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Schwarzenegger Administration Proposes to Give Away State Water Resources

California Water Plan Amendments Released

By Gary A. Patton
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

Despite the recent crisis in the Delta and the Governor's push for new dams, last week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) proposed to give away the largest water storage facility in the state and to eliminate drought safeguards for urban areas in California.

DWR's draft decision, revealed in the Monterey Plus Environmental Impact Report (EIR), would require the State to adopt amendments to the State Water Project (SWP) contract, called the "the Monterey Amendments," negotiated in secret by DWR in 1994. The original behind-closed-doors deal was successfully challenged in a lawsuit by the Planning and Conservation League, the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara, and Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District (Planning and Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 Cal.App.3d). While DWR has been allowed to operate under the Monterey Amendments provisionally since 1995, the PCL lawsuit forced DWR to analyze the impacts of the amendments and to decide whether or not permanently to adopt the Monterey Amendments based on that analysis.

If permanently adopted, the Monterey Amendments would fundamentally change how the State Water Project operates. Specifically, the Monterey Amendments would:

• Eliminate contract provisions that provide drought safeguards for urban areas. DWR's own analysis shows that in dry years like 2001, water supplies for homes and businesses in urban areas will be reduced by over 400,000 acre-feet (a reduction of 26% of total urban water deliveries from the SWP), if the Monterey Amendments are adopted.

• Give away the State-owned Kern Water Bank, the largest water storage facility in California.

• Eliminate the common-sense provision in the original contract which required DWR to determine the realistic yield of the SWP.
Without knowing the actual capacity of the SWP, DWR will continue to promise to deliver "paper water," water which actually does not exist in the real world. Already, the promise of paper water has lead to over-reliance on the water from the fragile Bay-Delta, over-pumping, inevitable cutbacks in water supplies, and ultimately decreased water supply reliability.

• Transfer millions of dollars in costs to California taxpayers, while rebating millions to individual water agencies.

• Encourage the over-pumping of Delta water in the winter and spring months, which has already, under the provisional use of the Monterey Amendments, contributed to the massive decline of the Delta smelt and other Bay-Delta fish populations.

PCL has long held that DWR's provisional operations under the Monterey Amendments are directly related to the declines in the health of the Delta and decreases in water supply reliability throughout California. If permanently adopted, the Monterey Amendments would strip urban areas, including homes and businesses, of their drought safeguards, forcing those areas to depend on delivery of "surplus" water from the Delta in wetter years. (The recent fish declines in the Delta and the resulting ruling from Judge Oliver W. Wanger of the U.S. District Court in Fresno, demonstrate that the "surplus" water urban areas now dependent on is actually just "paper water" that cannot be delivered in the future.)

PCL is outraged that despite the obvious impacts on California, DWR is proposing to adopt the Monterey Amendments on a permanent basis, stripping urban areas of their drought safeguards and giving away the State's largest storage facility. This is a terrible decision for California that will exacerbate the water problems we are already facing today.

Gary Patton is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in California that is the best in the United States. PCL staff review virtually every environmental bill that comes before the California Legislature each year. It has testified in support or opposition of thousands of bills to strengthen California's environmental laws and fight off rollbacks of environmental protections.

Posted on October 27, 2007

Comments

As ususal special interests are determining how
our water resources are to be determined and used.
The Monterey amendment is a typical example of this.
We as tax payers will bear the brunt of this
,behind closed doors manipulation, of those who are
greedy and manipulative. The above legislation will
not solve our water crisis but only add to more
and more water wars between california residents and
corporate special interests.

Posted by: pat dressler at November 4, 2007 07:30 AM

What will king S do next....give away our entire state to the thirstiest??? What about the fish who anually migrate up the rivers through our delta' water ways? Where will they go? They return every year to their spawning grounds and will no longer be able to make their way...shame on our governor's way to political gain at northern california's expense...which makes me wonder why did I ever vote for him? Probably, because I expect to believe someone who gives an oath of office to be true to his word instead of lies! This is NOT the governor I originally voted for, is it? Boooooooo on him.

Posted by: Chris Selvy at February 25, 2008 08:56 PM

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