Stakeholders Reject Water Conference Committee Report

California Farm Bureau Federation
(Excerpts from a letter addressed to the California Legislature)

Water Conference Committee Report – Oppose
September 10, 2009

“We support a comprehensive water package that includes new surface storage with continuous appropriation, improved conveyance, protection of existing water rights and public funding for environmental improvements.

We OPPOSE the five-bill legislative package because it:

- Does not provide a comprehensive solution for a reliable water supply.

- Does not provide for new surface storage with continuous appropriation.

- Does not improve the delta ecosystem and in fact includes elements that will hinder Delta ecosystem and economic recovery.

- Does not protect existing water rights by reallocating water to fish, wildlife, and other in-stream beneficial uses.

- Does not provide a balanced funding approach which will result in negative consequences on an economy struggling to recover and impede investment in the environment. This unbalanced approach to fees in the package fails to recognize the public benefit and the need for public funding.

The five-bill legislative package GROWS State Government and CREATES Duplicative
Bureaucratic Reviews and Approvals that will only slow down and STOP much needed solutions to the water crisis.”

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Friant Water Authority
(Excerpts from a letter addressed to the California Legislature)

Delta Bill Package – Oppose
September 10, 2009

The Friant Water Authority is OPPOSED to the Water Conference Committee Report and requests your “NO” vote on the Report. The following represent the Authority’s concerns:

Water supply reliability would be substantially undermined. Although water supply reliability is identified as a “coequal goal” of the legislation, the new Delta Stewardship Council would be granted powers to block new conveyance facilities and the Delta Plan implementation is heavily weighted to ecosystem restoration with short-shrift given to improving adequacy and reliability of water supplies.

Substantial hurdles and challenges would be placed on the ability to achieve the construction of new conveyance facilities. The legislation would require completion of in-stream flow determinations for every tributary of the Sacramento River by the SWRCB before any conveyance facility could be authorized. This process would take decades, cost millions, and would be a major litigation trap – all of which would hugely delay any chance of new conveyance being authorized.

A regulatory approach to water use efficiency would be imposed on agricultural water suppliers, with no assurances that water rights would be protected for efficiency improvements. The legislation would impose a very rigid regulatory model for identifying and quantifying agricultural water savings. The legislation would set the stage for redirecting agricultural water supplies for other uses and purposes.

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The Regional Council of Rural Counties
(Excerpts from a letter addressed to the California Legislature)

Delta Bill Package – Oppose
September 10, 2009

The Regional Council of Rural Counties (RCRC) urges your NO vote on SB 12, SB 229, SB 458, AB 39 and AB 49. Unfortunately, these bills are fatally flawed. Water is one of the highest priority policy issues for California and is too important to not do it right.

The Delta Stewardship Council is vested with extensive responsibilities and powers that duplicate those of existing state agencies. We do not support the creation of new, redundant and costly regulatory agency.

A groundwater elevation monitoring program for all groundwater basins and sub-basins is established, paid for by groundwater users. The Legislature should not create this expansive and expensive new program, to be paid for by groundwater water users, when the Legislature does not even adequately fund the existing state network of groundwater monitoring wells.

Agricultural and agricultural water organizations worked diligently to develop meaningful agricultural water use efficiency language. The language contained in the Delta bill package does not work for agriculture.


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Statewide Water Organization
(Excerpts from a letter addressed to the California Legislature)

ACWA Sees Major Problems with Package but Negotiations Continue
September 10, 2009

The Senate-Assembly conference committee on water issued its final report late Wednesday night. The report was signed by eight Democratic members of the committee and no Republican members. The committee has now officially finished its work.

[We] appreciate the hard work of the conference committee and believe that while some improvements have been made to certain aspects of the package, major problems still exist. Strong recommendations to the conference committee from [our organization] and others that would have resulted in a package capable of advancing the co-equal goals were regrettably ignored.

- SB 12 and AB 39 fail to treat water supply reliability as a co-equal goal. At a time when California already has lost more than 2.5 million acre-feet of water supply due to inadequate infrastructure, the conference report defines a state policy of further supply losses.

- Other provisions of the conference report could force the proposed Delta Stewardship Council into gridlock over issues of vital importance, especially decisions to move forward on Delta conveyance.

- AB 49 would negatively impact urban areas by relying too heavily on regulatory hammers instead of a positive, incentive-based program to trigger statewide conservation. The agricultural provisions in AB 49 have gotten worse, not better.

- SB 229 still includes language that would be highly disruptive to water rights throughout the state. The language has no place in a bill focused on the Delta.

- The conference report does not include a finance package including an acceptable GO bond, a key condition of support for the governor.”