Delta bill rekindles debate on exports
Alex Breitler
Stockton Record
02/10/2009
A group of lawmakers says the government should be allowed to bypass endangered species law and export Delta water to farms and cities during times of devastating drought.
Republican George Radanovich of Mariposa, who introduced a bill to this effect last week, called the Endangered Species Act a "horrendous" law and said that pumping restrictions to protect Delta smelt and other species at the expense of farmers amounts to "economic eco-terrorism."
That is strong language, his spokesman, Spencer Pederson, acknowledged Monday.
"He is very serious," Pederson said. "This is his No. 1 priority, and we'll be looking at any way possible in the future to get this or something like this moving."
Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Atwater, is among seven sponsors of the bill. "Between the environment and our need for food, we must find a balance," Cardoza said.
California's natural drought is compounded by a regulatory one. Court orders restrict how much water can be pumped from the Delta.
That's because the giant pumps near Tracy are so powerful they can reverse the flow of two south Delta rivers, sucking in fish to a likely demise.
Giving the state and federal governments a pass around the Endangered Species Act is hardly the answer, one environmental group said Monday. Strict water conservation and recycling strategies - and eliminating water uses that don't make sense - would alleviate pressure on the Delta and spare sensitive species, said Jeff Miller, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity in San Francisco.
"We have a fundamental problem with prioritizing (water) deliveries to agriculture at the expense of species that are on their way to extinction," he said.
The 35-year-old act requires the government to save, "to the extent practicable," species faced with extinction. The law has survived repeated attempts to alter it.
Next week, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is expected to tell its contractors, mostly farmers, how much water may be delivered in 2009. No one expects good news; barring a hefty supply of rain and snow in February and March, it's likely no water at all will be delivered by the bureau.Westlands Water District could see 40,000 jobs lost, according to a University of California, Davis, analysis last month. A spokeswoman for the district said a permanent fix in the Delta is needed, a common cry from water users seeking a peripheral canal to siphon water around rather than through the estuary.
"It's fair to say we appreciate what the congressmen are doing to alleviate the pressure," Westlands spokeswoman Sarah Woolf said. "But that doesn't get us to the end result."
Read the text of of HR 856, the California Drough Alleviation Act of 2009.
