerned that the draft

EIS/EIR will not adequately address the process to solve water

quality issues in the long term and will not initiate a substantive

step, steps essential to improving drinking water quality.

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1 Bay-Delta Urban Coalition consists of 11 agencies representing over 22 million people in

urban communities throughout California. Coalition agencies include Alameda County Water

District, Central Coast Water Authority, City and County of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Coachella Valley Water District, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Metropolitan

Water District of Southern California, Municipal Water District of Orange County, San Diego

County Water Authority, Santa Clara Valley Water District, Solano County Water Agency and

Central/West Basin Municipal Water District.

To assist the Committee in understanding our concern, let me remind you that as a drinking water source the Delta is a very poor

quality compared to the national average. Poor quality source

water increases public health risks and requires more costly treatment without the safeguards of source quality protection.

In addition, natural components in the Delta when treated create

products that are potential hazards in themselves. In plain terms,

treatment has defined limitations both chemically and in terms of

costs. We have no choice but to judge the success of CALFED program on its ability to resolve the water quality issues.

To hold the continued support of the urban communities,

CALFED agencies must begin making some of the key decisions on

water quality. The key elements can simply be stated as follows:

Increased commitment from EPA and other key agencies to

help urban agencies achieve drinking water quality goals;

timely achievement of a long-term target for bromate or

bromates for total organic compound and for total dissolved

solids through a combination of higher source quality protection and new treatment technology; the creation of a Delta

Drinking Water Council, a Delta Ecosystem Restoration Authority and an overall CALFED management entity with fair

and balanced stakeholder representation on each; keeping the

dual conveyance option on the table for further study; completing feasibility studies and beginning construction of a

North Delta diversion to mitigate environmental actions detrimental to water quality.

The urban agencies have made it clear in the CALFED process

that these are the water quality issues that must be addressed. We

remain helpful and optimistic this will be done.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, let me say that I have also included

in my written testimony an additional list of issues which relate to

those elements of concern to urban California and that is water

supply reliability. And I will only respond to those if you ask for

additional comments.

I would like to thank you and your Committee for the continued

support for holding this hearing and to indicate the urban support

for continued funding and the continued oversight of this CALFED

activity. Thank you very much.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sprague follows:]

STATEMENT OF STANLEY E. SPRAGUE, GENERAL MANAGER, MUNICIPAL WATER

DISTRICT OF ORANGE COUNTY ON BEHALF OF THE BAY-DELTA URBAN COALITION

Representatives of the Bay-Delta Urban Coalition1 have been active participants

in the CALFED Bay-Delta Program to develop a long-term, broad-based consensus

agreement for improving the California Bay-Delta Estuary. Our Coalition, consisting

of 11 urban water agencies, collectively supplies water to over 22 million people in

urban communities around the State of California; communities that form a cornerstone in the state’s thriving economy.

49

The Urban Coalition remains supportive and optimistic about CALFED, and continues to believe that this process retains the highest potential for resolving the

complex issues surrounding the Delta. We commend Secretary of the Interior Bruce

Babbitt, former Governor Pete Wilson, and the Federal and state participants of

CALFED for extraordinary efforts in 1998 to gain closure on the draft preferred alternative (outlined in the Revised Phase II Report released in December, 1998). We

believe the draft reflects progress on a number of policy issues affecting the Delta

and that CALFED remains committed to achieving continuous improvements in the

four interrelated problem areas affecting the Delta (ecosystem restoration, water

quality, water supply reliability and levee system integrity) and to measurable milestones to be used as indicators of this continuous improvement.

Our positive view about the program, and the results thus far, however, are not

without qualification. First, it should be recognized that one of the principal reasons

it was possible to get closure on the Revised Phase II Report was that many of the

toughest issues were not decided. Among those issues were several which relate to

the one objective which urban water suppliers must achieve in the Delta if the

CALFED Program is to be judged successful. That objective is the improvement of

drinking water quality. Because of the burden placed on our public agencies to continue to provide a reliable supply of safe drinking water to the residents of California’s most rapidly growing areas, we have no choice but to judge the success of the

CALFED Program on its ability to resolve these issues, and help us meet the demands placed on our agencies. We believe the CALFED Program remains the best

forum for solving problems of the Delta, but unless we and our constituents are convinced that it can and will solve water quality challenges, both drinking water and

improved source water, we will not be able to continue to support CALFED.

As previously stated, closure on the Revised Phase II Report required tempering

and deferring a number of important issues, particularly those important to urban

agencies. This result was accepted, however, on the basis of representations in the

CALFED process that the bypassed issues would be expeditiously resolved in the

period following the Revised Phase II Report. Following release of the Revised Phase

II Report, however, there has been little or no progress on the water quality issues

which are central to the urban communities’ support of CALFED. The process has

become passive as Federal and state agencies focus exclusively on the pending release of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report

(EIS/EIR) due this June.

Now, we are deeply concerned that the revised Draft EIS/EIR will not adequately

address the water quality issues most important to urban California. In fact,

CALFED has stepped back from promises made to the urban community during the

negotiations that led up to the Revised Phase II Report, both as to the process to

address water quality issues and the substance of the issues themselves. In plain

terms, EPA and other key agencies have yet to move forward on any of the key decisions regarding urban communities’ drinking water quality issues.

Let me be more specific as to some aspects of the water quality problem for urban

water agencies, and why it is increasingly difficult for many of us to answer the

tough question posed to us by our Boards—‘‘what is in the CALFED Program for

us?’’ Generally, as a drinking water source, water diverted from within the Delta

is of very poor quality compared to national averages. Poor quality source water increases public health risks and requires far more costly treatment that drives up

water rates and affects the state’s economy. In addition, natural components in

Delta water, when treated, create byproducts that are potential health hazards.

The 22 million people we serve expect and demand adequate supplies of healthy

drinking water at an affordable cost. We have continually attempted to convince our

communities that CALFED would deliver what they expect in balance with other

legitimate Bay-Delta objectives. As public water managers, we have a duty to be

honest and forthright in providing our customers with the facts concerning their

water supplies. If CALFED is unsuccessful at addressing our water quality and supply concerns, we must not only communicate this to our public but reluctantly begin

to look elsewhere for solutions, most of them more expensive alternatives. To hold

the continued support of urban communities in California, Federal and state agencies and CALFED must renew their commitment to ensuring public health by making some of the tough decisions on water quality. For the most part, this does not

mean making final decisions, but rather including in the preferred alternative, for

further study and comment, those elements of a CALFED solution which are most

important to achieving urban water quality objectives. These key elements include:

• Increasing commitments from EPA and other key agencies to help urban agencies achieve water quality goals for human consumption.

•Providing for the timely achievement of long-term targets of 50 ug/l for bromide, 3 mg/l for total organic carbon and 150 mg/l for total dissolved solids

50

through a combination of higher quality source water and new treatment technology. Timely means prior to the time that EPA or CDHS require additional

treatment based on source quality which exceeds these levels.

• Creating a Delta Drinking Water Council, Delta Ecosystem Restoration Authority and overall CALFED management entity with fair and balanced stakeholder representation on each.

• Keeping the dual conveyance option on the table. Begin planning and feasibility studies for the isolated facility portion of the dual conveyance option in

Stage 1 and define a clear procedure for the decisions on construction.

• Completing feasibility studies and beginning construction of a North Delta diversion to mitigate environmental actions detrimental to water quality. Such diversion must first be assessed and mitigations identified for its impacts on the

Mokelumne fishery.

It is imperative urban water agencies see action in the CALFED Program in the

near-term to address water quality issues. We must be able to demonstrate to our

Boards and consumers that CALFED, state and Federal agencies are serious about

public health protection as it relates to water quality. Continued support for the

CALFED Program hinges on our ability to show CALFED action in this direction.

Other Priority Issues of Concern:

Lack of progress on other promises made to urban water agencies during the negotiations that led up to the Revised Phase II Report, particularly those affecting

water supply reliability, cause us concern about the potential success of the

CALFED Program. This furthers our belief that the CALFED Program is unbalanced in its approach to resolving issues important to urban stakeholders. We believe restoring balance to the CALFED Program is essential to keeping all stakeholders at the table. Restoration of balance should include:

• Extending the Accord through Stage 1.

• Improving water supply reliability for exporters of Bay-Delta water by creating

an Environmental Water Account and other mechanisms which provide regulatory insulation from the Endangered Species Act.

• Assuring balanced, staged implementation of Stage 1 and its sub-stages such

that progress must be made equally in all areas or none at all.

• Continuing planning, site selection and environmental documentation including Programmatic 404 finding under the Clean Water Act of the need for surface storage and of the conditions that will trigger the need for conveyance and

other program actions.

• Agreeing on South Delta improvements and flexible operations to allow export

pumps to operate at full capacity during certain times.

• Construction of at least one new south of Delta groundwater storage project.

• Creating a cost allocation and financing program that reflects the proportional

share from each party commensurate with the benefits derived.

•Providing financing for water use efficiency measures beyond those that are

cost-effective at the local level.

• Creating a healthy water transfers market.

The Bay-Delta Urban Coalition remains committed to a successful Bay-Delta solution that achieves a healthy environment and meets the needs of urban water users

in California. To secure support from public agencies responsible for providing

drinking water to the large urban areas in California, CALFED must move quickly

to make critical decisions on commitments made last December in CALFED’s Revised Phase II Report. In particular, these decisions must address actions required

to protect public health as it relates to improved source water quality diverted from

the Delta. We look forward to working with the CALFED agencies and stakeholders

to put the CALFED Program on a track that will allow us to maintain our support.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Our next witness is Dr. Peter Gleick, President

of the Pacific Institute, from Oakland, California. Welcome, Dr.

Gleick.

STATEMENT OF PETER GLEICK, PRESIDENT, PACIFIC

INSTITUTE, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA

Dr. GLEICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I am a scientist by training. I direct the policy research activities

at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment

and Security in Oakland. I have served on a wide range of boards

51

and committees, including the Public Advisory Forum of the American Water Works Association, the International Water Resources

Association, scientific panels of the American Geophysical Union,

and AAAS, although I represent today here the Pacific Institute.

The Institute is an independent, nonpartisan research center

looking at a wide range of national and international water issues.

We have worked extensively on California water policy issues and

provide analysis and policy recommendations about those problems.

We have reviewed the Department of Water Resources Bulletin

160 process. We have offered formal comments and recommendations. We were asked by the U.S. Department of the Interior and

the Bureau of Reclamation to do a formal independent review of

CALFED’s water-use efficiency technical appendix. We recently

published a new report called Sustainable Use of Water: California

Success Stories. I provided executive summaries of that for the

Committee, and the full report is here as well.

This report presents 40 different detailed case studies of what

works in California, the good news about smart activities already

under way. These are the elements, the pieces of what needs to be

done in California, although more broadly and more consistently

than is already under way. Unintentionally, albeit somewhat fortuitously, these 40 case studies span the districts of every one of the

California members of this Committee.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, there is no major water crisis

in California. At least, there doesn’t have to be. There is a wide

range of innovative and successful projects and activities already

under way showing how to address California’s diverse water problems.

The bad news is that there is a crisis in California water policy

making. This are real problems at the upper levels of California

water planning and management in the way we think about water

policy. In particular, the official California water plan, the Bulletin

160 process, is failing to do what it should do.

The CALFED process is doing much better. I fully support the

CALFED process. But its forecasts of future water use and demand

in California have unfortunately adopted some of the worst parts

of the Bulletin 160 process.

I would be happy to address these issues later if you wish, but

what I would like to do is talk a little bit about the good news,

what seems to be working in California and what I think it means.

Out of the limelight, every single economic sector in California

is working to resolve water problems and having some success.

Water use is becoming more efficient in every sector. Smart collaborations are finding ways of restoring natural ecosystems while

at the same time maintaining California’s excellent agricultural

productivity and protecting landowners.

California’s farmers are continuing to innovate and modernize,

using less water while producing more food and fiber and profit.

Urban water-use efficiency improvements are keeping ahead of

population growth. In other words, even as population grows in

California, the amount of water each person is using is dropping;

and in some cases even total water use in California is dropping.

The potential for even greater improvements in efficiency is enormous.

52

This kind of good news means that the number of successful tools

we have for solving California’s water problems is growing, and let

me offer a few specific examples.

In the urban areas, cities are becoming much more efficient,

breaking the link between population growth and water use. San

Diego County is using less water, 13 percent less than it was using

10 years ago, even though its population has grown 10 percent. Los

Angeles in 1970 used 590,000 acre feet of water. In 1998, they used

about 590,000 acre feet of water and yet Los Angeles’s population

has grown 32 percent. Figure 1 in my written testimony shows

this.

Industrial, commercial, and institutional water use efficiency is

rising dramatically. Between 1980 and 1990 in California industrial water use dropped 30 percent, while industrial revenue and

income increased 30 percent; and that trend has continued in the

1990s.

Despite the statements over the need for new surface storage—

which I can address later if you wish—new storage in the form of

massive groundwater banks is already being created. In the past

20 years at one facility alone near Bakersfield, nearly a million

acre feet of water have been stored. The Semitropic Water District

groundwater banking program has stored 500,000 acre feet of

water in the past decade.

In the agricultural area, with relatively little official policy or

recognition, growers have been moving toward higher valued crops

that use less water per acre and produce even more money. And

figure 2 in my written testimony shows this trend, the drop in field

crops and grain crops and the increase in California in vegetable

crops and fruit crops.

Growers are moving toward more efficient irrigation technologies, saving water, money, and energy and increasing yields.

And yet much more potential exists. Figure 3 in my written testimony shows that, while we have moved toward drip irrigation and

more efficient irrigation, there’s considerable more potential there.

The technological and communications revolution sweeping the

country and the world is also having an effect on agriculture. And

the more farmers learn about their water use the more efficient

they become.

In the environmental area, local landowners are working with

environmentalists to improve water quality, restore waterfowl habitat, protect endangered species, and maintain food production.

Now, there are many more examples. There are 40 detailed case

studies, and I can’t go into them all.

There is also some bad news. As I mentioned, the California’s

water planning process is—I believe has some fundamental flaws.

It uses methods and data and assumptions that are either wrong

or outdated. And the previous Department of Water Resources has

shown great reluctance to address these problems and to learn

from these kinds of successes.

Let me close with a couple of lessons learned.

Existing technologies for improving water efficiency and improving water supply reliability have enormous untapped potential.

Regulatory incentives and motivations can be effective tools.

Smart regulation is better than no regulation.

53

Economic innovation leads to cost-effective changes. The power of

proper pricing of water has been underestimated.

Ignorance is not bliss. The more water users know about their

own water use and options and alternatives, the better decisions

they make.

Finally, the most successful water projects have individuals and

groups with different agendas working together. CALFED is a very

good example of this. But on the local level the examples are legion. Every successful example has local stakeholders working together to solve these problems.

Thank you for the opportunity to address these issues, to appear

before you, and I would be happy later to answer questions you

might have.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gleick follows:]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have some good

news and some bad news. The good news is you’re going to get to

have an hour off for lunch. The bad news is it’s an hour that we’ll

have to interrupt at this point. There are a series of votes. The first

one is a 15-minute vote, then two 5-minute votes, a little discussion, and then another 15-minute vote, so it makes sense at this

point to suspend operations.

When we do come back there will be no more votes out on the

floor, so we should be able to move fairly expeditiously through the

remainder of the hearing.

So, with that, we stand in recess until 2:15.

[Whereupon, at 1:15 p.m., the Subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 2:15 p.m., the same day.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The Subcommittee will reconvene. We’re going to

begin.

I don’t see Mr. Guy here. We’ll start with Mr. Don Kaniewski.

STATEMENT OF DONALD J. KANIEWSKI, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, LABORER’S INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH AMERICA, LIUNA–AFLCIO, WASHINGTON, DC

Mr. KANIEWSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the

Subcommittee, for inviting me to testify today.

My name is Donald Kaniewski. I serve as Legislative and Political Director for the Laborers International Union of North America. Our California affiliate is an active participant in the BayDelta Funding Coalition and the CALFED process. We strongly

support moving the Bay-Delta program forward in a balanced fashion to meet the environmental water supply and water quality

needs of California. Our members, in addition to being beneficiaries

of adequate and reliable water supplies, look forward to bringing

their skills in building infrastructure as part of the implementation

of the CALFED Bay-Delta program.

While this is an oversight hearing, we would like to draw your attention to our support for the President’s request of $95 million

in fiscal year 2000 and urge your support for the stakeholder recommendation of allocating $60 million for ecosystem restoration

programs and $35 million for water quality levee system integrity

and water supply reliability programs.

In addition, we support Governor Davis’ recent commitment to a

balanced Bay-Delta program whose inclusion of $10 million in the

State’s fiscal year 1999-2000 budget to support the integrated storage and investigation segment of CALFED.

Why is California’s Bay-Delta so important? The San Francisco

Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is the hub of California’s water

system. It provides two-thirds of the State’s drinking water, irrigates 7 million acres of the world’s most productive farmland, is

home to 130 species of fish, 225 species of birds, 52 types of mammals and 400 plant species. The Bay-Delta has fueled the trillion

dollar economy of California farms and cities for the past half century. However, this vital estuary has been in decline as a water

and environmental resource for many years.

