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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Eureka
Times-Standard <BR></FONT><A
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<P><B>Trinity advocates watch Central Valley contracts</B> <BR>By John Driscoll
The Times-Standard
<P>Wednesday, February 16, 2005 -
<P>Northern California interests are lining up to protest the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation's <BR>plans to forge long-term water contracts with irrigators in
the Central Valley -- pacts <BR>Trinity River advocates believe threaten the
river's source of cold water.
<P>Humboldt and Trinity counties, fishing and environmental groups and the U.S.
<BR>Environmental Protection Agency are among those who have lodged complaints
about <BR>the environmental documents drafted for the 25-year contracts for the
Central Valley <BR>Project. Specifically, the groups focused on contracts for
the San Luis Unit, which <BR>include eight water contractors in the Western San
Joaquin Valley.
<P>Essentially, the groups say that the document doesn't explore just how
Reclamation <BR>will supply promised water to the unit while cutting exports
from the Trinity River, as <BR>cleared in a case won by the Hoopa Valley Tribe
in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of <BR>Appeals.
<P>One longtime expert, Trinity County Senior Planner Tom Stokely, believes the
water <BR>in part will have to be pulled out of Trinity Reservoir. If the lake
were drawn down <BR>further than typical in the fall, more water from winter
rains and snow could be <BR>stored before spilling over Lewiston Dam, he said.
That could allow more water to be <BR>exported to the Sacramento River, from
where water is sent to Central Valley <BR>irrigators.
<P>"It's the only way they can send more water to these districts," Stokely
said.
<P>It could also deplete the cold water available in the fall for salmon in the
Trinity and <BR>the Klamath River, which it flows into.
<P>Among the districts whose contract is up in 2007 is Westlands Water District,
the <BR>nemesis of the Hoopa Valley Tribe during the five-year legal battle and
30-year war <BR>over the river's water. Westlands in January conceded its case
to the tribe, clearing <BR>the way for higher flows and fish restoration efforts
on the river.
<P>In recent years, the state and federal water pact called CalFed has provided
Westlands <BR>with between 55 percent and 70 percent of its contracted
deliveries. The 2000 federal <BR>decision to restore the river -- cleared
through the circuit court -- calls for a reduction <BR>in that amount, to 50
percent.
<P>But a Dec. 23, 2004, letter to Congressman George Miller from Reclamation
<BR>Commissioner John Keyes III suggests that the agency intends to deliver the
full <BR>amount to its contractors by 2025. In Westlands' case, it's difficult
to know where that <BR>water would come from. The district is the primary
beneficiary of Trinity water as <BR>laid out in the 1955 legislation that
authorized the Trinity project.
<P>Bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken said a number of studies are underway that
look at <BR>increasing the yield of the Central Valley Project, a vast array of
reservoirs and <BR>canals. The assumption that 100 percent of the water could be
delivered is from <BR>projections that new or improved storage will come on
line, McCracken said, and that <BR>increased yields can be gained from the
system's reservoirs.
<P>"To meet all our environmental needs we use water from our reservoirs,"
McCracken <BR>said, "and in order to meet all our contractual needs we would use
all of our reservoirs."
<P>But in allocations for 2005 released Tuesday, Reclamation is allowing for 65
percent of <BR>water deliveries for agriculture south of the Sacramento River
Delta, including the <BR>San Joaquin Valley.
<P>Stokely can't see how that figure can be reached, since the Trinity
restoration plan <BR>calls for a reduction in water exports to 50 percent. The
water would have to come <BR>from storage -- including Trinity Lake, he said --
since none of the bureau's long-term <BR>projects have been realized.
<P>Nearly half of Westlands requires drainage service that it doesn't have, and
some <BR>districts in the area are waterlogged and contaminated with boron and
salt. Providing <BR>for drainage could cost billions.
<P>The draft document for the San Luis Unit doesn't look at a range of
alternatives <BR>including not renewing the contracts; doesn't address reducing
water deliveries to <BR>waterlogged lands; or consider how contaminated runoff
will be drained from those <BR>areas, Humboldt County's letter to Reclamation
reads.
<P>The EPA called the document "inadequate" since it doesn't deal with the
<BR>environmental impacts of full water deliveries or those deliveries' effects
on drainage.
<P>A slate of environmental groups like Friends of the Trinity River and
California Trout <BR>ask that the draft document be tossed out. It never
addresses the benefits of retiring <BR>land in the Central Valley, or deals with
the toxic drainage issue, the groups wrote.
<P>It also only casually references the bureau's trust responsibilities to the
Hoopa Valley <BR>and Yurok Tribes.
<P>In its comments, the Hoopa Tribe claims Reclamation is looking at the
contract <BR>renewals in a vacuum, without considering the needs of the Trinity.
Reclamation <BR>must consider reductions in water exports as a possibility, the
tribe wrote.
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