Water Rights Cliffhanger

Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-Mont.) can’t see spending $1.6 billion on a joint state-federal water program in California--much of it to protect the environment--if he can’t get some money for his state, too. “I’m not too concerned about sucker fish,” he said last week. “I’m concerned about the breakfast table.”

Hold on, senator. This isn’t about sucker fish. But it certainly is about the destruction that state and federal pumping has done to the environment of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta over the last 50 years. That does include whole salmon populations.

If we’re going to put food on breakfast tables, how about keeping the water flowing to millions of acres in the San Joaquin Valley, the anchor of California’s $27-billion-a-year agricultural industry? The delta also is a chief source of water for 22 million Californians, including all of coastal Southern California.

Despite Burns’ opposition, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee finally has approved S 1768 by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to reauthorize federal participation in the Cal-Fed program to restore the delta--the cleansing maze of sloughs and channels through which the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers flow en route to the Pacific Ocean. The delta is where water from the north is sucked up by the pumps and sent to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California via state and federal canals.

Pumping and other actions have devastated salmon runs. Farm runoff is polluting the water. Poorly maintained levees could collapse in an earthquake and disrupt a major share of Southern California’s water supply. Feinstein’s measure authorizes spending $1.6 billion in federal money over the next three years, scaled back from $2.4 million over five years to win the needed support. The state has put up $1 billion in the last several years.

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) has a rival House bill that tilts toward farmers’ interests. But Feinstein says the state’s major farm water districts back her bill, which should be the model for the final legislation. If Cal-Fed fails to pass, it could cause long-term harm to the economy as water shortages, maldistribution and environmental damage multiply.

The Bush administration says it supports Cal-Fed, even though President Bush’s budget managers are said to be unhappy with the cost. If the White House wants to keep this deal alive, it could help by sending Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton out to join Feinstein in her uphill fight.