In 1994, the Bay-Delta Accord signed by State and Federal agencies and stakeholders brought a truce to decades of divisive conflict

over use of Bay-Delta water. The Accord has been extended

64

through the end of 1999. It established the CALFED Bay-Delta

program to develop a long-term water solution for California and

a new era of cooperation among stakeholder groups.

Why is our union strongly supporting the CALFED process?

Through our own recent experience with cooperative strategies, we

value CALFED’s emphasis on consensus and accomplishment. The

Laborers International Union is a recognized leader and innovator

in developing labor-management cooperation programs. These programs are designed to maximize our contractor’s ability to be competitive in securing work and provide for the economic security,

health and safety of our members. Through these programs, our

members deliver the finest construction manpower product in the

Nation.

This emphasis on cooperation has manifested itself in other successful ways, including resolving complex interagency issues involving Superfund. We are proud of our record of bringing parties together to resolve issues in a non-bureaucratic way, and the

CALFED program is a logical extension of this philosophy of cooperation. The CALFED process is bringing stakeholders together

throughout California to craft water solutions for California.

With helpful funding from Congress, CALFED is making

progress within the ecosystem component of the program. Partnerships with local interests are resulting in projects that have multiple benefits. You will hear from other stakeholders today as to

how the program is providing projects that combine water supply

adequacy and reliability, water quality, and ecosystem restoration

benefits.

CALFED is also fulfilling its mission towards balanced and comprehensive long-term water plans. Developing solutions that will

provide for the State’s expected population growth is vital for California’s and the Nation’s future.

My presence here today is to reaffirm our commitment to the

CALFED process. CALFED is an important forum for us to balance

our interests in order to provide water, secure jobs, and a brighter

future for California.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and the members of the

Committee, and ask that as part of the record I submit a document

prepared by the California business labor and water leaders coalition on the Bay-Delta solution.

With that, I thank you very much; and I’ll entertain any questions at the appropriate time.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you. And the document, without objection,

you submit will be entered into the record.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kaniewski follows:]

STATEMENT OF DONALD J. KANIEWSKI, LABORERS INTERNATIONAL UNION OF NORTH

AMERICA

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee for inviting me to

testify today. My name is Donald J. Kaniewski and I serve as Legislative and Political Director for the Laborers International Union of North America. Our California

affiliate is an active participant in the Bay-Delta Funding Coalition and the

CALFED process. We strongly support moving the Bay-Delta program forward in

a balanced fashion to meet the environmental, water supply, and water quality

needs of California. Our members, in addition to being beneficiaries of adequate and

reliable water supplies, look forward to bringing their skills in building infrastructure as part of the implementation of the CALFED Bay-Delta program.

65

While this is an oversight hearing, we would like to draw your attention to our support for the President’s request of $95 million in Fiscal Year 2000 and urge your

support for the stakeholder recommendation of allocating $60 million for ecosystem

restoration programs and $35 million for water quality, levee system integrity, and

water supply reliability programs. In addition, we support Governor Davis’s recent

commitment to a balanced Bay-Delta program through his inclusion of $10 million

in the State’s Fiscal Year 1999-2000 budget to support the Integrated Storage Investigation (ISI) segment of CALFED.

Why is California’s Bay-Delta so important? The San Francisco Bay/SacramentoSan Joaquin Delta is the hub of California’s water system. It provides two-thirds

of the state’s drinking water, irrigates 7 million acres of the world’s most productive

farmland, is home to 130 species of fish, 225 species of birds, 52 types of mammals,

and 400 plant species. The Bay-Delta has fueled the trillion-dollar economy of California farms and cities for the past half-century. However, this vital estuary has

been in decline as a water and environmental resource for many years.

In 1994, the historic Bay-Delta Accord signed by state and Federal agencies and

stakeholders brought a truce to decades of divisive conflict over use of Bay-Delta

water. The Accord has been extended through the end of 1999. It established the

CALFED Bay-Delta Program to develop a long-term water solution for California,

and a new era of cooperation among stakeholder groups.

Why is our union strongly supporting the CALFED process? Through our own recent experiences with cooperative strategies, we value CALFED’s emphasis on consensus and accomplishment. The Laborers International Union of North America is

a recognized leader and innovator in developing labor-management cooperation programs. These programs are designed to maximize our contractor’s ability to be competitive in securing work and provide for the economic security, health, and safety

of our members. Through these programs, our members deliver the finest construction manpower product in the nation.

This emphasis on cooperation has manifested itself in other successful ways, including resolving complex inter-agency issues involving Superfund. We are proud of

our record of bringing parties together to resolve issues in a non-bureaucratic way.

The CALFED program is a logical extension of this philosophy of cooperation.

The CALFED process is bringing stakeholders together throughout California to

craft water solutions for California.

With helpful funding from Congress, CALFED is making progress within the ecosystem component of the program. Partnerships with local interests are resulting

in projects that have multiple benefits. You will hear from other stakeholders today

as to how the program is providing projects that combine water supply adequacy

and reliability, water quality, and ecosystem restoration benefits.

CALFED is also fulfilling its mission towards developing a balanced and comprehensive long-term water plan. Developing solutions that will provide for the

state’s expected population growth is vital for California’s and the nation’s future.

My presence here today is to reaffirm our commitment to the CALFED process.

CALFED is an important forum for us to balance our interests in order to provide

water, secure jobs, and a brighter future for California.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Our next witness, we’ll go back and pick up Mr.

David J. Guy. Mr. Guy.

STATEMENT OF DAVID J. GUY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER ASSOCIATION, SACRAMENTO,

CALIFORNIA

Mr. GUY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee.

My name is David Guy. I am the Executive Director for the

Northern California Water Association. The Northern California

Water Association represents 65 agricultural water suppliers in

northern California as well as counties and local business leaders.

I am today going to give you an agricultural perspective on the

CALFED process and would like to start off by indicating that we

are also part of this coalition that supports the fiscal year 2000 appropriation.

One of the reasons that we support the fiscal year 2000 appropriation is that we see a shift towards a more balanced program,

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as just indicated by the previous panelist; and we think that this

is very significant and very important for the agricultural community.

There are three pieces of this program that I would like to talk

a little bit about that are particularly significant; and this will, I

think, shed some light on both the successes and some of the potential shortfalls in the CALFED process as we see it.

One of the most positive efforts we have seen in the State are

the fish passage improvements that have been made throughout

the State. Secretary Babbitt this morning mentioned Butte Creek

and held that out as a great example, and he’s right. In the Appendix A to our written testimony we list a sample of the water and

the fish passage improvements that have been made in the Sacramento Valley; and these have been true win-win type solutions

and are really, I think, the essence of what CALFED should be all

about. It improves the ecosystem, and it improves water supply reliability. This has been real positive, and we need to build upon

this part of the program.

The second piece is the integrated storage investigation, and although we feel that in the past that not enough attention has been

paid to storage within the CALFED process, we are very encouraged that we are starting to see some progress, and the integrated

storage investigation is a good indication of that.

The bottom line is that we need to augment the supplies in the

State of California to meet not only current demands but also future demands in the State. This will require storage not only north

of the Delta, but in the Delta, south of the Delta and in southern

California, and that will be essential to maintain this balanced program as part of the CALFED program.

Finally, the third point that I want to touch on is land acquisition. Land acquisition is, again, something that we have significant

concern with, and there’s a lot of concern in the rural communities

in California about the land acquisition part of CALFED. Because

what we would like to suggest is that we recognize that there is

some land acquisition that will take place and needs to take place

and that we make sure that we have responsible land acquisition.

We have outlined in our testimony some steps that we believe

are important to assure that we have, in fact, responsible land acquisition as part of CALFED. Some of these measures are under

way and others will need to be pushed as we go forward in the

CALFED process.

The most important thing about the land acquisition is that we

try to avoid the redirected impacts. And that’s, of course, one of the

solution principles in the CALFED process and is really essential

to assure that rural communities are protected in California in the

CALFED process.

We’re also encouraged that public lands are being looked at rather than private lands when that is possible and when it’s conceivable.

We’re looking forward to the EIS/EIR that will be coming out,

and we are hoping that this document will give adequate attention

to the agricultural and rural resources in California. We think that

this is very important, and it will send a strong message to rural

California about how we are going to treat those resources.

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So, with that, I would just like to say that we are very positive

about CALFED. We recognize that there are some serious shortfalls, but we feel positive that we can overcome that and that we

will and that the fiscal year 2000 appropriation is a good starting

place to begin that process. We’ll have to keep moving forward to

ensure that we have a balanced program that will, in fact, benefit

not only agriculture but also all the other sectors of the California

economy and the environment.

Thank you.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Guy follows:]

STATEMENT OF DAVID J. GUY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA WATER

ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee, my name is David Guy. I am

the Executive Director of the Northern California Water Association (NCWA).

NCWA is a non-profit association representing sixty-five private and public agricultural water suppliers and farmers that rely upon the waters of the Sacramento,

Feather and Yuba rivers, smaller tributaries, and groundwater to irrigate over

850,000 acres of farmland in California’s Sacramento Valley. Many of our members

also provide water supplies to state and Federal wildlife refuges, and much of this

land serves as important seasonal wetlands for migrating waterfowl, shorebirds and

other wildlife. I appreciate the Subcommittee’s inclusion of my written testimony in

today’s hearing record.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide the Northern California perspective on

CALFED. NCWA has actively participated in the CALFED process, as a signatory

to the 1994 Bay-Delta Accord and a participant in the development of California’s

Proposition 204, the Federal Bay-Delta Security Act (Pubic Law 104-333) and the

CALFED Revised Phase II Report. Two representatives of NCWA’s Board of Directors, Chairman Don Bransford and Director Tib Belza, currently serve on CALFED’s

Bay-Delta Advisory Council (BDAC). NCWA is also a member of the Ecosystem

Roundtable—the entity chartered to allocate state and Federal ecosystem restoration funds.

The Subcommittee’s interest in water management in California’s Central Valley

and particularly the CALFED Bay-Delta Program (CALFED) is appropriate given

the importance of a successful resolution to the environmental and water supply

problems in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay (BayDelta). The Bay-Delta is a tremendous economic and environmental resource to

California and the Nation, and there is much at stake in how CALFED implements

its numerous ecosystem restoration and water management actions. Both the Department of Interior and the California Resources Agency’s testimony today before

this Subcommittee will be very useful for private interests participating in this process. NCWA has been invited today to discuss the status of the CALFED program from

an agricultural perspective. It was a year ago (May 12, 1998) that we provided testimony to this Subcommittee on the CALFED program and particularly the allocation

of Federal funds for ecosystem restoration. Since that time, there has been good

progress in certain parts of the CALFED program and very little progress in others.

Most notably, CALFED late last year issued its Revised Phase II Report. This report was significant for several reasons. First, it gave CALFED a needed boost to

sustain the program. More importantly, the discussions leading up to the report revealed the need for CALFED to begin broadening its scope to show progress not only

for the ecosystem, but also with respect to water management and the water supplies that will be necessary to satisfy the growing demands for water in California.

Like many others, we will provide detailed comments to CALFED when it releases its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)/Enviromnental Impact Report (EIR) and another revised Phase II report this summer. Our testimony cannot

and will not cover every CALFED issue. Today, we will focus on the four general

CALFED programs that most directly affect the farms, cities and the environment

in Northern California: (1) fish passage improvements; (2) surface and groundwater

storage; (3) rural land acquisition and (4) water acquisition.

1. Sacramento Valley Fish Passage Improvements

A major success in Central Valley water management is the fish passage efforts

in the Sacramento Valley to jointly improve the ecosystem and water supply reliVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
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ability. These projects are the type of programs that CALFED was formed to develop and implement. These projects also embody CALFED’s overall mission ‘‘to develop a long-term comprehensive plan that will restore the ecosystem health and improve water management for beneficial uses of the Bay-Delta ecosystem.’’ If successful, CALFED will rehabilitate native fish and wildlife species and their habitat in

the Bay-Delta system, and increase water supplies and reliability for California’s

cities, businesses and farms. One measure of success in the overall program is an

improving environment, achieved in part by implementation of restoration projects

that resolve known problems. A good example is the installation of fish screens on

agricultural diversions to prevent the entrainment of fish species. Program success

can be measured by decreasing regulatory disruption of water project operations,

and reduced regulations on individual agricultural water suppliers and farmers.

Many of the private interests following CALFED, such as Sacramento Valley agricultural water suppliers and farmers, are financially participating in cost-share arrangements with CALFED agencies on specific restoration projects. Nearly a dozen

water suppliers throughout the Sacramento Valley are engaged in the study, design

or construction of a fish screen or passage project to protect candidate, threatened

and endangered fisheries. Rather than describe every project in detail, we have instead enclosed Appendix A—a sample of the fishery projects that have either been

completed or are underway by NCWA members in the Sacramento Valley.

Some of these projects are now complete, such as Western Canal Water District’s

Gary N. Brown Butte Creek Siphon Project. This unique project resulted in the installation of a concrete siphon to convey agricultural water supplies under Butte

Creek, allowing the removal of several small dams that historically hindered springrun salmon migration to spawning habitat. Completion of this project illustrates the

effectiveness of restoration actions in providing immediate benefits to the environment; in this case for spring-run salmon, presently listed as a threatened species

under California law and proposed for Federal listing—and for the local community

and area farmers who benefit through development of a more reliable water supply.

As with Western Canal’s farmers, other agricultural water users in the Sacramento Valley have a vested interest in ensuring state and Federal funds are effectively managed to ultimately improve the fishery, and alleviate regulatory mandates. Their participation is based on the belief the projects will succeed, and are

an effective way to restore fisheries and protect landowners from burdensome regulations. Although many projects are either completed or underway, there are many

more similar projects that can serve both the environment and water supply reliability. CALFED has been and can continue to be successful in promoting and encouraging these types of projects.

2. Integrated Storage Investigation

One of the shortcomings in the CALFED program has been the lack of progress

in providing more reliable water supplies for water users in California. In the early

stages of the CALFED process, water users have committed to improve the ecosystem as evidenced by the Bay-Delta Accord, Proposition 204 and the Bay-Delta

Security Act. After several years improving and investing in the ecosystem, water

users are now adamant that there must be an equivalent commitment by Congress,

the California Legislature and the CALFED agencies to improve the state’s water

supplies for both existing and future water users.

The CALFED Revised Phase II Report was significant in that it strongly recommended the study and ultimate development of new surface and groundwater

storage projects in California. This led to the CALFED ‘‘Integrated Storage Investigation’’ which will look at surface and groundwater storage, as well as the opportunities for reoperating existing facilities to maximize water use in California. For

CALFED to succeed in the next century, we believe that there must be significant

progress in developing a range of water supply alternatives that will improve water

supply reliability throughout the state. In Northern California, this should include

continued studies and planning for Sites reservoir, raising the existing dam at Lake

Shasta, locally driven pilot projects for the conjunctive management of surface and

groundwater and water efficiency measures to maximize the local use of water resources.

These water supply options must complement efforts now underway to study and

then develop measures to protect citizens and property from the devastating floods

that have historically ravaged California’s Central Valley. While CALFED must

work toward improved water management in the state, it is equally important that

CALFED not be used to delay or otherwise stifle significant opportunities to improve water supply reliability on both the regional and local level.

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3. Rural Land Acquisition

CALFED plans to implement projects that will replicate natural processes associated with instream flows, stream channels, watersheds and floodplains. CALFED

proposes to accomplish this objective primarily by the acquisition of farmland and

water supplies to create river meander corridors, riparian forests, and increased

instream flows. As an example, CALFED’s Ecosystem Restoration Program recommends the implementation of nearly 700 actions over a thirty-year period; however, work has already begun on several of the program’s main elements. As a further example, CALFED’s earlier draft environmental impact report and impact

statement, released in March 1998, recommended the acquisition of roughly 200,000

acres of Central Valley farmland (30,000 acres in the Sacramento Valley) to meet

certain goals outlined in the Ecosystem Restoration Program.

The proposed implementation of these particular actions raises legitimate concerns for upstream and downstream communities, landowners and water suppliers.

In this regard, it is important that Congress and CALFED understand the

groundswell of opposition and concern that is developing in agricultural and rural

communities throughout California in response to the large-scale land acquisition

program that is being undertaken as part of CALFED and several other programs

in California. The Wall Street Journal article entitled ‘‘U.S Land-Buying Program

Leaves County in the Dark—and Furious’’ provides a glimpse into this problem in

Northern California. (See May 5, 1999, CAl.)

CALFED’s staff acknowledges the scientific uncertainty underlying the potential

benefit to fish and wildlife from these actions. River meander and riparian forest

projects necessarily require the acquisition of land along a river or stream in order,

for example, to allow the river to inundate land during high flow periods. There are

numerous consequences that may arise as a result of these projects, including river

level and flow fluctuations and increased sediment and debris loading, which threaten existing water diversions and fish screens. Due to the unpredictable nature of

these projects, and the risks they present, NCWA encourages CALFED to initially

focus on restoration actions that fix known fish and wildlife problems. NCWA recognizes, however, a limited number of actions that attempt to replicate natural processes may be necessary to restore habitat for at-risk species.

