Senate OKs Water Bill Favorable to Farmers

The Senate approved legislation Friday that would allow California farmers using the massive Central Valley Project to sell water to cities, but would continue the granting of controversial long-term water subsidies to agricultural users.

Acting in minutes on a unanimous voice vote, the Senate approval sets the stage for a showdown over federal water distribution in California.

The legislation, introduced by Sen. John Seymour (R-Calif.) as part of an omnibus water bill, is unlikely to become law in its present form. It now goes to a House-Senate conference committee, where Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), chairman of the House Interior Committee, and Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J), chairman of a Senate water and power subcommittee, are expected to push vigorously for radical changes.

Seymour took delight in his victory, no matter how temporary it may turn out to be.

“Critics of my bill have indicated that passage would represent a severe setback for the state of California,” Seymour said in a statement. “Despite these shrill predictions of doom and gloom . . . the Senate chose to support my bill.”

The cornerstone of the bill is a provision that would eliminate barriers to transferring agricultural water to urban areas, said Seymour spokesman H. D. Palmer. The legislation would allow cities to negotiate water contract sales directly with farmers hooked up to the Central Valley Project.

But critics attack the parts of the bill that would authorize the Department of the Interior to renew 40-year irrigation contracts for farmers at highly subsidized rates, and they say the bill shortchanges environmental water needs.

Bradley has called the bill “an empty promise” and Miller has said it is a “travesty that will not become law.”