[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 123, H.R. 2498 AND H.R. 2535
=======================================================================
LEGISLATIVE HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-45
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
or
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Ranking Republican Member
Dale E. Kildee, Michigan Jim Saxton, New Jersey
Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, American Elton Gallegly, California
Samoa John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii Wayne T. Gilchrest, Maryland
Solomon P. Ortiz, Texas Chris Cannon, Utah
Frank Pallone, Jr., New Jersey Thomas G. Tancredo, Colorado
Donna M. Christensen, Virgin Jeff Flake, Arizona
Islands Stevan Pearce, New Mexico
Grace F. Napolitano, California Henry E. Brown, Jr., South
Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Carolina
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Luis G. Fortuno, Puerto Rico
Madeleine Z. Bordallo, Guam Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington
Jim Costa, California Bobby Jindal, Louisiana
Dan Boren, Oklahoma Louie Gohmert, Texas
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Tom Cole, Oklahoma
George Miller, California Rob Bishop, Utah
Edward J. Markey, Massachusetts Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon Dean Heller, Nevada
Maurice D. Hinchey, New York Bill Sali, Idaho
Patrick J. Kennedy, Rhode Island Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Ron Kind, Wisconsin Mary Fallin, Oklahoma
Lois Capps, California Kevin McCarthy, California
Jay Inslee, Washington
Mark Udall, Colorado
Joe Baca, California
Hilda L. Solis, California
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, South
Dakota
Heath Shuler, North Carolina
James H. Zoia, Chief of Staff
Jeffrey P. Petrich, Chief Counsel
Lloyd Jones, Republican Staff Director
Lisa Pittman, Republican Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California, Chairwoman
CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington, Ranking Republican Member
Jim Costa, California Ken Calvert, California
George Miller, California Dean Heller, Nevada
Mark Udall, Colorado Doug Lamborn, Colorado
Joe Baca, California Mary Fallin, Oklahoma
Vacancy Don Young, Alaska, ex officio
Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia,
ex officio
------
CONTENTS
----------
Page
Hearing held on Tuesday, September 25, 2007...................... 1
Statement of Members:
McMorris Rodgers, Hon. Cathy, a Representative in Congress
from the State of Washington............................... 5
Napolitano, Hon. Grace F., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California.................................... 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 4
Nunes, Hon. Devin, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 5
Prepared statement of.................................... 5
Statement of Witnesses:
Dreier, Hon. David, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California, Oral statement of..................... 7
Statement submitted for the record....................... 8
Garfield, Alec, Director, Water Resources Department, Tule
River Tribal Council, Porterville, California.............. 44
Prepared statement on H.R. 2535.......................... 46
Green, Sargeant J. ``Sarge,'' Manager, Westside Resource
Conservation District, and Consultant to the California
Water Institute, Fresno, California........................ 32
Prepared statement on H.R. 2498.......................... 33
Jensen, Donald K., Director of Public Works, City of Santa Fe
Springs, California........................................ 14
Prepared statement on H.R. 123........................... 15
Larson, Philip Gregg, President, South Tule Independent Ditch
Company, Porterville, California........................... 50
Prepared statement on H.R. 2535.......................... 51
Moss, Richard M., P.E., Vice President for Water Resources,
Provost and Pritchard Engineering Group, Inc., Visalia,
California................................................. 38
Prepared statement on H.R. 2498.......................... 40
Quint, Robert, Acting Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of
Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington,
D.C........................................................ 9
Prepared statement on H.R. 123........................... 10
Oral statement on H.R. 2498 and H.R. 2535................ 52
Prepared statement on H.R. 2498.......................... 53
Prepared statement on H.R. 2535.......................... 54
Whitehead, Michael L., President, San Gabriel Valley Water
Company, and Board Member of the San Gabriel Basin Water
Quality Authority, West Covina, California................. 11
Prepared statement on H.R. 123........................... 12
Additional materials supplied:
Chronology of Events Affect CVP/SWP Water Supplies........... 66
Fuentes, Charles P., City Manager, City of Pico Rivera,
California, Frederick W. Latham, City Manager, City of
Santa Fe Springs, California, and Steve Helvey, City
Manager, City of Whittier, California, Letter submitted for
the record on H.R. 123..................................... 67
Newcomer, Hon. Owen, Mayor, City of Whittier, California,
Letter submitted for the record on H.R. 123................ 69
Reynolds, David, Director of Federal Relations, Association
of California Water Associations, Letter submitted for the
record on H.R. 2498........................................ 70
Schafer, R.L., Tule River Association, Letter submitted for
the record on H.R. 2535.................................... 71
Serrano, Hon. Joseph D., Mayor, City of Santa Fe Springs,
California, Letter submitted for the record on H.R. 123.... 72
LEGISLATIVE HEARING ON H.R. 123, TO AUTHORIZE APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE
SAN GABRIEL BASIN RESTORATION FUND; H.R. 2498, TO PROVIDE FOR A STUDY
REGARDING DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE INTEGRATED REGIONAL WATER
MANAGEMENT PLAN THAT WOULD ADDRESS FOUR GENERAL AREAS OF REGIONAL WATER
PLANNING IN BOTH THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER HYDROLOGIC REGION AND THE TULARE
LAKE HYDROLOGIC REGION, INCLUSIVE OF KERN, TULARE, KINGS, FRESNO,
MADERA, MERCED, STANISLAUS, AND SAN JOAQUIN COUNTIES, CALIFORNIA, AND
TO PROVIDE THAT SUCH PLAN BE THE GUIDE WHICH THOSE COUNTIES USE AS A
MECHANISM TO ADDRESS AND SOLVE LONG-TERM WATER NEEDS IN A SUSTAINABLE
AND EQUITABLE MANNER; AND H.R. 2535, TO DIRECT THE SECRETARY OF THE
INTERIOR TO CONDUCT A STUDY ON THE FEASIBILITY AND SUITABILITY OF
CONSTRUCTING A STORAGE RESERVOIR, OUTLET WORKS, AND A DELIVERY SYSTEM
FOR THE TULE RIVER INDIAN TRIBE OF CALIFORNIA TO PROVIDE A WATER SUPPLY
FOR DOMESTIC, MUNICIPAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES, AND FOR
OTHER PURPOSES. (TULE RIVER TRIBE WATER DEVELOPMENT ACT)
----------
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Water and Power
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, D.C.
----------
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m. in
Room 1324, Longworth House Office Building. Hon. Grace F.
Napolitano [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Napolitano, McMorris Rodgers,
Costa, and Baca.
Also Present: Representative Nunes.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mrs. Napolitano. Good morning everyone. The meeting of the
Subcommittee on Water and Power will come to order. The purpose
of the meeting is to conduct legislative hearings on H.R. 123,
a bill to authorize appropriations for the San Gabriel Basin
Restoration Fund introduced by our friend and colleague,
Congressman David Dreier of San Dimas.
H.R. 2498, legislation that would provide for a study
regarding the development of an integrated water management
plan in both the San Joaquin River and Tulare Lake Hydrologic
Regions introduced by our colleague and member of this
Subcommittee, Congressman Jim Costa of Fresno.
And finally, H.R. 2535, the Tule River Tribe Water
Development Act, introduced by our colleague, Congressman Devin
Nunes of Tulare County.
First, let me begin by welcoming our members and especially
friend and Ranking Member of this Subcommittee, Congresswoman
Cathy McMorris Rodgers. I welcome our guests to the
Subcommittee today. Congressman David Dreier, who has been
exceedingly helpful to us in getting some water bills
introduced and passed, is here to introduce our witness to H.R.
123 from the witness table. Welcome, sir.
Then we have--he is not here yet--Congressman Devin Nunes,
who will be on the dais, and thank you all for being here. I
ask unanimous consent that Congressman Nunes be allowed to sit
on the dais with the Subcommittee this morning to participate
in the Subcommittee proceedings, and he will abide by the same
rules that we all have.
I will begin the hearing with a brief statement and
recognize members of the Subcommittee for any statement they
may have. Any member who desires to be heard will be heard, and
of course any additional material may be submitted for the
record by members, by witnesses or by any interested party. The
record will be kept open for 10 business days following today's
hearing.
The five-minute rule with our timer will be enforced, and I
don't have to tell you that green means go, the yellow means
you have a minute to wrap it up, and the red means stop, or I
will stop you.
In today's hearing, we will be considering the three water
bills I have mentioned, and in my statement, I will focus
specifically on H.R. 123, the San Gabriel Basin Restoration
Fund, of which I have always been and will remain a strong
supporter.
The San Gabriel Restoration Fund was originally authorized
in 2000, and since that time, Congress has appropriated over
$68 million to aid state and local officials in cleaning up
contaminated groundwater in the San Gabriel Basin and Central
Basin in my area of Southern California.
This critical legislation now seeks to authorize additional
Federal funds for a number of reasons. They have found new
contaminants that were not originally stated and the costs have
been incremental, and there are several other reasons for this.
To give you some historical perspective, the San Gabriel
Basin has been plagued with contamination for over 30 years,
and I have been involved with it for at least 20 of those 30
years first as a councilwoman, then as a state assembly person
and now as Member of Congress. And for those many years, I have
been frustrated by the cleanup activities plagued by in-
fighting between Federal, state, and local over how to address
the issues and who was to blame and then bringing those
parties, including the PRPs, to the table.
During the time the problem worsened, the plume spread into
the Central Basin and additional contaminants began to emerge,
and finally, the financial cost to adequately address the
problem skyrocketed.
Today, the basin is considered one of the most contaminated
areas in the nation. With the authorization of this restoration
fund, the Federal assistance provided has been a vehicle for
Federal, state and local entities, including many of the PRPs
for the contamination to come together to settle their
differences. The restoration fund has helped construction of 13
treatment facilities, treated over 84,430 acre feet of
groundwater and removed over four tons of contaminants and has
been a catalyst in securing over $300 million from legal
settlements.
In the basin, the fund has also helped implement the Water
Quality Protection Project, which has been successful in
preventing the contamination from spreading further south into
the Central Basin. Further, the contamination in Central Basin
has also been at or below the maximum contaminant level for the
last two years.
While great strides have been made in both basins, much
remains to be done. That is why H.R. 123 is before us today. I
was very alarmed when I learned earlier this year that Central
Basin Municipal Water District, the entity responsible for the
Water Quality Protection Project, intended to shut the project
down after two years.
I have also received letters from the Cities of Pico
Rivera, Santa Fe Springs and Whittier that receive water from
the project expressing their position that the water still
requires further treatment, and I am accepting these letters
for the record. I share their concern.
Groundwater contamination and the threat it poses to our
water supplies is a top priority for me and the communities I
represent, and for that matter Southern California, and the
economies in those areas. California pumps roughly 30 percent
of its drinking water from groundwater sources. The plight of
the cities in Central Basin makes me wonder if additional funds
should be added to H.R. 123 so that the Water Quality
Protection Project can continue.
In today's hearing, we will hear from the cities in the
Central Basin as to why water treatment should continue and
hopefully from the Bureau of Reclamation why they will not
support this bill. I look forward to their testimony. However,
I also want to make clear that I am a strong supporter of H.R.
123 in its current form and will not support any amendment that
will hinder the movement of this bill.
Finally, I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on
H.R. 2498 and H.R. 2535. And now I am very pleased to yield to
my friend from Spokane, Ranking Member Congresswoman Cathy
McMorris Rodgers, for her statement.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Napolitano follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Grace F. Napolitano,
Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Water and Power
In today's hearing we will be considering three water bills: H.R.
123, H.R. 2498 and H.R. 2535. In my statement today, I will focus on
H.R. 123, the San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund, of which I am a
strong supporter.
The San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund was originally authorized in
2000, and since that time, Congress has appropriated over $68 million
to aid state and local officials in cleaning up contaminated
groundwater in the San Gabriel Basin and Central Basin in Southern
California. This critical legislation now seeks to authorize additional
federal funds.
To give you some historical perspective on this issue, the San
Gabriel Basin has been plagued with contamination for nearly 30 years
now. I have been involved with this issue for 20 years--first as a City
Councilwoman, then as a State Assembly Member, and now as a
Congresswoman. For many of those years I was frustrated as cleanup
activities were plagued by infighting between federal, state and local
entities over how to address the issue and who was to blame.
During that time the problem only worsened. The plume spread into
Central Basin, additional contaminants began to emerge, and the
financial costs to adequately address the problem skyrocketed. Today,
the San Gabriel Basin is considered one of the most contaminated areas
in the nation.
With the authorization of the San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund,
the federal assistance provided has been a vehicle for federal, state
and local entities, including many of the Potentially Responsible
Parties for the contamination, to come together to settle their
differences.
In the San Gabriel Basin, the Restoration Fund has:
Helped fund the construction of 13 treatment facilities
Treated over 84,430 acre feet of groundwater and removed
over 4 tons of contaminants, and
Been a catalyst in securing over $300 million in legal
settlements.
In Central Basin, the Restoration Fund helped implement the Water
Quality Protection Project, which has been successful in preventing the
contamination from spreading further south in Central Basin. Further,
contamination in Central Basin has also been at or below the Maximum
Contaminant Level for the last two years.
While great strides have been made in both the San Gabriel Basin
and Central Basin, much still needs to be done. That is why H.R. 123 is
before us today. I was alarmed when I learned earlier this year that
the Central Basin Municipal Water District, the entity responsible for
the Water Quality Protection Project, intended to shut the Project
down. I also received letters from the cities of Pico Rivera, Santa Fe
Springs and Whittier that receive water from the Project expressing
their position that the water still requires further treatment. I will
submit these letters into the hearing record.
I share their concern. Groundwater contamination, and the threat it
poses to our water supplies, is a top priority for me and the
communities I represent. California pumps roughly 30% of its drinking
water from groundwater sources. The plight of the cities in Central
Basin makes me wonder if additional funds should be added to H.R. 123
so that the Water Quality Protection Project can continue.
In today's hearing, we will hear from the cities in Central Basin
as to why water treatment should continue. I look forward to their
testimony. However, I also want to make it clear that I am a strong
supporter of H.R. 123 in its current form, and will not support any
amendment that will hinder movement of this bill.
Finally, I also look forward to hearing from our witnesses on H.R.
2498 and H.R. 2535. I am pleased to now yield to my friend from
Spokane, Washington, Ranking Member Congresswoman Cathy McMorris
Rodgers for any statement she may have.
______
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am not
sure what it means, but we kind of dressed alike this morning.
We are working together.
Today, we hear testimony on three bills aimed at improving
water supplies in California. All of our Western states have
water problems, but California's water issues are clearly some
of the most complicated. As we all know, California has major
challenges about how to resolve long-term water supply
problems. Recently, the Governor has proposed some bold
initiatives, including water storage, to meet the state's
growing thirst.
While California ponders how it should meet its needs, the
Federal government can offer limited and targeted assistance
where there is a clear Federal nexus. The three bills before us
have such a nexus or a precedent for Federal involvement.
Although I have some questions, I look forward to working
to resolve these matters and with the bill sponsors move these
bills through the legislative process. I look forward to
hearing from my colleagues and from the witnesses who have
traveled across the country to be with us today. Thank you.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, ma'am.
We will proceed to hear from the witnesses, and we have two
panels. Certainly we have a few opening statements I believe.
Mr. Costa.
Mr. Costa. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I will withhold my
opening statement to hear the witnesses and open on the
measure, H.R. 2498.
Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Nunes, would you have an opening statement?
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DEVIN NUNES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Nunes. Madam Chairman, I will submit one for the
record, but I want to thank you for the opportunity to be
before your committee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nunes follows:]
Statement of The Honorable Devin Nunes, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California, on H.R. 2535
Chairwoman Napolitano and Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers;
Madame Chairwoman, thank you for providing me an opportunity to
join the panel for the day to participate in a hearing on legislation I
introduced which would meet the dire water needs of the Tule River
Tribe.
The situation on the reservation could not be grimmer. Currently,
the Tribe has six wells and a spring from which to pull water
throughout the year. During low-water months, the Tribe must truck
water miles from the South Fork Tule River. This has led the Tribe to
review its future water needs. They inevitably concluded that they
could not meet their water needs without the construction of a
reservoir.
Therefore, the Tribe, together with interested parties, has been
able to reach an agreement-in-principle on the magnitude of the Tribe's
reserved water rights. Indeed, this legislation has resulted in a
unique situation in which the community worked together outside of the
courts to find a solution to its water needs. This is a significant
feat considering the highly caustic nature of water policy in
California. Upon Congressional approval, the Settlement will finally
establish the federally reserved water rights of the Tule River Tribe.
It is important to move this process forward and authorize the
study of a reservoir to store the negotiated water. Again, thank you
for holding this hearing and I look forward to working with the members
of this committee to address any outstanding issues.
______
Mrs. Napolitano. You are welcome, sir.
We will proceed then with the panels. The first panel will
be on H.R. 123 and the second on H.R. 2498 and H.R. 2535. You
will be introduced just before testimony, and once we conclude
the testimony, we will go with the question and answer prior to
proceeding to the next panel.
All your prepared statements will be entered into the
record, and all witnesses will be asked to summarize the high
points of your testimony and limit your remarks, please, to
five minutes. This goes for all the questioning for my
colleagues, and if there are any additional questions that we
don't get through in the five minutes, then we probably will go
to a second round.
First, we will begin with H.R. 123, a bill to authorize
additional funds for the San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund.
First, we have Robert Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner for
Operations for the Bureau of Reclamation; Mr. Michael
Whitehead, President of San Gabriel Valley Water Company and
Board Member of the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority.
This is actually the second time you are appearing with us on
the issue of groundwater contamination. You testified at a
hearing we held in my district in April, and we welcome you.
Third, Mr. Don Jensen, Director of Public Works for Santa
Fe Springs, the city in my district, and last Mr. Jensen,
accompanied by Mr. Aguilar, General Manager of the Central
Basin Water Municipal District.
I might remind the Bureau that we have repeatedly requested
testimony be given to this Subcommittee in time for us to be
able to read it and absorb it and be able to formulate
questions, and again, they have not been submitted. May I
request one more time, sir, that the testimony--and I know OMB
may be kind of tied up, but let us see if we can't get it in on
time; if not, I want to put it in writing.
Mr. Quint. I will deliver that message.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir.
OK. I would like to first of all recognize my colleague,
Mr. David Dreier, for a statement that he may have.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE DAVID DREIER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Dreier. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let me say
that I came here to the Congress with Ronald Reagan, and by
virtue of that, I am an eternal optimist. I was somewhat
saddened when last November I lost my gavel as Chairman of the
Rules Committee and we lost our majority, but I am always
striving to find a silver cloud within that dark shadow of our
having lost our majority and I found it this morning. Your
silver head of hair there is a great silver cloud for me to see
you as Chair of the Water and Power Subcommittee.
I will say I am here testifying on behalf of your
legislation, not my legislation, as I said to you when you came
in, and the reason I say that is that H.R. 123 is a
demonstration of bipartisanship at its best. We include our
colleagues, Gary Miller, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Linda Sanchez,
Hilda Solis, and Adam Schiff as co-sponsors of our legislation,
and we have done that because of the fact that we all recognize
that for the Federal government to step up to the plate and do
what Mrs. McMorris Rodgers correctly said is a small part of
this with a very important Federal nexus is the right thing to
do.
We are talking about $50 million, and about 13.5 percent of
the share will be provided by the Federal government to deal
with what clearly has been an issue that has a nexus, again, as
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers said, to the Federal government.
Why? Because as you referred to the perchlorate hearing
that you had in the past, and we have been working together on
this for a long period of time, it goes back to the 1950s when
legally, in an attempt to win the Cold War, the Federal
government had all kinds of defense contractors legally
disposing of spent rocket fuel. And what happened? We saw that
take place, and again, it was done legally, and it has created
very serious problems.
Now the cost of dealing with it, and I know this is a
challenge with which we are all trying to contend, it had
initially been projected to be about $320 million, and now it
is up to a billion dollars. But you very correctly, Madam
Chair, have said that we are talking about the lives of
literally millions of Southern Californians, and we are also
talking about the economy and all of the ramifications of that
as we deal with it. So I am hoping very much that we will again
see strong support of this.
And I appreciate the fact that Mr. Costa, who I know is
very intimately involved in dealing with water issues coming
from the Central Valley of California, and my colleague, Mr.
Nunes, who has been in and out of the room as we have proceeded
with our work, I know you are dealing with their legislation,
and I am looking at Mr. Quint's bottle of Deer Park. I wasn't
offered one here. But everyone else has water here except for
me, and I am not offended by that, but I do know how--thank you
very much--I do know how important it is, Madam Chair.
And there is no one who has been harder working at the
forefront of dealing with water issues than Mike Whitehead. He
is not just involved in California here representing the San
Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority, he has also been very
involved as a leader in water issues as it relates to Arizona
as well, and we are fortunate to have him. And I again
congratulate all of you for the commitment to dealing with what
is a very important multigovernment partnership in addressing a
serious problem. So I am happy to welcome and introduce Mr.
Whitehead.
Madam Chair, I hope you will understand I will follow your
legislation very closely as I hear about what we are doing
here, but I hope you will excuse me as I go off to another
meeting. And I want to thank you for beginning this meeting as
punctually as I used to begin the Rules Committee meetings for
the last eight years, which is unusual for this institution, so
I appreciate that, and I am happy to recognize Mr. Whitehead.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dreier follows:]
Statement of The Honorable David Dreier, a Representative in Congress
from the State of California, on H.R. 123
Madam Chair, It is great to be with you today. You and I have
joined together, in a bipartisan way, for many years to deal with the
very serious challenge of keeping our groundwater supplies safe for
southern Californians. I am very proud to have you as an original
cosponsor of this bill, and the support of our friends Gary Miller,
Lucille Roybal-Allard, Adam Schiff, Hilda Solis and Linda Sanchez. I am
also pleased to be here today to introduce Michael Whitehead, whose
name is synonymous with water in the San Gabriel Valley, and so ably
serves on the Board of the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority.
But first, let me just state that this bill before you, H.R. 123,
is an important continuation of the successful federal-state-local
partnership that already exists in providing one of the most basic
necessities of life--clean drinking water. The bill extends the current
authorization of the San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund by $50 million.
While in the context of the entire federal budget, $50 million is not
an overwhelming sum of money, it is still critical to evaluate the need
to spend additional federal dollars, however great or small the number.
I am proud to say that this partnership is an example of good
stewardship of taxpayer money. Initially in 1999 when we first began
the process for creating the Restoration Fund, the total cost of
cleaning up the basin was estimated at $320 million. Congress created
the Restoration Fund in 2000, with an initial authorization of $85
million, or a 25% investment. To date, a little over $70 million has
been appropriated, with approximately 83% of the cleanup provided by
local sources and responsible parties, with about 12% federal funding.
After recent evaluation of the total project, accounting for increased
levels of detected contamination, increased energy costs and inflation,
the total cost of cleanup now almost a decade later is approximately $1
billion. With a modest increase of $50 million, bringing the total
federal investment to $135 million, or 13.5%, the San Gabriel Water
Quality Authority and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation can continue
jointly administering this clean up program. Their outstanding work is
why this project is cost effective and such a huge success. In working
with the WQA and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation over the past decade on
this regional solution, there is no doubt that this increase is
warranted and will be utilized in the most effective way to continue to
provide safe drinking water.
