Second in a series on the fiscal and social inequities of California’s major water projects
By Carolee Krieger, California Water Impact Network
If the State Water Project is a travesty, its federal analogue – the Central Valley project – is an outrage.
To be sure, the two projects have much in common. Both are stunningly expensive public works that divert water from Northern California to Southern California. Both benefit the few, the wealthy and the powerful at the expense of ratepayers, taxpayers, fishermen, and underserved and tribal communities. Both wreak immense environmental harm.
But viewed as a matter of scale, the inequities and deficits of the CVP trump those of the SWP.
A part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiative, the CVP was launched following decades of acrimonious dispute over California’s water distribution and policies. Getting the CVP built required the federal government to ignore tribal water rights claims and offer sweetheart deals to powerful interests that controlled water on both the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.
[1]The centerpiece of the project – Shasta Dam – was finished in 1945. Other Central Valley rim dams and a vast network of aqueducts and canals followed. By the late 20th Century, the CVP consisted of 12 storage dams; 10 ancillary dams; 10 hydropower plants; and almost 645 miles of canals. The system has a storage capacity of 13.5 million acre-feet of water, which is roughly a third of all water used for human purposes statewide. On average, the annual yield is about 5.5 million acre-feet.
[2]The purpose of this massive expenditure of public funds was and remains simple: the annual delivery of millions of acre-feet of subsidized water to Central Valley croplands.
Originally, this water was earmarked for 160-acre “family farms.” But water is money in the West, and money attracts powerful people looking to augment their wealth to the greatest possible degree. It also attracts the attorneys, lobbyists and lawmakers who aid the rich and influential in realizing their goals. Thus, under the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act (RRA), the acreage limitation for CVP water was expanded from 160 acres to 960 acres for each contractor.
[3] But even that “limitation” hardly constituted an impediment to California’s agribusiness kingpins. Today, thanks to complicated trust and partnership arrangements, a typical CVP contractor may farm exponentially more acreage than is allowed under the RRA guidelines.
Indeed, there are fewer than 250 CVP contractors; collectively, they distribute water to several thousand farmers and corporations in the Central Valley.
[4] Let that sink in: one of the most ambitious public works projects in the history of the nation serves the express desires of a few thousand people who control millions of acres of land. Moreover, these contractors receive their water at costs far below those paid by urban or industrial ratepayers, allowing them to accumulate spectacular wealth. Subsidized CVP water was the key factor in the creation of California’s great agribusiness dynasties, such as the Westlands Water District.
As might be expected, financing for the CVP is convoluted. Originally, it was determined that contractors would pay off the project’s principal costs through water delivery fees; but growers have never been required to pay off the interest on their original loans, thus reaping enormous windfall subsidies.
[5a] [5b]Further, they are benefitting from an expansion of the definition of “non-reimbursable” costs, which include projects such as raising San Luis Dam and repairing canals damaged by ground subsidence.
[6] The federal government typically requires reimbursement from beneficiaries of such projects, and Central Valley growers certainly profit immensely from these undertakings. But will they pay? No. Under relatively recent policy changes, these costs are now considered “non-reimbursable” – meaning the growers don’t pay. Taxpayers do.
A prime case in point: the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation – which oversees the CVP – has long refused to collect full water and power contractor payments for mitigation of damages to fish and wildlife, as required by the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA).
[7] That figure currently stands at about $1 billion, an obligation that will ultimately fall on taxpayers unless direct mitigatory policy or legislation is adopted.
Nor do the CVP’s agricultural contractors pay for the broad environmental damages they cause, ranging from extirpation of most of the Central Valley’s salmon runs to the devastating pollution of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, the Bay/Delta and regional aquifers from nitrates, biocides and toxic selenium.
Further, that reimbursement loophole includes restoration projects for fisheries and wildlife refuges, such as those underway on the Trinity River. Though federal law specifically required CVP contractors to pay for the Trinity project – currently topping $300 million – they were never charged, and taxpayers are footing the bill.
