I have submitted a shorter letter responding to the Chronicle’s front-page article by Carolyn Lochhead (“Central Valley reps bill would upend water rights,” February 17, 2012), but believe the inaccuracies and omissions in it are so stark that it deserves a more detailed reply.

“Representatives from the Central Valley pushed legislation through a House committee Thursday that would upend the state's system of water rights, deploying the federal government to extract water from Northern California farms, fisheries and cities to send to farmers in the valley.”

Title IV of the measure specifically reaffirms and guarantees the state’s system of water rights and brings the full force of federal law to protect those rights.
 
Indeed, the Northern California Water Association, representing the very water users Ms. Lochhead contends would have their rights “upended” and their water “extracted” strongly supports the bill.  It writes:

 “The bill, if enacted, now contains provisions that would not only protect the interests of senior water rights holders in the Sacramento Valley, but would also provide significant, material water policy improvements to current federal law.  The bill, if enacted, would provide an unprecedented federal statutory express recognition of, and commitment to, California’s state water rights priority system and area of origin protections.  This is important for the region to provide sustainable water supplies for productive farmlands, wildlife refuges, and managed wetlands, cities and rural communities, recreation, and meandering rivers that support important fisheries.”

 Additionally, Title I, Section 105 of the bill permits Delta and Bay Area districts to re-use environmental water once it has served its purpose, increasing the amount of water available to Northern California communities. 

 Finally, the vote was bi-partisan, with Democrats Jim Costa (D-California) and Dan Boren (D-Oklahoma) joining Republicans in adopting the bill 27 to 17.

“The legislation would halt restoration of the San Joaquin River, leaving as much as 40 miles of the river dry, restore irrigation contracts and override fish and wildlife protections in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.”

This charge, which was also made in the Chronicle’s editorial of February 16, 2012, is categorically false.  In fact, Title II merely replaces the coldwater fishery established under the San Joaquin River Settlement Act of 2009 with a warm water fishery more conducive to the Central Valley habitat, guaranteeing year round flows.   During my opening statement, I said:

“(The bill) replaces the San Joaquin River Settlement Act that was imposed in 2009 with a workable and vastly less expensive alternative.

“Let me put the current San Joaquin River Settlement Act in perspective.  It will spend more than one billion dollars to achieve the stated goal of establishing a population of 500 salmon below the Friant dam.  That comes to two million dollars per fish. And that’s without accounting for the costs that will be incurred by Central Valley farmers as water that is already in critically short supply is diverted to this project that are estimated to increase the actual cost ten-fold.”

During committee discussion, I went on to say, “The San Joaquin River is on the hot valley floor – the only time it has been a cold-water fishery was during very wet years and then only sporadically.”

“McClintock negotiated an agreement from fellow Republicans to preserve local water rights to protect his Sacramento district from the original bill.”

 In fact, I said in my opening statement that my office had conducted “a laborious eight-month process of consulting more than 60 northern California water agencies – in both Democratic and Republican congressional districts -- and the result is an unprecedented consensus reflected in the amendment.” During the committee debate, I read a list of 11 water districts in Democratic Congressman Garamendi’s district alone that we worked with on amendments to protect their water rights. 

Whatever our personal biases and opinions, we should at least be able to agree that readers are entitled to the truth, particularly in a story appearing on the front page of a major metropolitan newspaper over a matter of significant public importance.  All of the facts and statements cited above were made during the public meeting and should have been known to all those who attended it.  I believe that this article clearly crossed the line into demonstrable falsehood and I challenge the management of the Chronicle to set the record straight.

Sincerely,

Tom McClintock
Chairman, Sub-Committee on Water and Power, House Natural Resources Committee