Now it is with pleasure I introduce to you, Michael L. Whitehead.
Mike serves as President and Chief Operating Officer of San Gabriel
Valley Water Company, headquartered in El Monte, California. Mike is
also a member of the Board of Directors of the San Gabriel Basin Water
Quality Authority, having been first elected by groundwater producers
in 2001. He has served as a member of the Main San Gabriel Basin
Watermaster and Chino Basin Watermaster boards. Mike joined San Gabriel
Valley Water Company in 1979 as Vice President and General Counsel and
in 1989 was named president of the company. Since joining the company,
he's been actively involved in the management of the company and as
General Counsel supervised the company's general corporate legal
matters, having devoted particular attention to matters involving water
law, environmental protection, eminent domain, and public utility law.
Prior to that, he represented Carnation Company in state and federal
regulatory proceedings. Mike is also an officer and director of Fontana
Union Water Company, a mutual water company, and Arizona Water Company,
one of the largest investor-owned water utilities in the state of
Arizona. In addition, he is a member of American Water Works
Association, a director and past President of the California Water
Association, and is a member of the California Bar Association and its
Public Utility Law Section.
Thank you for holding this hearing, Madam Chair, and I look forward
to our continued work on water clean up in the San Gabriel Valley.
______
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir, very much for you presence
and your comments and for your statement about--Mr. Dreier,
David, your statement about how it was, and if it hadn't been
for you in the leadership beginning the process of the cleanup.
You can't take it, can you?
[Laughter.]
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. You see, we have been working
together on a bipartisan basis for a long time on this issue.
So I will now begin with the testimony from the panel, and
I would first like to recognize Mr. Quint, the Acting Deputy
Commissioner of Operations, and I would like to ask, where is
Mr. Johnson today?
Mr. Quint. Mr. Johnson is in Portland, Oregon, for part of
our effort to look at our organization. We have a Management
for Excellence Stakeholders Meeting out there. It has been
scheduled for several months, so he apologizes for not being
here.
Mrs. Napolitano. Tell him his apology is accepted, but I
would like to see his nice shining face in our committee. Thank
you.
Mr. Quint. I will deliver that message too.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT QUINT, ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR
OPERATIONS, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Quint. Madam Chairwoman, members of the Subcommittee, I
am Bob Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner for the Bureau of
Reclamation. I am pleased to be here today to provide testimony
on H.R. 123.
Now H.R. 123 proposes to increase the cost ceiling
authorization for the San Gabriel Restoration Fund by $50
million. The San Gabriel Restoration Fund was established by
P.L. 106-554 as part of an effort to clean up large portions of
the San Gabriel Basin located in Los Angeles County,
California, that were designated as Superfund sites due to
contaminated groundwater.
The fund is used to reimburse the San Gabriel Basin Water
Quality Authority and the Central Basin Municipal Water
District for designing, constructing and 10 years of operating
and maintaining groundwater cleanup facilities in the basin.
Due to budgetary concerns, the administration is unable to
support this bill at this time. While the San Gabriel Basin
Restoration Fund is and will be used for important projects, an
additional $50 million in cost ceiling would further compete
with Reclamation's other authorized projects, including the
needs of aging water infrastructure, water supply and delivery
projects such as rural water, Title XVI and environmental
restoration projects.
As you know, our budgetary situation plays a large role in
all of Reclamation's testimony on legislation before this
Subcommittee. To put it in perspective, Reclamation has several
billion, with a ``b,'' dollars in current project
authorizations that we are trying to fund. This includes $2.3
billion in rural water projects, $328 million in Title XVI
projects and more than $100 million of ecosystem restoration
work in California alone.
This concludes my statement. I would be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Quint follows:]
Statement of Robert Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner,
Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior, on H.R. 123
Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Robert
Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. I am
pleased to be here today to give the Department's views on H.R. 123, a
proposal to increase the ceiling on funds authorized to be appropriated
to the San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund. The Administration does not
support H.R. 123.
Groundwater contamination was first detected in the San Gabriel
Valley in 1979. Following this discovery, the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency designated major portions of the region's groundwater
as Superfund sites. Between 1990 and 1997, EPA identified Potentially
Responsible Parties at the site who then engaged in negotiations with
local water agencies and began initial design work on an EPA-developed
basin-wide plan to set cleanup priorities. After reaching a detailed
agreement with seven local water agencies in March 2002, design work
was completed and construction work began. Construction of the four
planned groundwater extraction and treatment facilities was largely
completed in 2006.
As part of this effort to clean up the groundwater contamination in
the San Gabriel Basin and prevent the contamination from spreading into
the adjacent Central Basin, the San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund
(Fund) was established in 2001 by P.L. 106-554. Originally established
as a Defense Department account and subsequently transferred to the
Interior Department, this interest-bearing account reimburses the San
Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority (WQA) and the Central Basin
Municipal Water District (District) for designing and constructing
facilities that help with groundwater cleanup efforts in the Basin. The
Fund is also authorized to reimburse the WQA and District for operating
and maintaining these facilities for up to 10 years. A 35 percent non-
Federal share is required for projects. This cost-share can be met by
credits given to the WQA for expenditures used for water quality
projects that have already been built in the San Gabriel Basin, in lieu
of depositing the required 35 percent non-Federal share for these
projects into the Fund. To date, the entire non-Federal share has been
met by credits that have been certified by Reclamation.
In Fiscal Year 2001, Congress appropriated $23 million for deposit
into the Fund. The Energy and Water Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year
2002 (P.L. 107-66), transferred administrative responsibility for the
fund from the Secretary of the Army to the Secretary of the Interior,
and appropriated an additional $12 million. Appropriations in Fiscal
Years 2003-2006 brought the total deposits to the Fund to $68.75
million. In addition, the Fund has accumulated over $ 2.5 million in
interest.
Reclamation has executed six grant agreements under the Restoration
Fund authority. One grant agreement is with the Central Basin Municipal
Water District, covering design, construction, operation, and
maintenance of their facility, up to the $10 million ceiling
established by the legislation for this component. The other five
agreements are with the WQA. Four cover the design and construction of
specific facilities, and the fifth agreement covers operation and
maintenance of those four facilities.
The total estimated cost of the project authorized by the
legislation is about $204 million. Based on this cost estimate, about
$69 million would be allocated for the completion of the construction
of all five facilities, and about $135 million would be allocated to
fund the operation and maintenance of all five facilities for 10 years,
as authorized.
The San Gabriel Basin Restoration Fund is and will continue to be
used for important local projects. Reclamation must allocate its scarce
budget toward funding already authorized projects within the agency's
traditional mission of delivering water and power in an environmentally
responsible and cost-efficient manner, with emphasis on the needs of
aging infrastructure, the safety of existing facilities and dams, and
ongoing environmental restoration efforts. The Administration has not
budgeted for the San Gabriel Restoration Fund in any of the preceding
fiscal years. The Administration believes that resources should be
allocated to achieving priorities within Reclamation's traditional
mission area and does not support the $50 million cost ceiling increase
proposed in H.R. 123. Reclamation, however, will continue to work with
the WQA and the District when possible to advance the goal of
groundwater cleanup in the San Gabriel Basin.
Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my testimony. Thank you for the
opportunity to comment on H.R. 123. I would be happy to answer any
questions at this time.
______
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir, for your testimony, and I
do have a lot of questions specifically dealing with why the
Bureau does not request an increase in budgetary funds to be
able to address the issues they have on their table. Thank you
so much.
Now I will move on to our second witness, Mr. Michael
Whitehead, President, San Gabriel Valley Water Company, et
cetera, et cetera. Welcome, sir.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL WHITEHEAD, PRESIDENT, SAN GABRIEL VALLEY
WATER COMPANY, AND BOARD MEMBER OF THE SAN GABRIEL BASIN WATER
QUALITY AUTHORITY, WEST COVINA, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Whitehead. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and
thank you to the members of the committee.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you mind, sir, Chairwoman?
Mr. Whitehead. Chairwoman.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
Mr. Whitehead. I am sorry. Madam Chairwoman, yes, indeed.
Thank you for that welcome.
It is indeed a privilege to come before your committee
today and speak in favor of the passage of H.R. 123. As
Congressman Dreier so eloquently put it, it has been a very
important contribution to the well-being of the public health
and safety of the citizens of the San Gabriel Valley.
I might point out for the committee's information that the
San Gabriel Basin groundwater aquifer underlies about 167
square miles of the San Gabriel Valley. It is a very rich and
abundant renewable and sustainable source of local water supply
for over 1 million people in that part of Los Angeles County.
Indeed, it could sustain even larger populations as a
groundwater storage facility.
That is the good news. We are blessed with that very
abundant renewable resource, the good news. The bad news is, as
we have heard earlier today, that that has been contaminated,
and unfortunately, that has been the unfortunate legacy of
unregulated discharges from defense and other related
industries and a legacy of the Cold War era.
With the adoption of the San Gabriel Basin Restoration
Fund, we have been able to begin the process of cleaning that
basin, but much more work is required, much more work needs to
be done. The fact of the matter is, and I think other witnesses
will bear me out on this, is that even though we have initiated
some very important groundwater cleanup projects to date with
the assistance of the restoration fund, much, much more work
remains to be done.
And quite frankly, with the impending limitations of
imported water from Northern California through the State Water
Project and the reallocations and the reductions of water
supplies available from the Colorado River, we have no choice
but to make sure we rely to the fullest extent possible on
local renewable resources like the water in the San Gabriel
Basin. But we need help to make sure that water can be cleaned
up and assure to our public that relies on that water that it
meets all safe drinking water standards. That is an absolute
imperative.
Quite frankly, I am concerned. I am concerned with the
confluence of water restrictions, drought which appears to have
no end right now and our lack of access to this local supply
that we may be facing a clear and present public health and
safety crisis. We cannot allow this to happen. It is like
watching a train wreck about to happen. We need to take action.
I would like to reiterate my extreme gratitude to you,
Madam Chairwoman, and the members of the committee and Members
of Congress who have been unwavering in their support for
assisting us, helping us to help ourselves to restore this very
important water resource. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Whitehead follows:]
Statement of Michael L. Whitehead, Director of the
San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority, on H.R. 123
Good afternoon Madam Chairwoman, Committee members, and staff. My
name is Michael Whitehead, and I am a member of the Board of Directors
of the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority. Let me first express
my appreciation to you Madam Chairwoman, as well as Representatives
David Dreier, Hilda Solis, Adam Schiff, Gary Miller, Lucille Roybal-
Allard, and Linda Sanchez for your unwavering support and assistance in
helping to restore the San Gabriel Groundwater Basin.
The San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority was created and
authorized by the California State Legislature in 1993 to address the
critical need for coordinated groundwater cleanup programs in the San
Gabriel Basin after harmful amounts of contaminants were detected in
the region's groundwater. The Water Quality Authority is committed to
protecting public health and safety by prioritizing, facilitating, and
coordinating groundwater cleanup and supply programs with local water
suppliers and the U.S. EPA, while minimizing local financial and
economic impacts, including impacts on consumers who rely on local
groundwater supplies from the San Gabriel Groundwater Basin.
The San Gabriel Basin underlies 167 square miles of the San Gabriel
Valley. The San Gabriel Basin holds hundreds of thousands of acre-feet
of local, renewable, public drinking water supplies. In fact, the San
Gabriel Basin is capable of providing a reliable, local drinking water
supply for the more than one million people who reside and work in the
San Gabriel Valley--as long as we are able to implement effective
groundwater cleanup to remove the contaminants.
In December of 2000, thanks to the leadership of Representative
Dreier and the other members of the San Gabriel Valley Congressional
Delegation, Congress enacted the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality
Initiative in Congress. Representative Dreier and his colleagues moved
to establish the Restoration Fund as a means of expediting the
remediation of groundwater contamination caused by industrial solvents
and rocket fuel contaminants such as perchlorate. The Restoration Fund,
which is administered cooperatively by the Water Quality Authority and
the Bureau of Reclamation, uses Federal and non-Federal monies
contributed to the San Gabriel Restoration Fund to design, construct,
and operate facilities to contain and treat the spreading groundwater
contamination in the San Gabriel and Central Groundwater Basins.
The Water Quality Authority has benefited tremendously from the
Restoration Fund by enabling us to continue the collaborative approach
of merging cleanup with water supply and allowing us to leverage
Federal dollars and local funding to bring all parties to the table and
work in a manner that addresses multiple issues at the same time. The
Restoration Fund has provided an incentive for the Responsible Parties
in the San Gabriel Basin to participate in the cleanup and to reach
funding agreements with affected water suppliers. It has also allowed
the Water Quality Authority and the affected water suppliers to fund
projects even before Responsible Parties could be identified or when
Responsible Parties are no longer viable, cannot be located, or are
recalcitrant. Without this Federal funding the likelihood for
additional well closures would be great, leaving only the option of
turning to costly and already overburdened imported water supplies.
Since the Restoration Fund was made available to the Water Quality
Authority, we have received $71.5 million through the Bureau of
Reclamation's construction account. The Water Quality Authority has
allocated the use of these funds to 32 projects throughout the Basin,
21 of which have been completed, with another 8 currently under
construction. To date these efforts have helped to remove over 20 tons
of contaminants, and treated nearly 313,000 acre-feet of groundwater.
For example, with the completion of four major groundwater cleanup
projects developed and implemented through the Water Quality Authority
with the cooperation of local water suppliers, participating
Responsible Parties, and the U.S. EPA, we remove perchlorate and other
toxic chemicals from groundwater at the rate of 24,000 gallons per
minute on a 24/7 year-round basis. These projects will continue to
provide safe drinking water to residents and businesses in Baldwin
Park, La Puente, West Covina, the City of Industry, and surrounding
areas for decades to come without burdening the public with higher
water bills. Even so, a great deal more effort and cleanup is still
required.
Earlier this year, in recognition of the tremendous success of the
Restoration Fund and the need to continue the local cleanup efforts,
Congressman David Dreier and his colleagues in the San Gabriel Valley
Congressional Delegation introduced H.R. 123. This legislation would
increase the authorization ceiling on the Restoration Fund by $50
million from its current level of $85 million. This additional funding
would allow us to continue the progress we've made and avoid costly
litigation that only serves to slow down the cleanup.
Without future Federal assistance for the treatment facilities,
local water suppliers would be forced to shut down water wells due to
migrating contamination. The closures would force purveyors to become
reliant on imported water, which would come mainly from the Colorado
River and the State Water Project. And as you may know, California's
water allotment from the Colorado River is being cut back, and
deliveries from the State Water Project are seriously restricted. This
would severely impair our ability to provide water for the residents
and businesses in the San Gabriel Basin. With your help we have the
opportunity today to make certain these closures don't occur, while
ensuring our water suppliers have a safe, abundant, and sustainable
water supply to draw from in the years to come.
Water from wells in the San Gabriel Valley is relatively
inexpensive to pump and supply to homes and businesses in comparison to
imported supplies from the Colorado River or northern California. The
current price for an acre-foot of treated, ready-to-drink Colorado
River water in the high-demand summer period is $549, subject, of
course, to its availability. The typical cost to pump and treat an
acre-foot of local San Gabriel Basin groundwater is $65 to $250
depending on the levels and types of contamination being treated.
It is vital that we continue our efforts to restore the San Gabriel
Basin aquifer. Once we are able to remediate the contamination, it is
our belief that the local groundwater basin will be able to meet all of
the San Gabriel Valley's water needs. Removing harmful contaminants
from our communities' groundwater supply will allow local water
suppliers to better meet the needs of local residents at affordable
rates and make certain that the Basin is able to meet the water supply
needs of future generations. The Federal assistance provided by the
Restoration Fund allows us to carry out our mission of facilitating
groundwater cleanup and providing a clean, reliable, drinking water
supply for the over one million residents of the San Gabriel Basin.
Thank you for allowing me to testify on the successes and on-going
progress of the cleanup of the San Gabriel Basin today and the
importance of H.R. 123 to our future. I would be happy to answer any
questions to that you may have.
______
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Whitehead, and that was
very well done, sir, within time.
I do like to again stress the importance of what this
project means to the whole Southern California area and the
facts, as you have well stated, of our decrease of take from
the Colorado, the pending judge's decision on the Bay Delta,
together with the drought, you are right, we have no choice.
Thank you, sir.
I will move on to our next witness, Mr. Donald Jensen,
Director of Public Works from Santa Fe Springs. Your first
time, sir. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF DONALD JENSEN, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS, SANTA FE
SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA; ACCOMPANIED BY ART AGUILAR, GENERAL
MANAGER OF THE CENTRAL BASIN MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT, AND AL
CABLAY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, PICO RIVERA, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Jensen. Good morning, Chairwoman Napolitano. It is good
to see you again, Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers and other
members of the Subcommittee. I very much appreciate the
opportunity to appear today before you on behalf of the
residents of Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera and Whittier and
also the 2 million residents that live within the Central Basin
Municipal Water District service area. We very much appreciate
the committee being a strong advocate for clean and safe water
for the residents of the San Gabriel Valley.
I would like to recognize Mr. Art Aguilar, who is the
General Manager of the Central Basin Municipal Water District,
and Mr. Al Cablay, who is the Deputy Director of Pico Rivera,
who have joined me today.
For nearly 30 years, the Federal government and local
agencies have worked together to address a plume of
contaminated water moving out of the upper San Gabriel region.
The goal of Central Basin and its cities continues to be to
clean up and contain the compounds that are part of this
contamination.
We very much appreciate the efforts of your Subcommittee in
helping us achieve the first step, which was to get $10 million
in appropriations back out of the 106th Congress. Six point
five million of that money went toward the construction of the
WQPP, with the balance going toward operation expenses. But our
mission is not over, and we respectfully request that you
consider including additional funding in the amount of $11.2
million so that we may keep the WQPP operating. We believe the
additional funds would fulfill the recommendations made in the
EPA 2001 design report.
As you know, contamination in this area was first found in
1979. EPA followed up with a lot of field work, and in 2001, a
remedial facility was built in the Whittier Narrows area. The
purpose of the facility was to clean up contamination from the
Whittier Narrows area and to prevent contaminated groundwater
from moving into the Central Basin area.
However, even before the construction of the Whittier
Narrows plant began, groundwater data showed that PCEs and TCEs
exceeded the maximum contaminant level in wells south of the
Whittier Narrows Dam. Additionally, the contaminated water had
migrated past the site of the Whittier Narrows extraction
wells.
The San Gabriel and Rio Hondo spreading grounds are south
of the Whittier Narrows. These spreading grounds are operated
by Los Angeles County and utilize stormwater, imported water
and recycled water to replenish the groundwater supply. It is
for that very purpose that Central Basin and the cities
continue to be concerned that the contamination may have a dire
impact on the water quality for our area.
The WQPP was constructed to monitor and intercept and treat
contaminated water. We are pleased to say that over the past
two years, contamination levels have been below the maximum
contaminant level. However, as the plume still exists north of
our area, we continue to be concerned about its proximity and
its potential for harming the Central Basin area and the cities
that we are in.
In 2001, the three cities entered into an agreement with
Central Basin regarding the purchase of treated water from the
facility. We have made a commitment to take a quantity of water
on an annual basis that represents almost a $900,000 commitment
by the cities.
In May of 2007, after almost three years of operating the
WQPP, Central Basin announced that it was considering taking
the WQPP out of service. They cited two reasons for stoppage
and production. First, the levels of volatile organic compounds
that were originally cited to be a concern had not exceeded
maximum allowable levels, and second, operating costs were
found to be higher than expected.
Central Basin met with the three cities. We agreed to form
a partnership and try to keep the facility running. Given the
financial, the substantial financial investment in the Whittier
Narrows project and the WQPP, if the WQPP facility is shut down
and maximum contaminant levels are exceeded in the future in
the area south of the Whittier Narrows Dam, it would leave our
cities, which are essentially on the front line of this battle,
without a defense and pose a serious threat to the water
quality in the entire Central Basin area.
Therefore, on behalf of the cities of Santa Fe Springs,
Pico Rivera and Whittier, we respectfully ask that the
Subcommittee include $11.2 million in additional funding in
H.R. 123 for continued operation of the WQPP. The cities
believe this funding is critical to the continued protection of
water quality for the 2 million people in the Central Basin
area. That concludes my statement, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Jensen follows:]
Statement of Donald K. Jensen, Director of Public Works,
City of Santa Fe Springs, California, on H.R. 123
Thank you Madam Chair for that very kind introduction.
Chairwoman Napolitano, Ranking Member McMorris-Rodgers, and other
members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear
today on behalf of the 165, 000 residents of Santa Fe Springs, Pico
Rivera and Whittier and the additional 2,000,000 residents served by
the Central Basin Municipal Water District (appendix A).
Thank you for being such strong advocates and fighting for clean
and safe water for the residents of the San Gabriel Valley. I would
also like to recognize Art Aguilar, General Manager of Central Basin
Municipal Water District and Al Cablay, Deputy Director of Public Works
for the City of Pico Rivera.
For nearly 30 years, the federal government and local water
agencies have been working to address an underground plume of
contaminated water that has been slowly moving southeast from the Upper
San Gabriel Valley region, which is a Superfund site (appendix B). The
contamination resulted from the release into the soil of volatile
organic compounds such as chemicals used for degreasing, dry cleaning
and metal cleaning.
The goal of Central Basin and the cities it represents, including
Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera and Whittier continues to be clean up and
containment of the compounds. We very much appreciated your efforts
during the 106th Congress when we initially received authorization to
fund containment efforts in the San Gabriel Basin and Central Basin.
That legislation initially provided $10 million to fund the Central
Basin Water Quality Protection Project (WQPP), I have attached for your
review a brief summary of how that money was spent over the past six
years (appendix C) but approximately $6.5 million went toward
construction with the remainder of the money going toward operations.
That funding was critical to protecting over 2 million people from the
potential contamination migrating south from the upper San Gabriel
Valley region. But our mission is not over and we respectfully request
you consider including us for additional funding of $11.2 million as
this subcommittee considers H.R. 123. Our proposed use of these
additional funds is detailed in appendix D and would fulfill the
recommendation made by the EPA in their 2001 design report.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency
(USEPA), the initial discovery of contamination occurred in 1979. EPA
began investigating groundwater in the Whittier Narrows area of the San
Gabriel Superfund sites in the late 1980s. A remedial investigation was
completed in 1992, and from 1997 to 1998, increasing levels of volatile
organic compounds led to additional fieldwork by EPA.
Design of a remedial facility in the Whittier Narrows area was
completed by USEPA in 2001 and construction of extraction wells,
conveyance pipelines, and a treatment plant began in 2001 and was
completed in May 2002. The purpose of the treatment facility was to
clean up contamination in the Whittier Narrows and to prevent
contaminated groundwater from moving into the Central Basin.
However, even before construction of the Whittier Narrows plant
began, groundwater monitoring data showed that the level of PCEs
(tetrachloroethylene) exceeded the maximum contaminant levels in wells
south of the Whittier Narrows Dam. Also, the underground plume of
contaminated water had already migrated past the site of the Whittier
Narrows extraction wells. Moreover, the Whittier Narrows treatment
plant did not become fully operational until December 2005.
