Press release from the Hoopa Valley Tribe:
In its latest effort to evade payment of at least $100 million in environmental restoration and other costs, the Westlands Water District (Westlands) is asking the California Supreme Court to overrule four State court decisions, all of which refused to rubber stamp a federal contract to eliminate Westlands’ massive debt to the United States Treasury. The courts ruled that the contract between Westlands and the federal Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) is incomplete because it omitted a critical term—how much is owed.
The omission was deliberate. Federal law requires Reclamation to collect from Westlands all the costs involved in constructing federal water delivery facilities and all the costs to mitigate the environmental damage caused by delivery and use of federal water supplies from the Central Valley Project. However, in preparing the contract, Trump Administration Interior Department officials had added up only some of the costs and hatched a scheme to write off the financial
requirement and shift the cost to the U.S. taxpayers.
In its contract, Reclamation states, falsely, that Westlands had “fulfilled all of its obligations” and had made “full repayment.” Before federal accountants could verify the costs, Reclamation signed Westlands’ contract in February 2020, and later withdrew key financial documents from further scrutiny.
In order to be binding on the United States, Westlands needed to “promptly” obtain a California court decree that the contract was valid. San Joaquin and Trinity Counties and numerous non-governmental organizations opposed validation. After nearly four years of litigation, a California appeals court concluded that the contract is “materially deficient in its failure to specify Westlands’ financial obligations.”
“Let us be clear”, said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Joe Davis, “Westlands Water District would not exist without the Trinity River’s water. They have no surface water.” Reclamation ships Trinity River water from the Trinity River basin to the San Joaquin Valley four hundred miles away. At 600,000 acres, Westlands is the size of Rhode Island. Its industrial farms reap billions of dollars from federal taxpayer subsidies. “In the process, Westlands water diversions have destroyed Hoopa’s fishery and devastated our people.,” said Hoopa Fisheries Director Michael Orcutt.
In 1992, Congress passed the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, which essentially told Reclamation and Westlands that “Enough is enough.” The environmental destruction had to stop, and fishery restoration needed to begin immediately. Congress required the Central Valley Project to restore decimated fisheries including the Trinity River. Knowing that would require funding, Congress made water and power contractors pay for the environmental damage that their profit taking had caused.
“The Trump Administration made a play to nullify environmental restoration payment obligations under the Westlands’ contract by eliminating their financial debt. Without funding, fishery restoration will fail”, said Vice Chairman Everrett Colegrove.
Secretary of the Interior Haaland has the opportunity to void Westlands contract and insist on new contract terms that comply with federal law, fulfill Biden Administration policies for environmental justice, protect the Hoopa Valley Tribe’s vested property rights in the Trinity River fishery, and ensure payments for restoration.
“So, this story is not just about what the Trump Administration did” said Hoopa Council Member Daniel Jordan. “It is about what the Biden Administration will do or fail to do.”
“Will Secretary Haaland, the trustee for Hoopa’s rights, sovereignty and resource protection, condone Reclamation’s culture of complicity, which persists to this day?” asked Hoopa Council Member Jill Sherman-Warne, “Will she act for California’s environment and Hoopa’s rights, or will she be complicit in her silence?”
The case is: Westlands Water District v. All Persons Interested in the Matter of the Contract Between the United States and Westlands Water District Providing for Project Water Service, San Luis Unit and Delta Division and Facilities Repayment, Court of Appeal, Fifth Appellate District Case No. F083632 and consolidated with Case No. F084202 (September 1, 2023).
