WSP10800

• File Number: 8277.200.10
• Description: California's Central Valley Project
• State: CA
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Date: 1/1/2000
• Title: Western Water -- Central Valley Project Improvement Act Update
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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the Delta receives water from both
projects. "I don't think the state
anticipated that result."
In late January, a joint legislative
hearing was convened by the state
Senate's Agriculture and Water
Resources and Assembly's Water, Parks
and Wildlife committees to discuss the
water quality crisis. At the hearing,
state legislators questioned federal and
state officials on the developments in
December while
stakeholders rook
advantage of the
opportunity to
sOllnd off on b2,
and the Bureau's
projected water
allocations.
Wcstlands
farmer Chris
Heard told
legislators hc will
have to fallow 700
of the 2,100 acres
he farms if the
Bureau's water
allocation stands.
"We do not have other surface or well
water available," he said. "h..1y farm is
not sustainable with a 40 percent
supply."
Countered Zeke Grader, executive
director of the Pacific Coast Feclera~
tion of Fishermen's Associations
(PCFFA), "North coast salmon ports
have had boats rotting in the slips for
years because we have not had ad;
equate water in the streams. The
problem is not with the fish, with the
Endangered Species Act, or the
CVPlA, the problem is we have a
water system that is over subscribed."
This issue of Western Water
provides an update on the CVPIA,
with a particular focus on the issues
surrounding the b2 water, contract
renewals, Trinity River flows, and the
link between the CVPIA and the
CALFED Bay,Delta Program. Addi,
tional background information on the
CVP and the CVPIA can be found in
the Foundation's Laypenon's Guide to
the Central Valley Project and back
issues of Western Water.

Q

The b2 Water
Section 3406(b)(2) of the CVPIA
requires that Interior "dedicate and
manage annually 800,000 acre,feet of
CVP yield" for uses such as instream
flows for fish. As defined in that
section, CVP yield "means the deliv;
ery capability of the CVP during the
1928, I 934 drought period after fishery,
water quality and other flow and
operational requirements ... existing at
the time of enactment" have been
met. The law did not, however, spell
out how much of the water was to be
used upstream of the Delta, how much
was to be used on which river system,
or how much - if any - was allowed to
be captured for export downstream
after it had been Llsed upstream for
environmental purposes.
In 1997, after a two~year, mlllti~
stakeholder consensus process led by
then Deputy Secretary John
Garamendi, Interior released its b2
proposal. The plan did not include a
strict interpretation of yield nor a
method to account for water used.
Insteadl the focus was on specific fish
actions such as increased instream
flows and decreased pumping at key
times of the year; in some years more
than 800,000 acre,feet would he used,
in some years less.
One day after the plan's releasel
the San Luis & Delta,Mendota Water
Authority filed suit, arguing that the
water be accounted fat. They also
argued that the statute required
Interior to use the "delivery capability
of the CVP during the 1928, I 934
droughe' to develop an accounting
plan - in whICh case, the 800,000
acre,feer already had bccn used to
meet the CVP's obligations under the
Bay'Delta Accord, Endangered
Species Act and Delta water quality
control plan.
Enviromnentalists ultimately
joined the suitl arguing that Interior
must distinguish between dedicated
yield and project re~operation -
modifications that don't affect deliver;
ies - and actual supply reductions; that
800,000 acre' feet of yield equals an
800,000 acre,feet cut in watet supplies.

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