Driven by the haunting reality of lack of California farm water, the Democratic and Republican drought relief bills in the U.S. Congress tentatively are starting to merge into one.

Back in 2009, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., got her San Joaquin River Settlement Act through Congress. But it has come back to haunt her because it created a foreseeable but unaddressed farm-water shortage in dry years, such as now. Feinstein has recently criticized the environmentalists who helped her design the bill as “never having been helpful to me in producing good water policy.”

Passed when Democrats controlled both the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill appropriated $88 million in planning funding for a proposed $2.2 billion restoration project. In 2010, Republicans took back the U.S. House of Representatives and subsequently have blocked any additional funding to implement the project.

Feinstein is now backtracking and has revised and successfully pushed her S. 2198, the Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014, through the Senate on May 23.  It now will be considered in the House for merger with a Republican drought bill, H.R. 3964, by Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford (formerly named H.R. 1937 by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare).

Valadao released a statement that Feinstein’s bill “is a positive step in the right direction.”

Neutered drought bill

To get her drought bill passed over stiff opposition from a large number of environmental organizations and Northern California lawmakers, Feinstein neutered the bill of any provisions that would impede passage by either political party.  The new revised version of the bill has dropped from her original bill provisions to:

• Reauthorize the Delta restoration program provided under the CALFED compact of 2002 (sought by Republicans).
• Authorize several hundred million dollars for drought relief (sought by Democrats).
• Soften the authorization of funding for expanding the capacity of Nevada’s Lake Mead to appease Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

As presently worded, the bill would not authorize anything new that is not already being undertaken to relieve drought impacts on farms and rural areas before the onset of summer. But that made the bill palatable enough for senators in both parties unanimously to pass it.

River restoration goal: 500 fish at cost of $4.4 million per fish

The 2009 San Joaquin River Settlement Act authorized 10 physical restoration projects in the river to be completed by Dec. 31, 2013.  None of the projects even has started. And the projected cost now is $800 million. What planning money has been available has been used physically to transport salmon across the dry reach of the river in tanker trucks.

This hasn’t stopped the NRDC from forcing the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to release 180 thousand acre-feet of water from March 2013 to Feb. 2014 — with nothing completed that was called “necessary” by the NRDC for the success of the project. Success is defined as the return of 500 fish in the dry reach of the river by 2019.

The water storage situation in California would be much different if the NRDC had not released flushed water to the ocean for fish during drought. Recently, Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Auburn, has criticized such releases of water as waste that could have been avoided if the Republican-backed drought bill, H.R. 3964, had been passed.

First ever water shipped from eastside to westside farmers

To relieve the drought, on May 15 for the first time ever, federal water managers conveyed 529,000 acre-feet of water from the Eastside of the San Joaquin River Valley (from Millerton Lake) to Westside farmers in Patterson and Mendota. That increased the water allocation to Westside farmers, but also increased water to wildlife refuges in the South Delta from 40 percent to 65 percent.

In response, the Friant Water Authority has filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Fresno to challenge the unprecedented release of federal water to state water contractors.

Ron Jacobsma, FWA’s general manager, said that Eastside citrus-tree growers might have their water replenished later in the year. Then he warned, “But that may mean putting water on dead trees.”

The San Joaquin River Restoration Project has been a contest between political parties. But farmers didn’t take issue with it until the onset of the 2014 drought made them see how bad it is to release water for fish runs.

More water but greater water diversions for fish

Ironically, the table below tells the story that there is more water than in the severe drought of 1977, but more outflow for fish flushes resulting in less net agricultural water in 2014.  

                         Central Valley Project 1977 vs. 2014 (October thru March)
                                                            (In million acre-feet)

On May 15, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., didn’t pull any punches about her recent attempt to push her drought bill through Congress.  She blasted environmentalists for having “never been helpful to me in producing good water policy. You can’t have a water infrastructure for 16 million people and say ‘Oh, it’s fine for 38 million people,’ when we’re losing the Sierra Nevada snowpack.”

A look at the above satellite photos from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration comparing January 13, 2013 with the same date in 2014 reveals the stark reality that Feinstein and all of California are facing.

Asked by the San Francisco Chronicle about environmentalist opposition to her bill, Feinstein replied, “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?  I would be very happy to know what they propose. … I have not had a single constructive view of how to provide water when there is no snowpack.”

