U.S. Agrees in Principle to State Takeover of Water Facilities

In the Bush Administration’s first formal response to a request by Gov. Pete Wilson, Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. said Wednesday that he has agreed in principle to transfer control of all federal water facilities in California to the state.

Lujan said the Administration was ready to immediately begin negotiations to iron out the dozens of legal, administrative, financial and environmental issues involved in a state takeover of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project. The approval of Congress is also required.

“As a fellow Westerner, my decisions and my positions on questions of water policy are based first and foremost on the proposition that the management and use of a state’s water is the state’s responsibility,” Lujan said in a letter to Wilson.

Consequently, Lujan said, he was offering “my strong support for the transfer of the CVP to the state of California following negotiations providing reasonable terms and conditions. . . .”

State officials said they expect formal negotiations to begin in a few weeks and hope to have “the framework of an agreement for transfer” completed within six months. Lujan said Assistant Interior Secretary John M. Sayre had been designated to negotiate on behalf of the federal government. Wilson has already named Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler and Water Resources Department Director David Kennedy as his chief negotiators.

“State management of the Central Valley Project--and of the largest single block of water in the state--is essential to the long-term water policy of the state,” Wheeler said.

The Central Valley Project, built by the federal government during the Depression when the state had no funds to expand its water system, serves farmers in the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys and some municipal and industrial users in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area.