The San Gabriel and Rio Hondo Coastal Spreading Grounds are located
south of the Whittier Narrows Dam and are adjacent to the cities of
Pico Rivera, Whittier, and Santa Fe Springs. These spreading grounds,
operated by Los Angeles County, utilize storm water, imported water and
recycled water to replenish the groundwater supply in the Central
Basin. Thus, we have been concerned for many years that the source of
drinking water for these cities as well as the entire Central Basin
service area could be contaminated by the underground plume of
contaminated water migrating south from the Whittier Narrows area.
In response to concerns over the contamination, the Southeast Water
Coalition (SEWC), a joint powers authority was formed, in part, by
local cities and the Water Replenishment District (WRD) to advocate for
the protection of the regional water supply. The Cities of Pico Rivera,
Whittier and Santa Fe Springs are still members of SEWC. SEWC was then,
and is now, very concerned about the migration of the underground plume
into the Central Basin and the Montebello Forebay service areas.
SEWC approached Central Basin Municipal Water District (CBMWD) in
2001 and requested the District's assistance regarding the issue.
Subsequently, the $10 million appropriation we received through the
Bureau of Reclamation for the WQPP meant that local cities and
consumers were not penalized for the contamination by being required to
pay for the WQPP.
The WQPP was constructed to monitor and intercept water entering
the Central Basin from Upper San Gabriel Valley region. Central Basin
designed and constructed two extraction wells, a treatment facility,
and distribution lines, all located in the City of Pico Rivera. We work
closely with our contract operator and test lab firm to conduct monthly
testing and we are pleased that over the past two years contamination
we are seeing is below the maximum contaminant level. However, the
plume is north of the WQPP which puts us in a position to safeguard the
water quality if for any reason the Whittier Narrows remediation
facility becomes inoperable for any reason. I have attached for your
reference data with containment reads from 2004 to March of this year
(appendix E). Notwithstanding what we have seen over the last two
years, the unpredictability and location of the contaminant plume
continues to be a matter of great concern to the Cities of Santa Fe
Springs, Pico Rivera and Whittier. As our three cities are located at
the northern edge of the Central Basin service area, we are literally
on the front line in this battle.
In 2001 the three cities entered into agreements with Central Basin
regarding purchase of the treated water from the WQPP project. Under
the agreement, the Cities agreed to convey a certain amount of their
water rights to the Central Basin, which pumps the conveyed rights from
the extraction wells and treats the pumped water. Collectively, the
three cities have made a commitment to take up to 4600 acre feet of
water annually from the WQPP. This represents a financial commitment of
approximately $870,000 by the cities.
In October 2004, Central Basin received its domestic drinking water
permit and the facility went into operation in and began to distribute
in December 2004 the treated water to the cities of Pico Rivera, Santa
Fe Springs and Whittier.
In May 2007, after nearly three years of operating the WQPP,
Central Basin announced that it was considering taking the WQPP out of
service. Central Basin cited two reasons for the stoppage in
production: the levels of volatile organic compounds that were
originally cited to be a concern had not exceeded allowable levels for
the last two years; and, operating costs were much higher than
expected. Central Basin met with the three impacted cities and it was
evident they were concerned about the potential threat to groundwater
in the Central Basin. In order to keep the facility in service, the
cities and Central Basin agreed to work together regarding formation of
a joint powers authority (JPA).
Groundwater monitoring data from the WQPP shows that allowable
levels of volatile organic compounds have not been exceeded during the
last two years; however, the cities and Central Basin believe the
prudent course would be to continue operating the WQPP due to the
potential harm to Central Basin and the Montebello Forebay from the
underground plume of contaminated water. The original 2001 design
report for the WQPP recommended continuous pumping would be required
for up to 7 years assuming that EPA begins operation of the containment
extraction wells in the Whittier Narrows within 2 years. However, the
Whittier Narrows treatment facility did not become fully operational in
2003 as anticipated; as stated previously, that occurred in December
2005, after the WQPP became operational. As a result of this delay, the
continuous pumping recommendation made by the EPA would carry our
operation into 2014, which is why we are requesting additional funding
by amending H.R. 123 to include us.
Again, given the substantial federal investment in both Whittier
Narrows and WQPP, if the WQPP facility is shut down, and maximum
contamination levels are exceeded in the future in the area south of
Whittier Narrows Dam, it would leave the cities with no recourse and
would threaten water quality in the Central Basin.
Therefore, on behalf of the cities of Santa Fe Springs, Pico Rivera
and Whittier, we strongly urge the subcommittee to include $11.2 in
additional funding in H.R. 123 for continued operation of the WQPP. The
cities and Central Basin believe this funding is critical to the
continued protection of water quality for the more than 2 million
people living in and around the impacted cities.
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Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Jensen.
Mr. Aguilar, do you have any statements for the record?
Mr. Aguilar. No. I am available to answer questions of the
committee and to support Mr. Jensen, and we do believe that the
WQPP is strongly needed, still needed within the community, and
are glad to be working with the cities on continuation of this
project.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. And for those that might not
know, there is a rendering on our right, your left, in regard
to the wells and where the spreading grounds are and how it has
already managed to penetrate the spreading grounds.
Some 15 years ago, I got involved in this issue, and we
knew that it was coming, and for whatever reason, as I
explained before, it didn't get addressed in time to keep it
from going past the spreading grounds and has been a problem
for our communities.
What you really haven't addressed is that the spreading
grounds then flow to many cities below that will affect their
drinking water supply if that were to continue to effectively
pollute the aquifers that feed the wells that the cities use
south of my area. So it is really a key issue for not only our
area but those below us in the many cities and the millions of
people that live below us too.
So with that, let me move forward to questions. Cathy?
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Question
for Mr. Whitehead. I understand that the bill is increasing the
Federal authorization for another $50 million. The question is,
how much does this represent in comparison to what the state
and local entities and other companies are paying into the
cleanup?
Mr. Whitehead. That is a very good and timely question. The
first part of your question is what portion of the total cost
is being borne by the State of California. Unfortunately, we
have been far less successful in obtaining financial commitment
from the State of California. I can assure you it is not for
lack of effort. A great deal of effort has been extended. We
think that progress is right now being made in the California
Legislature's Special Session on Water Issues. I have reason to
believe that a great deal of attention is being focused on
groundwater contamination not only in the San Gabriel Valley
but elsewhere in the state, including the inland and Fontana/
Rialto area.
I am cautiously optimistic that the state will take up more
of the responsibility for this, and I can assure you that we
are devoting an extraordinary amount of time and resources to
help make that happen.
The other part of your question, I am very pleased to
report that we have been uniquely successful in drawing funds
from the responsible parties, and I might add that we have
achieved that success with a minimum amount of costly, time-
consuming litigation. Part of that success I think is in large
measure the product of the Water Quality Authority's ability to
marshal numerous resources and numerous constituencies.
Certainly the restoration fund is an enormous incentive for
the polluters to step forward and put their money up. After
all, as Mr. Dreier pointed out, the Federal portion has to be
matched by nonFederal sources in order to qualify for the
restoration funding, and we have achieved literally hundreds of
millions of dollars in commitments and actual payments from the
responsible parties to back up the funding from the restoration
fund and to provide the nonFederal source.
Also, the authority itself has been able to raise funds and
to apply that to the planning and development, construction and
even operation of water treatment facilities, taking early
action when polluters couldn't be found to assure that large
quantities of contaminants are removed from the groundwater to
either prevent or minimize the migration of those contaminants,
as we have heard, across the Whittier Narrows.
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. What is your current estimation as
to when the cleanup will be completed for purposes of Federal
funding?
Mr. Whitehead. The unfortunate aspect of the San Gabriel
Valley, as I mentioned in my remarks, is that it covers 167
square miles. It is a big place. If you add onto that portions
of the Central Basin, it goes up exponentially.
The EPA declared the area a Superfund cleanup site and
divided it into five or six, maybe seven, subareas called
operable units. That is a lot of jargon to mean that the EPA
attacks the contamination in the various parts because it
doesn't all come from the same source. It comes from multiple
sources in that area. So it is very important that we continue
to plan.
I might add that the water authority's role in large part
has been planning and developing remedial solutions. I wish I
could give you a definite and certain answer. My guess is it
won't be sooner than 10 years.
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. OK. Very good. Thank you.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Costa.
Mr. Costa. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I am familiar with the challenge that the San Gabriel
faces, and you have for many years been a tremendous advocate
and spoken with great passion as to the desire to address the
challenges of this groundwater resource, and I certainly am
supportive of your efforts and frankly feel that this
groundwater basin, like others in California and other parts of
the country, need to be addressed and certainly want to provide
full support in your efforts.
So my questions have really been answered as we have done
our due diligence on this in years past, and I just want to
commend you again for doing your very best to focus in an area
that truly needs to be responded to. And anything we can do to
be of help, we are one state and we need to address these
issues. So I thank you for your good work.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Costa. I have no questions.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you for your comments. Appreciate
it.
Mr. Baca.
Mr. Baca. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The question is for Mr. Whitehead. Given the success of the
San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority, you know about the
perchlorate problems in Fontana and in my district, how will
H.R. 123 help the surrounding areas?
Mr. Whitehead. I think that even though H.R. 123 as written
is intended to increase the authorization for the San Gabriel
Valley Restoration Fund, I continue to believe, Mr. Baca, that
it serves as a very compelling model. Both the funding
arrangements and the Water Quality Authority structure itself
represent a very compelling model for addressing regional
groundwater contamination problems and the need for regional
remedial solutions to be done in a unified and focused fashion
as opposed to numerous entities, water companies, water
districts, cities, what have you, essentially trying to do it
all on their own.
The success that we have achieved, to the extent that we
have had success in the San Gabriel Valley, has been the result
of a unified effort. I would strongly urge and I would strongly
participate in an effort to do likewise in your district and
the surrounding area that has been confronted with this awful
problem of perchlorate and other contamination in your water
supplies.
Mr. Baca. Currently we have about 31 to 32 or maybe 33
contaminated wells in the surrounding areas, specifically in
the Rialto area, and so it does present a problem, and you said
at the very beginning we will have a health and safety crisis
if we don't deal with remediation of water and the
contamination that we have in that area, especially as we look
at the shortage of the rainfall that we have had, and thank God
we had some rainfall this week. As we look over the decades,
cleanup activities in San Gabriel Basin were repeated and
hindered by the discovery of new contaminants. How confident
are you that we have a clear handle on the problem so that we
can start making greater progress in the cleanup?
Mr. Whitehead. Well, I wish I could give you as optimistic
an assessment, Congressman, about the Fontana/Rialto issues as
I am today in the San Gabriel Valley. The problem, as I said,
is a fractured effort. I would again repeat my willingness to
work with you or anyone else who would like to foster a unified
effort there.
With respect to your specific question about additional
contaminants, unfortunately, we have had to deal with new and
emerging contaminants. Technology being what it is, we are able
to identify these contaminants in our public drinking water
supplies that in the past were invisible to us, and this
includes contaminants like perchlorate, dioxane, volatile
organic compounds and a veritable litany of contaminants that
are endangering our public water supplies.
I might add that the EPA in declaring the San Gabriel
Valley a Superfund cleanup site, far from the stigma that most
people might attach to that designation, provided extraordinary
resources and brought an extraordinary effort to enforce the
development of a regional remedy for the San Gabriel Valley,
which we have been able to implement in conjunction with the
EPA through the Water Quality Authority.
My concern is that we haven't seen a vigorous effort by the
EPA in the Fontana/Rialto area, and I dare say the area has
suffered as a result. Again, I think we have a model. I think
we have a model of success in the San Gabriel Valley with the
restoration fund and the Water Quality Authority.
Mr. Baca. Thank you. Mr. Aguilar, with the cities forming a
JPA, what would the Central Basin Municipal Water District's
role be with regard to any additional funds?
Mr. Aguilar. The Central Basin looks forward to working
with the cities as part of a JPA. We would continue to
administer the project and do the day-to-day work on the
project as well as monitor the funding, but unlike the past
where it was all contained within the district, it would now be
monitored in conjunction with the three cities.
We would develop a structure that would provide for
interaction for meetings and monitoring so that we can make
sure that the project is serving the needs of all the parties
involved. We are fully supportive of a JPA and feel that this
goes with our new mission at Central Basin, which is to work
with the communities within our particular district.
In the past, many water districts have looked at it from
above and made decisions based solely on what their knowledge
would be and their efforts would be. The time has come, as Mr.
Whitehead has said, to focus regionally, to focus locally, to
take care of our problems. We believe in now working across
with our partners and making sure that their needs are served
first by us, and that is a big part of our mission.
Mr. Baca. Madam Chair, I know my time has expired, but if I
may ask one final question, and this pertains to Mr. Jensen and
Mr. Aguilar.
Since you are asking for additional funds in the bill for
H.R. 123, what kind of timelines are on in forming this JPA?
Mr. Jensen. We believe that the JPA could be formed within
a matter of six months, and we are already actually three
months into that six-month period under a MOU. So we believe
that by the end of the year we could reasonably have a
structure for the JPA ready to be adopted by all of the
parties.
Mr. Aguilar. I concur with that. One of the first things we
did upon this discussion was to formulate that Memorandum of
Understanding so that we would delineate what the goals would
be, and this would form the framework for a JPA. We are now at
the point where we are extending that three-month MOU for an
additional three months, and we believe that we can formulate
it during that time period.
Mr. Baca. Would that also help in the area of the
perchlorate if a JPA or Memorandum of Understanding was done in
that area, Mr. Whitehead?
Mr. Whitehead. I think it would. I think it would. Even
though we have heard today that the concentrations in that area
have tailed off, we remain very concerned about the migration
of contaminants, including perchlorate and other contaminants,
through Whittier Narrows and into the Central Basin, and I
think that Mr. Aguilar and Mr. Jensen are doing the right thing
in working cooperatively as a collaboration to deal with this
in a unified way.
Mr. Baca. OK. Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me the
extended time.
Mrs. Napolitano. You are very welcome.
Mr. Nunes, do you have any questions?
Mr. Nunes. Not at this time.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. My turn.
There are many things that I want to bring out, and as you
have heard, there are questions that have not quite been
addressed, especially with the Bureau of Reclamation not
requesting enough funds to be able to continue moving forward
on the projects that are so essential, and I will continue to
harp on that and I will continue to make efforts to increase
the budget.
We tried and were unsuccessful this year, but let me tell
you next year is another year, and that goes not only for our
area but for the whole of the United States, especially the
West where we are facing drought. We need the help. We don't
need hindrances. I think we need to revisit the mission of the
Bureau of Reclamation as stated, because water is water.
Whether it is water quality, water production, water safety,
all of it is tied into your mission we hope.
With that said, I just have a number of questions that have
been formulating in my mind in regard to this particular bill.
Mr. Aguilar, when the Central Basin announced their intent to
shut down the project and dismantle the facilities, why was I
not notified or somebody else?
Mr. Aguilar. We were in the process of studying the
closure, and we were putting together what we were
contractually required to with the USBOR. We were down to the
final amounts of money, and so when we got to that point, we
had to do that. We notified the cities that this was going to
take place on a staff level, and the communication line at that
particular time broke down in terms of bringing it upward. We
should have followed up and notified you as well.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, I can understand that things do
happen, but in order for us to be effective, we need to be
availed of the information so that we can move forward and not
react at the last minute to whatever is necessary. And I
understand you were shut down? You actually did shut down?
Mr. Aguilar. We had a planned shutdown that was going to be
coming up to replace the carbon vessels as it was. They were at
the point where they needed to be checked and possibly
replaced. So the timing was at that time the right time to
consider and to shut down while we studied the question.
Mrs. Napolitano. The original recommendations or actually
the 2001 design indicated that WQPP would operate until 2014,
and I know that EPA is not as involved in monitoring and all
because I have called them and spoken to them, but I would like
to have a better understanding of your relationship with EPA
and the monitoring of the contaminants, especially the
perchlorate and the new contaminants. What is your
relationship?
Mr. Aguilar. The relationship with the EPA has been
primarily on a regular and systematic reporting of what they
are finding and what contaminant levels they feel may have
gotten through the Whittier Narrows. We likewise are sharing
data back with them, and it has been primarily a data sharing
back and forth as time has gone by.
In addition, we have a reporting system set up to let us
know if they have problems with the Whittier Narrows unit, and
if they do, then we can be aware of the fact that we may see a
spike at that particular time.
Mrs. Napolitano. Do you also share that same information
with the Bureau?
Mr. Aguilar. The Bureau is kept updated on a regular basis
on all our activities.
Mrs. Napolitano. Considering the long history of the
contaminants and the uncertainty of those monitoring, and I
don't hear anybody say that they are looking at new areas to
check to test, it is such a wide area it could conceivably be
more either migration or new spots, and I can tell you from the
tank farm in Norwalk that has happened. They found new
contaminants even though after 15-20 years they thought they
were well underway of being able to contain it and clean it,
and yet they found new areas of migration.
So is anything being done to be able to try to see that
there is reason to be able to continue doing the not only
monitoring but also the extension of cleanup?
Mr. Aguilar. At this particular moment, we are continuing
on the original cleanup plan and the original monitoring of the
area. We have not gone beyond that. We are trying to see where
the containment is at this particular time. Certainly, once we
get this JPA together, once we get the operation back into
order, then we can consider that as a possibility.
Mrs. Napolitano. When you were considering the shutting
down of the facility, did it come into play the amount of time,
trouble, money and effort that it would take should a new
contaminant be found or additional contaminants be found and
have to go back online?
Mr. Aguilar. We did take into consideration the possibility
that that would happen, and we did have some very preliminary
figures available as to what the cost would have been to
restart. The fortunate part would be that the infrastructure
would be in place, but in all likelihood, the internal parts of
it, the filters, the actual active part of the purification
system would have to be redone totally, and that would have
been running in about the $500,000 to $1 million range just for
that.
We would probably have had to sink a couple of more
monitoring wells as well at that particular time. That would
have been a more sizable expense of about a million, $2
million.
Mrs. Napolitano. Did you take into consideration how hard
it would be for us to try to get something moving here in
Congress after we expended the amount of money and then shut
down without notification?
Mr. Aguilar. We certainly did, and we certainly did not
want to take that option if we could avoid it, and fortunately,
the cities came forward and said we would like to develop this
partnership and keep this project going, which was really quite
a godsend. We very much appreciate it.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. In your testimony, you have attached a
chart indicating the amounts utilized for the $10 million that
have been expended toward your particular project, and I see
there is a little bit of an interesting scenario in the last
two years. You are spending more money and producing less
water. Why?
Mr. Aguilar. I believe that we have increased through the
years as we have taken more water out of the ground, the
expenditures have increased. At various times, there may be an
increase in cost simply because it is a maintenance schedule.
You will pull less water during maintenance and your costs will
go up. In addition to that, we have had increased power costs
in the last few years that hadn't been expected.
Mrs. Napolitano. How often do you maintain?
Mr. Aguilar. Well, it is a constant monitoring and it
depends on what the readings are at each quarter. So I don't
have the maintenance schedule with me, but I can provide that.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, I would certainly like to have an
idea as to why there is less water produced for the more money
that you are expending on those projects.
Mr. Aguilar. I can provide the schedule for that.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. Mr. Jensen, one of the
attachments in the testimony shows the location of the
contaminated plume. Would you describe the impact it would have
on the water supply, the number of cities involved, probably
the residents and possibly the impact on the economy?
Mr. Jensen. Yes, Madam Chair, I would like to respond to
that question. As indicated in our testimony, both the San
Gabriel and Rio Hondo spreading grounds are directly in the
path of the contaminated plume, and we are deeply concerned
that if the contamination reaches those two areas, the impacts
on not only three cities but also all the cities in the Central
Basin will be catastrophic.
Going back to your question about the cost if you were to
shut down the facility, quite honestly, the bigger cost is what
happens if you shut down the facility with respect to the local
communities and their water systems.
Both Santa Fe Springs and Pico Rivera are investing a lot
of local taxpayer dollars in trying to upgrade our systems to
make sure that we have reliable water sources, and if the
contamination were to continue to migrate, Pico Rivera's wells
are very close to the plume as it is right now, those wells
could be shut down. They could have to incur expenses for
treatment. They would most likely have to begin to buy even
more expensive water from metropolitan, which would lead to a
horrendous cost increase for just that city, and that is just
one example of what could happen to all the cities in the
northern part of the Central Basin area.
Ultimately 2 million people are at risk if we prematurely
shut down the WQPP without making sure that the problem that
was really built to address has gone away.
Mrs. Napolitano. Could you give me a comparison of the cost
of the imported water per acre foot as regards to your produced
by the well?
Mr. Jensen. Metropolitan water currently costs $527 an acre
foot. It is going up in January. It goes up every six months,
so the projections for several years out are that the cost of
water will be well into the $600 per acre foot. Groundwater
produced by the cities, which is our most reliable and most
cost-effective source, runs about $250 an acre foot. So you can
see there is a substantial difference in cost there between
those two sources of water.
Mrs. Napolitano. That is quite telling.
To both Don Jensen and Art Aguilar, the cities that form
the JPA, the three cities that we have been discussing, have
you discussed with the Bureau how they would administer the
funds?
Mr. Aguilar. What will be the actual role in terms of how
the funding would take place, it appears that the Central Basin
would continue to be the agency through which the funds would
go through, and from that point, we would work with the cities
as to the application of the same. We would still need to work
with the Bureau in terms of some of the technical aspects of
it, but we don't anticipate that there will be a great deal of
problems because we really won't be changing any of the basics
of the contract with the Bureau.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Quint, does the Bureau charge
administration fees for administering the fund?
Mr. Quint. Yes, we have a small fee that is part of our
administration of the grants. To date, we have spent
approximately $700,000 toward administering these grants, which
total now, as was stated earlier, around $70 million.
Mrs. Napolitano. You charge by percent. What percentage
would that be?
Mr. Quint. About 1 percent.
Mrs. Napolitano. Your statement--this is what I was
referring to earlier, Mr. Quint--references the Bureau's
traditional mission. To me, reclamation means all of it, the
whole picture of water. Would you try to explain what the
Bureau's mission is and who decides what the agency's mission
is? It is certainly not the cities. And when was it decided
that the Bureau's mission is limited to delivering water and
power in an environmentally responsible and cost-efficient
manner?
Mr. Quint. I think that statement is our written mission
statement which has developed over the years. It is not just
limited to those types of things. As Congress authorizes other
projects, as Congress gives us direction to both authorize and
through the appropriations process, we use that direction to
help decide which and what we go forward to do.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, that is all well and good except I
can remember I think only one bill that is before this
Subcommittee that the Bureau approved of.
Mr. Quint. And it really comes down to a matter of
resources.
Mrs. Napolitano. Then why doesn't the Bureau say when you
come before this committee that you don't have the money and we
need to increase the budget?
Mr. Quint. I believe our testimony does say that.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, in a round-about way.
Mr. Quint. We will try to be more explicit with that in the
future.
Mrs. Napolitano. It would be very much appreciated, sir.
Do you oppose Mr. Dreier's bill because of the mission
statement, or is it something else that you feel is not as
important in the management of the lower Colorado River?
Mr. Quint. No, we fully support the intent of the bill. It
is just a matter of resources and not having the budget ability
to support all the needs in the West.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Is Southern California dependent on
the Colorado River imported water?
Mr. Quint. Absolutely.
Mrs. Napolitano. And would Mr. Dreier's bill decrease our
dependence of imported water from the Colorado?
