PUB00109 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

By the 1930s. it was clear that additional water was needed for Central Valley agriculture. CVP = Central Valley Project The Central Valley Project Act was adopted in 1933 as the initial part of the State Water Plan. Because of the depression. the state was unable to market bonds for the project. and it was turned over to the federal government. 18 CALIFORNIA WATER were being felt in the Central Valley, leading to searches for new sources of water to supply the still-growing agricultural industry. The result of this search was the federal Ceutral Valley Project (CVP), now California's largest water supplier. The Central Valley Project was originally proposed by Colonel Robert Bradford Marshall of the United States Geological Survey in 1920- The people of California. iudifferent to the bountiful gifts tbat Nature has given them, sit idly by waiting for rain, indefinitely postponing irrigation, and allowing every year millions and mil- lions of dollars in water to pour unused into the sea, when there are hungry thousands in this and in other countries pleading for food and when San Francisco and the Bay Cities, the metropolitan district of California, are begging for water. . . . My solution of the whole problem is to turn the Sacramento River into the San Joaquin Valley, a feat which is now shown to be practicable as an engineering enterprise that is possible of execution within ten years and that would justify a cost, if necessary, of $750,000,000, be safe for the investor, present no legal obstructions, and provide for the present as well as the prospective land owner the most attractive proposition ever offered in the State. Remember, how- ever, that the plan is a big, State-wide plan and also remember that success, as California measures success, is assured only when the enterprise is planned and carried out in its entirety.27 The initial part of the State Water Plan, the CVP, was adopted as the Central Valley Project Act of 1933. Cal. Wat. Code S 11100 et seq. Voters passed a 1933 referendum approviug the Central Valley Project Act and included the authorization for $170 milliou of revenue bouds. Because of the Depression, the state was not able to market the bonds to finance the CVP and had to abandon the project. The state then asked the federal government to undertake the project. A federal Central Valley Project was first authorized by the Rivers and Harbors Act of August 30, 1935. Re-authorized for con- struction by the Department ofInterior, the project was made subject to reclamation laws by the Rivers and Harbors Act of August 26, 1937.28 The 1937 Act provided that the dams and reservoirs should be used for (1) river regulation, improvement of navigation, and flood 27 Marshali, "Irrigation of Twelve Million Acres orLand in California." 1920, pages 6-7, cited in Graham, "The Central Valley Project: Resource Devel- opment of a Natural Basin," 38 California Law Review. pages 588. 590. 28 Interim Central Valley Project Operations Criteria and Plan (CVP-OCAP), February 1992, page 2.