Staving Off Water Warfare

If the state Senate cannot debate relatively innocuous water legislation without a pitched battle, what will happen when the important bills come to the Senate floor? Simple: a revival of the old water wars that have bitterly divided Northern and Southern California for so many years. A truce is needed in the Legislature before the animosities become so intense that nothing constructive can emerge from the 1987 session.

The skirmishing began last week when the Senate took up several minor measures sponsored by Sen. Ruben S. Ayala (D-Chino), chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Water Committee. A spirited debate could be expected, but the depth of hostility was surprising and unfortunate. Ayala did not help his case with his combative presentation.

Ayala bluntly refused to answer several legitimate questions from his northern colleagues, once telling Sen. Becky Morgan (R-Los Altos Hills): “The answer is not important to anyone.” Morgan retorted, “It’s important to me.” The answer, in fact, is crucial if California is to resolve its considerable water development problems.

The Ayala bill would require the state Department of Water Resources to get approval of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to raise the allowable limit of state pumping from the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers for shipment to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. Morgan wanted to know how such legislation would affect an important agreement by the state departments of Water Resources and Fish and Game on restoration of fisheries in the delta, which have been harmed by the pumping from the delta into the California Aqueduct.

Ayala is supposed to be the Senate’s expert on water issues, but he claimed he was unaware of the highly publicized agreement. He was not a party to it, he said, and if his legislation had the effect of nullifying the pact, “so be it.” If Ayala indeed was not aware of the agreement, that fact is appalling enough. To be so insensitive to the importance of such agreements to California’s water future is worse yet.

The directors of Water Resources and Fish and Game agreed last Nov. 12 that further work would be required to offset the damage to the delta fisheries. Meanwhile, they said, “the state Water Project will not be operated to export more water than can be exported by the existing pumps” except during high winter flows. The pact, worked out with a coalition of water interests, was necessary for the Water Resources to win approval of the installation of four additional pumps in the delta, work now under way.

While Ayala claims his program is designed in part to protect the environment of the delta and San Francisco Bay, his real goal is to get more water sent south by forcing the Deukmejian Administration, prematurely, to start construction of water transfer facilities in the delta. When his major bill to do this reaches the Senate floor, last week’s skirmish is sure to become all-out warfare--something California cannot afford.

If any comprehensive water legislation is to pass this year, it will be the result of a reconciliation of Ayala’s bills in a Senate-Assembly Conference Committee with a package sponsored by Assemblyman Jim Costa (D-Fresno). The Costa legislation provides a far more reasonable and practical approach to delta water problems.

But no good can result, for either Northern or Southern California, if the debate is larded with hostility and distrust every step of the way. The Legislature should call a truce now and negotiate a program with all delta interests and experts. This approach has brought about considerable resolution of state water problems outside of the legislative forum during the past two years. Ayala’s blunderbuss approach, in fact, now threatens to unravel much of the progress that has been achieved.