Feinstein is specifically referring to Sierra Club California, Audubon California, Environmental Defense Fund and the National Resources Defense Council. They jointly opposed her Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014, S. 2198, back on April 15.  While Feinstein’s drought relief bill stays stalled in Congress, farmers with only junior water rights (those issued after 1914) or no groundwater supplies are still suffering in the Central Valley.

More water than 1977 drought but zero water delivery

On May 2, Central Valley citrus farmer Ed Chambers explained to Farm Press Daily what is different with this drought from the 1977 drought.  Chambers said California in 2014 has more available water than in 1977, yet growers with junior water rights are receiving zero water allocation.

And in 1977, Chambers was told to expect 1-acre foot of water for his crops, but ending up getting enough water to produce a crop. (An acre-foot is a football field of water one foot high.)

Today, Lake Shasta has double the water than 1977, Lake Oroville 25 percent more.  But farmers have been told to expect zero water, whereas water is still being released in excess for the environment and fish.

The reason cited by farmers for the non-allocation of water is the lack of cooperation of the National Marine Fisheries Service to meet with state and federal lawmakers.

To keep his citrus trees from dying, grower Matt Fisher applied for water from the Terra Bella Irrigation District.  But the “drought duress” price would be $1,200 per acre-foot, $1,000 higher than the normal $200 price.  About 3.2 acre-feet of water is needed a year to produce a citrus crop.

Environmentalists have tentatively offered to sell back to farmers a share of their environmental water allocation, but at sky-high prices for water that Central Valley farmers had already paid for once.

Feinstein’s bill an empty bucket 

Section 103 (b) (2) (b) of Feinstein’s bill instructs the Director of the National Marine Fisheries Service to recommend revisions to the operation of the Central Valley Project to allocate more water to farmers.

But new laws and funding are empty buckets when there is no water.  For example, Feinstein’s bill would increase the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991 by $100 million (Section 109) for loans for water purchases by the Bureau of Reclamation to minimize “losses and damages resulting from drought conditions.”

At $1,200 per acre-foot, $100 million would buy about 83,333 acre-feet of water.  That is less than 3 percent of the 2.9 million acre-feet of water released at the pumps in 2013, if willing sellers could even be found. And those funds would have to be shared with other states.

A seemingly self-contradictory provision of S. 2198 requires the Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to “reduce water consumption or demand, or to restore esosystems” in the Klamath River Basin (Section 4).  But conserving more water or restoring the environment wouldn’t help farmers much because there isn’t enough water to do either.

Feinstein’s criticism of environmentalists, though welcome to farmers, would need to be accompanied by changes to her S. 2198 to actually bring them more water.

On May 5, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear another appeal in a case mandating tax increases to pay for stopping and cleaning up polluted storm water.

The L.A. County Supervisors have been playing hot potato with the highly unpopular stormwater tax mandated by the California Legislature in 2010 to deal with the cleanup. The mandate applies only in L.A. County under Assembly Bill 2554.  The remainder of the state is not subject to storm-water cleanup.

Here’s the rate chart:

Storm Water Tax Schedule — Los Angeles County

NRDC lawsuit

The tax stemmed from a National Resources Defense Council lawsuit filed in 2008 alleging the county was liable for pollution from storm water runoff.  Subsequently, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the NRDC.  In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the L.A. County Flood Control District in a technicality of how pollution “discharges” are defined.

Now, the May 5 decision ends the appeals.

The bill is an $8 billion tax over 20 years on L.A. County residents and businesses. The tax created a highly orchestrated storm of protests before the board in 2012.  The protests oddly came from the L.A. Unified School District, teachers’ unions, nonprofit agencies and senior citizen groups affiliated with the Democratic Party.

They objected because school and other government property, normally exempted from taxation, would have to pay the storm tax. The Los Angeles Times reported:

“L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy said in a letter that the district might reconsider its opposition if schools were exempted or got a fee reduction for investing in water quality improvement projects.”

In Jan. 2013, the supervisors dropped the tax by deferring a vote to put the tax on the ballot and threw the case into the courts.