There are several specific steps CALFED should consider before embarking on a

large-scale river meander plan in order to avoid adverse social, economic or environmental affects to local communities, landowners, and water suppliers. This is consistent with CALFED’s stated principle of implementing actions and a long-term

plan that does not result in the redirection of adverse impacts.

As a first step, CALFED must attempt to utilize public lands with similar ecological characteristics prior to acquiring private property to achieve restoration measures. If public lands are unavailable, conservation easements, rather than outright

fee title acquisition, should be a priority, and all acquisitions must be voluntary

Second, there is concern that the EIS/EIR has not adequately analyzed the potential impacts to the existing environment, which specifically includes agricultural resources under both the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). CALFED actions have and will result in significant impacts to the agricultural resource base in California, including agricultural

land, agricultural water supplies and water quality. In a nutshell, this is the existing environment as it is utilized for agriculture. These actions will have socioeconomic impacts to local communities, local jurisdictions and local economies.

CALFED should develop a plan to either avoid or to adequately mitigate for agricultural impacts. A meaningful plan will be critical for CALFED to gain confidence in

rural areas and to assure that long-term environmental goals are accomplished in

CALFED. Completion of both CEQA and NEPA requirements should be initiated before the acquisition of private property.

Third, CALFED’s top-down approach to land-use planning where Federal and

state agencies, by either purchasing land or by funding land acquisition, are dictating local land use policies with little local participation in this process. Put differently, there is a deep concern in local communities that CALFED and its member

agencies are usurping the land use authority that has traditionally resided in local

governments, including counties and cities. There has been progress made by

CALFED to incorporate local governments in the funding process for ecosystem

projects, but much more effort needs to be made in this regard. Establishment of

a representative public process to ensure local involvement must be a cornerstone

of any land acquisition program.

Fourth, there has been little, if any, progress on developing assurances that water

suppliers and landowners will not be adversely affected by CALFED or its member

agencies acquiring adjacent or nearby lands for habitat purposes. NCWA in concert

with water users in Northern California has developed an assurances package that

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we believe will protect and encourage cooperating landowners and local agencies

that allow restoration projects on their lands or on nearby lands. We believe that

this is a very constructive approach to advance the ecosystem goals in the CALFED

process while providing reasonable and necessary assurances to landowners and

local water suppliers. The bottom line is that CALFED must adopt clear assurances,

or legal guarantees, that address issues of liability for future damage resulting from

project implementation, as well as local tax and assessment responsibility. We look

forward to working with CALFED and other interested parties on this proposal.

Finally, in this regard, NCWA has encouraged CALFED to consider adoption of

a pilot program that may serve as a model for its future projects involving land acquisition. Although the specific principles of our recommendation are still under development, our goal is to accomplish restoration actions compatible with economic

activities, including farming, water district operation and flood control protection.

4. Water Acquisition

The CALFED Revised Phase II Report developed the so-called ‘‘Environmental

Water Account’’ (EWA). NCWA strongly supports this flexible management approach to address complex delta issues as opposed to the traditional regulatory approach. Like the other parts of CALFED, however, the EWA must be defined so that

water users benefit in its implementation. From the Northern California perspective, we have concerns that this program relies too heavily on upstream flow contributions to the delta. The EWA seems to assume that upstream water will be

available as an asset to meet EWA demands, which is not a sound assumption. This

is particularly a concern when EWA water is in addition to flows required under

the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) Anadromous Fish Restoration

Program and other environmental programs.

5. Conclusion

With respect to FY 2000 funding, NCWA has joined this year with a coalition of

California business, labor, water users and the environment to request and support

a $95 million Federal (FY 2000) appropriation consistent with the Federal BayDelta Security Act and other relevant authorizing legislation. This request includes

$60 million for ecosystem purposes and fishery improvements and $35 million for

water management, including the Integrated Storage Investigation (ISI). (See April

16, 1999 coalition letter.)

From the Northern California perspective, the CALFED process was intended to

address problems in the Bay-Delta which are largely associated with water uses

south of the delta. NCWA endorsed the CALFED process to address these problems,

as long as CALFED, in seeking solutions, does not redirect impacts and problems

northward. NCWA’s support of CALFED is predicated upon CALFED and its member agencies fully recognizing the senior water rights held by entities and individuals within the areas of origin. Unfortunately, these fundamental water rights seem

to get lost in the zeal to move forward with the CALFED program. Unless these

rights are, in fact, recognized and honored by CALFED and its member agencies,

NCWA’s support for CALFED, including support for future funding, will not continue.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please call me or

Dan Keppen in our office.

Northern California Water Association

455 Capitol Mall, Suite 335

Sacramento, CA 95814

916.442.8333

APPENDIX A

NCWA: Local Fishery Projects in the Sacramento Valley

The Sacramento Valley’s initiative and effort to help protect salmon and other

aquatic species is unprecedented and is now recognized as one of the most exciting

and progressive voluntary salmon restoration efforts in the United States. Today,

over a dozen NCWA members, representing over 500,000 acres of irrigable land, are

in various stages of developing screens to prevent fish entrainment at their diversions. As a result, nearly 75 percent of all agricultural water use from the Sacramento River will soon flow through new, state-of-the-art fish screens. On Butte

Creek, local water users have addressed—or will address—nearly every fishery impediment identified by regulatory agencies.

Since 1994, many NCWA members have initiated far-reaching efforts to screen diversions, refurbish fish ladders, construct siphons, remove dams and implement

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other habitat improvement projects to enhance the environment. These projects include:

1. Browns Valley Irrigation District

Browns Valley Irrigation District (BVID) has started construction on its Yuba

River Diversion Fish Screen. The completion of this project, designed to protect

salmon in the Yuba River, was delayed due to inclement weather. Browns Valley

has secured complete funding for its project from various sources, including Yuba

County Water Agency, Yuba River PG&E Mitigation Account, Category III, CV-PIA

Restoration Fund, Tracy Pumps Mitigation Fund and BVID’s own funds. BVID will

independently build and install the fish screen project.

2. Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District

Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (GCID) broke ground on its Hamilton City Pumping Plant screening project in April of 1998. GCID diverts a maximum of 3,000 cubic

feet per second (cfs) from the Sacramento River, with the peak demand occurring

in a dry spring year at the same time as the peak out-migration of juvenile salmon.

Key components of the project include a 600-foot extension to the existing fish

screen and a stabilizing gradient facility in the mainstern of the Sacramento River.

Total construction cost of the screen and gradient facility is estimated at $50 million. This project will minimize losses of all fish in the vicinity of the pumping plant

diversion, including endangered winter-run chinook salmon, and will maximize

GCID’s capability to divert the full quantity of water it is entitled to utilize to meet

its water supply delivery obligations.

3. M & T Chico Ranch

M & T Chico Ranch environmental restoration activities included relocating and

screening the M & T Pumping Station from the mouth of Big Chico Creek to the

Sacramento River, recently completed for a total cost of $5 million. This project will

ensure a guaranteed water supply to over 8,000 acres of permanent wetlands and

over 1,500 acres of seasonal wetlands. Additionally, it also protects habitat for migrating spring-run chinook salmon. One other important benefit of this project is M

& T Ranch’s agreement to provide fish flows in the amount of 40 cubic feet per second to Butte Creek, one of the most important and last remaining spawning areas

for the Spring-run.

4. Maxwell Irrigation District

The Maxwell Irrigation District now operates a state-of-the-art positive barrier

fish screen, one of the first of its kind installed on the Sacramento River. Completed

in 1994, the new pumping plant and screen facility divert approximately 80 cfs at

a completed cost of nearly $1.6 million. The screens are intended to protect all fish,

but primarily steelhead and endangered winter-run chinook salmon. The State of

California recently retroactively reimbursed Maxwell ID for much of their expenditures.

5. Natomas Central MWC

Preliminary engineering studies have commenced to investigate the feasibility of

screening the 700 cfs Natomas Central Mutual Water Company diversion on the

Sacramento River. Natomas Central has already undertaken feasibility studies and

will receive CVPIA Restoration Fund monies to help cover the estimated $10-$15

million capital costs associated with this project. The screened diversion is an integral component for future integrated water resources management in the American

River basin.

6. Pelger Mutual Water Company

In 1994, the Pelger Mutual Water Company completed construction of its new

pumping station and positive barrier fish screen in the Sacramento River near

Knight’s Landing. This facility includes pumps with a discharge capacity of 60 cfs

and was completed for a total cost of $350,000. While Pelger MWC financed the

original project, the State of California recently reimbursed the water company for

much of the original expense. Pelger MWC also recently received additional

CALFED ecosystem funding to undertake an innovative evaluation of entrainment

potential of unscreened small diversions.

7. Princeton-Codora-Glenn Irrigation District/Provident Irrigation District

In August 1997, the Princeton-Codora-Glenn and Provident irrigation districts began construction of an $11 million fish screen and pump consolidation project on

the Sacramento River. The new 605 cfs diversion will protect endangered winterrun chinook and spring-run chinook salmon. The new facility, which eliminates

three unscreened diversions, was originally scheduled to be operational by spring

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1998. Delays in construction, primarily resulting from the high water conditions in

the Sacramento River last year, have pushed back project completion to later this

year.

8. Reclamation District 108

Reclamation District 108 began construction in 1997 of a new $10 million screen.

The project, located at the district’s Wilkins Slough diversion, will protect migrating

endangered winter-run chinook salmon, as well as the spring-run chinook. The design for the new screen facility was chosen after several years were spent examining

the performance of alternate screen technologies. The district will hold dedication

ceremonies for the completed project this spring.

9. Reclamation District 1004

Reclamation District 1004 began construction of its $7 million screen last summer. Poor weather and adverse river conditions delayed the start of construction in

1997. The proposed project includes relocation of the Princeton Pumping Plant and

necessary conveyance facilities to a more stable location along the Sacramento

River, in addition to construction of a positive barrier fish screen. This project will

eliminate significant adverse impacts to fish inhabiting the Sacramento River, including juvenile winter-run chinook salmon and steelhead.

10. Richter Brothers

The Richter Brothers diversion on the Sacramento River near Knights Landing

is located along a reach of the river that hosts several species of salmon, steelhead

trout and the recently listed Sacramento splittail minnow. Richter Brothers have received CALFED funding for feasibility studies and preliminary design for an improved diversion that will provide an important protective role for fish in this critical stretch of the river.

11. Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority

The water users that make up the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority (Authority)

and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation have addressed fish passage problems at Red

Bluff Diversion Dam since 1985 by modifying dam operations. The installation of

rotary drum screens in 1990 and the $22 million research pumping plant in 1995

furthered these efforts. The CALFED Bay-Delta Program is also exploring plans for

improved fish ladders at Red Bluff or a new screened facility on the Sacramento

River. Last year, the Authority obtained $340,000 in state and Federal funding

through the Ecosystem Roundtable to investigate the feasibility of installing stateof-the-art screening and pumping at Red Bluff to replace the diversion dam gravity

intake system.

12. Western Canal Water District

The Central Valley Project Improvement Act and the Anadromous Fish Screen

Program have identified several projects within the Butte Creek watershed that

would improve fishery resource conditions, specifically spring-run chinook salmon

and steelhead trout. A number of these projects at Durham-Mutual, Rancho Esquon

(Adams Diversion Dam), and Gorrill Land Company (Gorrill Diversion Dam) are

scheduled to be constructed during 1998 and 1999. The Western Canal Water District $11 million siphon project completed last year features construction of a siphon

under Butte Creek to transport irrigation water across the creek without impacting

migrating salmon, including the spring-run chinook—a fish recently designated as

a threatened species by the California Fish and Game Commission. As a direct result of this work, several existing barriers to migrating fish will be removed.

13. Lower Butte Creek Project—Sutter Basin Butte Sink Water Users Association, Reclamation District 1004, RD 70, Butte Slough Irrigation Company, RD 1500, Butte Sink Waterfowl Association, Western Canal, RD 1660.

Lower Butte Creek, Butte Sink and Sutter Bypass: On the main migration corridor for Butte Creek spring-run salmon, The Nature Conservancy, California Waterfowl Association and NCWA are working with local water users and fishery agencies to determine the feasibility of reducing or eliminating fish passage and entrainment problems. The group has already completed the first phase of this project, and

is moving into the second phase, which will include preliminary engineering and design that may lead to construction by the year 2000. CALFED will fund the second

phase efforts up to $750,000.

14. Yuba County Water Agency

The Yuba County Water Agency is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to evaluate options to improve fish passage upstream and downstream of Daguerre Point Dam on the Yuba River. While

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the existing fish ladders appear to be working properly, a study will assess whether

the facilities can be further improved. Yuba County Water Agency has also received

CALFED and CVP Restoration funds to study the life history and stock composition

of steelhead trout on the Yuba River.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Our next witness is Mr. Steve McCormick.

Mr. McCormick.

STATEMENT OF STEVE McCORMICK, VICE PRESIDENT, WESTERN DIVISION, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Mr. MCCORMICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’m the Executive Director of the Nature Conservancy of California, and we are dedicated to preserving the best examples of the

original natural landscape. We do that by working in local communities and cooperatively with private landowners. It has been our

privilege to participate in shaping the ecosystem restoration program of CALFED and, I think more importantly, engaging in its

implementation.

While I will focus my remarks on that aspect of our participation

in CALFED, I do want to say that one of the distinguishing features of the program is that it is a single integrated plan; and it’s

really an elegant vision in that respect to address exceedingly complex issues involving the most important resource in California,

water. But it is important to regard every one of the components

that—in context and as part of a whole. So my remarks on the ecosystem restoration program should be regarded as such.

In that program, we have been delighted to see that it is truly

an ecosystem program focusing on whole systems, entire watersheds, not just individual species or isolated and fragmented pieces

of property. It has indeed elevated the vision of all participants and

I think ennobled us to think big and systematically.

What I would really like to concentrate on are the tangible results that are being accomplished that far exceeded anyone’s original expectations. I have been working on preserving landscape for

20 years. I have never seen anything approaching the success of

CALFED implementation.

I’m going to give two examples, the Sacramento River and the

Consumnes River, and they’re really just illustrative I think of

again almost unimaginable things that can be accomplished.

The Sacramento River. We, along with public agency partners

and, most significantly, with local landowners, have been working

to create a meander zone that would not only re-establish and reconnect some of the most fragmented and disrupted and reduced

habitat in California which is uniquely California but would also

provide benefits for landowners. This meander zone would allow

flood waters to flow more harmlessly in areas that would not affect

agriculture or residential development. It would also provide valuable recreation to an area that is experiencing increasing population growth.

I do want to stress the involvement of local landowners. Candidly, when we began in this area prior to CALFED there was a

great deal of opposition to increased land acquisition; and we made

a commitment to working with that local community. You’ll see

from the supplemental materials that we have distributed with my

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testimony a sample letter from Chuck Crain, who was an outspoken opponent of CALFED and now is an enthusiastic supporter.

He sees that this program is bringing in benefits in the form of real

money that enables landowners willing to sell property to sell those

portions of their lands that are not particularly productive, to put

that money into better lands and better production, to lease back

from those organizations and private institutions that are buying

land agricultural properties that are still productive. And we have

a very large leaseback program that is putting money back into the

local community, and local farmers are being hired to do the restoration work of natural habitat.

About a month ago, I was out turkey hunting with one of the

landowners that we work with. And after we were finished in the

morning we went to see his walnut facility. As we were having

lunch, we walked on an area that he has undertaken as a restoration project. He said, you know, I actually get more pleasure out

of watching these trees grow than my walnuts know. Because I

know they’re going to be there long after I die and that my kids

will enjoy their shade and recreation, the hunting opportunities

there, and they enhance the quality and value of my farm.

And, again, that was really just one example of many that we’re

seeing on the Sacramento River, people really converting to the

value, the multiple values derived from the ecosystem restoration

program.

On the tributaries of the Sacramento River, there are local land

conservancies formed by local landowners that are coming up with

watershed plans. We have already heard about the tremendous

success of Butte Creek—1,000 salmon run, now almost as many as

20,000. Forests are being re-established, as I mentioned, which is

providing habitat not only for listed species but species that could

be listed in the future.

On the Consumnes River we have also had great success with

CALFED. We have engaged local farmers. In one case, as you’ll see

in the supplemental material, we joined with a local farmer to buy

property with him which otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to

afford it. We stripped off the development rights but give him a

permanent opportunity to farm that property. He couldn’t have

been more delighted.

We have preserved almost 10,000 acres of additional productive

farm land that’s compatible with habitat there and demonstrating

compatible uses as a blend with preservation of habitat. The concepts really are turning into reality.

The final thing we have done to the Consumnes most recently is

the completion of the final phase of a non-strucutural flood control

operation which has opened up flood land not only for habitat but

allowed otherwise dangerous flood waters to shunt harmlessly onto

land that is used during summer months for agriculture but during

winter months is fallowed.

