Bureau proposes handing over ownership of water delivery facilities to Westlands

(From PCL Insider for Feb. 22)

BUREAU OF RECLAMATION OFFERS VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT TO 600 SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY AGRIBUSINESSES

The Federal Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) announced last week that it had developed a new proposal to resolve the toxic water fiasco it created nearly fifty years ago when it began pumping water to agribusinesses in the western San Joaquin Valley.

The solution: (Drum roll please...)

Hand over federal assets and clean-up oversight to wealthy corporations! (We thought you'd appreciate their logic).

Under USBR's proposal, ownership of the federally-owned San Luis Reservoir and accompanying water delivery facilities would be transferred to the Westlands Water District.  Ownership of this Central Valley Project reservoir would mean increased water rights to Northern California rivers.  

USBR would also agree to pardon Westlands for the remaining $490 million debt the District still owes for the construction of their water delivery system – money that has already been spent using taxpayer dollars. 

Westlands, nominally a public agency, is the public face of 600 agribusinesses that use federally supplied water to irrigate 600,000 acres of farmland in western Fresno and Kings Counties.

Decades of intensive irrigation on these lands has flushed naturally-occurring toxic chemicals into nearby waterways and deformed large populations of migrating waterfowl. The federal government agreed to provide a solution to this chemical conundrum when it began providing water in the early 1960s, but they have yet to do so.

In return for the sweetheart deal now being proposed, Westlands Water District would relinquish 40,000 acre-feet of their annual water supply from San Luis Reservoir and absolve USBR of their responsibility to resolve the contamination problem. The latest cost estimate to physically engineer a solution is estimated at $2.6 billion.  In other words, this forty-year-old environmental disaster would be under the supervision of the corporations, who are entirely reliant on the tainted fields for disposing of their subsidized runoff. 
    
So, again, who benefits from this deal?

Representative Jim Costa (D-Fresno), whose district includes Westlands, believes that taxpayers will be the big winners if the lovers' pact proceeds. "It's not like the Bureau of Reclamation can just walk away from (its obligation to resolve the contamination issue). It's a far better deal for the taxpayers," Costa said in an article in the Contra Costa Times.
Seems almost too good to be true.

Here's what you're not hearing in the USBR proposal: If the federal government remained primarily liable for the clean-up of the contaminated lands, Westlands agribusinesses would still have to repay USBR to fix the toxics problem. So, the agribusinesses wouldn't really assume any new obligations.  They would, however, receive ownership of one of the most important water facilities in the federal Central Valley Project, a mammoth public works project ostensibly owned by all U.S. citizens.

This isn't the first time Westlands' reputation has been tarnished for putting profit over ethics.

Last month, after announcing the purchase of 3,000 acres of land along the McCloud River that would be flooded under a USBR proposal to raise Shasta Dam, Westlands General Manager Tom Birmingham acknowledged that their "purpose in buying the property was only to ensure there would be no additional impediments if the Bureau of Reclamation concludes it's feasible to raise the dam."

Birmingham failed to mention that Westlands would be a primary benefactor from a taller Shasta Dam and that taking more water from Lake Shasta through the California Delta to Westlands Water District threatens the ecological health of the largest estuary in the Western Hemisphere.  As owners of the San Luis Reservoir, Westlands would have right to more of that water secured by a taller Shasta Dam.  San Luis is the main storage facility for Shasta Lake water after it flows southward from the Delta.  

"This would be the first time that corporate agribusiness water contractors had water rights to North Delta water. It would certainly be an unprecedented turning point in California water history," points out PCL's Water Program Manager, Mindy McIntyre.

The Bureau of Reclamation is floating the concept paper of this proposal on Capitol Hill over the coming weeks.  McIntyre and the rest of the PCL team will be keeping an eagle eye on this Valentine's Day deal. We'll keep you posted!