Feds Allocate Water for Fish, Not Farmers

Despite wetter-than-average weather in California, some farmers are looking at another year of a zero federal water allocation, even as billions of gallons of water continue to be dumped into the ocean to save the three-inch Delta smelt.

The effort apparently is not improving circumstances for the fish.

“I’d feel a little bit better about it if we were being successful, if we were propagating the Delta smelt and we were increasing the salmon run. At least you could see a cause and an effect,” said Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.) “But I think you can’t see a cause and effect because the science and biological opinions are flawed.”

David Murillo, Bureau of Reclamation mid-Pacific regional director, acknowledged at the House subcommittee meeting that the Delta smelt population is low but said the federal government must continue to flush water from the Sacramento Delta in order to comply with the Endangered Species Act.

An estimated 162 billion gallons are expected to be diverted this year into the Pacific Ocean to improve ecological conditions for the nearly extinct species.

“So we’ve not only decimated our economy,” said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) we’ve not only done enormous harm to millions of people, but we haven’t accomplished the stated purpose of these laws, which was to improve the environment.”

California’s reservoirs are fuller today than a year ago, thanks to a much-needed 2016 El Niño wet-weather cycle. Even so, some growers in the San Joaquin Valley may again receive a zero allocation of surface water.

Tom Birmingham, general manager and counsel for the Westlands Water District in Fresno, asked the committee where the outrage was over “governmental policies that have created zero water supplies for communities in the San Joaquin Valley, for disadvantaged communities that have no resources.”

He said that in January and February, “despite the improved hydrology [and] increased inflow, the Delta smelt biological opinion has cost 500,000 acre feet of water. That’s enough to irrigate 200,000 acres of land, to produce tens of thousands of jobs.”

Last year, 600,000 acres of formerly productive farmland were fallow, Costa said.

Source: The Washington Times S