Mr. Quint. As I understand the project, yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. And again, I am confused by the mission of
the Bureau and the position they take on our bills that are so
critical to our Western states specifically. I would think the
bill would improve the traditional mission management of the
lower Colorado, so I am really confused when it comes to the
stance that the Bureau takes on the projects.
Mr. Quint. And I understand that. To restate, we agree with
the intent of this bill. It really comes down to, with the
backlog of projects that we have already authorized, we just
don't have enough budget to cover all those needs in the West.
Mrs. Napolitano. I am beating a dead horse, I know.
I would like to submit some more questions in writing
because I have a slew of things that really do not make sense
to me and I am sure to some of the members of the Subcommittee,
and hopefully maybe we can meet with the Commissioner and some
of the administration to find out how we can increase the
budget so then the Bureau doesn't take a beating every time
they come before the Subcommittee.
Mr. Quint. We would appreciate that.
Mrs. Napolitano. So would we.
With that, does anybody have any questions? No.
Well, thank you very much for your presence. The record is
open for 10 business days for any additional testimony, and we
really appreciate your forthrightness and your ability to be
helpful in these matters. Thank you.
We will continue with the second panel, and while we are
taking our respective places, H.R. 2498 is the next bill we
will consider that provides the study to develop an integrated
regional water management plan and H.R. 2535, the Tule River
Tribe Water Development Act. We have again Mr. Quint on the hot
seat who will testify on both bills on behalf of the Bureau,
and on H.R. 2498, testifying will be Sargeant Green, Manager of
the Westside Resource Conservation District and Consultant for
the California Water Institute, and third, Mr. Richard Moss,
P.E. with the Provost & Pritchard Engineering Group in Visalia.
Testifying on H.R. 2535 will be Alec Garfield, Director of
Water Resources Department for the Tule River Tribal Council
from Porterville, California, and fifth, Philip Gregg Larson,
the President of South Tule Independent Ditch Company, also
from Porterville.
I would like to have Mr. Costa begin with the introduction
since it is his bill.
Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, for all
of your good work, for your leadership in this committee and
for the passion that we share to try to address our nation's
water resources. In particular, I want to note that since
taking the chairmanship of this Subcommittee, you have taken
your time to visit all areas throughout California. In
particular, your visit to the San Joaquin Valley this summer in
July to look at both of the problems, or multitude of problems
I should say, in the valley, both on the east side and the west
side, is a testimony to your passion and to your desire to try
to address the challenges we face in California as it relates
to our water needs.
The purpose of this bill is straightforward and contained
in the descriptive. It is to develop a regional plan, a roadmap
so to speak, for our long-term water needs on a regional water
planning basis to include the local water agencies, the
counties and the cities in the San Joaquin River Hydrological
Region, the Tulare Lake Region, inclusive of the current
Tulare, Kings, Fresno, Madera and Merced Counties as well as
Stanislaus and San Joaquin. This roadmap when the plan is
completed would be used as a mechanism to solve long-term water
needs in sustaining our water on an equitable basis.
This is a bipartisan bill. It is supported in the region by
Congressman Cardoza, Congressman Nunes, Congressman Radanovich
and Congressman McCarthy and myself. The five members
representing the eight counties in the area are all coming
together to work on this important effort.
When this study is complete and we get buy-in, hopefully we
will break it down into the four water challenges facing our
region and I might say facing the entire West as well as
California. That is water supply, that is water quality, that
is environmental restoration, and that is flood control-related
issues. And if we are successful, it will provide the basis for
innovative financing that could include but not be limited to a
joint powers authority that would include all the water
agencies, the counties and the cities, in essence finance much
of what needs to be done in our long-term water supply needs,
our water quality, our environmental restoration as well as our
flood control.
I don't need to tell the Chairwoman or the members of this
committee that we are in a water crisis in California. We are
in a water crisis, and we have been living on borrowed time. We
have a water system in California that I would estimate is
currently designed to support 20 million people. Yet today in
California, we have over 37 million people. By the year 2025,
it is estimated that we will have an additional population
growth of 15 to 17 million more people. That will put
California with over a population of 50 million people, and we
therefore are living on borrowed time.
We have an interesting confluence in this water crisis of
what is a Mother Nature potential drought, the last drought we
had was 1988 to 1992, a six-year drought. Last year we had 28
percent normal precipitation and snow pack, and if that
continues in the next year or two, it will be a magnitude that
I think will pale in comparison to the last drought we had in
California.
That, coupled with a manmade drought, I think creates a
perfect storm. We have judicial decisions that have resulted in
reduction of water. I have noted that in the last 17 years as a
result of judicial decision and legislative decision, and I
will submit this for the record, there has been a redirection
of water from the San Joaquin Valley in dry years of over 2
million acre feet of water; in wet years, approximately 1.2
million acre feet of water. That is water that has gone to
other parts of the state for meritorious reasons. The water has
left the San Joaquin Valley. Therefore, you have the confluence
of a manmade drought together with Mother Nature.
Now this proposal, this plan before you was a vision in
2002 when the Federal government completed its effort with the
State of California in what was known as the CALFED decision.
The record of decision envisioned that all the regions of
California would come up with a regional water management plan.
As my other witnesses will testify today, other regions of
California are ahead of us in developing their regional
roadmap.
We know climate change is taking place. It is impacting all
portions of the United States and the Southwest, particularly
California. Not making a decision could result in a reduction
of another potential million acre feet of water not just to the
valley but between 12 percent of water to Southern California
in wet years, 37 percent of water in dry years; the Santa Clara
Valley, potentially 12 percent in wet years, 37 percent in dry
years. So this is timely. This is necessary. It is long
overdue. It also couples together with the Governor's plan on a
water bond, which I support.
Now let me close by saying that this is a partnership like
other good efforts. We have local efforts, some of these
witnesses will testify from the local level. They are providing
in-kind support. We also have the State of California, the
Department of Water Resources has committed approximately a
million dollars to support this study. We are looking for a
similar effort from the Federal level, which is why this
authorization bill is before you. This will be undertaken by
the California Water Institute at Fresno State, that will be
the facilitator of this effort, together with the local water
agencies.
For all of those reasons, I ask this Subcommittee to
support the effort, and I respectfully would like to submit
another letter for the record by the Association of California
Water Agencies that also supports this legislative effort as
well.
With that, I want to thank my witnesses for coming here. I
want to thank the Chairwoman for her time and her patience and
for visiting the valley once again to meet with my constituents
and to hear their concerns as she knows so well.
So, with that, I would like to defer to the witnesses who
are here today to testify on behalf of the bill.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Costa.
Next, Sargeant ``Sarge'' Green, Manager of the Westside
Resource Conservation District and Consultant to the California
Water Institute.
STATEMENT OF SARGEANT ``SARGE'' GREEN, MANAGER, WESTSIDE
RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT, AND CONSULTANT TO THE
CALIFORNIA WATER INSTITUTE, FRESNO, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Green. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, Members
of the Subcommittee. My name is Sarge Green. I am the Manager
of Westside Resource Conservation District. That is 1,100,000
acres of western Fresno County. We are here to ask for your
support on H.R. 2498.
Backing up what Congressman Costa talked about, native
water in the San Joaquin Valley is very unpredictable. We go
from wet to dry in a heartbeat, and 2006 and 2007 are perfect
examples. 2006 was very wet. I had a levy break in my area in
western Fresno County. 2007 has been one of the driest on
record.
Water in the San Joaquin Valley is a competitive item. It
is not, as in our sister area in the great Central Valley, the
Sacramento Valley, it is not a surplus commodity, and any time
you have competition, it creates adversity and it is difficult
at times to come together. The contrast in the Sacramento
Valley is that there are net surplus and organized very well in
terms of their water supply, and they have large regional
organizations that have been around for a number of years and
have performed admirably in that regard. We have been less
successful.
The loss of water that we are talking about has worldwide
implications from the San Joaquin Valley. We are, as you know,
a net exporter of fruits and vegetables. We also have some
unique crops like almonds and canning tomatoes that are world
leaders. The 15-year decline that we have had has forced a
shift of permanent crops. For example, many people criticize
cotton. We are down from 1.5 million acres of cotton to 500,000
acres of cotton in the San Joaquin Valley, and most of it is
Pema, an unsubsidized variety.
The water actions that the Congressman talked about have
been devastating, and frankly, the greatest impacts have been
on the small communities, and I am here to discuss those
impacts also.
I have participated in western Fresno County in an economic
development organization called the I-5 Business Development
Corridor, and it is made up of some of the poorest communities
in the State of California and the San Joaquin Valley. Huron,
San Joaquin, Mendota, we bootstrap and help ourselves. We have
done things like forming this regional organization to advance
business development through loans, vocational education,
transportation corridors to diversify and improve our economy.
We have 15 to 30 percent unemployment in these communities.
You had a Congressional Research Service report a few years ago
that outlined the problems in the San Joaquin Valley. The
problem was that it blended the larger cities with the small
communities so it doesn't truly reflect what has happened in
those small communities, and a specific example in my area near
Tranquillity is that if you saw an aerial photo, there is
43,000 acres of land retired between Mendota and Tranquillity.
We have proposed some remedies for this, and that is the
regional water planning process. We need to help ourselves in
the San Joaquin Valley, and that is what the regional plan is
all about. The Federal actions that have been previously
mentioned all contribute to the dramatic drop in water supply,
and the only way we can do anything is to help ourselves by
integrating all the potential opportunities that we have.
There is a compelling Federal interest in this matter
because not only do we have the actions, the Delta from
Northern California, but also the Bureau and the Corps operate
and maintain and/or contract out the operation and maintenance
of many in-valley facilities, and a lot of the storage
reservoirs.
One might ask, why Fresno State and California Water
Institute at Fresno State? Well, one of the things I mentioned
earlier is that the competitive nature in the San Joaquin
Valley has led to adversity and hardship and, quite frankly,
bad feelings in the past amongst the water entities, and we
believe that by facilitating through the California Water
Institute we can transcend some of our problems in the past and
then perhaps move the whole integrated plan forward much more
smoothly. Thank you. That concludes my testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]
Statement of Sargeant J. Green, Secretary-Manager,
Westside Resource Conservation District, on H.R. 2498
Ladies and Gentlemen:
H.R. 2498 proposes to provide for the development of a ``San
Joaquin Valley Regional Water Plan''. The following testimony posits
the rationale and describes the Federal interests in developing such a
plan.
BACKGROUND
The San Joaquin Valley portion of the Great Central Valley area of
California has chronically been water short since broad-scale
irrigation of the area began in earnest with the development of the
deep-well turbine pump in the early twentieth century. The San Joaquin
Valley watersheds and their inclusive river systems have always been
unpredictable as to their supply availability. This in turn has
impacted the ability to effectively manage those supplies. There has
been no such thing as ``average''. Many times in the recorded water
history of the San Joaquin Valley the rivers and streams have been wet
or dry, period. The 2006 and 2007 water years are perfect examples. The
2006 water year was extremely wet with flooding and levee failures up
and down the San Joaquin Valley. 2007, on the other hand, has been so
dry it will hit the record books.
The southernmost portion of the San Joaquin Valley, the Tulare
Basin (Fresno south), is a closed hydrologic basin. Only in rare large
flood years does it connect to the San Joaquin River Basin (as in
2006). As a result, much of that hydrologic area has naturally
accumulated salt in significant portions of its inclusive groundwater
basins, especially on the western side of the Valley. Imported northern
California Delta water brings additional salts to the Basin. The result
of these conditions is that native good quality surface or ground water
has been relatively scarce in the Valley as a whole and therefore a
competitive commodity. Competition has historically spurred adversity
and protectionism between the haves and have-nots. In contrast, the
northern portion of the Great Central Valley, the Sacramento River
Basin, has historically enjoyed a surplus of water that became the envy
of the balance of the State and ultimately a source of export water for
both State and Federal water projects for that critical resource.
When the Sacramento Valley water interests became alarmed that
eventually the exports could impact their future needs they
collectively organized. That pattern of organization continues today.
When new water resource management programs or ``externalities'' come
along such as the relatively recent ``integrated regional water
management planning'' (California Water Code Sections 10540 to 10546)
or the California Central Valley Waterboard ``Irrigated Lands Program''
(a regulatory program for control of irrigation return flow
pollutants), the Sacramento Valley galvanizes and has been very
effective at developing basin-wide, collective organizations such as
the ``Northern California Water Association''. In contrast, the San
Joaquin Valley has not had any such region-wide collective force.
However, with the continuing loss of significant portions of the
imported supply from northern California over the last 15 years, the
time has come for the San Joaquin Valley to lay down arms and work
together. That is one of the main purposes of the San Joaquin Valley
Regional Water Plan; to create an environment where the San Joaquin
Valley community-at-large can work together to optimize every
opportunity for in-Valley water management without cannibalizing other
portions of the State.
The impact of the loss of water to the Valley has State, national
and world-wide implications. The San Joaquin Valley is one of the most
important agricultural areas in the world and a significant source of
fruits and vegetables for the nation and export market. It produces
unique crops that dominate world markets such as canning tomatoes and
almonds. The loss of water has changed the cropping pattern by reducing
the amount of traditional row crops and shifting it to permanent crops.
Many critics have complained about the production of subsidized crops
such as cotton. This year Valley cotton acreage is down to 500,000
acres from a historical average of 1.5 million acres and the dominant
variety grown is Pima, a fine-fiber, un-subsidized variety. The impact
of these changes to some of the rural communities is the loss of
agricultural jobs. A shift to permanent crops reduces the labor demand,
further impoverishing already disadvantaged communities. Recent
immigration issues have tightened the labor availability but what
people fail to understand is the permanent rural resident population
used to move from crop to crop cobbling together an entire year's worth
of labor. Now they only have very seasonal opportunities. That impacts
their total income in a year.
The loss of imported northern California water into the San Joaquin
Valley has come as the result of State, Federal and local agreements,
State administrative findings, Federal statute changes and far-ranging
Federal court decisions. The following is a summary of some of the
related major actions over the last 15 years.
1. CVPIA, 1992--Federal statute, diverted up to 1 MAF from the San
Joaquin Valley to environmental purposes.
2. Monterey Agreement, 1994--CA State Water Project Contractors
internal agreement, diverted 130 TAF from Valley agricultural to urban
water contractors, water transferred mostly from Kings and Kern
Counties.
3. Winter Run Salmon Federal ESA listing, 1994, lead to numbers 4
to 7 below.
4. VAMP, 1995--Vernalis Adaptive Management Program agreement,
joint State-Federal administrative decision, derived from CA State
Water Resources Control Board, Water Rights Decision 1641--diverted San
Joaquin River Basin flows to anadromous fisheries management in the
Delta, includes a substantial portion of water stored in the Federal
facility New Melones Reservoir, on the Stanislaus River, precluding its
use for other project purposes.
5. Trinity River Adaptive Management Program, 2000 Federal
administrative action, diverts additional Trinity River flows as
necessary above CVPIA mandate of 340 TAF.
6. San Joaquin River Settlement, 2006, Federal court settlement of
NRDC vs. Interior, restoration of the San Joaquin River for salmon with
estimated flow of 160 TAF to be released down the main stem.
7. Delta Smelt ESA Federal court decision, August 2007, an
implementation plan is under development, initial estimates of loss of
one-third of pumping capacity windows of State and Federal Delta
pumping plants in normal year-types.
The results of these various actions have had, and will have, the
most impact on agricultural water supplies in the San Joaquin Valley
and the rural communities that depend overwhelmingly on agriculture for
their economic engine. The larger metropolitan areas in the San Joaquin
Valley have been somewhat hardened from these impacts because of
explosive population growth and attendant construction and business
development during the last ten years. In addition, almost all of the
large cities are on the eastern side of the Valley which lay over or
near substantial ground water and surface water sources of excellent
quality.
I can specifically relate the practical impacts of the losses of
agricultural water supplies to smaller, disadvantaged Westside Valley
communities in Fresno County as I have participated in a rural area
economic development effort known as the I-5 Business Development
Corridor which includes many of the small communities in that area.
That organization was started in 1994 by the City of Firebaugh in
response to both the impacts of the implementation of CVPIA and the six
year drought in California that occurred from 1988 to 1994. The purpose
of the organization was to speak with one regional voice on the
changing conditions and to prioritize regional activities that would
assist in diversifying the economy of the member small cities and
communities. The group has championed vocational education,
transportation improvements and business loans to adapt to the new
conditions with mixed success. The communities that joined besides
Firebaugh included: Kerman, Mendota, San Joaquin and Tranquillity.
Several years later, the communities of Firebaugh, Mendota and San
Joaquin dropped out as their treasuries could no longer support the
dues, however, Huron and Coalinga joined in their stead.
The practical impact of the drought and the parallel permanent
surface water losses in the ensuing 15 years has been low median
household income, high unemployment and low education attainability in
western Fresno County. The average unemployment for communities like
Mendota, San Joaquin and Huron has hovered between 15 and 30% since the
beginning of the natural and man-made drought. Some of these findings
were documented in a special Congressional Research Service (CRS)
report completed on behalf of the San Joaquin Valley Congressional
delegation in 2005, however the statistics were blended for the entire
region, somewhat masking the actual difference in rural communities
because of the data from the five large metropolitan areas.
Nonetheless, the information is consistent for all rural communities
from the entire north to south and east to west transects in the San
Joaquin Valley. From Vernalis in San Joaquin County to Hilmar, Gustine
and Dos Palos in the San Joaquin River area; from Firebaugh to Huron in
the Fresno County Westside, Avenal to Alpaugh in Kings and Tulare
Counties; Chowchilla to Orange Cove and Lindsay to Richgrove on the
Eastside of the Valley and Delano to Buttonwillow in Kern County, the
greatest impact from changes in the water-dependent economy have been
in the small rural communities. All these communities are poverty-
stricken and deficient in many of the amenities we all take for
granted, ranging from clean drinking water to parks and reasonably
effective schools. An important comparison made in the report is that
the San Joaquin Valley is the ``Appalachia of the West''. In fact the
data presented indicates that much of the rural Valley is in worse
economic condition than Appalachia. The CRS report is included as a
reference for this testimony.
My personal experience is that many of the growers in Tranquillity
also farmed in Westlands and during my tenure as manager of
Tranquillity Irrigation District, I saw the number of farm operators in
Tranquillity drop from over 50 to less than 25. Many of them gave up on
their ground in Westlands; they were bought out for the water supply so
it could move upslope to the permanent crop ground. Coincidentally, it
was clear that the workers from these operations were not making the
incomes they had previously as the ``city'' drinking water accounts
went from less than 5 delinquencies per month and a ``clean up your
bill when you get a chance to'' attitude to more recently as many as 20
to 25 per month that were forced to pre-pay or have their water shut
off. A high percentage of ``deposit-required'' and pre-pay accounts
continue to this day. Many of the community agricultural workers have
become so destitute they have to carefully juggle their finances to pay
to for such a basic service as running water.
Another clear physical impact of the change in water supply, which
resulted from the above-mentioned significant internal policy changes
in Westlands, was the amount of fallowed land between the communities
of San Joaquin, Tranquillity and Mendota. A noticeable swath of over
43,000 acres is unmistakably visible when you drive State Highway 33
south of Mendota or see an overhead aerial picture. That area is more
than the combined acreage of the adjacent James and Tranquillity
Irrigation Districts, both of whom are very mature Districts (1920 and
1918 respectively) on old ``Fresno Slough'' (the northern flood channel
of the Kings River) and the eastern border neighbors of Westlands
(hence the co-mingling of owner/operators).
Many of us close to the water business in the San Joaquin Valley
are cognizant of the inevitability of the changes that are occurring in
the availability of imported water. That is all the reason more we need
to carefully plan for the optimization and utilization of what the
Valley can expect and/or properly manage its own native resources. Some
specific examples that need to be rationally explored and should be
included in the Regional Plan include:
1. Development of new infrastructure for rural communities
including high quality water for drinking and up-to-date waste
treatment disposal capacity so as to assist small communities in
attracting new business and diversifying their economies. Many Valley
community and individual drinking water systems are plagued with poor
quality ground water from naturally occurring contaminants such as
arsenic and uranium while others have anthropogenic contamination from
legacy chemicals such as DBCP or nitrates from animal wastes and
fertilizers.
2. Environmental restoration of permanently fallowed lands, with
some potential economic gain through eco-tourism and/or fee-for-service
ecosystem mitigation banks for land use changes elsewhere in
California.
3. Ground water banking; the good news is vast areas of empty
space exist in San Joaquin Valley ground water basins from eastern San
Joaquin County to northern Kern, the bad news is vast areas of empty
space exist in San Joaquin Valley ground water basins.
4. Finding and exploring new technology in water treatment to
allow use of broad areas of brackish ground water and manage salt
residuals in environmentally friendly ways; this technology has to be
married to other technology that keeps energy costs reasonable such as
photovoltaics, biofuel and carbon management technologies.
5. Identifying future reliable surface water management
alternatives such as in-Valley conveyance and storage facilities.
Capturing more flood water and storing it on retired lands or flood
plains where we can obtain easements are examples of alternate methods
of storage, however we cannot ignore looking at expanding existing
reservoirs or adding new ones.
THE COMPELLING REASONS FOR FEDERAL PARTICIPATION
As noted above, many of the changes in water supplies for the San
Joaquin Valley can be directly related to the changes in Federal water
policy and the need to shift the water to other uses. Federal
environmental laws and the related circumstances in the complex
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta aquatic environment have engendered
many of the water supply changes. However, the impacts of these ongoing
changes on some of the third parties have not been adequately
mitigated, especially in rural communities. These changes have occurred
in a relatively short period of time, 15 years. Also, we have gone from
a time of completion of the implementation of the original Federal
Central Valley Project purposes and full use of their associated water
supplies to a shrinking back of almost one-third of that peak in one
and a half generations of rural citizens.
In addition, many of the water management facilities in the San
Joaquin Valley continue to be under the control or operated by Federal
agencies. Most of the water storage reservoirs on all the river systems
in the San Joaquin and Tulare Basin hydrologic areas are either under
the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers or the Bureau of
Reclamation. In addition, those same agencies assist in the management
of the stored water resources either through cooperative agreements for
operating delivery systems or through regulatory responsibilities such
as levee integrity and flood control. For this reason those agencies
need to participate in any Valley Regional Plan.
Those of us testifying before you today are asking our
Congressional and Federal Executive Branch partners to take a step back
and recognize all the water loss in the San Joaquin Valley. The
combined Federal and State policy issues such as Delta and San Joaquin
River environmental restoration has to be acknowledged and interest you
in investing in a process that provides the opportunity to address the
realities of the job losses, poor education attainment and
impoverishment in the rural communities as well as the opportunity to
restore the natural environment in a sensible way. That process is a
``San Joaquin Valley Regional Water Plan''.
One might ask why California Water Institute (CWI) at Fresno State?
The answer is related to the earlier mentioned problems of the history
of contention amongst water entities in the San Joaquin Valley. CWI can
transcend those parochial chasms and hopefully find solutions for the
benefit of all Valley residents. Secondly, CWI competed for the role
under Governor Schwarzenegger's ``California Partnership for the San
Joaquin Valley'' and won the position with a seed grant to provide the
coordination and facilitation of the water work under that program. It
makes sense to integrate that role with any Federal efforts. I have
attached an organizational chart of CWI and its leadership for your
perusal.
Thank you for this opportunity and please give all due
consideration to our request so the San Joaquin Valley Regional Water
Plan process can be developed and implemented to provide a sensible
transition to the new realities and opportunities of the 21st century.