Enforcement

However, enforcing the tax could be a problem. Courts are reluctant to order tax increases because that traditionally has been a power not exercised by the judicial branches of government, but rather is a power wielded by the legislative branches, then enforced by the executive branches.

One exception was the notorious Kansas City school desegregation case of the 1980s and 1990s, in which federal Judge Russell Clark effectively ordered tax increases to pay for better public schools for minority students.

In 1997, he canceled his order because the extra school spending didn’t improve academic achievement. Critics pointed out that the real problem wasn’t money, but structural problems with monopoly schools that didn’t face competition — something familiar today in debates over California schools.

The Kansas City schools case is crucial because, since then, courts have been less eager to step beyond their authority and force compliance with their orders through tax increases. If the L.A. supervisors refuse to enact the tax, a constitutional stalemate could ensue.

Jobs bill

Critics of the storm water tax say it will kill jobs. The California Metals Coalition, a manufacturers’ group, wrote in a 2013 letter:

“The California Metals Coalition (CMC) supports sound and measured approaches to achieving clean water solutions. We have many examples of storm water solutions implemented by metal companies that achieve this goal. But the Los Angeles County Parcel Tax for Storm Water essentially raises millions of dollars without engaging all stakeholders, providing transparency in the process, or presenting measurable goals. With over 2,000,000 Californians out-of-work, it is absolutely critical to spend limited resources from individuals and businesses in a well thought-out manner.”

Despite the economic recovery of recent years, California’s unemployment rate remains high, at 8.1 percent in March, almost double the rate before the Great Recession. And Los Angeles County’s rate is even higher, at 8.7 percent. So the threat to jobs from the new tax is real.

NRDC vs. jobs

The NRDC is the same environmental advocacy organization that threw the entire state into an adjudicated drought by shutting down water deliveries to protect the Delta smelt fish.  That case was later thrown out of court due lacking any scientific merit, but only after the state suffered three years of drought and thousands of jobs lost. During the worst part, the city of Mendota’s unemployment rate was a Depression-level 40 percent.

After the Supreme Court’s action on the storm drain tax, it’s still unclear what will happen, including what tax could be imposed and how many jobs will be affected.

By Wayne Lusvardi

Mark Twain once wrote: “Don’t tell fish stories where people know you; but particularly, don’t tell them where they know the fish.”

The farmers in the California Central Valley know that environmentalists have been making up a big fish story for quite some time about agricultural water contracts negatively impacting the purportedly endangered Delta smelt fish.

The farmers know the fish better than the environmentalists.  You can’t tell any big whopper fish stories around farmers.  But you can try to get away with them in court.   But even a liberal court didn’t fall for such yarns.

The liberal U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that 41 federal water contracts in the Central Valley Water Project did not violate the Endangered Species Act.  Chief Judge Procter Hug ruled in the case, National Resources Defense Council vs. Ken Salazar, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation did not have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service over any alleged negative impacts to the purported endangered Delta smelt fish in renewals of agricultural water contracts.

According to Brandon Middleton, attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service before undertaking an action that may negatively affect a protected species.  Relying on legal precedent, Hug ruled that Section 7 only applies to discretionary federal actions.  Because prevailing law mandates the renewals of water contracts, the bureau had no obligation to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Agency.

To further squash this big fish tale, the court also ruled the environmentalists had no legal standing to even challenged the water contracts on such grounds.  Standing is defined as: “the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law of action challenged to support that party’s participation in the case.” The water contracts in question even contained a “shortage” clause that provided for the Bureau of Reclamation to provide more water for the smelt.

Middleton said, “The farmers had much to lose even though they didn’t gain that much in this ruling.”  If the ruling had gone against the water contractors, farmers might have had to give up water already under contract and on which agricultural production loans and other financial obligations had been made without any re-compensation.  Middleton elaborated that, what the environmentalists were trying to do was go beyond challenging any physical impacts on the smelt by large pumps in the Delta as part of the Federal Central Valley Project.  The environmentalists wanted to penetrate to the legal contracts that lay behind the water pumping.

No Bearing on Repealing Feinstein’s Water Grab Act

However, Middleton doubted this ruling would have any bearing on the provision in Democratic Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s H.R. 146, the San Joaquin River Restoration Act of 2009, to “mandate” agricultural water contractors to go through an environmental clearance process as a condition of renewing their long-term water contracts.  Such a clearance could permit the environmental mitigation shakedowns of farmers.

