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Improvements to and modernization of water storage capabilities in California and the rest of the U.S. will be made easier thanks to new legislation introduced in the House.

Last week, Congressman David Valadao, R-Calif., introduced H.R. 2714, dubbed the “Dam Authorization, Maintenance and Safety Act,” or DAMS Act, which would authorize the secretary of the interior to conduct evaluations to repair dams and evaluate increases to water storage capacity.

Current law under the Reclamation Safety of Dams Act of 1978 dictates that the Bureau of Reclamation can only repair and modify dams when problems are identified from “new hydrologic or seismic data” or when actions are “deemed necessary for safety purposes.” This limiting language prevents the secretary of the interior from authorizing additional assessments of dam facilities unrelated to the qualifying issue. Thus, as a legislative summary of H.R. 2749 noted, “repairs or modifications resulting from normal deterioration or lack of maintenance are prohibited.”

H.R. 2749 addresses this restrictive policy by allowing the secretary to “evaluate multiple corrective actions following the SEED process.” The secretary would also be given authority to “evaluate multiple project benefits, including, but not limited to, additional conservation storage capacity, if the additional project benefits promote more efficient management of the facility and the costs associated with the activity are agreed to in writing with the projects proponents.”

Congressman Valadao said in a prepared statement, “California’s water crisis is a multi-faceted issue caused by naturally occurring weather patterns, destructive environmental regulations, and burdensome government bureaucracy. While government cannot make it rain, Congress can expand our water infrastructure and storage to ensure a reliable water supply for future years.”

There are over 1,400 named dams in California alone. Many of these dams were built in the early 1900s and have not seen repair or maintenance in recent years. In fact, 50 percent of U.S. dams were built between 1900 and 1950.

Democratic Congressman Jim Costa, one of 16 cosponsors of H.R. 2714, said in a press release that increasing storage capacity of dams in California is “crucial”:

“The additional authorities given to the Secretary under this bipartisan legislation will ensure that California is better equipped to combat future droughts,” continued Costa. “While we are still working to find short-term solutions to bring much-needed water to the Valley, this bill is critical if we are to develop long-term storage solutions to fix our broken water system.”

Rep. Costa also noted that an expansion of San Luis Reservoir could “increase storage capacity by between 130,000 acre-feet to 400,000 acre-feet, with increased annual yield between 43,000 acre-feet to 71,000 acre-feet.” This is just one example of the many improvements that can be made to California water storage facilities.

H.R. 2749 was introduced on June 12 and has since been referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources.

On Feb. 11, 25 days after Gov. Jerry Brown declared an official drought, California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer introduced a drought-relief bill. Senate Bill 216, ” The California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2014,” was introduced concurrently with President Barack Obama’s visit to the Central Valley to survey the devastation from a foreseeable — but unplanned for — severe drought.

Four members of California’s congressional delegation — Rep. George Martinez, D-Martinez; Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena; Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto; and Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Stockton — called Feinstein’s and Boxer’s bill a “huge improvement from the disingenuous” GOP bill released three weeks earlier by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare. Nunes’ bill is House Resolution 3964, “The Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act.”

A key provision in the Feinstein-Boxer drought relief bill is that it “provides operational flexibility to increase water supplies and primes federal agencies to make the best use of any additional rain,” said Feinstein. By flexibility, Feinstein was referring to a provision in her bill requiring federal water agencies to keep open the Delta Cross Channel Gates to prevent saltwater intrusion into the Sacramento Delta. The Cross Channel was built in 1951 near the city of Walnut Grove to allow the transfer of fresh water into the Delta. If enough fresh water was not released into the Delta during the drought, then California’s drinking water supplies would be reduced even further by failure to repel salt water.

Channel ‘flexibility’ already led to its opening

State Water Resources Director Mark Cowin explained in a video on Jan. 31 that the gates on the Delta Cross Channel are normally closed at this time of year to keep salmon from entering the Delta. So one of the reasons that California’s Central Valley hasn’t been getting enough water routed through the Delta is closing upstream gates to protect salmon. But this year salmon have to be compromised to protect drinking water supplies.

The pending Delta Cross Channel gate opening will comprise a release of 300,000 acre-feet of water. That is about as much water as Castaic Lake north of Los Angeles holds.

However, Cowin announced the opening of the Delta Cross Channel back on Jan. 31 in a videotaped announcement. In other words, the key “operational flexibility” promised in Feinstein and Boxer’s drought relief bill was already underway without the bill having to be approved by Congress and the president. Feinstein and Boxer should be given credit for not dallying to open the Delta Cross Channel gates, given the severity of the drought. But it is “disingenuous” to claim their bill would need to be passed to authorize such flexibility.

One of the key differences in the Feinstein-Boxer drought bill and Nunes’ is that Nunes’ bill provides for two new water storage reservoirs to be built. Conversely, the Feinstein-Boxer bill doesn’t promise any new water but mere “flexibility” in managing water. The Nunes’ bill provides for new water while the Feinstein-Boxer bill does not. According to Cowin, what California needs is storage in advance of a drought more than flexibility after its onset.

Learning from history in preparing for drought

In his Jan. 31 video announcement, Cowin explained that California learned the hard way not to delay in taking aggressive action as early as possible to lessen the long-term negative effects of a drought. Cowin said that in the second year of the 1976-1977 severe drought California set aside 1 million acre feet of water (enough for 6 million to 12 million people) that reduced the impacts of the drought. But in 1976, the drought impacts were severe because no additional water was set-aside for a major drought ahead of time.

Stated differently, California failed to store enough water going into the second year of this drought (2013) to prepare for a third consecutive dry year. In 2012, about 800,000 acre-feet of water were allowed to flow to the ocean through the San Joaquin River to protect fish flows. And in 2013, 453,000 acre-feet of water were released from Trinity Lake, north of the Delta, to protect fish flows for Indian Tribes and sports fishermen.

There is no “flexibility” of storing environmental water for the next year to plan for a drought. Court rulings and agency mandates require annual release of water for wildlife refuges. Since 1990, 58 percent of Central Valley agricultural water has been diverted to wildlife refuges. In other words, environmental diversions of water made it impossible to put aside enough water to plan for a drought in advance, as Cowin said is required.

Water storage facilities never built

Another contributing factor to the current drought is the failure to build out replacement water storage facilities for farmers after their water was diverted to wildlife refuges. The San Joaquin River Restoration Act of 2009 collected $102 million from farmers in higher water rates for replacement water storage facilities that were never built. Congress allocated $88 million for planning activities to restore fish flows in the river. The “planning” funds were not spent on pre-drought planning but on studies and transporting fish by tanker trucks across a 60-mile dry gap in the San Joaquin River. Now there isn’t enough water for farmers or fish.