Some observations and recommendations on the program. I

heard that the process is slow, but it is necessarily slow. It is collaborative and inclusive. That is an inherently slow process. It is

inherently a better process because people come to consensus and

final decisions. The process should continue to be integrated. As I

mentioned, I think its great beauty and its elegance is the fact that

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it is integrated and should not be separated into its component

parts. Every part is of a piece—ecosystem restoration, water storage, water quality, et cetera. Ideally, there would be a single implementation agency. We have seen some of the shortcomings of having the existing entities try to multi-manage the process, and that

provides some difficulties.

And, finally, funding is critical to maintain the momentum and

the real traction that has been realized just in the last couple of

years and is gaining every day. So we enthusiastically support the

appropriations that are requested for this year. I think this is really one of the finest hours in California history addressing an issue

which the chairman said earlier which is really one of the most significant facing Congress. I hope that future Californians will look

back at this as a time when Californians of all different concerns,

issues and backgrounds came together to solve what seems to be

an intractable issue which I think, showing through CALFED, can

be done.

Thank you very much.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCormick follows:]

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U.S. WATER NEWS

WATER SUPPLY

Farmers, conservationists forge new alliance to restore Sacramento River.

New approach to land management brings economic benefits to farmers.

RED BLUFF, Calif.—Bert Bundy has farmed land along this stretch of the Sacramento River all his life.

Formerly the executive director of a local landowners association, he may seem

an unlikely candidate to lead conservation efforts that depend on retiring agricultural land to recreate river meanders. Those efforts, in turn, will help reconnect the

natural flood plain of the 200-mile stretch of the Sacramento River between the

Bay-Delta and Shasta Dam.

But that is what he is doing. Bundy has just been hired—through a CALIFED

grant—as a coordinator for the Sacramento River restoration project, an effort he

has been involved in as a landowner for the past 12 years.

‘‘I’m very sold on the program,’’ he says of the 12-year public/private partnership

that has recently gained the support of the CALFED program, which includes restoration of rivers and watersheds in the Central Valley.

Twelve years ago, in 1987, Bundy was among 25 local stakeholders who formed

the core of what is now called the S.B. 1086 Group. In that year Senate Bill 1086

was passed to facilitate a consensus-based approach to restoration of the upper Sacramento fisheries, which is habitat for 4 races of chinook salmon.

As a result of that process, he said, some 20 recommendations for improving the

operation of the river to benefit fish runs were implemented, but the riparian restoration called for in the plan languished until 1993, when it was revived by Doug

Wheeler, who was then California Secretary of Resources.

Out of this process came the goal of restoring ‘‘limited meanders’’ on this stretch

of the Sacramento, wherever practically feasible.

‘‘It’s taken some time for all these stakeholders to agree to the limited meander

concept, but people now realize its a win/win,’’ said Sam Lawson, who is Sacramento

River project director for The Nature Conservancy, the private non-profit organization that purchased land along the Sacramento 10 years ago as part of its on-going

program to reestablish wetlands in the Central Valley. ‘‘We’ve worked hard to find

practical solutions that benefit everyone.’’

The Nature Conservancy became part of the process when it donated land it purchased here to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for inclusion in a wildlife refuge

on the river. The non-profit organization has long been a leader in the public/private

collaboration to reconnect the river to its flood plain, a concept recently endorsed

by the CALFED program in its goal of sustainable resource management.

Restoring meanders to selective stretches of the Sacramento will reconnect the

flood plain, said Lawson, thus creating a healthier ecosystem and improving wildlife

habitat. But the benefits don’t stop there, he added. Meanders also provide flood

control by both absorbing the river’s energy and slowing down rushing water. And

they offer superior in-stream storage in times of high water.

This ‘‘geologic’’ approach to flood control, he said, is far superior to man-made

structures like levees, because these natural features improve with time, due to the

cumulative effect of natural processes, whereas levees must be continuously maintained, repaired, and replaced.

The restoration requires the sacrifice of some farmland (mostly orchard acreage),

but Lawson explained that the land taken out of production is ‘‘marginal land’’ that

is no longer productive.

Because the restored meanders and reconnected flood plain are limited to a corridor less than a mile wide—rather than the 10-15 mile width of the original flood

plain—farmers are assured that the loss of farmland will be minimal. In addition,

the orchards selected to be replanted as riparian habitat are already close to the

end of their productive farming life.

The Nature Conservancy purchases available land from the farmers, giving them

the capital to reinvest in new orchard property, then leases the land it bought back

to the same farmer, who continues to farm the best land of the acreage he previously owned. The Conservancy also pays the farmer to replant the acreage now

designated as riparian habitat.

‘‘It’s a plan that makes sense—economic sense—for everyone,’’ said Lawson. ‘‘It

would actually cost the farmers more to keep the levee system in place, or to deal

with flood damage to these marginal lands.’’

Bundy agrees.

‘‘Much of that land right next to the river shouldn’t have been planted in the first

place,’’ he said, adding that ready access to river water, as well as the lure of fertile

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bottom-land made sense in earlier times. But the continuing damages to natural resources and the ecosystem are clearly not worth the cost of such outdated farming

practices, he said.

‘‘We have yet to convince some landowners of this,’’ he added. ‘‘But after 12 years

of working together, Sacramento farmers and conservationists are beginning to understand we have more in common than we once thought.’’

Both farmers and conservationists view urban and suburban sprawl as a common

threat that can only be contained by unconventional alliances and practical mechanisms like those worked out in this public/private partnership, he said.

Of the 20,000 acres of land authorized for a refuge on the Sacramento River,

10,000 acres have already been acquired, and of that, 1700 acres of marginal farmland have been restored to riparian habitat.

‘‘We have just closed up a block between two creeks that will allow us to abandon

about 3000 feet of levee,’’ said Lawson. ‘‘This year alone we will restore another 850

acres of riparian habitat.’’

Lawson points out that the total cost of reclaiming the ecosystem on this stretch

of the Sacramento is approximately $100 million, including both land acquisition

and restoration—not a high price to pay considering the Sacramento is the major

source of water for a large percentage of the state’s population, as well as being the

home to a number of endangered species, including winter run chinook, which are

found no where else on Earth.

‘‘When you take all that into consideration,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a bargain—and an opportunity we can’t afford to lose.’’

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The final witness in this panel is Dr. Dennis

King. Dr. King.

STATEMENT OF DENNIS KING, SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST,

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL

SCIENCES, SOLOMONS ISLAND, MARYLAND

Mr. KING. Thank you. My name is Dennis King. I’m senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, and direct that Center’s Natural Capital Research

Group. I am also managing owner of a consulting firm, King & Associates, where we specialize in natural resource accounting and

environmental assessment and mitigation trade scoring.

A great deal of my research, consulting and teaching involves the

economic aspects of environmental restoration. I’m currently working on projects related to wetland mitigation, riparian buffer construction, prioritizing investments in noxious weed eradication and

fishery habitat problems. I’m also writing a book for Columbia University Press entitled, Economics of Ecological Restoration.

I currently live in Maryland, but until 10 years ago I was a California resident. I also have family out there, so I have some personal interest in the issue of California ecosysytem restoration.

I’m here simply to encourage the use of clearly defined investment indicators to prioritize and manage CALFED ecological restoration investments and to recommend perhaps that CALFED be

managed as an exercise in what Wall Street investors or businessmen would call integrated risk management.

My written testimony has some details on the differences between investment indicators versus performance indicators. The

basic difference is that investment indicators are leading indicators

of success. The analogy on Wall Street would be the criteria used

to pick stocks which include risks and expected financial returns,

as opposed to the performance criteria, which would pretty clearly

be defined as the rate of return in your investment.

The concept of integrated risk management is described in more

detail in my written testimony. It’s really just a practical way to

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implement adaptive ecosystem management. It involves managing

individual investments in ecosystem restoration as part of a portfolio, managing those risks that can be managed, carefully monitoring indicators of those risks that are uncontrollable and, mostly

importantly and most difficult, responding quickly when risk factors change. This is particularly difficult in the case of ecosystem

restoration which involves applications of technologies and science

that are relatively new; and subject to lots of vagaries related to

floods, droughts, fire, invasive species, water diversion and so on.

I have arrived at this conclusion that using investment criteria

is more important than using performance criteria based on three

general experiences dealing with the failure of ecosystem restoration which I think were a result of an inability of restoration managers to lay out clear decision-making criteria.

The first is related to Prince William Sound and the aftermath

of the Exxon Valdez spill. There were billions of dollars spent on

restoration. It provided good public relations for Exxon and for

some regulators. It transferred a lot of wealth to Alaska. It satisfied a public need to punish Exxon. It did a lot of other things.

However, in terms of a public investment and restoration a lot of

it was a waste and in some cases it did more harm than good.

My second experience included 8 years on the Scientific Committee of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council. These regional

fishery councils are composed of scientists and regional stakeholders. Over the last 20 years the scientists have studied fish, and

the stakeholders have liquidated them. In that case, too, we in the

process didn’t provide good investment criteria; and we basically allowed an industry to liquidate a publicly owned asset and called it

economic production, even though the scientists and stakeholders

were in a regional organization and approved the decision. So that

sort of made me think again that we really need more public investment criteria even though I completely understand the need for

stakeholder consensus and limits of benefit cost analysis and so on.

The third experience is one I’m involved in right now, which is

scoring wetland mitigation trades and looking at the cost and success of wetland mitigation projects. Like most other environmental

economists, I have been pushing for market-based environmental

solutions my entire career. But now what we find is that when

you’re dealing with environmental goods where the units of exchange and debit/credit criteria are vague, the risks associated with

these environmental trades are enormous. So much so, that even

scientists and people who have argued in this context that all wetlands are unique and special and wanted ad hoc negotiating criteria are beginning to beg for clear debit/credit criteria. There is so

much money and political risk involved that in ad hoc negotiations

scientists and resource managers tend to lose.

Based on this experience, I have three recommendations for

CALFED. First is that it be viewed as an exercise in integrated

risk management. Again, that means considering the success of the

overall program, not just individual projects, and providing incentives for project managers to take on the same consideration.

To consider the sufficient conditions, not just necessary conditions. It’s very common for managers of restoration projects to focus

on creating the necessary condition that they are responsible for

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without monitoring whether the other necessary conditions are

evolving. They should be encouraged to blow the whistle on their

own projects if the likelihood to success gets so low that the money

would be better diverted to somewhere else.

It means rewarding people who manage those risks and rewarding those people for monitoring risks that cannot be managed and,

most importantly, responding to those things. We found in our review of restoration projects it’s very difficult.

Second, CALFED should use investment indicators to select and

manage projects. The stakeholder role, I know they’re enormously

important, need to be managed to put preferences on outcomes, not

on investments. They’re too complicated for stakeholders to select.

Scientists can help define opportunities and constraints and the

need for projects to generate new information. But, again, the management of these complex projects is too complicated for scientists

and involves more decision-making under uncertainty than they

prefer—Third, and perhaps most importantly, is these indicators

provide some cover for the ecosystem restoration manager to manage for outcomes and to minimize waste. What I’m finding in wetland mitigation is that if there is a lot of squirm room in what success criteria are used, the people trying to manage these projects

have very little justification or particular technical cover for stopping wasteful projects.

And so I think, whether you call it adaptive ecosystem management or integrated risk management, investment indicators are

needed to provide restoration managers with the ability to deal

with two very substantial challenges. One is the fact that ecosystem restoration investments are enormously risky and involve

unavoidable risks that science is not going to be able to reduce very

much. Two, the fact that they result in benefits that are very difficult to measure in conventional dollar terms and may take many

years to appear. We cannot demand the impossible. Even if we

can’t guarantee that an investment will suceed or has succeeded,

we can certainly guarantee that we’re using all the best criteria for

allocating our investments and management risks.

There are eleven exhibits attached to my written testimony

which help clarify and expand some of these points, and I welcome

any questions. [See attached Exhibits.]

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. King follows:]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. Dr. King, as you look at the CALFED operation

in the light of your experience, and I took note of how difficult you

indicated it was in some cases to actually ascertain performance,

but how do you think CALFED measures up, based on your knowledge of these issues?

Dr. KING. I have to say that I just this morning got a look at the

indicator draft, and I thought it was very thorough and covered the

conventional types of indicators. However, they’re basically performance indicators.

Occasionally, there will be an indicator listed there that will say,

for instance, a life requisite for a salmon might be water quality,

habitat and so on and so on. The difference there is that if you’re

managing investments the hard choices require you to say, we’re

improving this necessary condition but we can only—that can only

reach any meaningful goal if these other necessary conditions exist.

And if we have a 5-year program and in the beginning of year one,

one of the other necessary conditions doesn’t exist, the likelihood

of success changes, and we need to change our investment strategy.

Those are the kind of indicators, these risk indicators, leading indicators of success and failure, which I think build on what are in

those indicators that represent primarily scientific definitions of

performance.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

Let me throw this question out to the members of the panel and

see what your answer is. Many of you—all of you I think have supported CALFED and indicated that it’s doing good things; and if

you want to elaborate on that, I would invite that. But I guess, conversely, what is it about CALFED that isn’t in your opinion going

as it ought to go? Where could it—where is it falling down or where

does it need to improve? Anybody want to take a stab at that?

Mr. SPRAGUE. Mr. Chairman, I’ll be bold and take a first shot.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Mr. Sprague, for the record, is going to

volunteer his opinion. Good.

Mr. SPRAGUE. You know, there is kind of a group of what I’ll call

inside baseball players that have been following this CALFED, and

I would even include this Committee in that group. But then

there’s a whole another sundry of people that are outside, for example, my own board of directors that are locally elected that really make the decisions and the consumers that they supply with

water. I don’t think we have collectively and I think we have to collectively take part of that blame with CALFED. They have the

wrong expectations of what CALFED is going to deliver at the end

of the day. They’re measuring the beef of the success in many instances in the wrong way, and I think we need to work with

CALFED and try to get a broader understanding. For example——

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I didn’t understand something you said. You said

they’re measuring the what for their success?

Mr. SPRAGUE. They’re measuring kind of ‘‘Where’s the beef’’ in

the whole effort.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Oh. That was Mondale’s slogan, right? ‘‘Where’s

the beef?’’

Mr. SPRAGUE. Yeah. I believe so. I learned it from a little old

lady in Pasadena.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay.

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Mr. SPRAGUE. But I think one of the difficulties that we have

right now is many of us are more used to EIRs and EISs that come

out that are very project oriented. So you’re going to put a pipeline

in the ground, you’re going to put a reservoir in place, you’re going

to put a treatment plant in place, you’re going to put a bridge in

place, so you’re doing an EIR in that fashion.

What we’re really going to see coming out of this upcoming document really is a foundation that we use then to build on for the

next 30 years. And my biggest fear is that, when this EIR is released, our public is not going to see the beef in that document and

so, therefore, they’re going to declare it a failure.

And so I think somehow or other we collectively need to work together to help them understand what the process is. Let’s get an

EIR that gives us the foundation to do the necessary permitting.

And then when we go to the individual projects that are necessary,

those get dealt with in a separate EIR document. So it’s more of

a public outreach issue than it is a technical issue where they’re

bringing the stakeholders together.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So you think they’re falling down in not doing

enough public outreach.

Mr. SPRAGUE. I think so.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Anybody else want to volunteer an opinion?

Mr. GUY. Well, I’ll——

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Guy.

Mr. GUY. [continuing] reaffirm—talked a little bit earlier about

both I think the impatience that you’re starting to see in the water

user community that we’re going to have some water supply reliability and some real water supply reliability. I just think that we

need to make some things happen. And there needs to be a balanced package where the water users see some immediate benefit.

Otherwise, I think people’s patience is going to grow very thin.

I also made some suggestions on the land acquisition side. I

think that that so far—there’s been some shortfalls in that, but I

think we have seen some progress, and I think there’s some ways

to get around that. But I think we need to work a lot harder in

that area.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. All right. Thank you.

Mr. Dooley is recognized for his question.

Mr. DOOLEY. I guess on this land acquisition, I’m struggling with

this just a little bit. Mr. Guy, what problems are you talking about

that have already occurred?

Mr. GUY. Well, I think some of the—they come in a lot of forms.

But I think there’s been a real feeling that the counties particularly have not been involved in the process.

Mr. DOOLEY. But isn’t this a voluntary sale? I mean, a willing

seller to a willing buyer? So if I’m a private landowner and I want

to participate in this program, I just exercise my property rights

and—I mean, is—are those being infringed upon in any way?

Mr. GUY. Well, it is being well-premised on voluntary sales. But

the county, of course, typically has some land use authority and

has been granted that by the legislature. And they have revenue

issues, of course, that when you convert land to habitat purposes

there are some revenue losses that occur to the county. And there’s

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been some problems with in-lieu taxes not being paid. I think those

are legitimate concerns.

Mr. DOOLEY. Is that the issue? Because, as a farmer myself and

a property owner, if I choose to sell to this program, I don’t want

the county or anyone else saying, no, I can’t do it. So I want to

make sure we’re defining the issues. Is the problem, then, a lack

of tax revenue that you’re most concerned with?