Feinstein’s act was a grab of water from Central Valley farmers for commercial fishing, recreational and real estate development interests in the San Joaquin Valley area.  Feinstein’s Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress and the presidency in 2009.  Nevertheless, she could not overcome the farm lobby in Congress in her own party to get the San Joaquin River Restoration Act passed.  Eventually, Feinstein’s bill was attached as a “rider” on the Omnibus Lands Act of 2009 and ramrodded over opposition in her own party.

Recently, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, authored H.R. 1837, the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act, to repeal Feinstein’s one-sided law. The bill is still sitting in the U.S. Senate, where it has been blocked by Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and opposed by Pres. Obama.

Farmers know that, if it weren’t for the Central Valley Water Project providing water to agricultural water districts, the Delta smelt fish wouldn’t have as much reliable water or habitat.  And that is no fish story.

Editor’s note: For clarity, this article has been modified to include an excerpt from the letter by Robert Pyke. 

June 11, 2012

By Wayne Lusvardi

Should we save the endangered red herring fish in California’s San Joaquin River?

The question is meant to fool you.  Herring is a saltwater fish not found off the coast of California or in the fresh waters of the San Joaquin River.

A red herring is a fish that has a reddish color after being been dried and smoked.  It has such a foul smell that in Hollywood movies red herrings were used by escaped jailbirds to mislead hound dogs that were tracking them. The term “red herring” today is used to describe anything that is misleading or distracting from the central issue.

And that is what the issue about restoring Chinook salmon in California’s San Joaquin River is all about: a red herring meant to draw attention away from the central issue about the sham restoration of the San Joaquin River.

The San Joaquin is Central California’s largest river. It starts in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, flows through the San Joaquin Valley, then ultimately into the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. It flows through or near Clovis, Fresno, Madera, Turlock, Modesto, Stockton and the Sacramento Delta on its way to the Bay. It is heavily dammed to prevent flooding in the Central Valley. The river has not flowed naturally since the Friant Dam was built in the 1940s.  Its flows have been so drastically reduced to prevent the Delta from becoming a periodic “inland sea” that salmon no longer exist in the river.

Rep. Denham Delays Restoring Salmon in San Joaquin River

On June 5, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment by U.S. Congressman Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, to H.R. 5325, the Energy and Water Related Agencies Appropriation Act of 2013. It would prohibit the premature introduction of salmon into an inadequate San Joaquin River system.

Without full restoration of the flows of the river, the salmon could not migrate from the ocean to upstream spawning pools.

Blogger Doug Obegi at the National Resources Defense Council’s Switchboard website seized on the House’s action to accuse Denham of trying to undo the court approved settlement to restore the San Joaquin River for salmon runs.

As Mike Wade of the Farm Water Coalition responded:

“[Obegi’s] criticism of Rep. Denham’s amendment and claiming the SJR Exchange Contractors are reneging on the river restoration settlement are efforts to mislead public opinion without providing all of the facts. The restoration agreement provided protection for third parties along the river, including farmers within the Exchange Contractors’ region. Past efforts have already seen these farmers suffer from undue seepage problems caused by high water releases into the river. The agreement also called for multiple construction projects and it was acknowledged that early introduction of salmon a year or two before the completion of the projects might take place; but none of the necessary construction projects needed for a successful fish passage have begun. It could be 5-10 years or more to reach completion of the Phase 1 projects once construction begins, depending on funding. Why introduce salmon that are listed as endangered that stand no chance of reaching the ocean? 

There is not much to be shown for the $100 million already expended for the restoration. Those groups pushing for the salmon introduction insisted that the restoration effort could be accomplished for $250 million. It is readily recognized that this number will fall far short of the amount required. Now is not the time to compound this oversight with efforts such as early introduction of salmon that serve no purpose.” 

Thus far, $70 million has been spent on San Joaquin River restoration mainly on environmental studies with nothing to show for it. No physical improvements have been made to bring about restored salmon runs in the San Joaquin River.  That’s $70 million that might as well have been flushed down the proverbial toilet to run to the sea.