Attachments:
1. Map of ``integrated regional water management planning''
efforts underway in the Great Central Valley
2. Staff organizational chart and biographical sketch of Dave
Zoldoske, Executive Director of the California Water Institute at
Fresno State.
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Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. OK. Next is Richard Moss, Provost &
Pritchard Engineering Group.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD M. MOSS, P.E., PROVOST AND PRITCHARD
ENGINEERING GROUP, INC., VISALIA, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Moss. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the
Subcommittee.
My name is Richard Moss, Vice President for Water Resources
for a civil engineering firm in the Central Valley known as
Provost & Pritchard Engineers. I have had the fortunate
pleasure of having my entire career spent, 30-year career, in
the San Joaquin Valley doing largely water planning-related
activities and water management.
I have experienced really what I think are three eras of
water management planning in the Central Valley. I got on the
tail end of what was the big project era, coming in near the
completion of the state water project and much of the Central
Valley project. Then most of my career I had the opportunity to
spend in what I call the ``holding onto what we have got'' era
where we have been trying to maintain the water resources that
were previously developed by our forefathers and trying to hang
onto the water supplies that we had. Really the era of big
projects was deemed to be dead, and we were more focused on
district-by-district kinds of projects.
We are now entering a new era of water management planning.
We have new needs for the valley, different needs. We have a
quite frankly different constituency than we had earlier, a
much more diverse constituency. The result of this new era or
the way to define it I think or the definition of it is really
one of an integrated regional planning era, and this is focused
by or this comes to being by focusing on a variety of needs and
getting more people involved and more effort placed from a
variety of entities, trying to apply multiple strategies,
different kinds of strategies to solve many problems at once.
It certainly involves a much broader public involvement in
the deliberations and the planning that is going forward. It is
I think especially effective and can be even more effective if
we have state and Federal funding to support these efforts, but
it is very important to allow the local initiatives to take
place and local priority-setting to be what controls.
While the San Joaquin Valley, as has been mentioned, is
lagging somewhat in terms of this planning effort, it certainly
wasn't the fault of our local congressman who called for the
development of a San Joaquin Valley plan a couple of years ago.
Congressmen Costa, Radanovich, Cardoza and Nunes and most
recently Congressman McCarthy have all supported this effort
and have really beat the drum, if you will, with the local
water agencies to come on board. They have promoted this effort
today on what I would call a shoe-string budget, having been
facilitated largely by Cal State, Fresno and the California
Water Institute.
Our work is really cut out for us given the size of the
region and the number of water management entities. I have
passed out a map, and I have a map here on the left which shows
the San Joaquin Valley and the huge number of water management
entities, and those I should note are just the public agencies.
That doesn't show the community services districts and the
public utility districts that are often run by the counties. It
doesn't show the private water companies that own significant
portions of the water rights for most of our local streams, and
it doesn't show the tens of thousands of groundwater pumpers,
those individuals, companies, farmers, homeowners that have
wells that pull from this resource that by and large are
unregulated and kind of doing their own thing, if you will.
As has been talked about, we face many issues here in the
San Joaquin, including San Joaquin River restoration, the
collapse of the Delta and the pumping curtailments that are
being imposed as a result of Delta smelt. We have all heard in
the past about ag drainage and some of its issues. I think it
is safe to say that this is the most significantly impacted
region of the state, suffering in terms of reductions in what
had been their historic water supply.
Other issues of significance are the tremendous growth that
is facing the region and water quality for, in particular, our
poorer and more disadvantaged communities that really need
improvements to their water quality. Another issue close to my
heart is the loss of wetlands in the region and the need to
protect and restore water supplies to much of the remaining
private wetlands.
I am here today obviously in support of this legislation
and look forward to answering your questions. I believe this
planning effort can be a critical link in making the outlook
for San Joaquin Valley brighter in terms of its sustainability
of the resource and ultimately the sustainability of this
economy. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moss follows:]
Statement of Richard M. Moss, P.E., in Support of H.R. 2498
MADAM CHAIRWOMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE:
I very much appreciate being given the opportunity to testify
before the Subcommittee to provide insight as to the need for H.R. 2498
and the water management planning it would provide. I am testifying
today on my own behalf as a consulting civil and water resource
engineer that has spent my entire professional career in the San
Joaquin Valley assisting many water agencies and cities in their water
resource planning. I am also here as a small citrus grower dependent
upon local and regional surface and groundwater supplies to grow my
oranges and mandarins and as a member of the Board of Directors of the
Tulare Basin Wildlife Partners, a non-governmental, non-profit
organization focused on the protection and restoration of native
habitats, including wetlands, in the Tulare Basin portion of the San
Joaquin Valley.
I am Richard M. Moss. I am a professional registered civil engineer
and the Vice President for Water Resources for the engineering firm of
Provost and Pritchard Engineering Group, Inc. with offices in Fresno,
Visalia, and Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley. We hope to soon be
expanding our offices to the more northern part of the San Joaquin
Valley as we do have numerous clients in that part of the Valley as
well. I have been in the consulting business for the past six years.
Prior to that I was the General Manager of the Friant Water Users
Authority for over 15 years. The Friant Water Users Authority is a
joint powers authority formed under state law comprised of 25 member
agencies that serve the irrigation water needs of approximately one
million acres of the worlds richest farmland, receiving water from the
Friant Division of the federal Central Valley Project (CVP). I have had
the opportunity to testify before this Committee on a couple of
occasions in my past capacity as General Manager of the Friant Water
Users Authority.
I have had the great pleasure and a wonderful career of being
directly involved in the water resource planning for much of the area
to be directly benefited from the passage and implementation of H.R.
2498. I can attest to the benefits to be had from taking a more
coordinated approach to such planning.
Overview of Integrated Regional Water Management Planning
The fundamental planning for the water resource needs of the San
Joaquin Valley has been around for a very long time, including the
notion of developing plans on more of a regional basis. Some of the
earliest planning was done on the grandest of scale. For example, the
planners of the CVP (originally conceived by the State and later
assumed and carried out by the federal Bureau of Reclamation) laid out
a project of statewide significance, importance and involvement. While
the CVP has grown and expanded several fold in terms of its structures
and its benefits, the earliest configurations of the CVP conceived of
two large dams, one on the Sacramento River in the far northern part of
the State and the other on the San Joaquin River in central California
and a system of canals and water exchanges that could serve several
million acres of existing and new farmland. The subsequent additions to
the CVP, as well as the later development of the State Water Project,
all involved water resource planning on a truly large, large scale.
However, since those early days of water resource planning and
water development, most of the water resource planning has come as the
result of addressing a specific need within a region (or more likely
within a specific water district) and the planning has consisted of
little more then developing a plan to implement a project to address a
specific need. As water resource engineers, we were told that the era
of big projects was dead and to focus our thinking on making better use
of the resources that our forefathers had already developed.
We have now entered into yet another era of water resource
planning. While for the first time in a long time there is active
discussion of larger scale development of dams and conveyance
facilities in the State, there remains the idea that before such new
facilities can be constructed, or at least in conjunction with their
construction, proof needs to exist that the existing water resources,
as well as the proposed new water resources, are being optimally used
and that the coalition of interests to be benefited by new water
development needs to be very broad in nature; all with little or nor
displacement of interests, obviously including environmental interests.
This idea of an integrated and comprehensive approach to water
management planning, encompassing a variety of water management needs
with the potential for a variety of entities which have water
management responsibilities to engage, is thus a relatively new idea
and has caught on with great fervor within California. The thought
behind this approach is that, unlike traditional water resource
planning documents, an integrated regional water management plan
(IRWMP) does not focus on one--or even just a few--facets of water
resource planning. Rather an IRWMP investigates a broad spectrum of
water resources issues, involving diverse interests through public and
stakeholder involvement and attempts to integrate multiple water
management strategies to solve multiple priority challenges. By
building a broader coalition in support of an array of projects, the
hope is to leverage that regional cooperation to successfully address
multiple water resource objectives. This approach can be especially
effective if the principle state and federal funding agencies for such
water projects support this approach and are willing to defer the
prioritization of how the their money gets spent to the local planning
interests.
At least some of the current focus on IRWMPs in California can be
traced back to the development of the Santa Ana River Watershed Project
in Southern California. This was a region rife with conflict over the
management of their water resources and saddled with litigation that
was costing millions of dollars annually to pursue with little in
tangible results. After much struggle it was determined to address the
various needs of the parties in a comprehensive manner and to try to do
so using non-local financial resources. Their integrated regional
approach, born out of conflict, has served as the basis for significant
political will to address some pressing water resource needs. Their
effort is now serving as the preferred model for addressing water
resource issues where the need for assistance outweighs the ability of
the state agencies to provide help and thus regional priorities need to
be set; who better to set those priorities then the local folks.
The State of California has really been emphasizing the need for
this kind of water resource planning. In 2002, the state legislature
passed and the Governor signed into law the ``Integrated Regional Water
Management Planning Act,'' which lays out the legal basis providing for
regional water management planning. Subsequently, the Californian
Department of Water Resources prepared guidelines for the preparation
of IRWMPs following the requirements of this law.
Then the State put money behind their intentions of emphasizing
regional planning via the grant funding processes coming out of
Proposition 50 (the ``Water Security, Clean Drinking Water, Coastal and
Beach Protection Act'') and Proposition 84 (the ``Water Security, Clean
Drinking Water, Coastal and Beach Protection Act''), water resource
planning and construction monies that were made available by general
obligation bond acts. Being part of an IRWMP, or at least involved in
the process of developing an IRWMP, is a prerequisite to receiving
implementation grant funding under these propositions.
Some obvious advantages to planning water resource management on a
more regional scale include:
Addressing the apparent prerequisite for accessing future
state grant monies for local water projects;
Broader political support for multi-purpose projects;
Packaging of otherwise single purpose projects together
as a single multipurpose project and reaping the benefits of broader
political support for everyone involved;
Cost savings from development of multipurpose projects;
Pre-mitigation of project impacts by packaging of
multiple projects providing benefits to potentially impacted resources;
Local setting of priorities to avoid competing projects
at the regional level where competitive grants or funding is involved;
Spreading the burden of grant application costs and other
``front-end'' costs associated with public works construction funding;
Broader public involvement and awareness of local water
issues and needs;
Involvement and understanding of land use planners and
decision makers on the regional availability (or lack thereof) of water
supplies to support new development or the water related impacts of
other land use changes;
Urban constituency awareness of the local social and
economic value brought by agricultural water agencies;
Support from local advocacy groups due to their
involvement in project formulation which lessens the opportunity for
and effect of out-of-area advocacy groups;
Development of inter-agency agreements for cooperation
and service interconnection during drought of other emergencies.
Unfortunately, the San Joaquin Valley has been slow to embrace the
concept of IRWMPs and as a consequence is behind much of the rest of
the State in development of IRWMPs. This slowness is not a result of
recalcitrance or of lack of water management insight. I believe it is
largely a result of the diversity of underlying water and contractual
rights, the diversity of kinds of projects and the nature of these
projects serving the area, and importantly, because of the defensive
posture that most of the San Joaquin Valley water community has been in
relative to trying to protect their existing water supplies and
unfortunately suffering significant reductions in those supplies.
Having said all of that, a number of what I would term as ``sub-
regional'' planning efforts have emerged and the level of communication
and of activities to begin the development of a regional plan, or
plans, is clearly catching hold.
The San Joaquin Valley Regional Water Plan
Congressmen Jim Costa, George Radanovich, Dennis Cardoza, and Devin
Nunes initiated the development of the San Joaquin Valley Regional
Water Plan almost two years ago. Congressman McCarthy has now also
joined in support of the Plan's development. They could see the need
for their constituents to work together in addressing the region's
collective water management needs. The California Water Institute (CWI)
at California State University, Fresno was asked to facilitate the
regional planning effort. Development of the San Joaquin Valley
Regional Water Plan was organized into four sub-working groups. The
four sub-working groups were organized by four water-related needs
within the region: (1) Water Supply, (2) Water Quality, (3) Flood
Control, and (4) Environmental Enhancement. Members of the water
community, representatives of industries and communities relying on
water, and organizations dedicated to the enhancement of the
environment populated the working groups. The working groups also
included irrigation district managers, water agency members, water
resource engineers, government officials, agribusiness representatives,
public works managers, and environmentalists. I have personally had the
opportunity to chair the Environmental Enhancement sub-working group.
Subsequently, Governor Schwarzenegger convened the San Joaquin
Valley Partnership. The Partnership brings state agency secretaries and
Central Valley representatives together to make recommendations to the
Governor regarding changes that would improve the economic well being
of the San Joaquin Valley and the quality of life of its residents,
including recommendations regarding water resources. The 26-member
Partnership, led by the Secretary of the Business, Transportation and
Housing Agency, is composed of eight state government members, eight
local government members and eight private sector members, along with
two deputy chairs. With the comprehensive nature of the already started
congressional regional water planning effort, the Partnership agreed to
synchronize its water planning efforts with the ongoing process in its
development of the Partnership's water action plan and associated
recommendations to the Governor.
The San Joaquin Valley Regional Water Plan under the leadership of
the CWI has made good progress in identifying and polling the various
interests of the region as to their water needs and the projects they
believe are needed to meet those needs. This initial cataloging of the
various interests, their needs and their projects was done on a
shoestring budget and needs to be updated and further refined. The
requirements of integrating the water planning requirements for the
Partnership into the balance of the Partnership activities has also
required the under-funded attention of the CWI staff.
Meanwhile, as noted earlier, sub-regional planning efforts have
been started within a couple of watersheds in the San Joaquin Valley.
They clearly are in need of help in integrating their efforts into a
bigger regional plan. These efforts are typically being lead by
agricultural water interests that have a limited perspective as to all
of the needs of their area given they are largely in the business of
supplying water to just agriculture. They have been struggling with how
best to engage and address the other water management needs of their
areas such as drinking water quality, environmental water needs, and
flood control.
The Need for H.R. 2498
Others on this panel in support of this legislation will describe
for you the water management crisis that is facing much of the San
Joaquin Valley. Since the creation of the San Joaquin Valley Regional
Water Planning effort by our four local congressmen, much has changed
to lessen the reliability of water supplies for all users of water in
the San Joaquin Valley. While the supplies and their reliability are
shrinking, at the same time the demands for water, particularly clean
drinking water, are increasing, as the region is one of the fastest
growing in the State, if not the Nation. There are also many small,
unincorporated communities that are struggling to provide clean,
affordable drinking water. To try and tackle their relatively small
(but hugely significant if you are the ones having to drink this water)
problems community-by-community is nearly impossible. To plan and
operate regional solutions for these problems, like regional surface
water treatment plants, is clearly what is needed.
A lesser-discussed crisis is the one of the loss of wetlands in the
San Joaquin Valley. Virtually all of the wetland loss occurred prior to
the time when wetland protections came into being with the passage of
laws such as the federal Clean Water Act. There are remaining wetlands
outside of the state and federal refuges that typically are in private
ownership. However, these wetlands are struggling due to the lack of
available and affordable water supplies and are at risk to selling out
to the development of other uses for these native habitats.
Unfortunately, Tulare Basin wetlands have, until very recently, been
ignored by the large-scale wetland protection and enhancement efforts
such as those in the Sacramento Valley and elsewhere in the San Joaquin
Valley. This is one of those ``other water needs'' that the San Joaquin
Valley Regional Water Plan has cataloged and is intending to address
and to integrate into the solutions for the region's other water
problems.
The need to coordinate the diverse and at times parochial water
interests of the San Joaquin Valley is clear. The need for new,
integrated solutions to the region's water problems is even clearer.
The leadership of the State in partnering with the San Joaquin Valley
to address its water needs as well as the other economic needs of the
region is finally happening and is poised to make a real difference.
The federal government has a real interest to see that this most
productive agricultural region of the Nation continues to flourish and
to move to a position of sustainability in the management of its water
resources. We are in unprecedented times where we are faced with
population increases, drought, climate change, endangered species
issues, major river restoration programs, and the desire to maintain a
certain way of life, that necessitates the need for a well thought out,
comprehensive regional water plan. The passage of H.R. 2498 and the
funding of the continued development of the San Joaquin Valley Regional
Water Plan would be tremendously helpful.
In closing, let me extend my appreciation for the invitation to
appear before the Committee today. I appreciate the efforts of our five
local congressmen in sponsoring this legislation and for the
Committee's consideration of its passage. Thank you.
______
Mrs. McMorris Rodgers. OK. I would like to yield to my
colleague, Representative Nunes, to do the introductions for
the next bill.
Mr. Nunes. Thank you. I would like to thank you for holding
a hearing on this bill. Myself and Mr. Costa introduced this
bill, and I will be very brief because we have a series of
votes on the Floor, but then we will come back to hear the
testimony n H.R. 2535.
I first want to introduce two people who have spent a lot
of time working on this, and one individual in particular is
Alec Garfield, who has worked on this now I think for 30-40
years, and he spent his whole lifetime dedicated to providing
water for the Tule River Indian Tribe that is just on the
eastern side of Tulare County, just east of Porterville.
Mr. Garfield was born and raised on the reservation. He has
spent most of his adult life involved with the political aspect
of the Tule River Tribe. He has sat on the Tule River Tribal
Council for 25 years and holds the longest tenure for tribal
chairman. He is currently serving as the Director of Water
Resources Department of Tule River Tribe as well as the
Chairman of the Tule River Water Rights Negotiations Team. So I
would really like to welcome Mr. Garfield here and I look
forward to hearing his testimony when we get back.
I also want to introduce Mr. Larson, who is a third-
generation citrus grower in the San Joaquin Valley downstream
from the Tule River Indian Reservation. He is also President of
the South Tule Independent Ditch Company, a company which
supplies water to approximately 50 shareholders in the San
Joaquin Valley. Mr. Larson has been working with members of the
tribe since 1998 on this, and I know they have put a lot of
effort into it.
And I think just to be very brief, Madam Chairman, this is
really an important bill. And I know that the Bureau is short
of funds to deal with this, but what we are looking at here is
an issue where Tule River does have rights to this water and
they are willing to work with all the parties. They have all
the parties within Tulare County to agree on this legislation
as well as myself and Mr. Costa to introduce the bill. So I
hope to avoid any type of lawsuit or any type of problem, that
if we can move this bill forward, I think it would go a long
way to solve a lot of problems ahead of time, be proactive
instead of reactive.
With that, we will be back shortly I guess. Thank you. I
yield back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. We are going to recess for
votes, and we will return probably in 20 to 30 minutes. Thank
you.
[Recess.]
Mrs. Napolitano. The Subcommittee will continue. The
Ranking Member was unable to stay, so Mr. Nunes will be sitting
in her stead when he returns.
I would like to move on to the testimony on H.R. 2535, and
the first witness on that is Mr. Alec Garfield, Director of
Water Resources Department for the Tule River Tribal Council in
Porterville, and welcome, sir, for your testimony, please.
STATEMENT OF ALEC GARFIELD, DIRECTOR, WATER RESOURCES
DEPARTMENT, TULE RIVER TRIBAL COUNCIL, PORTERVILLE, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Garfield. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Napolitano and
Ranking Member McMorris Rodgers and all the members of the
committee. My name is Alec Garfield. I am a member of the Tule
River Tribe of Tulare County, California. I served on the
Tribal Council for 25 years, 13 as its chairman. I have been
working on the tribe's water rights since 1971. Currently, I
serve as the Director of Water Resources Department of the Tule
River Tribe as well as the Chairman of the Tule River Water
Rights Negotiation Team.
With me today is Ryan Garfield, Vice Chairman of the Tule
River Tribal Council. I also bring greetings and best wishes
from the Chairman, Neil Peyron, and members of our Tribal
Council. I am grateful for this timely scheduling of this
hearing on H.R. 2535, the Tule River Tribe Water Development
Act. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Water
and Power Subcommittee supporting H.R. 2535.
The Tule River people are descendants of Yokut Indians, a
large group of Native Americans who occupied Silicon Valley in
California for thousands of years prior to contact with
settlers. With the discovery of gold and California becoming a
state in 1850, Congress refused to ratify 18 treaties
negotiated with California tribes, including our treaty, the
Treaty of Paint Creek of June 3, 1851.
In 1856, a small reservation was established on prime San
Joaquin Valley farmland in Tulare County. The location of this
original reservation was purposefully selected by the Federal
government to provide our tribe with good farmland and water
resources necessary to establish a self-sufficient homeland for
our people. Within a few years, however, this reservation was
stolen from us under fraudulent circumstances by two Federal
agents.
In January 1873, President Grant issued an executive order
creating a new reservation for the tribe. For over 125 years,
we have lived on this reservation, which now includes 58,000
acres of land. The reservation is located on the western slope
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, east of Porterville and lies
almost entirely within the South Fork Tulare River Drainage
Basin. Because of the failure of the United States to provide
adequate water storage and irrigation facilities, we have been
unable to reap benefits of agricultural homeland promised to us
through the original 1856 reservation.
H.R. 2535 authorizes funding necessary for the Secretary of
the Interior to study the feasibility and suitability of
constructing a storage reservoir, outlet works and a water
delivery system for the tribe's reservation. H.R. 2535 is
consistent with and carries out a critical part of the United
States trust responsibility to Indian tribes to protect and
advance and reserve water rights under the Winters Doctrine.
For several years, the tribe has negotiated with our
Federal negotiation team and local water interests represented
by the Tule River Association and the South Tule Independent
Ditch Company. Very recently the tribe and the local water
users reached a settlement which has as its cornerstone the
water storage project and delivery system, which will be
investigated by H.R. 2535. This settlement is unique. It is one
of the very few Indian water settlements ever achieved without
a tribe or the United States first filing litigation to secure
water rights.
Our current water supplies consist of limited groundwater
and springs. These sources have managed barely to serve the
current needs of the tribal community on the reservation. There
are growing concerns about the long-term reliability of our
water supply.
The South Fork Tule River has the potential to provide the
tribe with long-term water supply, but the river is unreliable
in its natural state. The hydrology of the South Fork is
similar to most western rivers in that the flows are generally
much higher in the spring months than the rest of the year.
Over time too, the hydrology of the South Fork is marked by
periods of drought, sometimes spanning several years.
To address these issues, we have spent several years
assessing our future water needs. We concluded the tribe could
not meet its current or long-term water needs without the
construction of at least one reservoir on the reservation.
Given that our reservation sits at the headwaters of the South
Fork Tule River, it made perfect sense to us to build a water
storage project to capture part of the high flows of the river
when downstream users were not diverting those flows. We
approached the solution to our problem with the attitude we
wanted to work with and not at odds with our downstream and
non-Indian neighbors.
After nine years of negotiations, we are very proud of the
settlement agreement we have reached. It avoids the cost,
delays and disruption of water rights litigation. The eventual
construction of a water storage project will enable us to meet
our domestic, commercial, municipal, industrial and
agricultural needs without disrupting the current water uses of
the South Fork Tule River.
We are pleased to report to the Subcommittee that we have
gained the endorsement of the National Congress of American
Indians and the Southern California Tribal Chairmen's
Association. We are disappointed that our Federal trustee is
not joining us in securing a brighter future for the Tule River
Tribe and its people by supporting H.R. 2535. This bill is the
first step in enabling the tribe to bring water to our lands in
sufficient quantities to make our reservation a viable homeland
now and forever.
I thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to express the
Tule River Tribe's support of H.R. 2535. In closing, I will ask
that my testimony and supporting materials be made part of the
record of this hearing. I or my associates would be more than
happy to respond to any questions which members of the
Subcommittee may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garfield follows:]
Statement of Alec Garfield on behalf of the
Tule River Tribe of California, on H.R. 2535
Introduction
Good morning Chairwoman Napolitano and Ranking Member McMorris-
Rodgers, and fellow members of the committee. My name is Alec Garfield,
and I serve as the Director of the Water Resources Department of the
Tule River Tribe, as well as the Chairman of the Tule River Water
Rights Negotiation Team. I also send greetings and best wishes from
Chairman Neil Peyron and all the members of the Tribal Council. We are
very grateful for the expeditious scheduling of this hearing on H.R.
2535, the Tule River Tribe Water Development Act. We also appreciate
the opportunity to appear before the Water and Power Subcommittee of
the House Natural Resources Committee to present testimony supporting
H.R. 2535. This bill authorizes funding necessary for the Secretary of
Interior to conduct a study on the feasibility and suitability of
constructing a storage reservoir, outlet works and a water delivery
system on the Tribe's Reservation in Tulare County, California. H.R.
2535 is consistent with and an effectuation of the United State's trust
responsibility to Indian tribes, to protect and advance their reserved
water rights under the Winters doctrine. Winters v. United States, 207
U.S. 564 (1908).
For several years the Tribe has negotiated with the representatives
of the Departments of Interior and Justice, including Interior's Bureau
of Reclamation, and local water interests represented by the Tule River
Association and the South Tule Independent Ditch Company. Very recently
the Tribe and the local water users reached a settlement which embodies
the shared goals and visions for the future of the community of parties
who live together in the South Fork Tule River watershed. This
settlement is quite unique--indeed, it is one of the very few Indian
water settlements ever achieved without a Tribe or the United States on
its behalf filing litigation to enforce its federal water rights.
Despite this unique feature, once the settlement is fully carried out,
the Tribe will join other Indian nations in the United States, by
turning its ``paper'' federal reserved rights to water from the South
Fork Tule River into actual ``wet'' water.
We anticipate that this settlement agreement will also be
considered in the forthcoming months for Congressional approval. The
Tule River Water Development Act, under consideration by you today, is
the first step in implementing that settlement agreement. We ask the
Subcommittee to favorably and swiftly mark-up and pass H.R. 2535 on to
the full Committee. Once enacted and signed into law, H.R. 2535 will
enable the Tribe and its neighbors to complete the necessary technical
background work to bring the final settlement agreement to life.
The Struggle of the Tule River Tribe to Secure a Sustainable Homeland
Prior to discussing the terms of the bill, I would like to take a
brief minute to educate the Subcommittee about the history of the Tule
River Tribe and Reservation, to help illustrate the need for The Tule
River Water Development Act in our community. I have also attached a
two-page historical timeline which chronicles our efforts to secure a
sustainable homeland with the necessary water supplies. (Exhibit A.)
The Tule River Reservation is the homeland of the Tule River Tribe.
We are descendants of the Yokuts Indians, a large group of
linguistically-related people who occupied the San Joaquin Valley in
California for thousands of years prior to contact with Euroamerican
settlers. Following the discovery of gold, and California becoming a
state in 1850, there was enormous pressure on Congress to reject the 18
treaties negotiated with the several hundred Indian tribes found there.
Congress relented to this pressure and in 1852 rejected these 18
treaties, including the Treaty of Paint Creek of June 3, 1851, which
included leaders from our Tribe. In 1853, however, Congress established
the Superintendency of Indian Affairs in California, to relocate
Indians to reservations. In 1856, the California Superintendency
established our reservation pursuant to the 1853 authority, on
approximately 2,240 acres of prime San Joaquin Valley farmland in
Tulare County. The land was transected on the southwest corner by the
mainstem of the Tule River. It included part of what is today the
eastern portion of the City of Porterville. The location of this
original Reservation was purposefully selected by the federal
government to provide our Tribe with the arable land and water
resources necessary to establish a self-sufficient homeland for its
people. Upon being promised this land as our homeland--ostensibly
forever--we built homes and began to actively cultivate crops. It was a
relatively prosperous period of time for our people.
Despite our relative prosperity in those years, two of the federal
Indian agents assigned to reservations in the area nonetheless saw fit
to capitalize upon the distance and ignorance of the Indian officials
in Washington, D.C. Thomas Madden, a federal Indian agent assigned to
the neighboring Tejon Indian Reservation, applied for and was issued a
land patent under fraudulent circumstances to 1,280 acres of the Tule
River Reservation land from the State of California. Four years later
under a similar arrangement another land patent for 1,160 acres of Tule
River Reservation land was issued to Mr. John Benson, another Indian
Agent. These two state land grants encompassed all of our Reservation
lands. The federal government was fully aware that these lands were
expressly reserved to us, but it made no effort to challenge the Madden
and Benson land grants. Because the lands had been set aside for the
Tribe, the State of California, of course, had no legal basis upon
which to issue the patents. The land transfers were also a violation of
the federal Trade and Intercourse Acts, which expressly prohibited
Indian agents from having ``any interest or concern in any trade with
the Indians.'' Rather than setting aside the issuance of these patents,
the federal government actually paid rent to Madden and Benson for at
least a dozen years to enable my ancestors to continue farming what was
in actuality our land.
Gradually, over the years, hostility increased between the Indian
farmers and the settlers in the area. In response to the tension, and
rather than enforcing our rights to what should have been our
Reservation land, in January 1873, President Grant issued an Executive
Order creating a new reservation for the Tule River Tribe. It was
comprised of mostly mountainous lands located about fifteen miles to
the east of our original Reservation. The Tule River Indians and the
Indian agent protested the removal; the new lands would be difficult to
cultivate. The Indian agent, J.B. Vosburgh, stated ``The new
reservation is not suited to the wants of the Indians for whose benefit
it has been set apart, if the intention be, as heretofore, to teach
them to become self supporting by means of agriculture, the soil of the
reservation being insufficient both in quantity and quality for their
need.'' He further requested that the government inquire into the
legality of Madden and Benson land patents and, if necessary, requested
the federal government to purchase the property from them for the
benefit and use of the Indians. However, no such action was taken, and
our people were forcibly removed away from their homes and cultivated
fields.
The removal was very hard on our people. The new Reservation,
though it contained 48,000 acres, was determined by the federal agents,
based on the knowledge and technology of the time, to have scarcely 100
acres of arable land. Even that land was deemed by the agents to be of
poor quality, and thought to be able to support only six families, far
below the needs of our people. An Indian agent reported, ``Year by year
our number has decreased by death and removal, until now there are only
143 Indians, embraced in 30 different families, residing on the
reservation.'' Our situation was so dire that, in response, President
Grant, in October 1873--just 9 months after the initial Executive
Order--signed another Executive Order almost doubling the Reservation's
size to 91,837 acres. Again, very little of these additional lands were
deemed by the federal agents to be suitable for agriculture, and the
few acres which were proven arable were coveted or settled by settlers,
and history again repeated itself. In August 1878, President Hays
issued an Executive Order reducing the reservation back to the January
1873 size.
For over a century, then, we have lived on the Reservation
established in 1873, a mountainous land where because of the failure of
the United States to provide adequate water storage and irrigation
facilities, we have been unable to fully reap the benefits of the
agricultural homeland promised to us through the original 1856
Reservation. The Tule River people are a proud people, and I tell this
story not to complain or to blame anyone for these past injustices.
They do, however, make a compelling argument that now is the time for
the United States to help begin the healing process through the
enactment of H.R. 2535. H.R. 2535 is the first step in enabling the
Tribe to bring water to our lands in sufficient quantities to make our
new homeland--not the one promised to us originally in the mid-19th
Century--a viable homeland now and forever.
The Modern-Day Tule River Indian Reservation
Today, our current Reservation includes about 58,000 acres. The
reservation is located in south-central California, approximately 75
miles south of Fresno and 45 miles north of Bakersfield in Tulare
County. The Reservation is situated on the western slope of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, east of Porterville, and lies almost entirely within
the South Fork Tule River drainage basin. The topography is generally
steep, with elevations ranging from about 900 to 7500 feet above sea
level. Most of the inhabited land is along the lower reach of the South
Fork Tule River on the western side of the Reservation. The Reservation
is drained by the South Fork Tule River. The South Fork Tule River
flows into the Tule River at Success Reservoir, at a distance of about
ten miles west of the Reservation. There are no significant uses of
water upstream of the Reservation. (Exhibit B.)
The estimated average annual flow of the South Fork Tule River at
the western boundary of the Reservation is 38,500 acre-feet per year,
with a probability of 24,600 acre-feet over 50% of the time, and 11,800
acre-feet available over 80% of the time. Surface water supplies
consist of the flow available from the South Fork Tule River and its
tributaries on the Reservation, while underground supplies consist of a
groundwater aquifer and springs. The groundwater sources have managed
barely to serve the current needs of the Tribal community on the
Reservation. There are growing concerns about the long-term reliability
of these sources, both in terms of quantity and quality. The hydrology
of the South Fork is similar to most western rivers in that the flows
are generally much higher in the spring months than the rest of the
year, other than occasional high water events following rainstorms.
Over time, too, the hydrology of the South Fork is marked by periods of
drought during which the entire flow of the river is significantly
depressed by the lack of rain for long periods of time, sometimes
spanning several years. These two general characteristics are depicted
on the two graphs attached to this testimony. (Exhibit C.)
The injustices and inequities of the past are still present and are
still affecting our people. We have been plagued with unemployment and
mortality rates substantially higher, and a standard of living
substantially lower, than is experienced by the surrounding non-Indian
communities. While the on-Reservation socio-economic conditions have
improved over time, as recently as 1999 the estimated poverty rate on
the Reservation was still 50% higher than Tulare County as a whole. To
this day, the Reservation residents generally continue to suffer from a
relatively low standard of living in substantial part due to the
absence of an adequate and reliable potable water supply and system.
Contemporary Negotiations to Secure a Reliable Source of Water for the
Tribe
To address the inter-related issues of lack of water and resulting
economic, political and social limitations facing the Tribe, we have
spent several years assessing its future water needs for domestic,
commercial, municipal, industrial and agricultural purposes. We
concluded that, in view of existing uses downstream of the Reservation,
the Tribe could not meet its water needs, especially over the long-
term, without the construction of a reservoir or reservoirs on the
Reservation. Given that our Reservation sits at the headwaters of the
South Fork Tule River, it made perfect sense to us to build a water
storage project to capture the high flows of the river when downstream
users were not capturing or using those flows.
We approached the solutions to our problems with the attitude that
we wanted to work with, and not at odds with, our downstream non-Indian
neighbors. Too often--in the more typical situation where a general
stream adjudication is commenced in a given state--the Indian and non-
Indian interests are pitted against one another. Here, by reaching out
to our neighbors with the intent of respecting their needs and looking
for solutions to our own, we were able to avoid the costs, delays and
disruptions of water rights litigation. We entered into negotiations
with interested parties seeking to establish the Tribe's reserved water
rights through an agreement settling our federal reserved water rights
claims.
For nine years, the settling parties have diligently negotiated the
terms of a settlement agreement which, upon Congressional approval,
will finally establish the federally reserved water rights of the Tule
River Tribe. The negotiations have been very productive. The settling
parties have been able to reach an agreement-in-principle on all major
issues, including the magnitude of the Tribe's reserved water right,
the Tribe's rights to use water both on and off the Reservation, and
the operation rules of on-Reservation storage reservoirs, including the
near-term Phase I Reservoir primarily intended to serve municipal and
domestic water needs. We are very proud of the settlement agreement we
have reached, which allows the South Fork Tule River water users to
continue their historic uses while providing the Tribe with a firm
water supply, primarily for its domestic, commercial and municipal
needs.
The remaining major issue prior to submitting the agreement to
Congress is securing the support of the Department of the Interior, and
the Administration, to authorize and fund the construction, operation
and maintenance facilities anticipated by the settlement agreement and
to compensate the Tribe for releasing water related claims against the
United States.
H.R. 2535 Lays the Foundation for Moving Forward With the Settlement of
the Tule River Indian Tribe's Water Rights
Moving to the terms of the bill under consideration today, H.R.
2535 authorizes the Secretary of Interior to conduct a study on the
feasibility and suitability of constructing a storage reservoir, outlet
works, and delivery system on the reservation. H.R. 2535 also
authorizes the appropriation of $3 million to the Bureau of Reclamation
to fund the study. The storage facility feasibility study is the most
recent step in a several-decades-long effort by the Tribe to secure
both title to and quantification of its federal reserved water rights,
and to actually deliver ``wet'' water to our members for domestic,
agricultural, municipal, commercial and industrial purposes. Notably,
the eventual construction of a water storage project will enable us to
meet our needs without disrupting the current water uses of the South
Tule River.
As part of our lengthy and detailed negotiations with our neighbors
and with the United States spanning the past decade, we have
commissioned technical studies of the South Fork Tule River watershed
within our Reservation boundaries. This analysis by the firm of Natural
Resources Consulting Engineers of Ft. Collins, Colorado and Oakland,
California, led us to the present site of a proposed water storage
project at the confluence of Cedar Creek and the mainstem of the South
Fork Tule River. The site of the proposed project, and the existing and
proposed expansion to the Tribe's water service area, are depicted on
the map marked as Exhibit D.
In short, the analysis we have commissioned to date, while rigorous
and thorough, is not sufficiently detailed to support and justify a
final decision to authorize and appropriate federal funds from which to
initiate actual construction activities. Thus, the authority and
funding delivered through H.R. 2535 would enable the Tribe, acting in
concert with the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of
Reclamation, to ensure that this Cedar Creek site is the optimal site
at which to build the project.
We are pleased to report to the Subcommittee that we have gained
the endorsement of the National Congress of American Indians and the
Southern California Tribal Chairman's Association, for the enactment of
H.R. 2535. Copies of the resolutions of these organizations are also
attached to my testimony to be made a part of the record. (Exhibits E
and F.) We have also provided the Subcommittee with letters and
resolutions of support from the City of Porterville, CA; the Tulare
County, CA Board of Supervisors, the Tule River Association and the
South Tule Irrigation Ditch Company, and we believe these documents are
being made a part of the record of this hearing.
Conclusion
It is now time for our federal partners to join us in securing a
brighter future for the Tule River Tribe and its people by supporting
H.R. 2535. I thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to express the
Tule River Tribe's support of H.R. 2535.
In closing, I would ask that my testimony and supporting materials
be made a part of the record of this hearing by unanimous consent.
I, or my associates here at the witness table with me, would be
happy to respond to any questions which the members of the Subcommittee
might have.
______
Ms. Nunes. Thank you, Mr. Garfield.
Next, we have Mr. Larson, President of the South Tule
Independent Ditch Company of Porterville, California. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP GREGG LARSON, PRESIDENT, SOUTH TULE
INDEPENDENT DITCH COMPANY, PORTERVILLE, CALIFORNIA
Mr. Larson. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and
Subcommittee members. It is a pleasure to be here to be able to
share this information with you.
My name is Phil Larson. I am a third-generation citrus
grower in the area of Success Valley, which is a community
downstream from the Tule River Indian Reservation near the city
of Porterville. I am also President of the South Tule
Independent Ditch Company, a nonprofit mutual water company
which supplies water to approximately 50 shareholders in
Success Valley by means of a 10-mile-long irrigation ditch.
I am here today to speak in support of H.R. 2535 and to
inform the Subcommittee as to the progress, the successful
progress of nearly 10 years of water rights negotiations with
the Tule River Tribe.
South Tule Independent Ditch Company diverts its water from
the South Fork of the Tule River approximately a half-mile
downstream from the reservation's western boundary. The ditch
company claims rights to water from this fork of the river
dating to 1854. These water rights were adjudicated and fixed
by a judgment of the Superior Court of Tulare County in the
case of Popular Irrigation Company v. A.A. Howard, et al., in
1916. This right was established as 10 cubic feet per second
under most circumstances. However, during a typical irrigation
season, the South Fork's total flow is often much less. Also,
the tribe was not a member to the 1916 case.
In 1922, the Secretary of the Interior of the United States
representing the tribe and South Tule Independent Ditch Company
entered into an agreement which was intended to definitely fix
for all times the respective water rights of the tribe and the
ditch company. This agreement established a proportional
sharing of available water basically on a 3-to-1 ratio in favor
of the ditch company. It did not quantify the Federally
reserved water right of the reservation nor address the tribe's
right to water storage. It did recognize that South Tule
Independent Ditch Company's water rights were initiated at
various times between the years 1854 and 1872.
I have found no evidence that the United States considered
the water rights of the reservation at the time of its
establishment in 1873. The government also failed to consider
apparently or evaluate the pre-1873 priority claims of other
water users which would be superior to the Federally reserved
water rights of the reservation.
It is with this history along with the limited seasonal
flows of the South Fork of the Tule River that prompted the
tribe to request formal water rights negotiations with the
downstream water users in an effort to quantify their water
rights for their current and future needs.
Since March of 1998, representatives of the tribe, South
Tule Independent Ditch Company, the Tule River Association,
riparian users and various governmental stakeholders have been
meeting to negotiate an amicable solution to the multiple
demands for the limited waters of the South Fork of the Tule
River.
An agreement in principle has been reached among the
primary water users. The agreement is far more than just a
handshake. It is already drafted in its final form, and we
expect it to be signed within 30 days. This water agreement was
written with the intent of the parties that the water
allocations of the 1922 agreement continue to be fulfilled.
This would be accomplished through the construction of a water
storage facility and distribution system on the reservation
which would in simple terms capture winter and spring high
water flows for use by the tribe and require the flow-through
of the lesser summer and fall river flows.
I and the Board of Directors of South Tule Independent
Ditch Company have concluded that the agreement and the tribe's
proposed water storage facility is the only practicable
solution that will provide the tribe with a sustainable supply
of water. We therefore encourage your support and a favorable
vote for H.R. 2535 to provide funding for the feasibility study
for the tribe's water storage and distribution system.
I would also like to point out on the chart over here just
how limited the flow is on that fork of the Tule River during
the summer and fall months of the year. It gets at times near
zero, if not zero, so it is imperative that water storage be
considered as the only practicable solution.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Larson follows:]
Statement of Philip G. Larson, President, South Tule Independent Ditch
Company, Porterville, California, on H.R. 2535
Good Morning.
My name is Phil Larson. I am a third generation citrus grower in
Success Valley, an area downstream from the Tule River Indian
Reservation near the city of Porterville, California. I am also
President of South Tule Independent Ditch Company, a mutual water
company which supplies water to approximately 50 shareholders in
Success Valley by means of a 10-mile long irrigation ditch. I am here
today to speak in support of H.R. 2535 and to inform the Subcommittee
on Water and Power as to progress of nearly 10 years of water rights
negotiations with the Tule River Tribe.
South Tule Independent Ditch Company diverts its water from the
South Fork of the Tule River approximately a half mile outside the
Reservation's western boundary. The ditch company claims rights to
water from this fork of the river dating to 1854. These water rights
were adjudicated and fixed by a judgment of the Superior Court of
Tulare County in the case of Poplar Irrigation Company vs. A.A. Howard,
et al., in 1916. Said right was established as 10 cubic feet per second
under most circumstances. However, during the typical irrigation
season, the South Fork's total flow is often much less. The Tribe was
not a party to this 1916 case.
In 1922, the Secretary of the Interior of the United States,
representing the Tribe, and South Tule Independent Ditch Company
entered into an agreement which was intended to definitely fix for all
times the respective water rights of the Tribe and the ditch company.
This agreement established a proportional sharing of the available
water between these two entities. It did not quantify the federally
reserved water right of the Reservation, nor address the Tribe's right
to water storage. It did recognize that South Tule Independent Ditch
Company's water rights were initiated at various times between the
years 1854 and 1872.
I have found no evidence that the United States considered the
water rights of the Reservation at the time of its establishment in
1873. The Government also apparently failed to consider or evaluate the
pre-1873 priority claims of other water users which would be superior
to the federally reserved water rights of the Reservation.
It is with this history, along with the limited and seasonal flows
of the South Fork Tule River, that prompted the Tribe to request formal
water rights negotiations with the downstream water users in an effort
to quantify their water rights for the current and future needs of the
Tribe.
Since March 1998, representatives of the Tribe, South Tule
Independent Ditch Company, the Tule River Association, riparian users,
and various governmental stake holders, have been meeting to negotiate
an amicable solution to the multiple demands for the limited waters of
the South Fork Tule River.
An agreement-in-principle has been reached among the primary water
users. It is the intent of the parties that the water allocation
agreements memorialized in the 1922 Agreement continue to be fulfilled.
This would be accomplished through the construction of a water storage
facility and distribution system on the Reservation which would, in
simple terms, capture winter and spring high water flows for use by the
Tribe and require the flow-through of the lesser summer and fall river
flows.
I and the Board of Directors of South Tule Independent Ditch
Company have concluded that the agreement-in-principle and the Tribe's
proposed water storage facility is the only practicable solution which
will provide the Tribe with a sustainable supply of water. We therefore
encourage your support and favorable vote for H.R. 2535, to provide
funding for the feasibility study for the Tribe's water storage and
distribution system.
Thank you.
______
Mr. Nunes. Could you explain that chart?
Mr. Larson. Certainly. That chart is an average water flow
of the South Fork of the Tule River, and I don't know if you
can see the dates at the bottom of the chart, but from about
August through November, the water flow is very minor and
oftentimes zero if it is a dry year. That chart I think clearly
illustrates the requirement for water storage. Absent water
storage, there is insufficient water supply for either the
tribe or the other uses on this stream of the river.
Mr. Nunes. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Larson.
Mr. Larson. You are welcome. Thank you for the opportunity.
Mr. Nunes. Next, we have Mr. Quint from the Bureau of
Reclamation.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT QUINT, ACTING DEPUTY COMMISSIONER FOR
OPERATIONS, BUREAU OF RECLAMATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Quint. Thank you. I am actually going to provide
testimony on both the bills if that is OK. I am here to provide
testimony on H.R. 2498 and H.R. 2535.
H.R. 2498 would direct Reclamation to provide a grant to
the California Water Institute located in Cal State, Fresno, to
conduct a study and create a regional water management plan.
The plan would look at water quality, supply, conveyance and
reliability, flood control, water resource-related
environmental enhancement and population growth.
While we acknowledge the need for integrated planning by
local communities and do support the intent of the bill, we
have a couple of concerns and are unable to support the bill at
this time.
First, the bill raises budgetary concerns which we have
discussed earlier because it directs Reclamation to issue a $1
million grant without reference to a necessary appropriation.
This would continue to strain Reclamation's limited budget.
In addition, the bill requires that Reclamation assure that
the grant recipient submit a report to Congress within two
years without a clear means for Reclamation to ensure that this
directive is met.
On H.R. 2535, that would authorize $3 million for a
feasibility study to look at the construction of a storage
reservoir, outlet works and delivery system for the Tule River
Tribe in California. As envisioned, the storage facility would
provide water supply for domestic, municipal, industrial and
agricultural purposes.
