House committee takes aim at neglected water projects

By Lisa McEwen

Members of the House Committee on Natural Resources, arriving for a hearing in the San Joaquin Valley last week, received an advance tour of a flooded dairy and viewed water releases from Friant Dam after a drenching series of storms.

“When this hearing was planned, you were in a drought,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, the committee chairman and an Arkansas Republican. “My, how things have changed.”

The boom-and-bust cycle of California weather provided a timely urgency to the hearing in Tulare. Held by the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries, it served as an important legislative step for a bill that aims to expand water storage projects such as Shasta Dam, guarantee supply and restore fisheries management to rules established in 2019

“This is an especially important time for this hearing,” said Rep. David Valadao, author of the water infrastructure bill, the Working to Advance Tangible and Effective Reforms for California Act, or WATER.

Despite record-setting rain and snowfall, California can capture only a fraction of excess water for future drought years and flood management. Critics blame aging infrastructure and conflicting wildlife regulations.

“While we cannot control the weather, we can control the laws and regulations that govern our water and ensure we are using the most common sense possible,” Valadao said. “If California’s water supply problems continue to go unaddressed, it won’t just affect those in this room but the entire country. Food security is a national security issue, and without reliable water supply, our ability to feed the nation will be in jeopardy.”

Also discussed was the FISH legislation, or Federally Integrated Species Health Act, authored by Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona. The bill would consolidate Endangered Species Act management from two federal agencies into one.

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republican from Southern Oregon, told a packed audience that “California is intrinsically important to the nation” because 70% of the nation’s produce is grown in the state.

“The terrible drought California has suffered will be back,” Benz said. “We are here today to listen to you and learn what we can do to help.”

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, was the lone Democrat to attend. Officials from the U.S. Interior and Commerce departments and state Department of Fish and Wildlife submitted written testimony opposing both bills being discussed.

Six witnesses testified in favor of both bills, arguing they could improve management of water resources in California.

“Congress must direct this,” said Jason Phillips, CEO of Friant Water Authority. “Unelected agency staff continue to be delegated the responsibility for being the final decision makers on the most significant public policy issue we face in the state of California: how to manage the state’s limited water resources.”

Phillips warned against continued inaction by Congress, saying doing so would “guarantee that our next water crisis will be right around the corner.” He added, “The current system is not working for communities or the environment.”

Jeffrey Sutton, general manager of the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority, which services 17 water districts in the Sacramento Valley, told the committee that “agriculture is our economy.”

“When that goes bad, our communities suffer greatly,” Sutton said. He called both bills under consideration “a step in the right direction,” adding, “We need to make expansion projects a lot easier to get done. What we are doing now is ineffective.”

Rep. John Duarte, R-Modesto, depicted state and federal officials who were absent from the hearing as “lords of scarcity pushing working families to the edge of privation.” He thanked attending members of Self-Help Enterprise’s drought response team, which has supplied communities with drinking water and other resources when groundwater wells go dry.

Second-generation dairy farmer Tony DeGroot of Hanford testified that this past winter was only the fourth in his lifetime that he has witnessed rain of such intensity.

“I believe God has given us an open door and an opportunity to act on the abundance of rain and snow,” he said. “Unfortunately, this year’s rain and snowpack will be another wasted blessing if we watch it go by.”

DeGroot also gave a vivid account of helping neighboring dairy farmers protect their livestock, homes, feed and equipment by banding together with equipment to build levees and temporary dams.

“If desperate measures had not been taken, portions of two dairies would have flooded,” he said.

Farmer Jim Parsons of Ducor, in southern Tulare County, watched in the audience. He said he is dealing with impacts of flooding in his commercial wheat harvesting operation, which he runs with his nephews.

“I have one account in Corcoran that grows wheat and safflower that we won’t be able to harvest because things are so flooded,” Parsons said. “I am trying to find harvesting in other places, but because of the wheat situation in California, we won’t find much.”

Parsons, who regularly travels to Washington, D.C., with the California Association of Wheat Growers, said he appreciated the legislators’ attention and the opportunity to attend the hearing.

“I feel that if we don’t show up,” he said, “congressmen will not be receptive to us and our needs.”

(Lisa McEwen is a reporter based in Tulare County. She may be contacted at mcewenlisamarie@gmail.com.)