Delta Advocates Oppose Fran Pavley’s SB 565

Delta Advocates Oppose Senator Fran Pavley’s SB 565

By Dan Bacher

SB 565, legislation that would give the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) new penalty and investigative powers dealing with water rights, at first glance appears to a good bill.

However, Delta advocates are concerned that the bill will be used to drive Delta farmers out of business in order to ship water to Southern California and corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

SB 565 is sponsored by Senator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and co-sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael). The Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense, Friends of the Trinity River and other groups support the bill, while Restore the Delta, a broad coalition of fishermen, environmentalists, family farmers and Delta residents, and other organizations oppose the legislation as written.

The bill provides increased consequences for failing to report water diversions and uses and provides SWRCB with new authorities and resources to investigate and prosecute unauthorized diversions and uses.

Supporters state this bill is a reasonable and moderate piece of much-needed legislation that would implement some, but not even all, of the Delta Vision Task Force's recommendations and benefit the public and water rights holders statewide by providing the SWRCB the tools it needs to eliminate illegal diversions and de-incentivize illegal behavior, according to the legislative analysis.

“This bill would increase the Board’s fines for illegal diversions (which have not been updated in nearly 20 years) to keep pace with inflation,” said Barry Nelson, NRDC senior policy analyst. “It would provide other enforcement related tools as well. An effective enforcement program would increase the incentives to discourage illegal water diversions.”

“Fran Pavley’s water rights enforcement bill (SB 565) deals with illegal water diversions,” said Byron Leydecker, chair of Friends of the River, in an action alert today. “These water diversions are enormously damaging to our Northern California fisheries and San Francisco Bay Delta restoration efforts.”

Opponents to this bill feel it would add sweeping new authority to inspect private property for vaguely defined purposes and without clear boundaries and require water users to perform expensive engineering reports and technical monitoring studies.

Delta advocates believe that passage of SB 565 could be used as a hammer to take away water rights from Delta farmers – who have some of the oldest rights in the system, according to Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta.

"Currently the Central and South Delta Water agencies are spending $250,000 per month in litigation protecting water rights – thus, far all the charges brought against Delta diverters have been bogus,” said Barrigan-Parrilla. “But they are trying to run us into the financial hole so that we cannot defend our community."

Weakening of water rights for the Delta will be used as a tool to divert more water from the imperiled Delta. “It is a 3 prong attack on the Delta; bad legislation; bad legal action; and a bad water bond,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.

“This one needs to be thought out more,” she emphasized. “Its one size fits all approach could backfire on Delta restoration.”

Friends of the River hasn’t taken a position on the bill. However, Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River, is very concerned that that the bill would divert the Board staff from its many other duties to focus on illegal diversions.

“Another unintended consequence of the assumption that we'll solve California's water problems by focusing on illegal diversions is that the Water Board is raiding its other units to focus on the Delta legislation mandates, including going after illegal diversions,” said Evans. “The Water Board's FERC unit is budgeted for 5 positions but 3 have been moved over to do Delta work.”

Evans said the FERC Unit processes Clean Water Act 401 permits for hydro projects being relicensed by the federal government, and is the only conditioning authority the state has to restore flows for fish, wildlife, and recreation from FERC licensed projects. “So this important work isn't getting done to focus on the solution du jour,” he stated.

"I have a feeling that this legislation is designed to take away attention from the impact of Delta water exports to focus on other possible issues affecting the Delta,” said Evans. “In my mind, the legislature is again jumping to conclusions to sponsor more unneeded legislation.”

Pavley’s bill could come to a floor vote in the Assembly Wednesday afternoon or Thursday.

Last November Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rammed through the Legislature a water policy/water bond package that creates a clear path to the construction of a peripheral canal and new dams. The package was crafted in back door negotiations without any input from Delta legislators, Delta farmers, fishermen, California Indian Tribes and environmental justice communities.

Fortunately, massive opposition to the water bond by environmental organizations, fishing groups, labor unions, Indian Tribes, environmental justice advocates and the general public forced the Legislature to delay the bond until November 2012.

Delta advocates believe that the peripheral canal is likely to lead to the extinction of collapsing Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whale populations. The peripheral canal/tunnel would cost an estimated $23 billion to $53.8 billion at a time that California is in its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

For more information, go to: http://www.restorethedelta.org.