Mr. GUY. That’s one piece of it, yes. I think you hit it right on

the head. I don’t think anybody, at least that I’m hearing, wants

to stand in the way of a transaction. That’s not, I don’t think, what

anybody is saying.

The second piece of this is if you take, for example, some riparian

land and make it into setback levees or put trees in the flood

plains, what does this mean for existing diversions for water supply? That can create some real problems whether the diversion

may get washed out, it may get silted up. That poses some problems. And those issues really, I think, need to be worked out. And

so far have—there’s really not been a process to do that. I think

there will be, though.

Mr. DOOLEY. Those are very valid points, and I appreciate that.

Dr. Gleick, I appreciated your testimony. I guess, though, a lot

of the folks I represent which are south of the Delta are concerned

about whether or not we do have adequate supplies of water. And

where you’re—your figures I do not contest. I think they’re accurate. But some of the concerns are even with the upcoming PEIS

is that there’s some modeling that’s been doing there that would

show just even on almost normal years or slightly below normal

years that there could be significant reductions, very significant reductions to agriculture contractors. I guess that’s, you know, the

concern that some of us have is, you know, how do we ensure that

we do have an adequate supply of water that can maintain an agriculture base even when we have these critically dry years? I don’t

know if you have a comment on that.

Dr. GLEICK. Well, I have been critical in the past of the long-term

water planning process in California, as many people in this room

know, in particular the way we project future demand, the way we

actually try and calculate what the demand for water is going to

be in the different sectors. There are real problems there.

Having said that, I think the way to think about this is not to

separate out the different pieces but to think about it in an integrated way. Our goal is not new storage. Our goal is not individual

pieces of this. Our goal is a safe and reliable water supply for our

users with a healthy environment.

And there are a whole series of tools that we have available to

us to achieve those goals; and they can only be achieved, we think,

in the way CALFED is trying to do it, by bringing together all of

the parties and thinking about the alternatives.

And the Trinity River came up this morning. And I realize no decision has been made about the Trinity River and reallocations of

water, but it’s an interesting issue. Because the assumption I think

of some of the Committee members has been that it’s a win-lose situation. You take water out of the Trinity—you put water back into

the Trinity River and somebody downstream in the Sacramento

River is going to lose.

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And I would like to suggest that, in fact, there might be another

way to think about that. To give you an example, if you look at the

Mono Lake situation, the decision was made, legally to return

water to the ecosystem. That meant many people believed you lose

water in Los Angeles. But the truth of it is that when you get together with the users in Los Angeles and you think about ways of

meeting the ecosystem needs required by law, without losing water

for users or without losing what the water provides, they were able

to figure out ways of increasing the efficiency of water use and providing the same level of services.

So it was not a win-lose situation; it was a win-win situation.

And there are a lot of those. And I think in the agricultural area

in particular there are lot of them. I think that’s what we have to

look for.

Mr. DOOLEY. And I think you’re right, and I think we’re seeing

some evidence of that to some extent. It’s just—but just even like

in a year such as this where we’ve had 120 percent of rainfall in

the—you know, the northern California and, you know, the

Westlands water district that I represent is at 70 percent of allocation. Their concern and, I guess, willingness to accept that, you

know, we—even with the Trinity decision and other decisions that

take more water out of the system, you know, they don’t have a

whole lot of confidence that I guess that this thing can be, you

know—that that can be replaced. But I think you’re right about the

process in terms of that’s the best way to deal with it is in its totality.

Dr. GLEICK. I also don’t dispute your point. In a very dry year,

in which—I mean, California has dry years. It’s a regular part of

our system. Not every user is going to get all of the water they

might demand. And that’s always been true, and it’s going to be

true in the future. And the question is, how do you reallocate during dry years to meet the needs you really want? And there are

economic ways of doing that, and there are regulatory ways of

doing that, and it’s got to be in a balanced, discussed approach.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Miller is recognized.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

Dr. Gleick, let me follow up on your first discussion on the Trinity River. Would you care to expand on why you think this might

not be a win-lose situation?

Dr. GLEICK. I raise that only as an idea to think about. Obviously, no decision has been made about how much water might

have to be reallocated into the Trinity or where that water is going

to come from. But downstream in the Sacramento River there are

many users, urban and agriculture users; and there is enormous

potential, we believe, for improving the efficiency with which those

users use their water. That may reduce their long-term demand. I

think the potential is quite significant to reduce long-term demand

and still meet the needs with less water.

Now, if that’s part of the decision, you decide how much water

can be reallocated for ecosystem needs at the same time you’re figuring out where that water is coming from, I think that’s what you

have to do. But I can’t speak specifically to——

Mr. MILLER. I just—I didn’t know if you had something particular in mind. I agree with you that there is a lot of alternatives

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to be explored in terms of whether or not people end up actually

using, as you say, the purposes for which the water was delivered.

There’s other ways to do it.

Let me take you back to your discussion some months ago on the

question of Bulletin 160. What has been done to address some of

the concerns that you raised with respect to this demand that

would be driven by this bulletin and the assumptions that were

made in the bulletin?

Dr. GLEICK. Umm——

Mr. MILLER. When I say what has been done, I’m asking about

in the CALFED process.

Dr. GLEICK. Let me address two pieces. The comments we made

and continue to make about Bulletin 160 to the Department of

Water Resources addressed the assumptions and the methods and

the data they used to project future demand in California. And our

conclusion then and today was that their assumptions about future

demand are very much wrong, that their methods are wrong, their

data are wrong, their assumptions are wrong. The final Bulletin

160-98 did not adequately, in my opinion, address the errors in the

draft.

Now, CALFED in its first draft—we were asked by the Bureau

of Reclamation to do an independent assessment of their water use

efficiency numbers. In the first round, they pretty much assumed

the same things Bulletin 160 assumed. They adopted the assumptions, they adopted the data. I would have to say even in their first

draft they did somewhat of a better job than did the Department

of Water Resources.

And, in addition, after receiving our comments and other people’s

comments, I think the CALFED staff has made a very serious effort to understand the nature of the problems in Bulletin 160 and

to try and correct them.

My feeling, based on what I have seen of the latest version, is

that they have still not adequately completely addressed this problem of projecting future demand, with the result being that I think

they are still overestimating 2020 demand in California. But they

are technical issues that I find them open to discuss. I find them

open to trying to resolve some of these issues.

Mr. MILLER. I raise that because in conversations after your initial criticisms and concerns with the Bulletin and its estimates of

demand, with the number of people—because I think that it’s absolutely crucial that this point get cleared up. I’m not suggesting how

or what the conclusion is. But if at some point we envision ourselves going to the taxpayers and asking for very substantial

amounts of money, and this is still an ambiguity or certainly the

criticism remain credible, that we’re sizing the system for demand

that is not there. I think you are going to have a lot of difficulty

in that measure if you then have opponents to that measure who

can use that argument. Because usually those kinds of questions

which are deeply imbedded with economic decisions don’t do well

when they’re raised inside the debate on a bond issue or such an

effort.

So, you know, I don’t know whether people want to hold on to

these assumptions or you indicate that you think there’s some honest review going on here, and I find that very encouraging. Because

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I think if that doesn’t happen, this can be fatal to what some people envision will be part of this process, which is a substantial bond

issue to fund these projects. But if the basis of which those decisions are made is flawed, I suspect you—it would not take a lot of

effort to discourage voters from voting for that bond issue. So I’m

glad to hear that you suggest that there is some correction and

some ongoing discussion about these matters but apparently not

yet completely resolved.

Dr. GLEICK. Ultimately, the California water plan is the Bulletin

160 process. And I think that process is broken, and I think it

needs to be fixed.

There was a meeting yesterday at the Department in Sacramento on Bulletin 160, and the next one which will be in 2003.

I don’t think we can believe the current Bulletin 160-98 demand

productions. I think they’re not useful for policy making. And I

agree entirely with your point if we are planning for a demand that

either isn’t going to materialize or doesn’t have to materialize with

relatively inexpensive, relatively simple measures, we could be

making very expensive mistakes.

Mr. MILLER. Well, I just notice that Mr. Gartrell’s testimony in

the next panel, you know he talks about the fact that in Contra

Costa, in the congressional district I represent, the water district,

their service area has declined almost 15 percent since 1990, despite a substantial population growth, is—currently is about 25,000

acre feet annually below the level it would have been if he had just

taken 1990 and run it out. You know—and I don’t know what’s

going on in other water districts or other users of any kind. But,

again, you know, before you’re able to go to the taxpayers and ask

for hard dollars, I think you better have the justifications for that

based upon solid and correct evidence.

Dr. GLEICK. That trend is not unique. In my testimony, I provide

data for Los Angeles, for San Diego, the East Bay Municipal Utilities, every water district showing continued population growth and

leveling off of total demand and a decline in per capita water use.

Mr. MILLER. I some time ago met with a group of bankers in San

Francisco to talk about water in California and about the questions

of long-term contracts, water marketing and pricing and all the

rest of it. And after long, long discussions their conclusion was that

if, you know, if you had a real water market in the State you’d

probably have a substantial surplus of water and not terribly highpriced water, not the estimates that you see that are as wild as

they suggested.

I don’t know if they’re right or not, but their economic model suggested to them that there were a lot of ways to manage demand

and deal with it. And the question of how far out they would be

driven that aren’t consistent with just this, you know, glide path

that suggests that you’re never really going to be able to catch up

to it with supply was sort of the story we first heard about energy.

When I first came on this Committee, if we didn’t build a thousand nuclear power plants the country was going to go black. All

the lights would be turned out. That went on here for almost a decade. Obviously, we find the story of electricity is entirely different

than that.

Thank you very much for your help.

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And, Mr. Kaniewski, let me say Max would be proud of you

today. It was sterling testimony.

Mr. KANIEWSKI. Thank you.

Mr. MILLER. You’re welcome. Thank you.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

Mr. McCormick, after I concluded it was pointed out to me that

you were about to answer my question, I guess, which was where

is CALFED falling down or where could it improve. Did you want

to take a stab at that?

Mr. MCCORMICK. Yeah, thank you very much. Not so much falling down but some areas to pay attention to.

Although a significant amount of money has been awarded for

the ecosystem restoration program, the process for getting that

money spent is cumbersome, and I think it hasn’t caught up, really, with the demand, and it’s a consequence of a number of agencies trying to manage the process. I think a single contracting entity would help enormously. I also——

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Let me just ask, so you’re recommending a single

contracting entity. How many contracting entities do we have now?

Mr. MCCORMICK. Well, there are the State contracts and Federal

agencies’ contracts and sort of borrowing staff, as it were, from

those various agencies.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Dr. Gleick, I find your testimony interesting and useful in the way you’ve laid out the remarkable strides

made with conservation in those examples for LA water demand,

but, in general, you make that point very effectively.

One thing I have wondered about, we’re going increasingly towards permanent crops now. Well, I think in the San Joaquin Valley—maybe that trend is in the Sacramento Valley. But, in any

event, there is some trend toward that which I guess may use less

water than field crops but which demand water every year without

having the ability to not use it in a given year. How do—as you

see meeting our water needs, how do you think we should address

that situation?

Dr. GLEICK. You’re right. There is that trend. Figure 2 in my

written testimony shows that trend. I also agree that that trend

means some of those crops are going to need water with a higher

level of reliability.

Now, I think that’s an interesting issue. I think it hasn’t adequately been addressed, and I think there’s a real legitimate discussion that needs to happen about how to guarantee higher levels

of reliability for certain kinds of crops. And I don’t know whether

that’s an—economic measures are appropriate for that or some sort

of regulatory measure, which I’m a little reluctant to recommend.

I do think it’s valid.

California’s cropping patterns are still—I mean, the vast majority of the acreage is still in grains and field crops, and that I think

still has enormous potential for—all of the crops still have potential

for improving the efficiency for which they use water. And that—

I mean, there are different ways of doing that. One is, you reduce

the amount of water to grow a certain amount of crops or you keep

the amount of water constant and you grow more crops. The productivity of the farms goes up. Those are all relevant issues that

need to be discussed.

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. So are you of the opinion that the potential for

further conservation in the urban areas is still substantial or do

you feel maybe they’ve just about reached their potential to conserve?

Dr. GLEICK. I think they have nowhere near reached their potential to conserve. I think the potential in urban areas is still enormous. And that includes not just doing what we do more efficiently

but there’s also enormous potential for much more widespread use

of reclaimed recycled water. There is even, in our case, studies, examples of reclaimed water being used for agricultural use. And

that’s a very reliable source of supply, that you will get that water

in drought years as well as wet years. So that’s—I think that’s an

interesting issue that is also—I mean, there are examples already

under way. I think it needs to be more widely looked at.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Examples of agricultural reuse?

Dr. GLEICK. Sure. Now, that water tends to be relatively more

expensive. You want to use it—it’s got to be relatively close to

where it’s been reclaimed because you can’t move it very far. But

there are already examples of farms in rural or areas near urban

areas using reclaimed water.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Would you just as a supplement to your testimony today, if you have this available, forward that to the Committee?

Dr. GLEICK. Sure. In the executive summary of the case studies

we have, there are brief descriptions. I will leave with you the full

report which has the detailed case studies as well.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Great. Thank you.

Mr. Sprague, did you want to comment?

Mr. SPRAGUE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

One of the things that we have to keep in mind as we move forward with conservation particularly in urban areas, we can do

much more, but one of the things that is very critical to us is water

quality. As we get a poor quality water, once you move that water

through the domestic cycle once, you may not be able to have the

second use. So the better we can receive as far as a source water

quality, this is going to give us second uses and even third uses of

that reclaimed water. So water quality plays a very high role in

long-term water use efficiency, particularly in the areas of conservation in the urban areas.

Earlier this morning we were talking—the Secretary was talking

about conjunctive use and groundwater efforts. There are a great

number of opportunities for conjunctive use of groundwater basins.

But just in Orange County, we are experiencing problems there. In

effect, Colorado River water that’s brought into southern California

can’t be discharged even onto crops, in theory, or onto land because

it exceeds the basin plan.

However, we have come up with strategies to overcome some of

that. So salinity issue as an element of water quality is extremely

important for success in the area of conservation, and I know it’s

an extreme importance to agriculture. So there’s a clear partnership there, and I believe it has the same impacts on agriculture as

it relates to conservation as well.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Gentlemen, I thank you for your appearance before the Committee. The testimony has been very useful. We may

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have further questions. We’ll keep the record open to receive your

responses. And, with that, we’ll excuse this panel.

I would just like to announce that, contrary to what I had announced previously, apparently we are supposed to have one more

vote. So I don’t know when that is going to happen, but I guess

we’ll just roll on through until it does.

We’ll invite our third and final panel to come forward and begin

the discussion of CVPIA.

We welcome the members of our third panel. Let me ask you to

rise and raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Let the record reflect that each answered in the

affirmative. And I thank you very much for your patience and joining us today for this important hearing where we’ll now focus more

on the Central Valley Improvement Project Act.

We will begin with our Secretary—oh, Miss Beneke is available

to answer questions. So we’ll begin with Mr. Gregory Gartrell. Mr.

Gartrell, welcome.

STATEMENT OF GREGORY GARTRELL, ASSISTANT GENERAL

MANAGER, CONTRA COSTA WATER DISTRICT, CONCORD,

CALIFORNIA

Mr. GARTRELL. Thank you very much, Chairman Doolittle, members of the Committee. It’s a pleasure to be here this afternoon.

I’m going to briefly summarize the text that I submitted.

I’m representing Contra Costa Water District. Contra Costa

Water District has been a supporter the CVPIA and its goals from

the beginning. In fact, the District was the first to renegotiate its

own CVP contract under the CVPIA and has already incorporated

many of the provisions within its contract.

Contra Costa Water District represents and serves about 400,000

customers in eastern and central Contra Costa County, including

10 major industries. About a third of our demand is industrial. We

are the largest municipal and industrial CVP contractor. We’re entirely dependent on the Delta for our water supplies and have a

long history of a strong commitment to water quality and the environment in the Delta.

I’m going to hit just a few of the issues in my summary. I would

be happy to answer questions on any of them.

The first one I would like to touch upon is the contract renewal

issue. The Contra Costa Water District and other urban CVP contractors are very concerned at the moment about the shortage provisions that are being envisioned within the PEIS for the CVPIA.

We are now looking at shortages up to 50 percent for urban areas.

Previously, the maximum shortage level was down to a 75 percent supply under the urban reliability paper of the Garamendi

process. Our current contract calls for an 85 percent supply except

under the most extreme droughts, 75 percent. The 50 percent supply is simply well below the limits that are needed to sustain

health and safety and would result in major economic disruption.

For example, in our district, 30 percent of the supply—approximately 30 percent of our supply goes to industrial use, or, of our

current demand of 120,000 acre feet, about almost 40,000 acre feet.

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A 50 percent cutback down to 60,000 acre feet would result in

a choice of either cutting off the major industries—and these include refineries for Shell and Tosco and others, Dow Chemical, U.S.

Steel–Posco, or putting the full burden on our other customers, the

municipal customers, which would leave them, out of a normal demand of about 80,000 acre feet, down to about 20,000 acre feet,

well below that needed for a simple toilet flushing and usual health

and safety measures that are needed.