This is one reason why California has spent $18.7 billion on five water bonds (Propositions 12, 13, 40, 50 and 84) since 2000 and has no added water to show for it.  Instead, the bond monies have gone for open space acquisitions, greenscaping and environmental studies around upscale residential enclaves.

Using the “red herring” distraction of alleged obstructionism by Denham, Obegi is trying to shift the public’s attention away from the squandering of public funds on environmental studies with nothing to show for it.

Where is Water for River Restoration Coming From?

This begs the question: where is the water for restoring salmon runs in the San Joaquin River coming from?  It is coming from U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s H.R. 146, the San Joaquin River Restoration Act, sponsored by Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J. It was passed as part of the Omnibus Lands Act of 2009 when Democrats had a supermajority in Congress and the presidency.

Feinstein’s bill took contracted water from Central Valley farmers to restore salmon runs along the San Joaquin River.  It also hiked federal water contract rates for farmers to pay for the restoration. And it subjected farmers to paying environmental mitigations to commercial fishing, recreational and real estate development interests in Northern California when their water contracts are due.  The farmers not only had water taken from them, but would have to pay for a gigantic $1 billion redevelopment scheme for the San Joaquin River cloaked as a salmon restoration project.

After Republicans took back control of the House in 2010, Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of Tulare authored H.R. 1837, the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act, to repeal Feinstein’s water grab.  H.R. 1837 was folded into Utah Senator Orrin Hatch’s “The West Act,” which has been blocked in the U.S. Senate by Feinstein and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.

This is the problem of not obtaining true “consent of the governed” — in this case, those who have to pay for such schemes; or of not relying on voluntary market transactions.  Without voluntary consent of those taxed or a market transaction, what happens is an endless “water war.”  This is tragic, as an engineer has recently revealed that the Sacramento Delta has too much water in wet years.

Northern Cal Water in Wet Years

Robert Pyke, a geological engineer, recently wrote an interesting letter to Ken Salazar, the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and John Laird, the secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency. Pyke wrote:

“the inherent variability in precipitation in Northern California has not been addressed in the [Bay Delta Conservation Plan] to date. I know that they now talk about taking more water in wet winters and less water in dry winters but that is just talk without there being any mechanism to actually accomplish this. When I met recently with Secretary Laird and suggested that what was needed was a plumbing system that allowed the extraction of up to 8-10 million acre feet in wet winters to make up for the fact that you can’t take more than 2-4 million acre feet in dry winters, he said that he had never heard anyone suggest that previously. Maybe so, but that is indicative of a problem.”

Now, 8 to 10 million acre-feet excess water in wet winters is enough water to serve 8 million urban people per year over a five-year drought; or irrigate 533,000 acres of farmland per year over a five-year dry spell.

But the present conveyance system, the California Aqueduct, cannot take more than 2 to 4 million acre-feet per year.  Thus, there is need of a new, larger conveyance system — a so-called Peripheral Canal or Delta Tunnels — to convey the excess water out of the Delta during wet years, to farmers and cities which then can store it dry-year usage.

By taking the excess water during wet years from the Delta, the threat of flooding and of an earthquake breaching heavily flooded levees would be reduced.

So environmentalists continue to shake down farmers in the Central Valley for contracted water and higher water rates to pay for a $1 billion water-related redevelopment scheme along the San Joaquin River.  But they are also opposed to the completion of a Peripheral Canal or Tunnel system that would provide farmers with more water for banking in local groundwater basins during wet years for use in dry years.  Northern Californians and environmentalists want to eat their water cake and have it too!  And they are opposed to any water for farmers and cities in return.

Then they have the nerve to call elected representatives of farming districts “obstructionists” to a one-sided so-called court “settlement” mandating the restoration of the San Joaquin River.

Bad Water Law

As Judge M. Smith wrote in the dissenting opinion in a June 1, 2012 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case, Karuk Indian Tribe vs. U.S. Forest Service, Central Valley farmers will suffer from the impact of “extremist” environmental decisions.  Smith pointed out that, because judges are unelected, they should be limited to interpreting environmental law, not creating de facto new legislation for which they are unaccountable to anybody (see pages 6126-6127 of the case).

