CALIFORNIA COMMENTARY : U.S. Is Part of the Water Problem : Use of federal water should be held to the same environmental and economic standards as use of state water.

Each year California’s population grows by more people than live in Wyoming. Each year more people and more industry demand more water. Each year agriculture uses 85% of the water in California. This fifth year of severe drought makes it critical to find creative, long-term solutions to all the state’s water needs, or face a future of constant scarcity and permanent crisis. Private and local interests must do their part, and the state government has moved in the right direction. Now it’s time to give some thought to the role the federal government can play.

Because the federal government controls almost 40% of the state’s water, it has an obligation to work with the state and local water agencies in fashioning a comprehensive, long-term policy.

The need for close cooperation between state government and the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the Interior Department branch that manages most federal water projects in California, would seem self-evident. And in the case of Bureau of Reclamation projects on the Colorado River--which store and regulate the majority of water delivered to Southern California--federal, state and local water managers have developed a healthy partnership. This successful relationship stands in sharp contrast to the Central Valley Project.

The Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project supplies about 20% of the state’s water, roughly 7 million acre-feet, enough to meet the needs of 35 million people. About 90% of the project’s water is sold at heavily subsidized rates to Central Valley growers.

The Central Valley Project is, from one perspective, a remarkably successful agricultural enterprise. CVP farms produce hundreds of crops, employ thousands of people and contribute billions of dollars to the economy. But the Bureau of Reclamation’s devotion to its agribusiness constituency has caused the agency to work against California’s much broader interests.

California water law has been progressive and forward-thinking in its attention to conservation and environmental protection. But the Bureau of Reclamation has tried to insulate the Central Valley Project from the progressive features of California water law, and has resisted facing up to the state’s serious environmental problems and the need to conserve.

Where California encourages voluntary water transfers so that market incentives will encourage conservation, the bureau has erected administrative barriers blocking transfers of project water. When Congress gave the bureau authority to require CVP water users to conserve, the bureau chose merely to ask growers to draft conservation plans, without requiring that the plans actually be implemented.

When the state sought to place environmental standards on bureau dams to improve water quality in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and asked the bureau to consider environmental effects before renewing 40-year CVP water contracts, the bureau fought those efforts at every pass. The bureau’s failure to acknowledge any concerns other than the agribusiness’ desire for cheap water has impeded efforts to protect salmon, steelhead, migratory waterfowl and other fish and wildlife damaged by the Central Valley Project.

Right now, the Central Valley Project is part of the problem in the drought crisis. Given the generous taxpayer subsidies lavished on project water users, it is essential that we hold those users to the highest standards of environmental protection, economic sense and sound water management. They must at least be held to the same standards as water users who buy from the state or local agencies.

It is important that Congress pass the Central Valley Project improvement act. This bill would authorize some sales of project water to California cities, encourage conservation, permit transfers of water and mandate restoration of fish and wildlife populations damaged by the project. For the long term, it would establish a balanced state-federal advisory committee to explore the possibility of transferring the Central Valley Project from federal to state control.

California faces enough difficulties in solving its water crisis without the impediments of a stubborn federal agency beholden to special interests. The Central Valley Project should be a better partner for California. With every sector of California’s water community working together, we can prepare the state to meet the water needs of all its people, effectively and without destroying the environment.