So we are very concerned about this coming forward at this late

time in the PEIS process. We think they are not going to leave that

just with that. We believe there are solutions that need to be

worked out with Reclamation, and the Department of the Interior.

There are a number of assumptions going into these studies that

are being made that have not been well examined. I think a number of those need reconsideration. But, most importantly, I think

the process of the CVPIA needs to be tied closely to CALFED to

address the impacts that are coming out. This is going to be a

theme throughout my discussion, that it is, I think, very important

for both the CVPIA and CALFED to be moving together towards

a regional solution for the State.

The second issue is related to (b)(2), as mentioned previously

today. This is a very contentious and technically difficult issue. The

800,000 acre feet is now embroiled in a lawsuit. We are very concerned that this not get into a death spiral of lawsuits which could

easily affect CALFED and other water issues.

We suggest that the Federal Negotiated Rulemaking Act may be

one solution to this, the 1990 Act which provides for a binding consensus building on which that rule is based. This would be an ideal

situation, I think, in which to use that Act to get stakeholders in

the room and work out a solution on the accounting for the 800,000

acre feet.

Another item of concern is tiered pricing, also mentioned earlier

today. This is one area where one size does not fit all. In particular, tiered pricing can be used, if not carefully put together, to

penalize those who seek to take more water in the CVP in wet

years, store it and then use that to reduce their burden on the CVP

in dry years. If you’re in a situation like ours where Contra Costa

is well below our full-contract amount, by taking more in a wet

year and storing it you could be end up paying in the higher tiers

and end up with an overall financial penalty.

The other problem is the high fixed costs of the CVP. We’re finding that the more we conserve the higher our rate goes, so that the

financial benefits of conservation don’t accrue at 100 percent. This

is the something that Reclamation and Interior are going to have

to implement very carefully.

Finally, with respect to the PEIS and the CVPIA, we all know

the PEIS is very late. It has still a number of issues to resolve with

respect to baseline ensuring that impacts are fully disclosed, and

it is showing some serious impacts that are significant with respect

to endangered species, in particular to winter run. We’re very concerned about the studies that are showing Shasta levels at very,

very low levels at the same time agricultural users are getting no

water supply, urban areas are getting a 50 percent supply. It’s not

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clear that that’s an implementable solution with respect to winter

run.

Probably the single most important thing we have done for winter run in raising their numbers from a few hundred a couple of

years ago into the thousands now has been having a good supply

of cold water in Shasta. Lowering Shasta to very low levels will put

that in jeopardy.

Again, I think the solution here is an integration of these issues

with CALFED. It was mentioned earlier by Secretary Babbitt that

they’re both moving down—both CALFED and the CVPIA are moving in the same direction. Our concern, I guess, is it is almost like

two big trains moving on parallel tracks. You look down the line

there, you’re not quite sure whether those tracks intersect or not.

If they do and they are not well timed and well coordinated, you’re

going to have a big collision. And we would like to ensure that

those trains end up on the same track pulling each other along.

Again, the—for a number of issues with respect to CALFED and

the CVPIA, related to 404 permits, the ESA, the Anadromous Fish

Restoration Program—and the general assurances may again lend

themselves to a discussion and a resolution through the Negotiated

Rulemaking Act. Other issues certainly will not. But I think the

focus now should really be put on the Record of Decision where all

of these issues have the opportunity to come together.

And that concludes the summary of my statement.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gartrell follows:]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. Our next witness is Mr. Barry Nelson.

STATEMENT OF BARRY NELSON, SENIOR FELLOW, SAVE THE

SAN FRANCISCO BAY ASSOCIATION, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Mr. BARRY NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the

Subcommittee. My name is Barry Nelson, and I am a Senior Fellow

with Save the Bay. I’ve been active in the CVPIA since its inception and also am very active in the CALFED process.

I would like to summarize a few points in my written testimony

and then pick up a few threads that we have heard earlier today

that link CVPIA and CALFED. The CVPIA is a very ambitious

piece of legislation, and it’s certainly—and implementing such farreaching pieces of legislation takes time. This Act, however, is taking more time certainly than we thought it would. But the CVPIA

was passed because it would strengthen, we believe, the State’s

economy and environment. We think that’s proving to be the case.

We also think that the CVPIA—that the untold story of the

CVPIA is that, in some areas, it’s generating substantial benefits

for multiple interests and that many of those benefits in particular

are for the agricultural community.

I would like to summarize briefly five points in my written testimony, then pick up another point.

The first is that the CVPIA we believe laid the groundwork both

for the Bay-Delta Accord and for the CALFED Bay-Delta Program.

Without the CVPIA, frankly, we don’t see how those two efforts

would have come together, and that together those three very important processes really are succeeding in changing the way California addresses water and environmental issues and manages

both of those problems. It’s an extremely encouraging development.

The second is that, despite a great deal of contention regarding

particularly (b)(2) but some other members—some other provisions

of the CALFED, the CVPIA program, a tremendous amount of

progress is being made in the CALFED ecosystem, the CVPIA—I’m

sorry, Ecosystem Restoration Program. And to give two examples

of that, first, in implementing the CVPIA restoration fund we’ve

seen some substantial contributions that some other members of

earlier panels have discussed. But I would like to emphasize here

that many of those expenditures have benefited far more than the

environment. There have been substantial beneficiaries in the agricultural community and particularly in the power community. So

there really have been multiple benefits from the CVPIA restoration funds.

Progress, unfortunately, has been much slower on implementing

(b)(2), 3406(b)(2), the 800,000 acre foot provision. We have finally

a week ago started seeing some of the (b)(2) water implemented in

the Delta for Delta measures. We think this is just a start. We

think, frankly, that Interior’s plans to date don’t meet the requirements of the law or the requirements of the recent Federal court

decision in Fresno. But we have at least begun implementation

now of 3406(b)(2).

Third, there are some sections of the CVPIA that were originally

seen as controversial and were being described as theoretical. And

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tirement and transfers, but what I think has changed in the last

six and a half years is that many of those areas are now being

adopted on the ground. There’s still a policy debate going on, but

if you look at what’s happening on the ground we’re seeing that the

ideas in the CVPIA are being embraced on the ground today.

Two examples of that: Water transfers. There’s been a lot of concern from the agricultural community regarding the potential impacts of water transfers on agriculture. The flip side of that is that

the lessons of the six and a half years have shown benefits to agriculture from transfers. The Bureau, since the CVPIA was passed,

has approved 1.57 million acres of transfers; and the vast majority

of those have been ag water districts to ag water districts. And

within districts there have been many, many additional examples

of those kinds of transfers.

The other example is land retirement, where there’s now an ambitious land retirement program within agriculture itself.

I see that my yellow light is flashing. I’ll move on to my fourth

point, and that is the connection between the Trinity River and

CALFED. What we’re seeing there is that it’s easy to promise environmental benefits from new water facilities, and that was done 40

years ago on the Trinity. It’s very difficult to make those benefits

real. We need to look at the lesson of the Trinity and make sure

we don’t make that same mistake again with regard to CALFED.

My fifth point for my testimony is with regard to the role of Federal funding. The CVPIA provided water and funding, and a lot of

that funding—not all of it—but a lot of that funding was user dollars, user fees for ecosystem restoration. Proposition 204 and Federal funding have brought substantial public resources into that debate, and they’re critical to enable us to keep moving forward, not

just for ecosystem restoration but water supply as well. And the

next step in that is for CALFED to integrate those and bring in

user fees for the non-CVP water users in the State who currently

aren’t contributing to the environmental solutions out there.

Just very briefly to pick up a thread, Mr. Chairman, that some

other panelists and you have discussed, and that is the questions

regarding measures of success, performance objectives, specific

goals, fiscal accountability in the ecosystem program. There’s been

a lot of discussion of that. I think it’s an appropriate discussion.

What I would like to suggest is that we need to have that same

discussion with regard to CALFED’s water supply reliability program and that the lessons of the ecosystem program are very applicable to water supply. And, frankly, when it comes to measurable

objectives and so forth, the ecosystem program is ahead of water

supply reliability. And we think what CALFED needs to move towards is not simply a gross measure of additional water developed—and I would agree with Peter Gleick’s comments regarding

that—but to measure cost effectiveness, real benefits to water users

not just in acre foot terms but real benefits to water users and compatibility with an ecosystem restoration program. We think if we

can get the same kind of scrutiny for the water supply reliability

program that we have seen for the ecosystem program, we think

CALFED can make a tremendous amount of progress.

And I would like to close with just one general observation, and

that is that the premise of the CVPIA was that the CVP has been

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in place for 50 years and that since California’s water needs have

changed dramatically during that time that the operating rules of

the CVP needed to change.

I think what we’ve seen in the last six and a half years, not just

with CVPIA but Bay-Delta Accord and CALFED as well, is that

that premise is absolutely true and we are changing the way we

do business in California.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nelson follows:]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. Our next witness will be the Honorable Merv

George, Jr.

Mr. George.

STATEMENT OF HON. MERV GEORGE, JR., CHAIRMAN, HOOPA

TRIBE, HOOPA, CALIFORNIA

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. On behalf of the entire Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation it’s a pleasure to be here before you today.

As it was stated, my name is Merv George, Jr.; and I am the

tribal chairman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe; and I am prepared to

testify on the Trinity River.

The Hupa people have occupied the Hoopa Valley, the site of our

reservation, since time immemorial. The Trinity River, which traverses the Hoopa Valley, is the lifeblood of our culture, religion and

economy. Everything we are and do as a people is oriented to the

Trinity River.

My testimony today is intended also to give voice to our friends

and neighboring communities who more often than not have not—

or who have been overlooked in the great debates over California’s

priceless water resources.

The Trinity River is the only source of imported water to the

Central Valley. In 1955, Congress authorized construction of the

Trinity River Division of the Central Valley Project. In order to

protect the fish and wildlife of the Trinity River Basin, Congress

specifically limited the Secretary’s discretion to divert water to the

Central Valley by requiring that in-basin flows needed for the Trinity River take precedence over uses to be served in the Central Valley.

Between 1964 and 1996, the Bureau of Reclamation diverted

31,780,400 acre feet of Trinity water to the Central Valley with

devastating effects on Trinity River fish and wildlife. The river we

had known for thousands of years transformed itself in less than

a decade following completion of the Trinity River Division. Gone

were its broad, braided channel with well-washed gravels for

spawning. Gone were its pools, shallows, and shade for juvenile

rearing. Gone were the velocity, volume and frequency of flows essential to fish migration and to maintain the dynamic equilibrium

of a living river and its riparian ecology. And, more importantly,

gone also are the days when my people could fish as they always

have without the threat of their harvest being reduced because of

an endangered species listing.

None of this was intended or foreseen by project planners. The

politicians promised that not a bucket of water needed in the Trinity River basin would be exported to the Central Valley. Others testified of their expectation that construction of the Trinity River Division would actually improve the Trinity River fishery and that

the hatchery built at the base of Lewiston Dam would fully mitigate the loss of upstream habitat.

Today, most Trinity River fish populations are either listed, proposed for listing, or under status review for listing under the Endangered Species Act. For example, the Trinity River coho salmon

was listed as a threatened species in May of 1997. The Trinity

River steelhead is a candidate for listing, and the Trinity River chiVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00167 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
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nook is under status for review. From my tribe’s perspective, extinction of fish species or their mere recovery to some minimum

population is not an option.

The Hoopa Valley tribe has worked closely with the Department

of the Interior on the Trinity River flow evaluation report and associated recommendations by co-authoring them with the Fish and

Wildlife Service. Please note our appreciation for the cooperation

and consultation of the California Department of Fish and Game,

the geological survey, the Bureau of Reclamation and the National

Marine Fisheries Service in the preparation of the report and recommendations.

We are pleased that the report and recommendations have been

completed as required by the CVPIA. We are informed that the report and recommendations will be published by the Department

next week. The report and recommendations provide for an increase of releases to the Trinity River from the Trinity River Division. The increased releases would bring the diversions from the

Trinity River to the Central Valley in line with the volumes of

water originally contemplated for use in the Central Valley by the

Bureau of Reclamation in its 1952 ultimate plan report and by the

committees of Congress when the project was authorized in 1955.

It is important to note that the report and recommendations still

provide for the lion’s share of Trinity River to be diverted to the

Central Valley. The law of the Trinity River is clear that the current condition of the Trinity River fishery was never intended to

occur. The best available science we have incorporated into the report and recommendations demonstrates that the condition need

not continue.

Finally, we urge you to support appropriation of sufficient funding to meet the restoration goals as well as the Federal trust responsibilities to the Indian reserve rights in the Trinity River fishery.

In conclusion, every Interior Secretary and every Congressman

from the first district, irrespective of party affiliation, has recognized the need to fulfill the original promise of the Trinity River

Division for the north coast. I ask that from this day forward the

north coast no longer be considered the forgotten region of California but be remembered as the home of a just people who shared

their river without sacrifice.

Thank you. And I will answer any questions when the time is appropriate.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. George follows:]

STATEMENT OF MERVIN GEORGE, JR., CHAIRMAN, HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE

Chairman Doolittle and members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of the Hoopa

Valley Tribe, thank you for inviting me to participate in today’s hearing. You have

asked that my testimony address the implementation of the Central Valley Project

Improvement Act (Public Law 102-575 Title XXXIV (October 30, 1992) (CVPIA), particularly with regard to the Trinity River provision in subsection 3406(b)(23).

The Trinity River rises in the Trinity Alps region of California’s Coast Range and

flows to its confluence with the Klamath River and then to the Pacific Ocean. For

the last 60 miles of their course to the sea, the waters of the Trinity River traverse

the Hoopa Valley and Yurok Indian reservations. The Hupa people have occupied

the Hoopa Valley, the site of our reservation, since time immemorial; scientists have

been able to date our presence back as far as 10,000 years. The Trinity River is the

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life blood of our culture, religion and economy. Everything we are and do as a people

is oriented to the Trinity River.

In the last 150 years, California’s population and economy have grown and expanded into the North Coast region. Today, the Trinity River remains not only essentially important to the Hoopa Valley, Yurok, and Karuk Indian Tribes, but also

to the commercial and sport fishing industry, recreation and tourism businesses,

and the towns and cities throughout Humboldt, Trinity and Del Norte Counties. So

while I am here today officially on behalf of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, my testimony

is intended also to give voice to our friends and neighboring communities who more

often than not have been overlooked in the great debates over California’s priceless

water resources.

The Trinity River is the only source of imported water to the Central Valley. In

1955 Congress authorized construction of the Trinity River Division of the Central

Valley Project (CVP). In order to protect the fish and wildlife of the Trinity River

basin, Congress specifically limited the Secretary’s discretion to divert water to the

Central Valley by requiring that in-basin flows needed for the Trinity River take

precedence over uses to be served in the Central Valley. This special ‘‘area of origin’’

protection for the Trinity River in Federal law is in addition to state county of origin

restrictions on export of Trinity River water to the Central Valley.

The Hoopa Valley and Yurok Tribes have reserved rights in the Trinity River fishery that have been affirmed by the Department of the Interior and the Department

of Commerce, and upheld by the courts. In addition, the CVPIA Trinity River provision includes an express declaration of the Federal trust responsibilities to protect

the fishery resources of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. It is a well-established principle of

Federal Indian law that secretarial discretion is limited by trust responsibilities for

Indian resources. The trust responsibility operates in this case to reinforce the Secretary’s obligation to operate the Trinity River Division for the benefit of fish and

wildlife in the Trinity River.

Between 1964 and 1996 the Bureau of Reclamation diverted 31,780,400 acre-feet

of Trinity River water to the Central Valley with devastating effects on Trinity

River fish and wildlife. The river we had known for thousands of years transformed

itself in less than a decade following completion of the Trinity River Division. Gone

were its broad, braided channel with well-washed gravels for spawning. Gone were

its pools, shallows, and shade for juvenile rearing. Gone were the velocity, volume,

and frequency of flows essential to fish migration and to maintain the dynamic equilibrium of a living river and its riparian ecology. Upstream of the project, the destruction was absolute: Fish passage to 109 river miles of prime fish habitat was

barred forever.

None of this was intended or foreseen by project planners. The politicians promised that not a bucket of water needed in the Trinity River basin would be exported

to the Central Valley. Others testified of their expectation that construction of the

Trinity River Division would actually improve the Trinity River fishery and that the

hatchery built at the base of Lewiston Dam would fully mitigate the loss of upstream habitat.

The construction and operation of the Trinity River Division have devastated the

ecology of the Trinity River, as well as the customs, traditions, and culture of the

Hoopa Valley, Yurok, and Karuk Tribes, and the economies of the North Coast communities. Most Trinity River fish populations are either listed, proposed for listing

or under status review for listing under the Endangered Species Act. For example,

the Trinity River coho salmon was listed as a threatened species in May, 1997; the

Trinity River steelhead is a candidate for listing; and the Trinity River chinook is

under status review. From my Tribe’s perspective, extinction of fish species, or their

mere recovery to some minimum population is not an option.