Welcome to the wonderful world of California’s water wars, where water flows to the San Joaquin River are to be restored for a fictional endangered Red Herring fish that is a ruse for a $1 billion river-related redevelopment scheme and jobs program for environmentalists.  Environmental disputes are almost never really about preserving some fish or ecological habitat.  They are about wealth effects created from water-related redevelopment for commercial fishing, recreation and tourist lodging and real estate development to be handed out to the politically connected.

By WAYNE LUSVARDI

Ready for another phantom “drought”? The National Resources Defense Council is. The NRDC’s bogus Delta Smelt lawsuit brought the court-ordered “drought” from 2007 to 2010.

Now the NRDC is launching a disinformation campaign to divert the public’s attention from the bigger water issues of the Sacramento Delta. On Sept. 16, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger threw the case out of court as based on bogus science.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared the “drought” over in 2011. Yet water rates have risen anyway across the state as a result of the bogus “drought.”

In the Feb. 6 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, NRDC attorney Doug Obegi  said there are three “facts” and three “myths” about the Sacramento Delta.  Like any slick attorney, he is working on you as if you were on a jury to make sure you are persuaded of his case.

The Delta is where most of the water runoff from the snowpack of the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range ends up.  California depends on the Delta for most of its water for farms and cites, as well as fishing and water recreation.

To understand the big issues with the upcoming Delta Plan of the State legislature’s Delta Stewardship Council and the proposed $11.1 billion Water Bond on the November ballot, it is important not to be distracted by small facts and alleged irrelevant myths.

The NRDC’s device for distracting you from the water issues of the Sacramento Delta is a purported checklist of so-called “facts” and “myths” about California’s water system.  Let’s look at them without being diverted from the larger issues.

Small Facts and Big Myths as Diversions

NRDC Diversion No. 1:  “Northern Californians don’t get their water from the delta, so we shouldn’t care what happens.”

Obegi wants Northern Californians to care about what happens with the water from the Delta.  Northern Californians should not think that they don’t get their water from the Delta.  Ok, being involved is a good thing.

But NRDC’s emotional appeal is to your intelligence.  If you were smart and knew that Northern California relied on water from the Delta you would be politically alert and active.  People want to brag about being smart about the car they bought, about their “Smart Phone,” or the politician or ballot measure they voted for.

It is important for Northern Californians to be educated about the upcoming Delta water issues. But the above so-called myth is just used as a subtle set-up to make you believe that Southern California is about to steal more water again from Northern California. As will be explained below, this is the opposite of what has happened and is likely to happen.

Water is a socialized commodity in California. It does not belong to Northern Californians or Southern Californians.  There is no water to “steal.”  Long ago Californians agreed to a social contract for water: Southern California got water and Northern California got flood protection from the occasional destructive rising of the inland sea of the Sacramento Delta. (Think Hurricane Katrina.) By subtly entering emotionalism into the issue, Obegi diverts you from the bigger facts that will be explained below.

NRDC Diversion No. 2: “Even with stronger restrictions on pumping to protect salmon and other native fish, the state and federal water projects divert as much water from the delta as they did from 1980 to 2000. As much water is diverted from the delta on average today as before the historically high pumping levels of the 2000s devastated the delta ecosystem, according to the state Department of Water Resources and the Public Policy Institute of California.”

What the NRDC has done is slipped what is called a non sequitur into the above fact.  What a non sequitur does is claim to make a cause and effect relationship when, in fact, there is no logical connection. In street language, it is a “disconnect.”

It is true that state and federal water projects are pumping no more water from the Delta on average than they did from 1980 to 2000 (with the exception of the 3 years of the above-described court ordered “drought” from 2007 to 2010).  But that does not mean that “high pumping levels of the 2000’s devastated the Delta ecosystem.”

Salmon and even the Delta Smelt are currently thriving after the high rainfall and snowpack of 2010 and the resumption of pumping from the Delta.

There are other reasons for a long-term threat to the Delta ecosystem.  But high pumping levels typically also mean high water levels in storage reservoirs. They also mean abundant fresh water levels in the Delta that boost the population of desirable species of fish, fishing and recreation.

Huge pumps on the Delta that send water to Southern California are not the only threats to the Delta ecology. The Delta ecology is more threatened by local urban runoff than from pumping water out of the Delta. One of the major sources of pollution of the Delta is local government wastewater treatment plants in Northern California.   But the NRDC wants Northern Californians to believe that high water pumping to Southern California is the only culprit. The NRDC can manufacture an unnecessary water war just as it manufactured a phony drought.