[8]The corporate growers of the CVP defend their seizure of public trust water and taxpayer dollars with a simple if disingenuous claim: they are providing a mighty boost to California’s economy and assuring food security.
[9] But even a cursory review of the facts destroys this argument.
Agribusiness only accounts for 2% of California’s economy, and much of the CVP’s water is used to grow almonds and pistachios – luxury export crops that are hardly a cornerstone of national food security. And what was sacrificed to create this market? Some of the highest quality protein on the planet: California’s once abundant salmon.
According to a peer-reviewed Scientific Basis Report published by the State Water Resources Control Board, both the SWP and the CVP can be implicated in the state’s disastrous salmon collapse, given they collectively divert tremendous volumes of water from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta, which all the fish must transit in their migrations.
[10] But the CVP takes the dubious crown for salmon destruction because it diverts water from the Delta
and directly from the Sacramento River well upstream of the estuary – up to 3 million acre-feet annually. That in-river diversion both destroys salmon directly and creates instream conditions intolerable to the fish.
Further, much of the water from the Sacramento River – and diversions from the San Joaquin River to the south – are earmarked for senior water rights holders. Under the operational rules of the CVP, these longtime claimants receive CVP water before any other stakeholder, regardless of reservoir levels. During critical drought years, junior agricultural water rights claimants see their CVP allotments cut to zero,
[11] and urban ratepayers endure mandatory conservation strictures. The senior claimants, however, typically receive 75% of their allotments
[12] – millions of acre feet of subsidized water that they use to grow nuts and other crops for immense profits, even when water supplies are critically low.
Nor are direct water diversions the only problem with the CVP. The project’s major dams – e.g., Shasta, Folsom, Friant, Trinity and New Melones – have blocked thousands of miles of historic spawning habitat, dealing a reproductive blow to the runs that have almost proved fatal.
The CVP was ill-conceived from the start. And while hindsight evaluations are usually fruitless, it would be insanity to continue operating the project as though it’s still 1960. California mustn’t predicate its future on the whims and profit margins of a handful of land barons. It’s time to reform the CVP and return public water to the commonweal. At a time when the federal deficit is ballooning to unsustainable levels, taxpaying citizens can no longer afford to support the agricultural plutocrats of the Central Valley.
The following actions must be implemented to protect taxpayers from the unreasonable subsidies enjoyed by CVP beneficiaries:
1. Require CVP water and power contractors to pay for the full cost of restoration actions in the Central Valley and the Trinity River, as stipulated by Section 3406 of the CVPIA.
2. Eliminate taxpayer subsidies for enlargement of San Luis Dam and require CVP water contractors to pay for the full cost.
3. Prohibit the use of taxpayer funds for the repair of subsided water canals caused by excessive groundwater pumping for agriculture. Irrigators who receive CVP water via canals and who pump too much groundwater should bear the full cost of canal repairs.
4. Require the Westlands Water District to pay full cost (including interest) for CVP water used on lands that have been converted from agricultural to industrial uses, such as solar generation.
5. Void the permanent water contract for Westlands Water District because it has never been validated by California state courts; notably, the California Supreme Court refused to validate the contract.
In future releases, C-WIN will document the full extent of the agricultural contributions that influence state water policy.
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Maven’s Notebook.
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[12] Ibid
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Carolee Krieger C-WIN President and Executive Director
Carolee Krieger founded the California Water Impact Network in 2001 with Dorothy Green, Michael Jackson, and Yvon Chouinard. Though a longtime activist, the Monterey Amendments prompted Krieger to formalize her efforts by establishing C-WIN as a 501(c)-3, and broadening her network of public advocates focused on California water equity issues.
The California Water Impact Network is a state-wide organization that advocates for the equitable and sustainable use of California’s freshwater resources for all Californians.
C-WIN: Follow the Money: The Central Valley Project
Second in a series on the fiscal and social inequities of California’s major water projects
The California Water Impact Network is a state-wide organization that advocates for the equitable and sustainable use of California’s freshwater resources for all Californians.