By the end of the 1970s the adverse effects on the fishery were clear and Congress

and the Secretary of the Interior took the first steps toward fulfilling the promise—

and the legal mandate—that no harm would come to the Trinity River fish and

wildlife from construction of the Trinity River Division:

1979—The Interior Department Solicitor confirms the precedence of water for

Trinity River fish and wildlife over diversions to the Central Valley under Federal law.

1980—The Trinity River Stream Rectification Act is enacted to address sediment accumulation in the absence of flushing flows. Public Law 96-335.

1981—Interior Department Secretary Andrus directs increased releases to the

Trinity River from the Trinity River Division in the amount of 340,000 acre-feet

annually in years of normal water supply. (This amount, although an increase,

represents the third lowest volume on record for the Trinity River at Lewiston

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ditions). The Secretary also orders a long term-study to assess the water requirements of the fishery.

1984—The Trinity River Restoration Act (Public Law 98-541) is enacted which

establishes restoration goals to ensure preservation and propagation of fish and

wildlife in order to restore them to, and maintain them at, ‘‘levels approximating those which existed immediately before the start of construction’’ of the

Trinity River Division.

1991—Interior Secretary Lujan directs that not less than 340,000 acre-feet of

water be released to the Trinity River for fishery purposes in all water year

types pending the conclusion of the long-term study originally ordered by Secretary Andrus.

1992—The CVPIA is enacted, including the Trinity River provision (section

3406(b)(23)) which: confirms the administrative decision to release not less than

340,000 acre-feet annually pending completion of the study; mandates the completion of the study based on the best available scientific information; requires

development of recommendations for permanent in stream fishery releases; if

the Secretary and the Hoopa Valley Tribe concur in the recommendations, requires that they be implemented accordingly; and makes the costs of implementation reimbursable as operation and maintenance expenditures pursuant to existing law.

1996—The Trinity River Restoration Act is amended and extended (Public Law

104-143). The restoration goal is revised explicitly to achieve ‘‘‘‘mitigation of fish

habitat loss above Lewiston Dam while not impairing efforts to restore and

maintain naturally reproducing anadromous fish stocks within the basin.’’ The

Act also adopts the goal of the ‘‘resumption of commercial, including ocean harvest, and recreational fishing activities.’’ In addition, funding requests are authorized for the purpose of monitoring, evaluating and maintaining program investments in fish and wildlife populations.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe has worked closely with the Department of the Interior

on the Trinity River Flow Evaluation Report and associated recommendations by coauthoring them with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Please note our grateful appreciation for the cooperation and consultation of the California Department of Fish

and Game, the Geological Survey, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the National Marine Fisheries Service in the preparation of the Report and recommendations. We

are pleased that the Report and recommendations have been completed as required

by the CVPIA. We are informed that the Report and recommendations will be published by the Department next week. Thereafter the Report and recommendations

will be forwarded to the Resources Committee and the Senate Indian Affairs and

Energy and Natural Resources Committees as required by the CVPIA.

The Report and recommendations provide for an increase of releases to the Trinity

River from the Trinity River Division. The increased releases would bring the diversions from the Trinity River to the Central Valley in line with the volumes of water

originally contemplated for use in the Central Valley by the Bureau of Reclamation

in its 1952 Ultimate Plan Report and by the Committees of Congress when the

project was authorized in 1955. It is important to note that the Report and recommendations still provide for the lion’s share of Trinity River water to be diverted

to the Central Valley.

The law is clear that the current condition of the Trinity River fishery was never

intended to occur. The best available science we have incorporated into the Report

and recommendations demonstrates that that condition need not persist.

Finally, we are committed to ensuring that the Administration requests and the

Congress appropriates sufficient funds to meet the mandates in existing law for restoration of the Trinity River, as well as for the future implementation of the recommendations in the Report. Sufficient funding is essential to meet the restoration

goals, as well as the Federal trust responsibilities to the Indian reserved rights in

the Trinity River fishery.

In conclusion, every Interior Secretary and every congressman from the first district, irrespective of party affiliation, has recognized the need to fulfill the original

promise of the Trinity River Division for the North Coast. I ask that from this day

forward the North Coast no longer be considered the Forgotten Region of California

but be remembered as the home of a just people who shared their river without sacrificing it.

This concludes my testimony. I would be pleased to address any questions you

Committee members may have for me.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. At this point, we’re going to recess the Committee. We’ll go vote and come back as quickly as possible. It’s just

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one vote, so it shouldn’t be more than 15 minutes. Maybe it will

be less.

Mr. Dooley is going to have to leave to catch a plane, so I’m going

to let him ask his question now.

Mr. DOOLEY. And this goes Miss Beneke as well as Mr. Nelson.

Mr. Gartrell might want to comment.

On the completion of the PEIS, which I think both of these individuals representing urban and agricultural districts have some

concerns about and about its impact, and we have heard some of

the modeling and some of the concerns about whether or not we

have critically dry years or even just a little bit below normal dry

years, what it does in terms of water deliveries, you know, are concerning—and also this issue of the tiered pricing, which I talked to

the Secretary and you were there listening to that, in terms of this

basis in negotiation, does the Department, in fact, you know, feel

compelled to at least engage in a dialogue with some of the contractors prior to engaging in a negotiation process on some of these

issues?

Mrs. BENEKE. Let me, first off, start by addressing the PEIS.

We’re on a track to have a supplemental draft document released,

I believe, next month, or at least early this summer. There will be

an opportunity for the public to review that document, and we are

on a track to go final with the document this fall with the record

of decision.

I would like to remind the Subcommittee and the stakeholders,

if I could, that this is a NEPA document and, as such, it displays

a full range of alternatives, bookends, if you will, and does not necessarily mean that we’re going to end up at one extreme and or the

other. But, of course, under NEPA we do look at a full range of alternatives. And I would encourage people to keep that in mind as

they’re looking at our modeling numbers and the like.

Mr. DOOLEY. Doesn’t that in itself make it then more difficult to

enter into the negotiations process if we haven’t come to a consensus on that?

Mrs. BENEKE. Well, we are on the verge of completing the basis

of negotiation for the long-term contracts. We have had a scoping

process where there was public input as part of our NEPA process

on this. And we also, as I understand it, have been engaged in informal discussions with members of the water user community and

also stakeholders with respect to the basis of negotiation.

Mr. DOOLEY. I guess I’m still a little bit, you know, a little bit—

I don’t quite get it yet. How can you even complete a basis of negotiation when the PEIS isn’t completed, when there’s going to be a

range of alternatives in there that have markedly different impacts

and you haven’t come to a conclusion on which one of these—you

know, where we’re building some consensus on. This looks to me

like a very—you know, a moving target here. Am I missing something?

Mrs. BENEKE. Well, we feel that we have adequate analysis

available to be able to craft the basis of negotiation. Now there

won’t be any final determinations on the contracts until after the

final PEIS is completed and until the record of decision is signed.

Mr. DOOLEY. Mr. Nelson, you want to comment on that?

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Mr. BARRY NELSON. Thank you. Yes, I would. A couple

thoughts——

Mr. DOOLEY. Excuse me. I meant the other Nelson.

Mr. BARRY NELSON. Mr. Dooley, your choice.

Mr. DAN NELSON. Thank you, cousin Barry.

The water contractors have a dilemma here. On the one hand,

we want to get on with the long-term contacting process along with

the Interior because it’s only under long-term contracts that we

have the certainty that we need and are able to do long-term planning and financing. So, on the one hand, we are with the Department of Interior to get moving on the long-term contract renewals.

However, they are premised by doing a legitimate PEIS; and we

are concerned with the PEIS and the drafts that are out right now.

Just to refresh your memory on the process to date, a draft PEIS

has been released after which it was acknowledged it was based on

a fundamentally flawed model that those changes to the model

have been done. So the question for us is, are those significant

enough changes, which our sense is that they are, that we may

want to recirculate that document for a round of comments prior

to going out to final?

Again, the dilemma that we have is that delays the long-term

contract renewal process that we would like to get started on as

well. I guess, fundamentally, we’re feeling somewhat jammed.

We—and we need to make sure that the contract renewal process

is done right. There’s a lot at stake here for all of us, and they need

to be done right, and they need to be done on a proper foundation.

And we’re not convinced that PEIS is the proper foundation yet.

Mr. DOOLEY. Mr. Nelson, if you could briefly respond.

Mr. BARRY NELSON. I will briefly respond on the issue of projected shortfalls and deliveries and on the issue of tiered pricing.

On the first issue, I would like to remind folks here that shortages began to be seen during the 1987 to 1992 drought before the

CVPIA was passed. The CVP is an over-subscribed system, and

coming to terms with that is a painful process. Yes, there has been

some reallocation to the environment, but the overallocation problem is much bigger than that. That’s why we think it makes sense

to look beyond CVP contract deliveries solely as strategies to provide the water users with the water supply benefits that they need.

The environmental community is taking that very seriously. We

have prepared a blueprint regarding water supply reliability for

urban and agriculture that I have provided to the Subcommittee

staff. And I would like to emphasize here that we think the only

way CALFED will deliver an ambitious ecosystem restoration program is if it can deliver improved water supply reliability for users.

Finally, very briefly, with regard to tier pricing, we think that

more realistic pricing sends the right signals to encourage conservation, encourage efficient water use. We’re very supportive of

conjunctive use programs that’s endorsed in environmental community’s blueprint. We don’t see tiered pricing as a big obstacle to

those programs, but we’re very eager to sit down and spend more

time rolling our sleeves up and making those programs work.

Mr. DOOLEY. Thank you.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. The Committee will recess and be back

shortly.

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[Recess.]

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The Subcommittee will reconvene. Mr. Nelson,

last but certainly not least.

STATEMENT OF DAN NELSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SAN

LUIS AND DELTA MENDOTA WATER AUTHORITY, LOS BANOS,

CALIFORNIA

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of

the Committee for inviting me to appear before you today. I would

let the record show that I am the first volunteer for the Scandinavian fish ladder study. I look forward to working with the Chairman on that.

I am the executive director of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota

Water Authority, a joint powers authority comprised of 32 member

agencies with CVP contracts. Our service on the west side of the

San Joaquin Valley covers about 1.1 million acres of the world’s

most productive and efficiently operated farmland, approximately

200,000 acres of prime wetland habitat, and serves over 600,000

urban users including the high-tech industries of the Silicon Valley.

As you know, we have many concerns with the CVPIA, not with

its goals, but with some of the provisions and the way that they

are being implemented. Interior’s approach to carrying out the

CVPIA is flawed in three ways. First, it seeks to solve the Central

Valley’s many environmental problems at the expense of one group

of water users. Second, the Department is implementing the law in

isolation from the larger CALFED program. And third, the Department ignores the flexibility built into CVPIA to allow the law’s environmental goals to be met in a way that minimizes adverse impacts on water users.

The effects of this approach can be seen in our water supply this

year. We currently have a 70 percent allocation to our Agricultural

Service contractors and this is in the fifth wet year in a row. In

fact, it’s the fifth year of the 5 wettest years on record. The CVPIA

focuses exclusively on a small group of CVP contractors mainly in

our area who use only 10 percent of the water diverted from the

Bay-Delta. Let me say that again to emphasize the point. The Agricultural Service contractors in our area have contracts for about 1.8

million acre-feet. Those are the folks that are taking on the lion’s

share of the water supply of CVPIA. The total diversions of the San

Joaquin Sacramento River System Bay-Delta are over 17 million

acre-feet. And so again, the lion’s share of the impacts are born by

1.8 million acre-feet of those water users. These contractors have

been reduced to an average supply of about 65 to 70 percent of our

contractual entitlement. No other water user community has had

to deal with a sustained cutback of this magnitude.

I would like to describe some of the changes in our area over the

last decade which have been more widespread and substantial than

I think the authors of the CVPIA ever dreamed possible. Dramatic

increases in water prices, widespread improvements in irrigation

efficiency, crop shifts to higher value crops and perennials, substantial reductions in drainage discharges and land retirement. All

of these changes advocated by the environmental community are

well underway in our area. Water rates in our area have increased

tenfold in the last decade. These increases, coupled with the chronVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00173 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
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ic shortage of water in our area, produce significant shifts in irrigation practices and cropping patterns. Our farmers are making

major capital investments in high-tech irrigation technology and

perennial plantings.

In Westlands, for example, investments in drip-and-trickle systems has grown eightfold between ’85 and ’97, and permanent

plantings of tree and vine acreage have more than doubled. We

have also made dramatic progress in drainage management over

the last few years.

In 1996 we formed the regional drainage entity to implement a

drainage management plan called the Grassland Bypass Project.

Through this project, drainage water has been removed from 93

miles of wildlife refuge conveyance channels, selenium load discharges have been reduced by 44 percent below water year 1996

levels, and average selenium concentrations and salt slough have

been reduced from 16 parts per billion to water quality objective of

2 parts per billion in 28 out of the last 29 months.

All of these changes have helped our farmers cope with the restricted water supply and help meet the CVPIA’s environmental

goals. But the trend toward permanent crops, combined with the

high capital and operating cost our farmers have incurred to use

new irrigation technology actually increases their dependence on

an adequate water supply.

I’m afraid the danger of this dependence has been masked by the

string of wet years we have experienced over the last decade. Even

in these years we have only received a full supply in one year.

That’s over the last 5 years since we signed the accord. We were

able to stretch our supplies during this wet period with some water

purchases, but only at a cost of 50 to 100 percent higher than our

average costs, and these purchases are nonsustainable as demand

increases.

In conclusion, our farmers have stepped up to the challenges imposed by the higher prices and reduced supplies resulting from the

CVPIA. But they are on the edge now and are at the limit of what

they can do in response to these pressures. They will go over the

edge as soon as we once again begin into normal weather patterns.

We do not believe the situation was the intent of the CVPIA but

it’s how the law is currently being administered.

There is, in fact, a great deal of discretion in how the CVPIA can

be interpreted and administered. Rather than trying to maximize

the environmental gains through the CVPIA alone, Interior should

be working with CALFED to help accomplish the CVPIA’s environmental goals in a manner that reduces the economic burdens it has

placed on one relatively small group of water users. In the long

run, this will provide a far stronger, more stable program of environmental protection.

CALFED can build on CVPIA in three key areas:

Number one, it can provide financial assistance for on-farm

and district-level water management strategies to help mitigate and cope with the supply impacts of the CVPIA.

Number two, it can improve the flexibility of the system

through an environmental water account which can provide increased protections and increased supplies through operational

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change. This is as opposed to a regulatory process that just

simply reallocates this water.

Number three, it can develop new water, increase the size of

the pie through surface and groundwater storage, premised on

the sharing of water between environmental and water needs.

In closing, I would also like to add my support for the Federal

funding. Again, as the dust settles on the implementation of

CALFED and the integration of some of the CVPIA measures into

CALFED, the funding is going to be very critical and we are in

support of the current efforts for that funding.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and I’m available for questions.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Daniel Nelson follows:]

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Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Gartrell, I don’t think in the years I have

been sitting here as chairman I have ever heard—I don’t think that

I have ever heard much criticism at all, especially from the urban

water users, of the future for water in terms of the cutbacks. You

have graphically portrayed that today. You do know, Mr. Dan Nelson, I assume, right?

Mr. GARTRELL. Yes.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. You two ought to get together. You both have

sort of the two sides of the coin, it sounds like.

Mr. GARTRELL. We worked quite a bit together. We worked very

hard on the Bay-Delta Accord, all three of us, the Nelson brothers

and myself.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Well, if even urban supplies are being faced with

50 percent cutbacks, then what is your position on storage?

Mr. GARTRELL. Our district believes that that is probably going

to be an essential component coming out of the CALFED process.

I don’t think anybody is going to take a position now exactly which

element is going to come out on top. But certainly there is, I think,

going to be a necessity for storage, whether there is conjunctive use

or new offstream storage. While we are doing a lot of conservation

and will be continuing to be doing more conservation and more reclamation, that does not get you through a dry period. You need to

do something with the water that you save. And for both the environment and for water supply reliability, I think storage is going

to be important.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Nelson, you indicated you had—well, Mr.

Barry Nelson, that you had a plan for how to increase water reliability. Could you just summarize for me what your thoughts are

in that regard?

Mr. BARRY NELSON. Briefly, I would be happy to. As I mentioned,

we provided your staff with a copy of that blueprint, I think the

most detailed water supply reliability comments CALFED has received from any of the stakeholder groups. We recommend a number of different tools. We don’t give a simple prescription for any

one of these tools because we think they all could be implemented

in different ways. There is a laundry list of tools increasingly, we

are realizing, that we need to select from to provide reliability. It’s

not just storage, although I will get to that at the end. It’s also conservation programs, agriculture and urban water reclamation programs, water transfer programs.

There has been a lot of conversation about and controversy about

land fallowing, but permanent land retirement has a place that

makes a lot of sense. We are also seeing land fallowing arrangements within agriculture that are happening voluntarily with no

outside planning that we think represent sound planning that is

happening right now from agriculture. There is a broad range of

strategies.

