Congressman Dennis Cardoza
18th Congressional District of California

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Dennis Cardoza announced today that he is working with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Costa on an Emergency Temporary Water Supply Amendment to the Jobs Bill. The amendment aims to provide for an emergency stop-gap agriculture water allocation of 40 percent for the next 2 years. 

Despite the recent storms, the federal government is expected to announce an allocation that is worse than last year’s meager 10 percent for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, resulting in hundreds of thousands of acres being fallowed and sending thousands of farm workers to unemployment and food lines.

Pumping in the Delta is blamed as the single culprit to the decline in Delta smelt and salmon numbers, yet there has been no marked improvement to the fish populations as a result of the continued cutbacks to Valley agricultural water.  At the same time, other factors affecting the health of the Delta have been overlooked – such as wastewater discharges, predation by non-native fish species, urban pesticide runoff, and oil refinery and power plant discharges.

“With the current wet conditions, there is clearly enough water in the system for farms, fish and urban uses. This is the right thing to do for our farms, farm workers and California’s economy,” said Cardoza. 

Senator Feinstein is expected to introduce the amendment to the Jobs Bill. This amendment will result in a 40 percent water allocation for a two year period. The amendment is based on previous legislation approved by Congress in 2003 that provided municipal water supply allocations to Albuquerque, New Mexico that were being threatened by the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, a fish similar in size to the Delta Smelt.
 “Just this week, we saw clear evidence as to why this amendment is needed when the federal agencies announced that they would be ordering further restrictions on pumping because four Delta smelt were taken at the pumps.  These same agencies killed as many as 260 Delta smelt during recent surveys of fish populations.  This is nonsense.  The agencies are proposing to shut down the state’s agricultural economy over four fish?” questioned Cardoza.

In a hearing earlier this week on the pumping restrictions to protect the Delta smelt, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger stated that although it appeared the federal agencies were not acting in good faith, his hands were tied because of the Endangered Species Act.  The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ordered these restrictions despite the court’s order the week before to turn on the pumps for a 14 day period. The previous order was related to pumping restrictions to protect salmon. The judge had ruled that the loss in pumping to protect the salmon exacerbates the current catastrophic situation faced by Valley farmers. Judge Wanger further stated that under current rain and weather conditions lifting the restrictions on pumping would have a minimal impact on the salmon, while failing to ease restrictions could cause “substantial and irreparable” harm to farmers.

“It is clear that continuing to cutback the water deliveries to our state’s farmers is not the answer,” said Congressman Cardoza. “Years of cutbacks have not resulted in any increase in populations of the listed Delta fish. It is time that we do what is right and get the pumps turned back on and force our government to take a realistic management approach to the Delta. That includes water policies that equally spread the responsibility for addressing the environmental challenges,” said Cardoza.”

He further added, “This water supply crisis should be treated with as much vigilance as a natural disaster.  It is abundantly clear that this water crisis will not magically end, even if California experiences successive wet years.  Congress needs to approve the Emergency Temporary Water Supply Amendment to the Jobs Bill for our farms, our farm workers and our economy.”