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<P class=sl-headline>Thirst of growers, developers huge threat </P>
<P class=sl-subhead></P>
<P class=sl-byline>By Lloyd G. Carter<BR>President of the California Save our
Streams Council. </P>
<P class=sl-body><EM><FONT color=#999999><SPAN class=sl-pubdate>(Updated Monday,
March 22, 2004, 4:45 AM)</SPAN><BR><BR><!-- Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/image_main.comp --></FONT></EM>
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<TD><!-- BEGIN RELATED STORIES --><!-- END RELATED STORIES --><!-- BEGIN USER DATA FIELDS --><!-- BEGIN Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/udf_logic1.comp --><!-- BEGIN Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/udf_logic2.comp --><!-- BEGIN Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/udf_logic3.comp --><!-- END Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/udf_logic3.comp --><!-- END Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/udf_logic2.comp --><!-- END Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/udf_logic1.comp --><!-- END USER DATA FIELDS --><!-- /content_attribute, attribute=>'user_data:ibox' --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- Component: FresnoBee : component/z_CodeBlue/storylevel/image_main.comp -->Have
you heard of the Napa Agreement? Probably not. Last summer, key officials from
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the California Department of Water Resources,
the Westlands Water District, Kern County Water Agency, the Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California and various 800-pound water gorillas from the
big Tulare Lake Basin plantations met secretly in scenic Napa to hammer out a
new proposal to dramatically boost exports of Northern California water to the
western San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
<P>Environmentalists and public interest groups concerned about dewatered
northern rivers, Delta water quality, the waste of water to grow surplus crops
and uncontrolled urban sprawl in the Southland were shut out of the secret
talks.
<P>Out of the Napa negotiations came a plan to boost pumping at the massive
state and federal Delta pumps at Tracy from the current 6,680 cubic feet per
second to 8,500 cubic feet per second. One cubic foot per second is 450 gallons.
The increase would mean an extra 3.8 million gallons a minute from the giant,
fish-grinding Tracy pumps.
<P>The Napa Agreement has become a part of the record of decision of the
Bay-Delta program known as Cal-Fed, a consortium of state and federal agencies.
Cal-Fed's lead agencies are the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the California
Department of Water Resources, which supply several million acre-feet of water a
year to San Joaquin Valley agriculture.
<P>Cal-Fed was created a decade ago to "fix" California's two major water
problems: (1) Delta water quality and (2) chronic water shortages south of the
Delta. Proponents of the Napa proposition want to boost Delta exports first
before the water quality and wildlife issues are resolved.
<P>Critics claim the new plan could increase exports of Northern California
water by up to 1 million acre-feet of water, enough water to cover a million
football fields a foot deep, and devastate Delta recovery chances. Proponents
say the diversions would be much lower in volume, would occur during periods of
flood and would not harm the Delta.
<P>Napa Agreement proponents, in a well-orchestrated public relations campaign
now under way, like to cleverly label opponents as "perpetually unhappy
environmentalists" or "Bay Area radical elitists," ignoring the fact that
virtually all of Northern California and the Bay-Delta area, including urban
water districts supplying millions of people with Delta drinking water are also
highly skeptical about the backroom Napa Agreement
<P>Seeking a delay
<P>Delta area state Sen. Mike Machado has introduced a bill, Senate Bill 1155,
that would block implementation of the Napa Agreement until Delta water quality
issues -- ranging from improving drinking water quality to restoring healthy
fish populations and reducing irrigation water salinity -- are resolved.
Hearings on Machado's bill will be this spring.
<P>Another "perpetually unhappy environmentalist" is San Joaquin County Board of
Supervisors Chairman Leroy Ornellas. Ornellas worries the Napa proposition
"could cause serious impacts to the social, economic and environmental viability
of the Delta and San Joaquin County."
<P>"To further exacerbate this problem," Ornellas wrote in a letter to state
Sen. Chuck Poochigian of Fresno, "inflow to the Delta from the San Joaquin River
now consists primarily of high salt-bearing drainage from farmlands and wetlands
in the [Central Valley Project's] west-side service area."
<P>Also lumped into the category of "perpetually unhappy environmentalists" are
Indian tribes in Trinity County. They have been waging a 20-year campaign to
revive flows in the decimated Trinity River. Water from the river now flows to
the Westlands. A plan to restore fishery flows is currently being blocked by a
Westlands lawsuit.
<P>Trinity people want the Napa Agreement boosters to drop the sloganeering and
name-calling and justify the use of precious Northern California rivers to grow
surplus subsidized cotton on more than 700,000 acres of land in the western San
Joaquin Valley. They want an explanation of why Northern California counties
should keep sending the lifeblood of their rivers south to irrigate
high-selenium western Valley farmlands with no drainage solution in sight. They
want to know why Northern California should dry up its rivers so developers in
Southern California can jam yet another tacky subdivision onto a landslide-prone
barren hillside.
<P>It's not the perpetually unhappy environmentalists I'm worried about here in
our San Joaquin Valley, where the air grows more poisonous, our children grow
more asthmatic, raisin farmers vanish, cotton subsidies grow ever more lavish,
poverty and joblessness increase every year, and urbanization gobbles up the
Blossom Trail.
<P>I'm worried about the "perpetually thirsty" big west-side growers and
Southern California developers who can never get enough of Northern California's
liquid treasure and who will engage in smear tactics against anyone who would
get in the way of the steamroller driven by the Hydraulic
Brotherhood.</P></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>