I would like to close, however, by emphasizing one of those; that

is, the rule of improved groundwater management. We built the

CVP in substantial part because we said it was going to solve our

groundwater problems. It didn’t. We then built a State water

project to solve our groundwater problems. It didn’t. We are still

now in some parts of the State seeing significant groundwater concerns. We as a State have never wrestled with the question of

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groundwater regulation as most western States, almost all of the

western States have. We are very skeptical of claims that we can

either solve our groundwater problems through additional surface

storage or that we can solve environmental problems with additional surface storage.

We think that when we look at improved groundwater management, both conjunctive use and other kinds of improved groundwater management, that there is tremendous potential there. Yes,

that is storage. We think it offers the potential both to be more

compatible with an ecosystem restoration program and also to be

dramatically more cost effective, which is going to be very important more when it is time to finance the final CALFED package.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. George, are there ways to meet the needs

that you have for the Trinity River that would tend to temper the

amount of water that must be redirected down the Trinity River?

Mr. GEORGE. There absolutely is, Mr. Chairman, and I would

like to sit down with you at some point and go over some of the

contents within the flow study. There is some mechanical restoration efforts that are also included, aside from just the flow decisions that are in the flow study. I think that it would be helpful

and insightful if we could go over those when they are published.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. I appreciate that. We will look for that opportunity. Well, there is a lot of hope being placed in CALFED and

it certainly has a good potential. There has been real evidence of

progress in some areas that have been drawn out today, improvements have been made, and things in the testimony that have been

mentioned so far.

Mr. Dan Nelson, you heard my exchange with the Secretary over

your testimony. He is not here, but we can send him the record.

Do you have any further elaboration on that that you want to offer?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Yes, I do. In referring to page 5 in the third

line, I would like to insert the word ‘‘below’’ in front of ‘‘normal

years.’’ In editing this, the sentence reads ‘‘years that are less than

below normal years.’’ My sense is what occurred is the ‘‘less than

below’’ was looked at as a double negative and so the word ‘‘below’’

was taken out. But below normal years is a year type, and so, the

word ‘‘below.’’

However, that does not change the fundamental point, and that

is that the PEIS and the new modeling that we have indicates that

we have a broken project, that the Central Valley Project in many

years cannot even meet its regular contractors as well it can’t meet

its historical water right contractors in many years as well. And so

I think that the fundamental point is still valid. That is, that we

need to give serious attention about the viability of the Central

Valley Project as it exists. And we are going to have to figure out

how it is that we can accomplish some of these environmental objectives in a way that is more reasonable to the Central Valley

Project and in a way that is consistent with the CALFED approach.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Mr. Radanovich is recognized for his questions.

Mr. RADANOVICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the earlier conversation, I was pleased to hear the Secretary talk about some discussion, at some point in time, this CALFED process, of the consideration of CVPIA and even perhaps the ESA in some of the reguVerDate 11-SEP-98 08:13 Aug 31, 1999 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00193 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 57837.TXT HRESOUR1 PsN: HRESOUR1
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latory issues in those bills being merged into and discussed

through the CALFED process. That’s one thing that I am looking

forward to, especially from the agriculture side of the implementation of those laws and how we can streamline those. One of those

issues is tiered pricing.

Mr. Nelson, I think that I would like you to comment on that.

One, if you could elaborate on why CVPIA and tiered pricing just

doesn’t seem to be working.

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. On the first point of the relationship with

CVPIA and the CALFED process, I was very encouraged by the

Secretary’s comments of trying to implement CVPIA in a comprehensive way and taking into consideration the impacts to water

users.

Meeting environmental objectives while minimizing impacts.

That’s very encouraging to hear from the Secretary of the Interior.

Frankly, what we are seeing is a disconnect between that policy

call from how the laws are actually being implemented out in the

field. What we are experiencing out in the field isn’t a collaborative, comprehensive-type approach that I think we all envisioned

when we signed the accord. As you recall, we referred to the accord

as a new way of doing business in California, a new way of addressing water resources in California. Comprehensive, collaborative. We are no longer experiencing what it is we envisioned. We

are once again back to where we were in pre-accord, pre-accord

days, and that is where individual agencies are implementing individual components of very specific statutes in a very narrow way,

not taking into consideration how it fits into a comprehensive plan.

My sense is that’s the key fundamental problem with the implementation of CVPIA, is that each individual component has been

implemented unilaterally from the other components; and then, in

addition to that, to take it the next level, CVPIA has been implemented unilaterally from the more comprehensive discussions that

we have had from CALFED. From our perspective, that’s the key

problem of what it is that has occurred and how it is that we have

implemented CVPIA post-accord. And we can be more efficient in

obtaining our environmental objectives, I think, if we were to take

a broader and more comprehensive perspective in implementing

this.

The tiered pricing thing specifically. Tiered pricing, there is a lot

of merit to the concept. In fact, most of our member agencies and

most CVP agencies have a form of tiered pricing that they have implemented on a districtwide basis.

There is three points for tiered pricing. Number one, if you are

a contractor that your Federal contract doesn’t meet your demands,

and so you are continually using all of your CVP contract plus you

are out looking for additional water, the tiered pricing really

doesn’t serve as an incentive for you to use less water. You are

going to need to use all of your allocation anyway. So it only becomes punitive at that point.

The second point, conjunctive use. We all recognize the importance of doing conjunctive use and expanding and optimizing conjunctive use in California. Essentially, tiered pricing could penalize

those who want to use conjunctive use. I think that we need to

take a very serious look at that.

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Then the third point which kind of umbrellas the other two,

tiered pricing is not a one-size-fits-all concept. You have to—as I

said earlier, there are some appropriate and legitimate uses for

tiered pricing. Most districts have a form of tiered pricing, but it’s

almost impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all that is equitable.

Mr. RADANOVICH. Thank you. These are the issues that I hope

that are brought up during the CALFED process. I want to applaud all of the stakeholders for keeping this together. I personally

am relieved that we are now beginning to study issues that increase water storage as part of the CALFED process. I think as

this issue moves forward, we need to have a policy and in some

areas where CVPIA may be deficient in that, policies where agriculture has the opportunity by incentive to enhance the environment in their own area through the policy of CVPIA as it might

be modified through this CALFED process, because right now the

incentive is almost the opposite and it doesn’t work for agriculture

to be sensitive to the environmental needs in that area.

If there is one complaint that I have about CVPIA it is that it

doesn’t allow for that, it’s not really incentive based. I would like

to see that happen as this thing develops and as we talk more as

stake holders in the CALFED process to see some modifications in

those laws. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Radanovich follows:]

STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE RADANOVICH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM

THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Mr. Chairman—Thank you for holding this hearing to provide the opportunity to

discuss water issues in the Central Valley of California. I appreciate the ability to

address the CALFED Bay-Delta program and the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA).

I represent a Central Valley district comprising the two largest agricultural producing counties in the nation. Water is the lifeblood of the economy in this agricultural region that grows over 250 of California’s crops. With its fertile soil, temperate

climate and water supply capabilities, the Central Valley produces eight percent of

the agricultural output in the U.S. on less than one percent of the nation’s total

farmland. Valley farmers alone grow nearly half of the fresh fruits and vegetables

grown in the entire nation.

As a farmer, I am a conscientious steward of the land and a strong environmentalist. Agriculture and the environment truly go hand in hand. The very livelihoods of farmers are directly connected to the land and its future. The agricultural

community recognizes water as a precious resource to be used wisely, and they

know proper water management is essential and benefits all users.

In order to meet the ecosystem, water supply and water quality needs in California, I worked, along with many individuals present here today, toward the enactment of the California Bay-Delta Ecosystem Enhancement Act in 1996. Since that

time, Congress has continued its commitment to CALFED by funding this program

to build consensus on decisions that effect the future of water in the state of California.

I am encouraged by the recent agreement among stakeholders to support $95 million in FY 2000 for CALFED with $60 million for ecosystem and $35 million set

aside for non-ecosystem purposes, such as water storage studies and water transfers. I support the $95 million in funding to bring balance to the CALFED process

for agricultural, ecological and urban water users.

My greatest concern, and that of my district’s, is the impact CALFED has on agriculture. Water reliability is vital. The Central Valley economy is dependent upon

water assurances. Therefore, scientifically sound and locally supported water conveyance and storage facilities are needed to address the supply void in California.

As the CALFED process moves forward, the protection of private property is also

a high priority of mine. Private property rights must be secured throughout the

process. Additionally, CALFED representatives or other Federal and state officials

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must obtain written permission from landowners when conducting surveys or other

biological work on private property. Any actions that violate landowners’ rights are

unacceptable.

With respect to CVPIA, I believe the Central Valley region has invested a great

deal of resources to make this law work. Conservation, land retirement and crop

changes have all been implemented by the agricultural community in order to

achieve the objectives of CVPIA. The economic security of the area is contingent

upon water supply reliability. It is time solid assurances are made to provide for

the region’s water needs.

To the detriment of both the environment and agriculture in the Central Valley,

the CVPIA has significantly raised water prices in the area I represent. Tiered pricing under CVPIA, for example, has made it extremely expensive to operate conjunctive use systems. Growers pay enormous prices for the water to be stored, extracted

and delivered. This creates a clear disincentive for groundwater storage. A more

flexible approach to tiered pricing would encourage contractors to conserve and reduce costs. Such flexibility is necessary for CVPIA to be successful.

The growing population of our state will continue to place an ever-increasing demand on the water supply. Also, over one million acre feet of water is provided for

environmental purposes under CVPIA each year. The state has been blessed with

five wet years, however, we have no guarantee these conditions will continue. The

enormous pressure on California water allocations are predicted to result in a net

agricultural water loss of 2.3 million acre-feet each year by 2020. This would severely disrupt agricultural production. Since water is directly tied to the economy,

any disturbance in its supply will cause job losses and decreased agricultural production. For these reasons, an adequate water supply must be planned for and secured.

In closing, I believe CALFED and CVPIA, along with other Federal agencies,

must coordinate their water efforts to guarantee consistency in the implementation

of projects and goals. Efforts to sustain productive farmland in the Central Valley

region under the CVPIA and CALFED have made the farmers in my area some of

the most innovative water conservationists in the world. Central Valley agriculture

can continue to thrive as long a reliable, affordable source of water is available. I

look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman, and those present today to achieve

this goal.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Dan Nelson, wasn’t it your testimony that

you only received a full contract-wide delivery in 1 year out the last

5?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. That is correct. I believe that was in 1995-

1996.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. With the exception of that year, the highest percentage that you received was what?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Well, to put things in perspective, the 40

years that our member agencies have been taking water from the

Central Valley Project, prior to—I believe it was in 1989 they had

1 year in which they weren’t allocated a 100 percent supply. I believe that was in 1977, the drought of ’77. So in the 40 years we

had 1 year of cutbacks. As a result of the ’89 through ’94 drought

and a couple of listings that went around salmon, Delta smelt, BayDelta Accord, CVPIA, et cetera, our supply is now at an average

of around 65 to 70 percent. That doesn’t include—that hasn’t modeled in yet the impacts of Trinity River.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. So 70 percent would be the most that you

feel you could hope for now; is that right?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. No, 65 percent; that’s the average supply.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. In a normal year?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Yes.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And so when we enter the next dry period, which

it seems likely that’s on the verge of happening, then what do you

anticipate receiving?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Well, the PEIS shows that there are years

in which we will not receive any water. Then my recollection is

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that in about 35 to 40 percent of the years we will be allocated 50

percent or less. My recollection is also that in 15 to 20 percent of

the years we can expect close to the 100 percent supply. So that

is the range from zero all of the way to 100, but severe cutbacks

is normal and especially when you get into dry years.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Let’s see, 35 to 40 percent of the years you would

get less than 50 percent?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. That’s correct.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. And 15 to 20 percent of the years you would get

100 percent?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Yes. Then it’s sort of tiered in between.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. Gartrell, your figures on when you would get

cut down to 50 percent, what percent of the years would that 50

percent be?

Mr. GARTRELL. It’s between 1 year in 10 and 1 year in 15.

Around 10 percent between 7 and 15 percent of the years. It is a

25 percent cutback from 100 percent [75 percent allocation] in

about 25 percent of the years.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. This is based on what you understand to be in

that PEIS?

Mr. GARTRELL. Right.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Do you think your customers are aware of this

impending threat?

Mr. GARTRELL. No. We do have a substantial conservation program that we try to keep them informed. But even keeping them

informed on that is difficult. When you have 5 rainy years in a row,

people don’t tend to think about what is coming around the corner

in a dry period.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. But I assume the urban water districts, if they

chose to, could include in their bills information about this, right,

to their customers?

Mr. GARTRELL. Yes. And we do have our own plans for increasing

reliability of our supplies through water transfers, increased conservation, and reclamation. Those take time to implement, but I

am pretty confident that most people aren’t thinking too hard

about this right now.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mrs. Beneke, would you like to say anything?

Mrs. BENEKE. Mr. Chairman, I would very much appreciate an

opportunity to comment on these issues. With respect to urban supply reliability, I am afraid there is perhaps a bit of a misunderstanding here. I am aware that our PEIS document does have a

modeling scenario under which there are some possibilities of a

cutback to 50 percent. But we believe that we provide very strong

assurances of urban supply reliability under our program.

In fact, the administrative paper that was an outcome of the

Garamendi process a year or two ago assures urban water users of

a 75 percent supply, at least unless there is a very extreme period

of prolonged drought, in which case they could be cut back to public

health and safety levels.

Now, again as I explained previously, the PEIS itself is a NEPA

document. And, as such, it displays a full range of alternatives, and

in many instances it ‘‘bookends,’’ we like to say, extreme alternatives which would be extraordinarily unlikely to happen in the

real world or to be selected. So I really would not want people here

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thinking that there is a good likelihood that urban water users will

be cut back to a 50 percent delivery. We think that is extraordinarily unlikely. Certainly before that happened, we would be

working very closely with all of the urban water users, using every

tool that we have to prevent that result. I would like to clarify that

for the record from our position.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Thank you. What will happen to all of these permanent crops if they get cut back to zero or something, say 50 percent, even?

Mrs. BENEKE. Let me tell you; again, the zero figure would occur,

as I understand it—well, it almost is not worth talking about because it is an extremely unlikely scenario. But let me say that it

is precisely for this reason that we are so committed to the

CALFED process. One of the fundamental elements of that program, of course, is to provide supply reliability to all of our customers. It is one of the reasons that I’m very motivated about participating in the process and trying to steer it to a good result. It

is important to us that our customers have a reliable supply of

water. Again, I think this zero percent number, I’m not personally

familiar with it. I understand that south of Delta got a 95 percent

supply in 1996, and a 90 percent supply in 1997. I’m not entirely

clear where all of the other numbers are coming from here.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It’s been my understanding that the Department

would like to know what the alternative source of supply might be

for their urban and ag users, but that information they have been

reluctant to disclose to the Department. Is that a correct understanding?

Mrs. BENEKE. Are you directing that to me?

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I don’t know who I am directing it to. Do you

want to volunteer?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. Could you repeat the question?

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I understood that the Department has been trying to inquire about what your alternative sources of supply might

be in the case of a water-short year, and apparently you—I don’t

know if it’s you, but somebody is not willing to cooperate amongst

the urban and agricultural interest just in general, I think, it was

represented. Is that true; and if so, tell us why, what your concerns

are?

Mr. DANIEL NELSON. We would cooperate in any way we could

for any water augmentation plan that we would see coming from

the Bureau. I would like to comment briefly on that. There are a

couple of places in CVPIA where they talk about water augmentation. One is an expansion of yield study. The second one is a fairly

clear directive and authorization to the Secretary to find other

sources than just reallocating existing supplies to meet refuge supply needs.

One of the things that I was somewhat discouraged, or I thought

was a little bit contradictory in earlier testimony was on the one

hand we are going to look at this water supply augmentation to

come through CALFED, and so we are going to look at those elements that increase our water supply to meet those components of

CVPIA; and the water users, you are going to have to wait until

CALFED helps you out with those issues even though they are

very clear in CVPIA.

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However, CVPIA was a premise to CALFED, and so we need to

go forward immediately with the environmental components of

CVPIA. And, as you have heard from testimony, we have done

that. We have implemented the environmental components of

CVPIA, but my sense is there hasn’t been the same ambitious efforts on the water augmentation plans, and we are now being told

that we have to wait for CALFED on those augmentations.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Anybody else want to comment?

Mr. GARTRELL. Yes. I’m not sure where exactly that—or who

might have been unwilling to disclose. We have been trying to work

very closely with the Department of Reclamation on that. I think

one issue related to that is the concern of urban and ag users that

if we acquired other supplies, that would be taken into account in

our allocation from the CVP and we would face further cutbacks.

That was under discussion during the Garamendi process, and I

think we all came out pleased with the results of that, with the assurances that those would be taken into account, but in a way that

did not hurt us further; if we go out and acquire supplies to meet

the cutbacks that we don’t end up in a zero sum game where we

just get chopped more.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. So are you satisfied that should not be a concern,

then?

Mr. GARTRELL. Right.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Okay. Well, I thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

It’s been a long afternoon. Useful testimony. I appreciate it. There

will be probably some further questions. We will hold the record

open for your timely response. Have a good weekend. With that,

the hearing is concluded.

[Whereupon, at 4:42 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]