Major plan moves through the negotiating process with leadership from Senator Feinstein.
Water plan swaps a debt
Westlands would be off hook for millions if it fixes drainage.
By Michael Doyle - Bee Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, August 2, 2007
Farmers and the federal government have drafted an ambitious new water swap intended to solve the San Joaquin Valley's long-standing irrigation drainage problem.
The Westlands Water District would get 50-year contracts for San Luis Reservoir water, under the plan presented Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The federal government would also forgive the debt Westlands still owes for reservoir and canal construction.
In exchange, the Rhode Island-sized Westlands district would become responsible for fixing the Valley's irrigation drainage mess. But unlike politically incendiary earlier proposals, Westlands would not take ownership of the publicly built irrigation system.
"It seems to be a sound proposal," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said in an interview, following a two-hour briefing Wednesday afternoon. "This is much more workable; I'm much more optimistic."
Negotiators will begin drafting legislation in the coming weeks. Even so, Feinstein said it would be very difficult to finish the legislation this year, and the policy and political challenges remain abundant.
"This is a very serious problem, and it's one that we need to solve," Westlands General Manager Thomas Birmingham said.
The irrigation drainage problem is rooted in a half-finished plan for aiding farmers on the San Joaquin Valley's west side. The first part of the plan was successfully finished in the mid-1960s, when the federal government built the 382-foot-high San Luis Dam now named for former Rep. Bernie Sisk.
The resulting San Luis Reservoir has a capacity of 2 million acre-feet of water. The plan's second part was supposed to include a 188-mile drain for carrying used irrigation water off to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The drain was never finished, causing myriad environmental problems to back up.
"The drainage issue has got to be resolved," said Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources. "It's an issue that has languished for a long time."
