A Rich Gift

Sacramento and Washington teamed up this week to give California what amounts to a free dam and reservoir, with a cleaner Sacramento River delta thrown in for good measure. At going construction rates for new dams of $1 billion and up, it is a rich gift--not only financially but also environmentally.

The gift is an agreement to operate the federal government’s Central Valley Project and the California Water Project virtually as one system--something that should have been done as long ago as the 1930s, when Washington took over and built a project that California had planned but could not afford to build because of the Depression.

What it will mean, among other things, is that the federal and state governments can reduce wear and tear on the delta and its fisheries by coordinating their pumping operations that lift water from the delta and put it into canals and reservoirs. It will mean a federal commitment, for the first time, to operate as the state now does in a way that keeps a heavy flow of fresh water moving through the delta to hold back the brackish waters of San Francisco Bay.

It also will mean eventually that the federal project, whose dams and reservoirs can store 1 million acre-feet more of water than its canals can carry, will be able to use state canals to make that water available anywhere that it is needed in California. To put that amount of water into perspective, it is nearly half as much as the entire state Water Project now can deliver each year to urban and agricultural customers. It is a year’s supply of water for 1 million families.

The gift came this week because state and federal officials signed the formal agreement that will make the benefits flow. The water cannot flow for some years--not until the negotiating and signing of a contract that spells out the conditions under which federal water would flow into state canals. That contract in turn must be ratified by Congress.

But the hardest part is over--getting the federal government to recognize in writing that even though it had bought and paid for its network of dams, reservoirs and canals it was obliged to operate them in ways that helped California protect its environment. That it did not come easily but took so much hard work on the part of so many people in Sacramento and Congress who cared about California makes the gift even more precious.