The administration feels that this legislation is premature
and cannot support H.R. 2535 at this time. Currently,
settlement negotiations are ongoing and not all issues related
to the Federal participation have been fully resolved. The
outcome of these negotiations may affect the scope, schedule
and cost of the feasibility study that is proposed in the
legislation. In addition, the legislation does not specify a
local cost share for the authorized study. Because of the
budgetary concerns and timing, the administration is unable to
support this feasibility authorization.
This concludes my verbal remarks, and I would be happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statements of Mr. Quint follow:]
Statement of Robert Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner,
Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior, on H.R. 2498
Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Robert
Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. I am
pleased to be here today to provide the Department of the Interior's
views on H.R. 2498, a bill to authorize a study on coordinating and
integrating sub-regional interrelated regional water management plans
into a unified integrated plan in the San Joaquin River and Tulare Lake
Hydrologic Regions in the San Joaquin Valley of California.
Ongoing activities in Reclamation's Central Valley Project in
California are currently addressing the need targeted by this proposed
study. Furthermore, the legislation does not identify a Reclamation
funding source for the study and without an additional appropriation,
it would be drawn from other existing programs, compromising that work.
As such, the Administration does not support H.R. 2498 at this time.
This legislation would direct the Secretary of the Interior, acting
through the Bureau of Reclamation, to award a grant to the California
Water Institute, not later than 120 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act. The Institute would prepare an Integrated
Regional Water Management Plan (Plan) for the eight counties
encompassed by the two hydrologic basins that would address issues
related to water quality, water supply (both surface and groundwater
banking, and brackish water desalination), water conveyance, water
reliability, flood control, water resource-related environmental
enhancement, and population growth.
H.R. 2498 also directs the Secretary to ensure that a report
containing the results of the Plan is submitted to this Committee and
the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources not later than 24
months after the grant is awarded and authorizes the appropriation of
$1 million to carry out the Act.
There are many water supply issues in the San Joaquin Valley and
many of these issues have a Federal nexus. It is important for local
communities to evaluate and address the future needs and find solutions
for potential shortfalls. Through the existing Acts authorizing various
units and divisions of the Central Valley Project, Reclamation is
already actively working on issues that could be evaluated by the Plan.
These issues include water quality and supply, surface and groundwater
banking, water conveyance, water reliability, flood control, and water
resource-related environmental enhancement.
Reclamation has concerns about the budget impact of H.R. 2498. H.R.
2498 also does not identify a specific Reclamation program or activity
responsible for the Institute's grant. Potential sources include
CALFED, Upper San Joaquin River Basin Storage Investigation, San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, San Luis Unit Drainage, and the
Salinity and Boron Total Maximum Daily Load on the Lower San Joaquin
River.
In addition, the legislation does not specify actions Reclamation
should take to ensure that the Institute submits a report to Congress
within the 24-month timeframe referenced in the bill.
That concludes my prepared remarks. I would be pleased to answer
any questions.
______
Statement of Robert Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner,
Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Department of the Interior, on H.R. 2535
Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Robert
Quint, Acting Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. I am
pleased to be here today to provide the Department of the Interior's
views on H.R. 2535, the Tule River Tribe Water Development Act. Due to
ongoing settlement negotiations with Tule River Tribe as well as the
need for a complete appraisal level study to precede a feasibility
authorization, the Administration feels that it is premature to
authorize this study and cannot support H.R. 2535 at this time.
This legislation would direct the Secretary of the Interior ``to
conduct a study on the feasibility and suitability of constructing a
storage reservoir, outlet works, and a delivery system for the Tule
River Indian Tribe of California to provide a water supply for
domestic, municipal, industrial, and agricultural purposes, and for
other purposes.'' The Act would authorize $3 million for Reclamation to
conduct a feasibility study to be completed within 2 years after funds
are appropriated or the signing of a reserved water rights settlement
agreement by the Tule River Tribe and other settling water users,
whichever is later. Without a completed appraisal level study, it is
premature to authorize this study. The authorization of $3 million for
this study would further compete with the funding needs of other
already authorized projects. Additionally, the legislation does not
specify a local cost share for the authorized study.
Settlement agreement negotiations have been taking place for
several years between the Tribe, downstream water users, and the
Federal negotiation team regarding the Tribe's federally reserved water
rights. These negotiations are ongoing and not all issues have been
resolved, including issues relating to Federal contribution. Until the
Administration has completed its analysis of the proposed settlement
under the Criteria and Procedures for the Participation of the Federal
Government in Negotiations for the Settlement of Indian Water Rights
Claims (``Criteria'') (55 Fed. Reg. 9223 (1990)), which are the
framework we use to evaluate settlements, it is premature to take a
position upon the scope, schedule, and cost of the feasibility study
that is proposed in this legislation. An appraisal level study is also
a necessary part of the process; Reclamation generally requires
completion of an appraisal level study before considering whether the
project warrants continuing to a feasibility-level analysis.
Reclamation understands that the Tribe has conducted a substantial
amount of reconnaissance/appraisal-level technical, planning, and
environmental work over the past decade; however, Reclamation has not
reviewed these documents nor determined that they would fulfill the
requirements for an appraisal study.
Typically, a feasibility study of this size and shape and National
Environmental Policy Act compliance takes from 3 to 5 years to complete
with significant costs. Actual costs for this study would be determined
via a Plan of Study, which would be developed after study authorization
and appropriations are provided. The time and cost to complete the
feasibility study and environmental documentation for the Tule River
Tribe Water Development Project could be shortened if the Tribe's
technical and environmental analyses and documentation are sufficient
and compatible with Federal requirements. The costs of a feasibility
study are significant and may exceed the $3 million authorization in
this bill.
Reclamation understands the importance of a reliable water supply
and will continue to work with the Tribe toward this goal in addressing
the issues described above.
That concludes my prepared remarks. I would be pleased to answer
any questions.
______
Mr. Nunes. Thank you, Mr. Quint. At this time, I think we
will proceed with questions. Are you going to go first, Mrs.
Napolitano?
Mrs. Napolitano. You are there. Go ahead.
Mr. Nunes. OK. Well, thank you. All right.
I think we have Mr. Costa's bill, questions on it too, but
first I want to thank Mr. Garfield for being here today. Mr.
Garfield, could you just testify before the committee on what
happens when those flows drop like that? Where does the tribe
have to go to get their water?
Mr. Garfield. At this time, we have about maybe six wells
that serve the reservation community. Every one of those are
working during the summer months. We also have one spring that
we utilize during the year. But sometimes on a very hot summer,
we have to get water from the South Fork Tule River. We just
concluded putting in an expansion to our water treatment
facility and are getting water from the South Fork, but just a
matter of years ago, our wells weren't sufficient in supplying
water to the community, and we were out of water during the
summer months.
Mr. Nunes. And so you had to truck the water to the
reservation?
Mr. Garfield. We had to truck the water and some individual
families had to buy their water themselves.
Mr. Nunes. Just for drinking?
Mr. Garfield. Yes.
Mr. Nunes. Yes. Madam Chairwoman, I think it is important
to note that this tribe during certain times of the year runs
out of the water, and so that is why this is so important,
because they do have the rights to the water. They could have
gone the route of the court system, but they have decided not
to. They work with all the agencies.
I would like to call on Mr. Larson to just comment on how
it has been to work with the tribe, where you think you are at
this point in terms of finishing the agreement and what you are
waiting for.
Mr. Larson. Thank you. Actually, the process has been a
nearly 10-year process. We came together with some apprehension
as to if we were going to be litigating issues, but we came
together as a community. We have a common problem. The problem
is the limited water supply. We have competing interests in
that, but we came together for a solution.
That stream flow constitutes the life blood of our
communities, and our communities, our neighbors, so essentially
we are the same community under different hats you might say,
but the process has been successful. The water users, including
Tule River Association, which is the water users downstream
from Success Reservoir, agree. I think you have a letter to
that statement that they are in support of this finding and
that the agreement is ready for final ratification by the
various boards to put a signature page on it and it is ready to
go. So we are that close with respect to the agreement itself.
Mr. Nunes. Thank you, Mr. Larson.
So, Mr. Quint, you have heard the testimony of Mr. Garfield
and Mr. Larson. They have been working very closely with you.
They basically say that all that is left is to cross the t's
and dot the i's. What is the holdup from the Bureau's point of
view and what are the outstanding concerns? I think it is
important to lay those out before the committee so that these
gentlemen can figure out what those concerns are and address
those concerns so that the Bureau would then be supportive of
this language.
Mr. Quint. Let me address that. The department has a
process they go through for all Indian water rights settlement.
This is one of 19 the department is currently working on, and
once this settlement is all put together, an assessment team
does a report. That report then goes through a criteria and
procedures process for review by the Indian Water Rights
Settlement Office. That then needs to be approved by the
department. Then that has to go to OMB for approval. So all
those processes need to take place to make sure that this
project is what it needs to be. Also during that process, that
will determine the appropriate Federal role in this overall
settlement.
Mr. Nunes. So I don't know all 19 different tribes that
have these issues, but in this case, it seems to be that
everyone agrees that the problem needs to be solved. They have
worked with all the surrounding community, proper community
agencies that need to approve this and are essentially just
waiting on the Bureau. So I would hope that you could somehow
speed the process up. I mean, this has been a long time in the
works.
Mr. Quint. And we have been involved in the process all the
way through and will continue to work with the entities to move
this as quickly as we can.
Mr. Nunes. So in OMB, who in OMB brought up concerns with
this?
Mr. Quint. Nobody has yet because OMB has not been involved
in this at this point. It is our process for getting
settlements approved. It requires that we go to OMB to get
their input and review of those.
Mr. Nunes. So how much more time do you think it will be?
Mr. Quint. I can't give you a specific time because all
these vary depending upon the complexity of the problem and
where it is, priority and reviews. Typically, these things can
take several months, though, to get through that process.
Mr. Nunes. Well, hopefully several months is better than
several years.
Just one more question. In those 19, who is the priority?
How do you decide who the number one priority is?
Mr. Quint. I don't have that information with me, but I
would be glad to submit that information for the record.
Mr. Nunes. OK. Thank you. I yield back, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. Mr. Costa.
Mr. Costa. Yes. Mr. Garfield, how would you describe
economic conditions facing the Tule Tribe? I know that
Congressman Nunes does a great job in representing your issues
and is concerned about the long-term viability of the tribe.
But if you could give a little descriptive of the current
economic conditions you are facing.
Mr. Garfield. One of the big concerns of the Tribal Council
over the years has been employment opportunities for the
members of the tribe.
Mr. Costa. Your unemployment level is?
Mr. Garfield. At this time, I would say it is probably
around 40 to 45 percent. The tribe currently has a small casino
on the reservation, which is about maybe 20 miles east of
Porterville. We also have an Economic Development Corporation
at the City of Porterville's airport. We have 40 acres there
that we are trying to develop. We have a small airplane
facility there that we are trying to currently license as a
charter service for the community.
But I think that part of the problem that we have also is
in our planning process, a lot of things that we want to do we
need water to do, and without knowing how much water we have or
can plan on, that certainly puts a damper on our planning
process.
Mr. Costa. Those below the poverty line, what is your
current number that you use that make up the tribe?
Mr. Garfield. The tribal membership I believe is probably
1,588 at this time, which includes all men and women and
children.
Mr. Costa. And those below the poverty line?
Mr. Garfield. Those below the poverty line, I would say
around 50 percent.
Mr. Costa. So obviously the economic conditions facing the
tribe, it has a long history. Your efforts to try to improve
the opportunities for future tribe members is really contingent
in large part to this proposal providing sufficient water over
the long term to sustain the other economic activities for the
tribe.
Mr. Garfield. That is correct. We currently have about a
200-member waiting list for homes on the reservation.
Mr. Costa. But you can't build them without water.
Mr. Garfield. Correct.
Mr. Costa. Very good. Mr. Quint, I just want to make
reference to your testimony on both bills. It indicates to me,
frankly, that there needs to be a better communication, and the
Chairwoman spoke of that earlier in her comments with regards
to the Bureau's testimony on all three bills today, but I know
reference to other legislation. I can understand where you may
support in concept or understand the need.
Actually, I believe you have been involved in this effort
on the regional study plan as it relates to the San Joaquin
Valley, and you have been both at the regional level and
understand the importance of it. What you are saying is that
you would like the language to have 120 days after
appropriations, not authorization, because you want to have the
money to further see them continue your efforts with the
legislation, is that correct?
Mr. Quint. Yes.
Mr. Costa. OK. Well, again, I think the Chairwoman's
comment earlier on that if you don't ask for our support
financially, it makes it awful difficult for us to give it. And
we need to, I think, have better communication as it relates to
assessing the challenges we face, whether it is three pieces of
legislation we are talking about today or whether it is other
efforts that are ongoing that involve the Bureau's
jurisdiction. Clearly, water we all understand is the life
blood of mankind, and nowhere is that more critically faced
than in the West. So we need your focus, we need your support.
My time has expired.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Costa. I think we might be
going a second round, so you might want to start thinking of
something else because I have questions, and I would like to
start with my favorite, Bureau of Reclamation.
Mr. Quint, is it necessary for the Secretary to support the
proposed settlement in the Tule River situation simply to do
the study, and can you tell us how this compares with other
studies the Bureau has done and the cost-share for them and can
they afford it?
Mr. Quint. Could you state the question again?
Mrs. Napolitano. Is it necessary for the Secretary to
support a proposed settlement in the Tule River situation
simply to do the study, and how does that compare to the
studies previously done by the Bureau and the typical cost-
share for this feasibility study, and do you think the tribe
could afford it?
Mr. Quint. Let me try to address as much of that as I can.
Typically, the Secretary has responsibility for approval of
settlement agreements throughout the process. Whether that
settlement is necessary to be signed before a feasibility study
can be done, not always, but since there are still some
outstanding issues about what the responsibility and liability
of the Federal government is in this case, we feel it is
premature to authorize this feasibility study until some of
those issues are sorted out.
Mrs. Napolitano. You haven't done other studies with this
amount of work already done on them?
Mr. Quint. We have done some. I don't have all the details
of those obviously in front of me, and I know the tribe and the
team have done a number of studies, maybe appraisal level is
what we refer to them as, already as part of this. We haven't
had an opportunity to review those at this point in time, but
we would be glad to work with the tribe and with the other
stakeholders out there to look at that data and see how close
we are to being able to go forward with a feasibility study.
Mrs. Napolitano. And that is a commitment?
Mr. Quint. Absolutely.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Garfield, your response?
Mr. Garfield. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I think that, first of all, the Office of Management and
Budget does not have to approve the settlement agreement as we
try to move forward on this project.
Second, I think the Bureau of Reclamation mentioned earlier
that this event here has not been followed as per the criteria
and procedures. The Chairman of the Federal Negotiating Team at
that time was Mr. Chris Kenney. He was the Chairman of the team
throughout most of that period, and Mr. Kenney was also
involved in writing those criterion procedures. He is also here
with me today as a technical witness on behalf of the tribe
should the committee like to hear from this person.
Mrs. Napolitano. I think that would help this committee to
be able to address it, because my next question to Mr. Quint
was what is the process in which these settlements are approved
by the Federal team, and explain the criteria and procedures
for which the settlement is being analyzed.
Mr. Kenney, would you step up?
Mr. Kenney. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you identify yourself, sir, please,
for the record? Identify yourself.
Mr. Kenney. My name is Chris Kenney. I am retired from the
Federal government as of January 2007. Prior to that time, I
was the departmentally appointed Chairman of the Federal
negotiation team which involved representatives from the Bureau
of Indian Affairs, the Department of Justice and in this case
the Bureau of Reclamation.
I think the best way to approach this question, Mr. Quint I
think is substantially correct in his statement that the
criteria and procedures which were a policy that was
established by the department in 1990 was a set of criteria and
a structure by which the Office of Management and Budget and
the Department of Interior and the Department of Justice could
evaluate and take a look at water rights negotiations, any
water rights negotiations, and how to evaluate those. They were
guidelines that would allow all three agencies to be able to
have one common language in approaching all the many varied
activities that are involved in any water rights negotiation.
I would take issue with the fact that the criteria and
procedures are applied after the negotiations are done. Quite
the contrary. Criteria and procedures were established to give
guidance to the teams in the field so that they would
understand the arena and the structures within which they were
to negotiate these settlements.
So I would submit to the Subcommittee that, while the
administration has yet to finish its analysis under criteria
and procedures, as the negotiation team was going forward, they
were mindful of the criteria and procedures and how those would
be applied as the administration took a look at the settlement.
Those criteria and procedures have lots of issues and
elements in them, but foremost is the appropriateness of a
negotiated settlement, which usually is identified when the
department decides to put a team in the field. These include
whether all the parties that we believe are appropriate to the
settlement are at the table so that we know we have all the
people that have equities involved available. Also, the
criteria and procedures set up equitable ways to take a look at
how the settlement is going to benefit the tribe and how it is
going to resolve a lot of the problems in the basin.
In my opinion, I think that the settlement agreement that
has been finished to date does that and is in a position to
serve the needs of all the water users in the basin. I think it
is appropriate that the administration take a look at the
settlement and tell us what they think. It is time for them to
do that because most of the issues have been resolved.
One of the reasons that the tribe and South Tule Ditch
would like to see this bill and the monies to do the
feasibility study was that this negotiation had less resources
available to it than many of the other negotiations because of
its size, and we know that the Congress is going to ask for
details about the facilities and the arrangements and the
structure of the settlement and how it is going to work.
In order for the tribe and even the administration to be
able to answer those questions, we need resources to evaluate
those issues so that you will have the answers that you request
because the administration is going to require as much detail
in its evaluation as the Congress I am sure will ask for.
Unless the tribe and the local parties have those resources to
do that study, you are not going to be able to get the kind of
detail that you need to answer the questions that you have.
Mrs. Napolitano. So it sounds like a Catch-22 boiling down
to money.
Mr. Kenney. It is the United States Federal Government.
[Laughter.]
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you for your honest answer, sir, and
I would like to ask a further question that you might possibly
have some answers to, and that is, the Bureau has been dealing
with this issue for how long?
Mr. Kenney. This specific issue? I think it is appropriate
to say the Bureau has been with this negotiation from the very
beginning. I think it is important to understand that the
Bureau was there as one of the resources that the Secretary of
the Interior has. The Secretary of Interior is charged with
trust responsibility to the tribes. The Secretary has a number
of resources available, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs,
but he also has a substantial technical resource in the Bureau
of Reclamation. And when the Secretary thinks that that is an
appropriate resource to apply, then the Secretary uses those
resources.
So we have used Reclamation's expertise from the very
beginning in a lot of the technical work that we have done. It
is also true that as resources become available, the Bureau of
Indian Affairs would provide as much resources as they could to
the tribes, but I am sure the Chairwoman knows that the Bureau
of Indian Affairs has a very broad mandate with Indian Country
and sometimes those resources are just not available. So the
Bureau of Reclamation is trying to do what the Secretary asks
them to do.
Mrs. Napolitano. And I was looking for a timeframe, and
from reading some of the testimony, it has been at least nine
years.
Mr. Kenney. Yes, ma'am. We started an appraisal of the
potential for the negotiated settlement in 1998. Mr. Larson
made reference to the fact that when you don't have litigation
the local parties are very cautious because it is a bit more of
an open forum. To their credit, they did their homework, they
studied, they asked questions, and they found common ground so
that they could have a consensus agreement, and that is to be
applauded.
Mrs. Napolitano. And I am sure the Subcommittee also agrees
to that. But in your expert opinion as a former member of the
Bureau's team, what would you feel is the timeframe to be able
to get this accomplished if everybody were to come to the
table?
Mr. Kenney. I think that the timeframes that have been put
forward are reasonable. I have been gone for about six months,
but my understanding is the Department of Justice still has
some legal analysis that they traditionally do in these water
rights settlements. I don't think there is any reason why they
shouldn't be able to do that in the next 30 to 60 days at the
most.
I know all the parties are ready to move forward because
they have resolved their major issues, and except for some of
these more demanding details as far as the technical questions
that will arise around a storage facility and distribution
facilities and how the river is going to perform when we put
those facilities in place, I think that most of the major
issues are done and we could see an agreeable consensus
settlement within the next 30 days.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much for stepping up to the
plate and I appreciate your input, sir.
Mr. Kenney. You are very welcome.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you so very much. I will continue in
a second round. Mr. Costa.
Mr. Costa. Just a couple quick questions to H.R. 2498 to my
witnesses, who again I want to thank for coming all the way
from California for the hearing today, and you can both comment
on this if you want. Mr. Moss, you might begin.
I described in my opening statement the fact that we are in
a perfect storm, and that is that Mother Nature gave us a
tremendously dry year last year and then, of course, with the
reduction of water availability as a result of the San Joaquin
River restoration that you are familiar with as well as the
Wanger decision that took place in August. Describe the impact,
the long-term impact of the loss of water over the last 17
years notwithstanding whatever merit that water, the
redirection of that water may have taken in terms of what is
the fastest-growing region in California?
Mr. Moss. A couple of things come to mind. One is relative
to the short-term. It is on the verge of panic in much of the
valley right now for those growers who are farming lands with
tenuous water supplies, especially permanent plantings where
they really don't know where their next water supply is going
to come from.
Much of the state water project's intent, much of the
Central Valley project's intent was to provide a balanced water
supply to the region, enough water to meet the long-term needs
of the region, and that clearly is not the case anymore. We
have been borrowing from our savings account. Our savings
account is the groundwater, and it tells our balance on an
ongoing basis of how good a job of water management we are
doing, and it is going down. There is no question about that.
It is a critically overdrafted area, and the consequence of
that is eventually we will be in litigation.
I mean, we have heard a lot this morning about trying to
avoid litigation, but an adjudication of the groundwater basin
is clearly in the offing as people chase groundwater down and
it becomes economical to pump. So on a long-term basis, it is
not a good picture. We need more water for the region to
sustain our growth.
Mr. Costa. For the population growth in the cities and to
maintain the farms?
Mr. Moss. Absolutely. All of our cities are dependent,
virtually all of them are dependent upon a depleting
groundwater source, and quite frankly, I am concerned that they
won't be able to find that they have a long-term sustainable
supply to support new development. People want to put holes in
the ground to support new subdivisions and are not able to.
Mr. Costa. Well, we have legislation I passed on the state
legislation years ago a requirement that local entities have to
first identify their water source before they provide a will
serve letter to allow the permit for the building to take place
under the theory that you don't build a subdivision without
building the roads.
Mr. Moss. Right.
Mr. Costa. Why would you build a subdivision without making
sure you have the water?
Mr. Moss. Well, that legislation has served, quite frankly,
as a wake-up call to a lot of our communities. For example, I
just finished helping the City of Porterville with their urban
water management plan, and they are projecting that they need
to have new surface water sources to meet all of their future
growth.
Mr. Costa. The City of San Diego, I understand, attorney
talked about a potential moratorium in light of the Wanger
decision.
Mr. Green, before my time expires, you want to quickly
comment?
Mr. Green. Yes. Thank you, Congressman.
It is not a very well-kept secret, but there is a private
water transfer process that occurs as a result of scarcity, and
I can report reliably that water went up to $500 an acre foot
for water that was needed to be put on permanent crops this
past summer, and that is a real stiff bill to pay for irrigated
agriculture.
Mr. Costa. I understand. I would just make a comment to my
friend with the Bureau as it relates to their earlier
questioning on the Tule River and the length of time. I am just
trying to understand the logic of this.
