Keep Water Deal Flowing

There is only one way to assure California an adequate supply of clean water while repairing environmental damage done by dam-and canal-building of the past. It is through a $9-billion state-federal program, years in the making, that the Bush and Davis administrations both support.

But the federal side of the plan known as Cal-Fed is lagging because Congress has failed to reauthorize federal participation. One reason is that California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both Democrats, were at odds over the legislation. Now Feinstein has made a critical change in her bill, S 976, and won Boxer’s support. This does not assure passage this year, but it removes a big obstacle.

There are Cal-Fed bills in the House too, with a hearing set for next week.

Southern California has a vital interest in Cal-Fed because much of its water comes from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the focus of the project.

The Feinstein bill had a fatal flaw that was opposed by Boxer, environmentalists and others: a provision to assure delivery of a certain amount of water each year to the farms of the Westlands Water District in the San Joaquin Valley. This extraordinary arrangement would have benefited big corporate farms in an area of the valley plagued by poor drainage of selenium-contaminated irrigation runoff. The real solution to Westlands’ problems is not more water but for the federal government to buy out the owners of about 200,000 acres of farmland and retire it from production.

Boxer rightly opposed the Westlands provision, and Feinstein agreed last week to drop it. Now Feinstein could improve her bill even more by removing a proposal to fast-track federal approval of new reservoirs.