NRDC Diversion No. 3: “As many jobs were lost from closing California’s salmon fishery in 2009 as were lost in farming communities from restricting pumping to protect fish. True. Despite wildly inflated myths, studies by economists from the state, UC Davis and University of the Pacific show that California’s fishing industry lost about as many jobs as did the farming industry when pumping was restricted during the 2009 drought to protect fish.”

This may be true. But unlike fishing, farmers can shift their workers to fallow fields and alternative crops in other locations that are not dependent on Delta water.  Farmers typically rely on groundwater supplies when there is a dry year and the Delta cannot meet all its contractual obligations to farmers.

Once again, what the NRDC is trying to do is cover up its own blame for causing job losses due to the Delta Smelt case they filed to stop pumping of water to farms in Central California and cities in the southern half of the state. The NRDC should be blamed for job losses to both farming and the fishing industries.

The NRDC once again is trying to politically play fishermen against farmers, while shifting blame away from themselves for job losses during the phony drought of 2007 to 2010.  Nice try. But it won’t work.

NRDC Diversion No. 4: “Fact: 4. Despite increasing flows to protect fish over the past two decades, delta fish populations continue to decline. False. Since pumping has been reduced, populations of delta smelt have rebounded dramatically, and salmon populations have also increased after the rainy season of 2010.

Contrary to the NRDC, the Federal judge in the Delta Smelt case ruled that the science presented by the NRDC and other government agency in the case was “false testimony.” It was never proven that Delta Smelt fish populations declined during the pumping of water out of the Delta.

NRDC Divsersion No. 5: “Most of the water pumped from the delta goes to Southern California lawns and swimming pools. False. Nearly half of the water exported from the delta is for agribusiness. Thanks to improved efficiency, Los Angeles uses as much water today as it did 25 years ago, despite adding 1 million residents, and Orange County has one of the largest water recycling plants in the nation. Even so, improved water-use efficiency could create trillions of gallons of new water each year for cities and agriculture.”

The above is true.  Southern California lawns and swimming pools do not get half of the Delta water exports.  But what the NRDC omits is that the “environment” gets 64 percent of all distributed water in a wet year; and 35 percent even in a dry year.

Southern California water agencies are entitled to a maximum of 62 percent of the water deliveries from the State Water Project through the Delta in a wet year. But that only represents 2.6 percent of all the distributed water in California in a wet year.  And agriculture uses only 28 percent of distributed water in a wet year and 42 percent on average, according to the State Department of Water Resources.

The NRDC touts water recycling as a resource for Southern California. But California’s new Green Chemistry Law threatens water recycling. The Green Chemistry Law may not allow hard to dissolve chemicals from drinking water in tiny amounts.

NRDC Diversion No. 6: “California can divert less water from the delta and still meet its water needs by investing in water efficiency, water recycling and improved groundwater and storm water management.  True. Modeling by the state Department of Water Resources shows that the new water sources available by investing in water efficiency and recycling is more water than California has ever exported from the delta. Urban water managers know this; the City of Los Angeles plans to meet its water needs by investing in these tools, while simultaneously cutting its use of delta water in half.”

What the NRDC does not tell you in the above statement is that Southern California has already reduced water use by 1 million acre feet — enough water for up to 6 million people — from the 1980s to the present.  The new Delta Plan proposes to cut water another 20 percent.  But this will not replace the necessity for a water conveyance system around the Delta that would provide a more stable ecology.

Lost Legitimacy

As in court cases, diversionary tactics can be useful when arguments fail you, when you are backed into a corner, when you feel you are about the lose or when you are uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.  The NRDC is signaling that they only have diversionary tactics to persuade you to shift local cleanup of the Delta mainly onto Southern Californians.  The NRDC’s arguments have been made to look like they have captured the high ground with facts and that others positions are mere myths.

After the infamous Delta Smelt court case, the NRDC has lost legitimacy in California. Their current disinformation campaign on the Delta is just a continuation of their divisive water wars.  The NRDC should not be listened to any longer on the issue of the Delta.