Westlands Water District yanks delta plan funding
Kelly Zito
San Francisco Chronicle
11/24/2010
The largest agricultural water district in the country has yanked its support for a plan to manage the future of California's deteriorating Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, casting doubt on the fate of a process many hoped would solve the water supply and environmental crises in the estuary.
In a strongly worded letter sent late Monday to David Hayes, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Westlands Water District charged the Obama administration with "misinformed political interference" and said the district wouldn't fund the Bay Delta Conservation Plan unless it was guaranteed sufficient water deliveries - roughly 70 percent of historical averages.
"As a public agency, Westlands cannot continue to spend millions of our ratepayers' dollars on a project that is likely to deliver no more and potentially less water to the public than they are receiving today," wrote Jean Sagouspe, president of Westlands, the agency that irrigates as much as $2 billion worth of nuts and produce on 600,000 acres in and around Fresno.
In his response Tuesday, Hayes called the district's assertions about reduced water deliveries baseless and committed his department to a thorough scientific analysis of the plan, a draft of which was released last week.
"Given the status of the (Bay Delta Conservation Plan) process, the promise it holds, and the consequences of its failure, it will be a disservice to all involved if Westlands prematurely walks away from the process based on unfounded conclusions or the mere fact that a range of operational criteria are being reviewed," Hayes wrote.
Targeting Brown
Critics privately called Westlands' withdrawal political grand-standing aimed at winning concessions on environmental rules from Gov.-elect Jerry Brown and possibly even federal regulators. Earlier this year, Westlands ally Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., proposed, then withdrew, a proposal to suspend the Endangered Species Act in order to increase water exports from the delta.
One of the environmental groups on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan steering committee said the delta's crashing habitat simply must come first.
"Westlands wants its supply guarantees before anyone else - that's not how this process works," said Cynthia Koehler, water legislative director with the Environmental Defense Fund. "This is about saving the estuary from death. We could all march into this process and have temper tantrums, but that's not going to get us very far."
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan committee convened four years ago under the auspices of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The idea was to craft a roadmap to balance the needs of a healthy estuary and water supplies for farms and millions of city dwellers over a 50-year period. While the effort involved a coalition of water agencies, environmental groups and state and federal agencies, Westlands picked up most of the $150 million tab for studies and planning.
