Coalition Seeks $3 Billion for Troubled Delta

A coalition of California congressional representatives is pushing a bill to get renewed authorization and a $3-billion budget boost for the massive state and federal project to save the sickly Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, key to the state’s water supply.

The 26-member coalition’s rallying cry is simple but plaintive: Help California avert a water crisis that could be even more devastating than its energy crisis.

But the bill, submitted last week by its main sponsor, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Riverside), already has reheated the controversy that last year led to Congress adjourning without renewing the so-called CalFed program or providing it with any additional money.

Specifically, the bill tilts toward farming and business interests by virtually ensuring the construction of more dams and reservoirs. Its sponsors say such measures are needed to ensure that California has enough water to satisfy a growing population and to compensate for cutbacks from the Colorado River.

“As bad as the electricity crisis is, we have a [potential] water crisis in our state that could overshadow it,” Calvert said. “We have declining supplies and increasing demand.”

The bill brought immediate opposition from Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), long a power in congressional water battles, and from elements of the environmental movement.

“This is a deeply flawed bill that will undermine the CalFed program and seems to be tailored for Central Valley [farming] interests,” said Barry Nelson, senior policy analyst with the San Francisco-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

Even Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who attended a news conference last week with Calvert, chairman of the House water and power subcommittee, and praised him for tackling water as an issue, said she has sharp differences with the measure. She is preparing her own bill.

Feinstein in the last session led an unsuccessful effort to renew authorization for CalFed and provide an additional $20 million in funding. A similar effort in Sacramento to add $150 million to the state’s contribution also failed.

The efforts died amid disputes between farmers and environmentalists, a classic split in California water wars. Also at issue was whether legislative bodies should earmark specific projects or leave that to water planners.

Though the lack of action was not immediately threatening to the program, which has funding from previous years, some CalFed observers worried that it could signal that the fragile detente between competing interests that led to the 1994 CalFed accord might be crumbling.

If so, it may be happening at a politically inopportune time, when neither Gov. Gray Davis nor President Bush has signaled an eagerness to get deeply involved in water politics.

Their predecessors--Gov. Pete Wilson and President Bill Clinton--played key roles in attempting to cajole and threaten various California water factions into dropping their historic animosity.

Clinton’s secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt, was the most activist Cabinet member in decades in water issues throughout the West. Gale Norton, named by Bush to succeed Babbitt, has yet to indicate whether she will continue that role.

Feinstein complained again last week of getting a cold shoulder from the White House. “I’ve tried four times to talk to the president,” she said. “I’m the senior senator of the largest state in the union and I can’t get an appointment.”

Davis issued a statement praising Calvert and Feinstein but declining to take a position on the volatile issue of reservoirs. Many environmentalists find reservoirs to be wasteful and environmentally damaging.

The Calvert bill would permit the raising of Shasta Dam in Northern California, enlarging Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County, and building new storage facilities along the San Joaquin River. To attract support from outside California, Calvert has included money for water projects in 17 Western states.

Also, the bill would require the federal government to ensure that farmers south of the delta get at least 70% of their contracted water allotments from the Central Valley Project in all but drought years.

Water cutbacks due to environmental considerations have caused an uproar among farmers.

Adan Ortega, senior executive assistant to the general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said he views the Calvert and Feinstein bills, despite their differences, as a hopeful sign that members of Congress are grappling with water.

“In the ambiguity of a new administration there is an opportunity to seize some ground,” he said.

Ortega suggested that politicians in other Western states are realizing that helping California cure the delta’s problems will make it easier for the state to reduce its need for water from the Colorado River. Seven states depend on the Colorado.

CalFed is an effort to save the delta, the largest watershed in the West, from the ravages of silting, flooding, pollution and other ills. The delta provides water to 22 million people and tens of thousands of acres of farmland.

Run by a loose federation of 18 state and federal agencies, CalFed has come to encompass a near grab bag of local water projects. Larger decisions involving choosing between competing interests have, in many cases, been delayed amid political controversy.