Southland Wins Rounds in Legislative Fight Over Water

Southern California legislators, flexing their political muscle in a likely precursor of battles to come, prevailed over northerners Thursday in a rancorous Senate floor fight, the first of the year over water.

In an initial test of strength, the southern-dominated upper chamber approved a pair of relatively modest bills by Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino), combative veteran chairman of the Agriculture and Water Committee and an outspoken champion of providing more water to the Southland.

One bill would prohibit the state from setting aside in storage any more water than what is needed to meet water quality standards. The second is aimed at requiring upstream Northern California water diverters to be involved in protecting the environmentally sensitive San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary.

Northern senators, however, sidetracked, at least temporarily, a bill they considered significantly more threatening. It would require the Deukmejian Administration to seek federal approval to operate at full capacity State Water Project pumps that send water to the Central Valley and the Southland through the California Aqueduct.

At one point during the often hostile debate, Ayala, convinced that he would never win the support of some northerners, denounced allegations against his bill by conservation organizations as “stupid” and violated Senate protocol by refusing to answer questions of northern legislators.

“You’re not going to support any of my bills anyway,” he snapped at Sen. Barry Keene (D-Benicia), whose district includes part of the Delta.

At another point, Sens. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills) and Daniel E. Boatwright (D-Concord) expressed concern that the Ayala pumping bill would wipe out a recent Delta agreement between the Departments of Water Resources and Fish and Game.

The agreement, which paved the way for installation of additional pumps in the Delta while requiring a variety of fish-protection measures, was worked out during negotiations involving the Deukmejian Administration, environmental protection organizations, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and other water contractors.

Ayala heatedly insisted that he knew nothing of the highly publicized agreement, was not a party to it and if his legislation had the effect of wiping out the pact, “so be it.”

Morgan and others asked him to delay action on the measure, which is supported by the Metropolitan Water District, until he could determine whether it would cancel the agreement. He refused, declaring: “The answer is not important to anyone.”

“It’s important to me,” shot back Morgan.

Northerners, however, succeeded in staving off a vote on the bill by invoking a parliamentary maneuver that sent it back to the Rules Committee, which is dominated by Southern Californians.

The floor fight was widely regarded as a warm-up for other far more controversial bills in an Ayala package, which he contends is aimed at protecting the Delta and San Francisco Bay and developing additional water supplies for Southern California.

The Delta is the vast collection pool for shipment of surplus northern water to the South.

Under questioning, Ayala acknowledged that any comprehensive water program produced by the Legislature this year probably would be written by an Assembly-Senate conference committee.

Nevertheless, he and Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), the only other senator to speak in behalf of any Ayala bill, urged that the legislation be sent to the Assembly for further action.

On a 22-10 vote, Southern Californians approved over northern opposition a bill that would prohibit the state Water Resources Control Board from keeping in its reservoirs any water above and beyond the amount needed to meet the board’s own water quality standards.

Ayala, frequently at odds with environmentalists, told the Senate that he had been informed that “there’s been a move afoot by certain special-interest groups” to hold additional amounts of water in reserve for unspecified purposes.

He later identified them to reporters only as “some conservation groups” who want the additional storage in northern reservoirs for use in flushing out San Francisco Bay during dry years.

San Francisco Bay Area lawmakers argued that the legislation would unreasonably handcuff the board as it prepares for the long process of setting water quality standards for the bay.

Southerners, joined by two Northern Californians, also approved, 22 to 5, the Ayala bill that would write into the statute books a 1986 state Court of Appeals decision that held that water diverters upstream from the Delta had to help mitigate damage to the Delta if their diversions contribute to problems in the estuary.

Such upstream diverters include the cities of San Francisco, Sacramento, Redding and Chico, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, and some Northern California farmers. In setting water quality standards for the Bay Area and the Delta, the water board might direct such diverters to give up some of their water, the court indicated.