Lujan Rejects Call for Farm Water Cutoff : Drought: The Interior secretary and a California congressman disagree over the need to suspend deliveries from the Central Valley Project.

The chairman of the House Interior Committee asked Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan Jr. on Saturday to suspend deliveries of Central Valley Project water to California farmers except in cases of severe hardship, but the request was immediately turned down.

An Interior Department spokesman said that Lujan does not believe the policy change sought by Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) is warranted at this time and that the Cabinet member lacks the legal authority in some cases to suspend water deliveries.

The spokesman suggested that Miller seek legislation to require a water shut-off if he believes it is the right thing to do.

Miller acknowledged that farmers would be hard hit if his proposal took effect, but he said they would be eligible for the same disaster relief programs made available to others affected by the five-year drought.

“Moreover, should there be a change in circumstances that permits delivery of water, I would expect this temporary suspension to be reviewed and modified,” Miller said.

The Interior Department announced on Feb. 14 that it would reduce Central Valley Project water deliveries to most farmers in the state to 25% of the normal amount, but Miller said it is not in the national interest to provide them with even 25% of their normal supply of CVP water.

California’s state water agency has decided to cut off all water to farmers under its domain.

A minority of other farmers who hold Sacramento River water rights or are San Joaquin River exchange contractors would get 75% of normal deliveries under the federal plan.

Miller said federal contracts with these two groups of users contain provisions that would allow Lujan to stop deliveries for the duration of the drought. But Steven Goldstein, chief spokesman for the Interior Department, disagreed. “By law, we are not allowed to abrogate the contracts,” he said.

“The policy adopted by (the Bureau of) Reclamation is a policy of convenience that fails to provide water to those that need it most,” Miller wrote Lujan. “In addition, it would draw down reservoirs to dangerously low levels. If the drought continues, the results will be catastrophic.”

Miller urged the Interior Department to target its limited water supplies to contractors who would otherwise suffer “the most severe and long-term losses,” such as the loss of perennial crops.

“We don’t believe we are in a position to do that at the present time,” Goldstein said. He said Lujan was briefed Friday on the contents of Miller’s letter but had not received it before copies were made available to reporters.

In making his request, Miller argued that Lujan’s existing policy could be costly.

“Simply supplying 25% of normal deliveries to every contractor dissipates existing supplies without respect to priority or realistic use,” Miller said.

Noting that the state of California might pay irrigators up to $450 an acre to buy water for its water bank program, he added: “Your decision to continue deliveries of highly subsidized water, knowing the potential cost to repurchase these supplies, could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars that could be largely saved by your action now.”

Miller added that those who hold Sacramento River water rights or are San Joaquin River exchange contractors would get approximately 2.2 million acre-feet of water during the worst drought in 50 years while farmers served by the State Water Project would get no water at all.

“This 2.2 million acre-feet, much of which is used to grow the highly water-consumptive crop rice, could meet the needs of more than 10 million people in California’s urban areas now severely stressed by the drought,” Miller wrote.

Mike Henry, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau, agreed with the Interior Department that suspending CVP water deliveries to California farmers would amount to a breach of contract.

“Farmers are receiving water through the CVP under contractual obligations. Those contracts are held and signed with the federal government in order to provide a water supply to the farmers. Changing those contracts outside the allowable areas in the contract would be a breach of good faith confidence between the farmers and the federal government,” Henry said.

“The contracts currently provide an avenue through which water deliveries can be reduced. We feel it is important to allow any change in deliveries to be made at the most local level possible and not in a congressional hearing.

“If federal officials, Bureau of Reclamation officials, determine that further cuts need to be made, then they will be made only after determining the conditions of the farmers, rather than making a blanket statement that would say: ‘Let’s eliminate water except in hardship cases,’ ” Henry said.

Staff writer Elaine Woo in Los Angeles contributed to this story.