Let’s face it, most of the problems facing us have to do with political expediency which over rides common sense, and undermines what should be straight line goals. When the Democratic Party splits and some defect to serve special interests and short sighted ends, it allows the advancement of detrimental agendas. This recently happened with a midnight rider attached to a water bill. Though it is now water under the bridge (passed and signed), it illustrates the problems of solving real needs when special interests are placed ahead of the environment.
President Obama signed the Water Resources Development Act. This law will fund dozens of new, and necessary, water infrastructure projects around the nation including funds to help install safe water pipelines in Flint, Michigan.
The bill generated great controversy last week when it was hijacked by Senator Feinstein (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) who added a last-minute, special-interest “rider” to the bill at the request of agricultural interests in the San Joaquin Valley.
This is not a new story in California. The state’s water history is filled with mistakes that have forever changed the face of California, generally for the worse. Yosemite National Park lost a valley every bit as beautiful as the one we know today, when the Tuolumne River was dammed, resulting in the flooding of the Hetch Hetchy Valley to provide water to San Francisco. This project had been opposed by John Muir and his fledgling Sierra Club, but was passed by Congress and signed into law by then President Wilson in 1913. The Salton Sea was created by developers attempting to hijack the Colorado River. A poorly built levee collapsed and flooded a huge low lying salt laden desert area. Our efforts to move water where it didn’t exist has created numerous issues up and down the state.
Once flowing rivers that supported salmon and steel head runs, no longer flow to the ocean, or are now seasonal streams. Our overpopulation has nearly dried up the Colorado where it used to enter the Gulf of California in Mexico (check out Years of Living Dangerously from National Geographic Channel). The L.A Basin, if not all of Southern California, is a false ecology, not able to feed or hydrate the residents without water imported from out of the area. The San Joaquin River disappears in places as the water has been diverted to the south for agriculture and population centers in former desert or arid areas best suited to wild grasses, not water intensive almond or cotton farms and over populated urban sprawl.
Dams are nothing new in the state, the benefits in flood control or water storage generally accepted, while their unintended consequences are still being discovered. The Trinity, Shasta, Oroville and Folsom Dams shut down fish access to many historic spawning waters. The Delta Medota Canal moving water (that once flowed through the Golden Gate) south can be seen as anyone rides along on I-5 between Stockton and L.A. Streams as far south as The Santa Ana River, once had anadromous fish runs. Rivers in the north are seeing dwindling numbers of returning fish as large runs have all but ceased further south. The demand for salmon rises against fewer fish reaching the seas because of dams, drought, and ever more human diversion of water the fish need.
No where is there any accountability or responsibility to mitigate the damage. Less water would be needed if farmers chose less water intensive crops to plant and harvest and didn’t seek to turn the desert into unsustainable farm land. Less water would be needed if Southern California cities would recycle their used water instead of demanding and importing increasing amounts from the north. Less water would be needed if people would act responsibly in reducing their impact on the burgeoning population, plant drought resistant landscape, cease building swimming pools or golf courses serving the few who can afford such luxuries at the expense of the environment.
This new bill (with Feinstein’s rider) makes it easier for the incoming Trump administration to further the destruction of the salmon industry in favor of super ag farms. Californian’s voted down the Peripheral Canal (supported by Feinstein, Schwartzeneger, and Brown) in 1982. The new version supported by Brown as introduced in this rider by Feinstein is even worse, in the form of two massive tunnels to be constructed as part of the $25 billion California Water Fix and Eco Restore project. This project will also threaten existing farms in the Delta with further land subsidence and salt water intrusion in favor of substandard and water poor agricultural land beyond the natural watershed.
Allowing this project to go forward threatens, not only migratory fish humans consume as food, but the endangered Delta Smelt which feed those same salmonoids. Diverting more fresh water from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta to So Cal will further degrade Delta and San Francisco Bay water quality by reducing the natural flushing action of the normal outflow. The reduced water flow and new pumps required for this theft will turn fry and fingerling fish to chum as they are ground up by huge impellers, further impacting several endangered species.
The rider also would allow the incoming Trump administration to move ahead on dam building throughout the West without authorization from Congress.
Turning her anger on McCarthy on Friday, Boxer said she could not leave the Senate peacefully because, “I’m alive and I know what’s going on and I’m going to tell the truth,” she said. “The truth is that Kevin McCarthy is trying to get more water for big agribusiness.”
The Feinstein-McCarthy move represented a bold encroachment on Boxer’s legislative turf. Boxer is retiring this year and had hoped the larger water bill would be the capstone of her career. As the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Boxer worked with committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., to authorize water projects across the country. These and a provision to fix lead poisoning in the water system of Flint, Mich., made the bill impossible for several Democrats to block and thus vulnerable to a last-minute rider.
Boxer included dozens of projects for California: Wetlands restoration for San Francisco Bay, pollution controls for Lake Tahoe, and levee rebuilding for Sacramento, as well as a big update for the state’s plumbing, with modernized dam operations and investment in desalination, water recycling and other measures to increase water supplies.
Feinstein’s office claimed that the legislation does not violate the Endangered Species Act, because it contains a “savings clause” that dictates that nothing in the provision shall violate the act. House Democratic aides countered that the courts have ruled that direct instructions from Congress, in this case on how much water can be pumped from rivers, always supersede more general clauses declaring that nothing in the legislation violate bedrock environmental law.
Attaching a special interest rider to a bill which works to improve the quality of water for the rest of the country (including Flint Michigan lead pipe replacement) while it further damages the environment elsewhere is the height of hypocrisy, unsuited for progressive mores; looking and smelling like a GOP tactic.
“…Sen. Dianne Feinstein has cut a deal with Congressional Republicans on legislation that will take much-needed water from Northern California’s fragile waterways — and its vulnerable fish — and hand it over to farmers and businesses in the Central Valley.” Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Senator Boxer tried to stall it with a filibuster, but the sneak attack by Feinstein was preordained to succeed due to the good aspects of the bill. President Obama unfortunately did not have a line item veto available to carve out the damaging rider.
While some new dams may be needed for water storage, flood control, and agricultural needs, their construction and placement should balance with environmental needs. Far more dams need to be removed from historic salmon and steel head rivers than new ones need to be built. Forcing the water managers to demonstrate damage to fish stocks takes the responsibility from the EPA and forces water managers to justify the needs of the wildlife (like placing the cart before the horse). The rider was negotiated behind closed doors without legislative hearings or public input. This isn’t too different than Trump placing an oil exec to head the EPA; remove the decision powers, do away with them entirely, or place them outside of the responsible agency.
For additional information on California salmonoids check this post out; www.dailykos.com/…