Parties cooperate, they don't litigate, and it takes
longer, so am I to deduce that if in fact people sue you that
you act quicker? That is a rhetorical question, but frankly, it
makes no sense. If folks are working with you that you wouldn't
want to expedite the process and reward good behavior as
opposed to putting that on the back burner, so that is one of
the other things that I will add to my list.
Thank you very much. I yield the balance of my time.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Costa.
I have a couple of questions and then I will defer to Mr.
Nunes. To Mr. Green and Mr. Moss, what is your view of this
assertion that the Bureau is fulfilling this need already?
Mr. Moss. I quite frankly make a living out of interfacing
with the Bureau of Reclamation on behalf of a number of
clients, and they try very hard. Unfortunately, they are not
that successful in terms of making CVP supplies a resource that
can be used in an integrated fashion in some of this planning
that we need to do and some of the implementation of those
plans.
It is very hard, for example, to do water transfers where
we can move water to its highest and best use on a cooperative
basis. Another example would be groundwater recharge and
banking programs. The Central Valley project in 1992 proposed
groundwater banking for the CVP, and we have yet to get rules
and regulations to implement groundwater banking, and still
waiting, which makes it very difficult to know how to put
together groundwater banking program, which is everybody's
solution for new storage in the San Joaquin Valley. Supported
broadly, but yet we can't use Federal water, have difficulty in
using Federal water to do so.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Quint, the same to you.
Mr. Quint. In reading the language of the bill, we
currently feel like a lot of the objectives of the bill are
being met through other avenues out there, the various other
authorities out there. So we respectfully disagree. The intent
of it is good, but we figure most of those things are already
being covered.
Mrs. Napolitano. You heard Mr. Moss indicate that there are
certain provisions that are not being addressed. Am I correct,
sir? That is what I was asking.
Mr. Quint. And we would be glad to talk with him and work
with him in understanding that better.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you ensure that this Subcommittee
also gets a copy of that update, please, sir?
Mr. Quint. Certainly.
Mr. Costa. Madam Chairwoman, if you would yield for a
moment.
Mrs. Napolitano. Yes.
Mr. Costa. Mr. Quint, I beg to differ with you. The problem
is, yes, you have certain water districts that are doing
different things within their area, but there is no
coordination in a regional effort, and it is a region, and we
get dewatered or we get water reallocated as a region, not on a
district-by-district basis.
So while it is accurate for you to say that some of this is
taking place on a district-by-district basis, I would say it is
very vague in terms of the degree, Madam Chairman. But the fact
of the matter is, while we act locally oftentimes, we have to
act as a region. That is what the CALFED record of decision
stipulated. It is very difficult to get all these water
agencies to act as a region. They don't have the umbrella of
the Metropolitan Water District that brings everybody together.
So for you to say, yes, some of this stuff is being done,
well, yes, some of this stuff is being done, but there is no
effort to coordinate that area in an eight-county basis.
Thank you, Madam Chairman, for yielding.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. Mr. Nunes.
Mr. Nunes. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I just want to
follow up on Mr. Costa's question there.
Mr. Quint, I do want to say please ask the political
appointees down there at the Interior Department to come out of
hiding and come and testify. This is an important issue, and I
know that they put you in a very awkward situation. But there
is no question that in fact, no one is paying attention to the
very points that Mr. Moss brings up, which is that in parts of
the San Joaquin Valley, you have a massive overdraft of the
water supply, which is why Mr. Costa and the rest of the valley
delegation have said, look, we have to look at this because no
one is doing this work, and if we don't start doing this work,
we are going to have major environmental problems because of
this problem of the overdraft of the groundwater aquifer.
So I hope that you will take this message back to your
people over there that are hiding in the Interior Department,
ask them to come out of their hole. These political appointees
should not be sending you up here. They are supposed to make
tough decisions, and they have made some tough decisions that I
hope you will take this back too also, that without, and I
don't want to get in the San Joaquin River fight here, but the
San Joaquin River settlement, which has not been implemented by
this Congress, has now been funded. They are funding that
settlement as you speak. You guys have put a contract out there
on this and you are funding it.
I think it is outrageous because you are going to take an
additional 22 percent of Class 2 supply and 8 percent of Class
1 supply, and I think, Mr. Moss, I mean, if you can comment on
this. If you take 22 percent of Class 2 supply and 8 percent of
Class 1 supply, what is it going to do to the groundwater table
in the east side of the San Joaquin Valley?
Mr. Moss. Well, every acre foot of surface water that you
remove from the system is another acre foot of overdraft. It
directly equates.
Mr. Nunes. It just adds to the problem.
Mr. Moss. It makes it significantly worse.
Mr. Nunes. And in your opinion, I mean, no one is looking
at this right now. That is why Mr. Costa has tried to bring
this plan forward, because no one is dealing directly with this
problem.
Mr. Moss. Not in an integrated comprehensive way across the
valley. You are right. There are groundwater management plans
under state law that many districts are implementing and
looking at, but nobody has that big picture, broad San Joaquin
Valley view that we will look at all of these problems in an
integrated fashion, and that is what this effort is all about.
Mr. Nunes. All right. Well, I just want to thank Mr. Costa
for his leadership on this effort, and I am glad to be a part
of it, and Mrs. Napolitano, thank you for having me back at
your committee. It is great to be back.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir, and I appreciate that. A
few other questions and then I will be done with this, and
these questions will be for Mr. Green and Mr. Moss. How does
the Federal funding authorization fit in the state and local
funding? They maintain that there is no match, no support.
Mr. Green. Well, we beg to differ. In my testimony, I had
an attachment that showed a map that represents what is
happening in the State of California. As the Subcommittee is
undoubtedly aware, California has passed a number of bond
issues that have significant--yes, that is the map. There are a
number of bond issues that have invested heavily in water in
California, 1350, 84, 1E, and now there is another one being
proposed in the very near future.
And if you look at that map down in the left-hand corner,
there is specific funding designated for the San Joaquin
Valley, the San Joaquin River Hydrologic Region and the Tulare
Lake Region for the total amount of $117 million, and that is
for integrated regional planning to do the very thing that we
are discussing today.
What we are asking for is to assist in the facilitation
process to spend some of that money. And at California Water
Institute of Fresno State, we have already received a seed
grant of $167,000 from the Governor's Partnership for the San
Joaquin Valley. He has commissioned a more holistic approach to
the problems in the San Joaquin Valley, much like the Federal
Interagency Task Force that has worked on the San Joaquin
Valley for a number of years. In fact, those two processes are
being merged to the extent we can.
So we already have at the California Water Institute some
money to proceed on this. We have also invested our time and
energy in talking with the California Department of Water
Resources. They have made some preliminary commitments, and we
intend to fully match the $1 million with funds from the State
of California to assist in this facilitation effort.
Mrs. Napolitano. And the relationship between your process
and the California's Bulletin 160 water planning process?
Mr. Moss. I might address that. The Bulletin 160 process
occurs once every five years and really takes a snapshot of how
the state in its entirety is doing in making its water supplies
meet its needs, so it is a look at the needs and a look at the
available supplies to see how well they are matching up. It
really isn't a plan of action, and the integrated regional plan
that we are intending to put forward is one which will define
actions and activities that go on to meet our San Joaquin
Valley needs. So one is a snapshot and the other is an action
plan.
Mrs. Napolitano. But how does the study prepare for water
changes both because of climate change and the company
decreases in the water supply and then of course a drought?
Mr. Moss. Those are all issues that add to the list of
things that we need to deal with and will have to be addressed
as part of our integrated regional planning efforts. The
potential of climate change to call for the reoperation of our
rivers, of our dams to provide more flood protection is a real
concern for the water supply folks, and that is why we need to
have ongoing discussions between the flood control interests
and the water supply interests on an integrated fashion to be
able to address these issues. Otherwise, there is the potential
for somebody's ox to get gored for the benefit of someone else,
and we have to work those issues out regionally and locally.
Mrs. Napolitano. Would you then think that Congressman
Costa's bill of being able to bring everybody to the table
would be helpful in being able to address some of those
concerns?
Mr. Moss. Absolutely. It is the only thing that is out
there right now in terms of the region truly acting on an
integrated fashion.
Mrs. Napolitano. Is there any precedent for such a study?
Have you heard?
Mr. Moss. Well, kind of the model that everyone is trying
to follow is the Santa Ana River Watershed Project model, the
SAPA model that really took interests that were pretty diverse
and in the middle of litigation, and quite frankly, my
understanding is they got tired after 15 or 18 years of
litigation to start working cooperatively and created their
integrated regional water management plan, and that is the
model, quite frankly, that most of the state now is trying to
track, including ourselves.
Mrs. Napolitano. Well, thank you so very much for your
assistance in giving the testimony that sheds more light onto
these pieces of legislation.
Mr. Costa, any further? Mr. Nunes, any further?
Mr. Costa. Three good bills, that is what I think.
Mrs. Napolitano. Did you hear that, Mr. Quint?
Mr. Quint. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir, and they know they are on
the hot seat when they come into this committee, so that is
nothing new to them. I know it is not your fault and I know
that it goes further up, but we need to impress upon the
administration and all in DOJ, OMB and BOR and Interior the
importance of preparing our communities for global warming and
the drought cycles that we are facing and the 100-year proposed
or projected hotter weather.
Somehow this is now being equated with economy, with
peoples' health, with just a whole slew of things, and you can
hear the same thing over and over again. I hear it every
committee hearing, and somehow we need to bring everybody to
the table and begin to look at how we can work together to
increase the budget and put priorities on those areas that are
going to be specifically in dire need of assistance.
This concludes the Subcommittee's legislative hearings on
H.R. 123, on H.R. 2498 and H.R. 2535. I thank all of our
witnesses for being with us and for traveling to be with us to
offer their perspectives on these three bills. Your expertise
has been very helpful, and you have shed a lot of light on some
of the issues that we have gone through.
Under Committee Rule 4[b], additional material for the
record should be submitted within 10 business days after today,
and appreciate your cooperation and the witnesses by responding
as promptly as you may.
The hearing is now adjourned. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 1:03 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows:]
Chronology of Events Affect CVP/SWP Water Supplies
1992 -- Enactment of CVPIA
Section 3406(d) -- Reallocated water from south-of-Delta CVP ag
service contractors to Level 2 Refuge Supplies: 156,000 acre-feet
1994 -- Bay-Delta Accord
South-of-Delta CVP and SWP contractors agreed to dedicate, on a
temporary basis, water to Delta fisheries restoration: 500,000 acre-
feet for both CVP and SWP contractors in a dry year. The Accord
provided that management of CVP water under the Accord to be counted
toward section 3406(b)(2) obligation. (Reduced south-of-Delta CVP and
SWP contract reliability by approximately 25%)
1997 -- Decision on Implementation of CVPIA section 3506(b)(2)
November 1997 and subsequent decisions prescribed management of
section 3406(b)(2): 183.000 - 275,000 acre-feet. (Reduced south-of-
Delta CVP contract reliability by an additional 10- 15%.)
2000 -- Trinity River Record of Decision
Prescribed new flow criteria for Trinity River: 100,000 - 600,000
acre-feet depending on year type (Average supply reduction for south-
of-Delta CVP contractors approximate 5% (91,500 acre-feet).)
2006 -- Proposed San Joaquin River Restoration Agreement Impact -
165.000 acre-feet.
2007 -- Wanger Decision
Prescribed additional actions to protect Delta smelt: Water cost
uncertain, but projections for 2008 south-of-Delta CVP contract
allocations are 10 - 45%, with similar to greater reductions in
allocations for SWP contractors. (Est. - 900,000 to 1 Million acre-
feet)
Impacts of Wanger Decision on other regions.
Southern California estimated to be losing 12% of their
supply in a wet year and up to 37% in a dry year.
Santa Clara likewise is estimated to lose 12% in a wet
year and up to 37% in a dry year of their State contracted water. Santa
Clara has the distinction of being impacted by both State and Federal
Contracts, so there will be loss on the Federal side as well.
Areas such as East Bay Mud and Contra Costa who receive
supplies from the Delta will be unaffected.
San Francisco which sources its water supply from the
same tributary system north of the Delta that the exporters rely on
will have no impact.
The near 1800 unscreened in-Delta diversions taking as
much as 5000cfs during peak months are not addressed.
Power plants take up to 3200cfs on an on-going basis
through unscreened diversion. (Status and Trends of Delta -Suisun
Services, DWR May 2007, pg 18,19) Not addressed.
______
[A letter submitted for the record on H.R. 123 by Charles
P. Fuentes, City Manager, City of Pico Rivera, California,
Frederick W. Latham, City Manager, City of Santa Fe Springs,
California, and Steve Helvey, City Manager, City of Whittier,
California, follows:]
August 16, 2007
The Honorable Grace F. Napolitano
Representative, 38th District of California
1610 Longworth Building
Washington, DC 20515
SUBJECT: WATER QUALITY PROTECTION PROJECT (WQPP) AND H.R. 123
Dear Congresswoman Napolitano;
For nearly 30 years, the federal government and local water
agencies have been working to address an underground plume of
contaminated -water that has been slowly moving southeast from the
Upper San Gabriel Valley region, which is a Superfund site. The
contamination resulted from the release of volatile organic compounds
(VOCs), e.g., chemicals for degreasing, dry cleaning, metal cleaning,
etc., into the soil.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency
(USEPA), the initial discovery of contamination occurred in 1979. USEPA
began investigating groundwater in the Whittier Narrows area of the San
Gabriel Superfund sites in the late 1980s. A remedial investigation/
Feasibility Study was completed in 1992. During 1997-98, increasing VOC
concentrations led to additional fieldwork by USEPA.
Whittier Narrows Operational Unit (WNOU)
Design of a remedial facility in the Whittier Narrows area was
completed by USEPA in 2001. Construction of extraction wells,
conveyance pipelines, and a treatment plant began in 2001 and was
completed in May 2002. The treatment facility was designed to clean up
contamination in the Whittier Narrows and to prevent contaminated
groundwater from moving into the Central Basin.
However, even before construction of the WNOU treatment plant
began, groundwater monitoring data showed that the level of PCEs
(tetrachloroethylene) exceeded the maximum contaminant levels (MCL) in
wells south of the Whittier Narrows Dam, i.e., the underground plume of
contaminated water had already migrated past the site of the WNOU's
extraction wells. Moreover, the WNOU treatment plant did not become
fully operational until December 2005. (The City of Whittier receives
the treated water from the WNOU treatment facility.)
The San Gabriel and Rio Hondo Coastal Spreading Grounds are located
south of the Whittier Narrows Dam and are adjacent to the cities of
Pico Rivera, Whittier, and Santa Fe Springs. These spreading grounds,
operated by Los Angeles County, utilize storm water, imported water and
recycled water to replenish the groundwater supply in the Central
Basin. Thus, we have been concerned for many years that the source of
the cities' drinking water could be contaminated by the underground
plume of contaminated water migrating south from the Whittier Narrows
area.
Water Qualify Protection Project (WQPP)
The Southeast Water Coalition (SEWC), a joint powers authority, was
formed by local cities and the Water Replenishment District (WRD) in
1991 to improve the quality and quantity of the regional water supply.
The Cities of Pico Rivera and Whittier are founding members of SEWC.
SEWC was then, and is now, very concerned about the passage of the
underground plume into the Central Basin and the Montebello Forebay.
SEWC approached Central Basin Municipal Water District (CBMWD)
several years ago and requested the District's assistance regarding
this issue. CBMWD was able to obtain $10 million in funding from the
federal Bureau of Reclamation for the WQPP, which meant that local
cities did not have to pay for the project.
The WQPP was constructed to monitor and intercept water entering
the Central Basin from the Upper San Gabriel Valley region. CBMWD
designed and constructed two extraction wells, a treatment facility,
and distribution lines, all located in the City of Pico Rivera. Each of
the three cities entered into agreements with CBMWD regarding purchase
of treated water from the WQPP project. Under the agreement, the Cities
agreed to convey a certain amount of its water rights to the CBMWD,
which pumps the conveyed rights from the extraction wells and treats
the pumped water.
For example, the City of Pico Rivera agreed to take a maximum of
2,800 acre-feet (AF) of water from CBMWD each year for 10 years at a
cost of $40 per AF. In addition to this fee the City also pays a fee to
WRD for every AF pumped.
In October 2004, CBMWD received its domestic drinking water permit
from the State to distribute the treated water to the cities of Pico
Rivera, Santa Fe Springs and Whittier. Distribution began in December
2004.In May 2007, after nearly three years of operating the WQPP, CBMWD
announced that, due to the cost of operating the WQPP, it would cease
water production. CBMWD cited two reasons for the stoppage in
production: the Levels of VOCs that were originally cited to be a
concern had not exceeded allowable levels for the last two years; and,
operating costs were much higher than expected.
After initial discussions with the three cities, who remain
concerned about the potential threat to groundwater in the Central
Basin, CBMWD agreed to work with the cities regarding formation of a
joint powers authority (JPA), comprised of the three cities, that would
own and operate the WQPP. The three cities have three months to
determine the viability of a JPA, including whether additional
customers for WQPP water could also be identified. In addition, during
that three-month period, CBMWD would operate the WQPP facilities with
the cities paying $250 per AF. CBMWD would pay for any net operating
losses.
Groundwater monitoring data from the WQPP shows that allowable
levels of VOCs have not been exceeded during the last two years;
however, the prudent course would be to continue operating the WQPP due
to the potential harm to the Central Basin and the Montebello Forebay
from the underground plume of contaminated water. For example, as
recently as January 2005, the level of PCEs (tetrachloroethylene)
exceeded the MCL.
The 2001 Design Report for the WQPP states (Page 1-3):
It is estimated that continuous pumping would be required for S to
7 years assuming that EPA begins operation of the containment
extraction wells in the Whittier Narrows within 2 years.
However, the WNOU treatment facility did not become fully
operational in 2003; as stated previously, that occurred in December
2005, after the WQPP became operational. Again, given the substantial
federal investment in both WNOU and WQPP, if the WQPP facility is shut
down, and MCLs are exceeded in the future in the area south of Whittier
Narrows Dam, it would leave the cities with no recourse and would
threaten water quality in the Central Basin.
Although the cost of WQPP water would still be significantly higher
for the cities of Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs and Whittier than the
current $40 per acre-foot, it would still remain lower than the cost of
imported Metropolitan Water District (MWD) water, which is currently
$527 per acre-foot and scheduled to increase to $557 in January 2008.
In addition, if the member cities of the JPA cannot use all the treated
water available from the WQPP, other local water agencies, e.g., Pico
Water District, which serves 1/3 of the City of Pico Rivera, would be
able to purchase water for less than the MWD rate.
Therefore, on behalf of the cities of Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs
and Whittier, we strongly urge inclusion of additional federal funding
for operation of the WQPP in H.R. 123, which is before your committee.
Note: it may be necessary for such funding to ``pass through'' CBMWD to
the JPA in the first year, but in subsequent years, the funding could
go directly to the JPA.
Sincerely,
Charles P. Fuentes
City Manager, City of Pico Rivera
Frederick W. Latham
City Manager, City of Santa Fe Springs
Steve Helvey
City Manager, City of Whittier
cc: Art Aguilar, General Manager, CBMWD
______
[A letter submitted for the record by The Honorable Owen
Newcomer, Mayor, City of' Whittier, California, follows:]
City of' Whittier
13230 Penn Street
Whittier, California 90602-1772
(562) 945-8200 www.cityofwhittier.org
July31,2007
The Honorable Grace Napolitano
Congresswoman, 38th District
1610 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Congresswoman Napolitano:
We are seeking your support for inclusion into H.R. 123 funds for
the Water Quality Protection Project constructed and operated by
Central Basin Municipal Water District. The WQPP, which has been the
recipient of federal funding throughout its existence thanks largely to
your efforts, is essential to protecting the groundwater quality of the
Central Basin.
The WQPP was constructed to monitor and intercept water entering
the Central Basin from the highly contaminated Upper San Gabriel Valley
region, which is a Superfund site. The project came about when the
Southeast Water Coalition, a consortium of cities which utilize
groundwater in the Basin, realized that if such contaminated water were
to reach the Basin's spreading grounds in Pico Rivera, the results
could be catastrophic for some cities. The Central Basin is blessed
with a good supply of quality groundwater for our residents. If
contamination of the Basin water was to occur, the results would be a
scarcity of drinking water that would force us to rely on more
expensive, lower quality imported water that is subject to supply
shortages during this time of drought.
Additional funding is needed now to keep the WQPP going to protect
our Basin's water supply. Since the main EPA wells intercepting
pollution in the Upper San Gabriel Valley have been running for a
relatively short time, it is too early to determine when, if and how
much contamination may yet enter our Basin. The WQPP will ensure that
this area's spreading grounds will remain clean and safe and that our-
residents can be-assured of a safe, clean water supply.
We thank you for your consideration to include additional funding
for the WQPP in H.R. 123. Please feel free to contact our City Manager,
Steve Helvey, at (562) 464-3301 if you need any further information.
Sincerely,
Owen Newcomer
Mayor
______
[A letter submitted for the record on H.R. 2498 by David
Reynolds, Director of Federal Relations, Association of
California Water Associations, follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8016.001
.eps[A letter submitted for the record on H.R. 2535 by R.L.
Schafer, Tule River Association, follows:]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8016.011
------
[A letter submitted for the record on H.R. 123 by Hon.
Joseph D. Serrano, Mayor, City of Santa Fe Springs, California,
follows:]
City of Santa Fe Springs
11710 Telegraph Road * CA * 90670-3679
(562) 868-0511 * Fax (562) 868-7112 * www.santafesprings.org
August 3, 2007
The Honorable Grace Napolitano
1610 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Attention: Dan Chao
Subject: H.R. 123--Water Quality Protection Project
Dear Grace:
We are seeking your support for inclusion into H.R. 123 funds for
the Water Quality Protection Project constructed and operated by
Central Basin Municipal Water District. The WQPP, which has been the
recipient of federal funding throughout its existence thanks largely to
your efforts is essential to protecting the groundwater quality of the
Central Basin, particularly for our City.
The WQPP was constructed to monitor and intercept water entering
the Central Basin from the highly contaminated Upper San Gabriel Valley
region, which is a Superfund site. The project came about when the
Southeast Water coalition, a consortium of cities which utilize
groundwater in the basin, realized that if such contaminated water were
to reach the Basin's spreading grounds in Pico Rivera the results could
be catastrophic for cities such as ours. The Central Basin is blessed
with a good supply of quality groundwater for our residents. If
contamination of the basin water was to occur the results would be a
scarcity of drinking water that would force us to rely on more
expensive, lower quality imported water that is subject to supply
shortages during this time of drought.
Additional funding is needed now to keep the WQPP project going to
protect our basin's water supply. Since the main EPA wells intercepting
pollution in the Upper San Gabriel Valley have been running for a
relatively short time, it is too early to determine when, if and how
much contamination may yet enter our basin. The WQPP will ensure that
this area's spreading grounds will remain clean and safe and that our
residents can be assured of a safe, clean water supply.
We thank you for your consideration to include additional funding
for the WQPP in H.R. 123. Please feel free to contact Fred Latham, City
Manager if you need any further information.
Respectfully,
Joseph D. Serrano, Sr.
Mayor
cc: Honorable City Council
Fredrick W. Latham, City Manager
Donald K. Jensen, Director of Public Works