By
Rick Elkins
California - Congressman Devin Nunes apologized to more than 100 farmers, government officials and water users Friday for not being able to deliver on his promise for a new dam on the San Joaquin River watershed.
Nunes said that the plan for a dam at Temperance Flat went down the river last week when Congress passed the legislation designed to restore salmon to the San Joaquin River. In that settlement is language that requires any new storage must go to support the salmon and cannot be used for farm irrigation or domestic use, he said.
“The dam is over with, it's not going to be built,” Nunes said during the Water Supply Reality Check conference at the Tulare County Agricultural Commissioner's office in Tulare Friday.
A Nunes assistant explained that with the River Bill, it makes no sense economically to build the dam now since the water it would store would only flow down the river and out to sea.
There was little good news presented
during the two-hour session and Tulare farmer Mark Watte's observation
may have summed up the mood of those in attendance.
“We've got this bad situation and it keeps getting worse. We don't
feel things are going to get better real soon,” he said.
Nunes did not offer a lot of encouragement. “Every year, something new (and bad) happens. One common denominator is the radical environmental groups who have cut our water supply. I don't know where we go from here,” he said discouragingly.
Not Much Optimism
None of the speakers during the meeting offered a lot of hope things will get better and they indicated that the drought, which many people, including the media, blame on the water shortage, is not the culprit.
“The situation we're facing on the west side is a failure of political leadership,” general manager of Westlands Water District Tom Birmingham said, showing examples of drier periods where the massive water district still received water. This year, Westlands has been told it will get no water, leaving hundreds of thousands of acres fallow and thousands out of work.
“In 1977, the allocation of water for Westlands was 25 percent. That was the driest year on record,” he said, pointing out that 1976 had been a dry year as well. He said the lack of water will mean $2.2 billion lost to the Valley's economy.
“This year is a not a drought year, but a dry year,” he stressed.
What is keeping water flowing south is judicial rulings to protect the Delta Smelt, a tiny fish environmentalists claim is harmed by the pumps that divert water. He said hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water is being lost to the ocean because the pumps aren't running. “The amount of water (lost) would represent a 15-20 percent allocation for the west side,” he said.
“The real story is what's happening to the people,” he added, pointing out the human toll the lack of water is taking on towns like Mendota. Birmingham said the mayor of that small farming community on the west side of Fresno County said his residents don't want charity; they want water so they can go back to work.
He said Westlands has offered to construct a canal around the Delta to deliver water south, but environmentalists and politicians are blocking that attempt. He said environmentalists are even fighting the district over attempts to develop a habitat in the Delta for the smelt.
K.D. Schmidt, an expert on groundwater,
said the lack of surface water is taking its toll on the groundwater supply.
He said a misconception is that water flows into the aquifer from the
snowpack in the mountains and then makes it way under the Valley.
“Percolation is the main source,” he said for the underground
water supply – a supply that cities like Visalia and Tulare rely
on for their domestic water.
“The picture is not pretty. There is not enough surface water,” warmed Schmidt. “We have to have more surface water or take out acres of farm land and reduce the number of people living here.”
River Settlement
Nunes opposed the San Joaquin River Settlement that Congress passed last week. Rep. Jim Costa, (D-Fresno), voted for the bill. Nunes said the bill, which was basically written by the Natural Resources Defense Council that sued over the river flow, is a disaster for farmers in that it means water that normally flows down the Friant-Kern Canal to eastside users, is now in jeopardy.
The only glimmer of hope is the construction of the peripheral canal. Birmingham said he thinks that will occur, but it may be 10 years away.
Many agreed that the Valley needs to rally support and educate those in San Francisco and Los Angeles how critical the situation has become.
“We need to say, 'We're not going to take it anymore,'” said Nunes.
85% Supply for Friant
Friant member districts that include a number in Tulare County feared earlier they would get only 25 percent of their contracted Class 1 water supply, but now that more rain and snow has fallen, the federal Bureau of Reclamation is expected to increase water flows to Friant members to 85 percent of Class 1 – a near normal supply.
Birmingham credited Nunes for the increase, saying the congressmen questioned the original allotment, pointing out the near normal snowpack.
That's an increase from just a few weeks ago of 65 percent, higher now because the Exchange Contractors will be supplied from Sacramento river water – fed from Lake Shasta. Storage in Millerton Lake, source of Friant's water, is actually 100,000 acre feet higher than this time last year.
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