The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority greatly appreciates all of the support and efforts of California’s Congressional representatives striving to resolve the water crisis that is so deeply hurting the rural, often disadvantaged, communities of the San Joaquin Valley.
Agriculture is our prime industry – California is the nation’s No. 1 producing State – 400+ commodities are grown – 50% of the nation’s fruits and vegetables – and most of this productivity is reliant upon irrigation.
Today we are burdened by a naturally occurring drought. But the depth of this crisis, and how quickly we came to it, is the direct result of a broken federal regulatory system. It could rain tomorrow and the drought will persist for many because the federal rules will prevent us from capturing that water when it’s needed most.
Today, Congressmen David Valadao, Devin Nunes, and Kevin McCarthy introduced a bill in Congress to address the federal regulations that have crippled California’s water systems and failed our endangered species. Their approach, while different in measure, is similar in form to legislation introduced by Congressman Jim Costa in 2012 to tackle some of the same issues. The aims are the same: fix California’s chronic water crisis. (Read the jointly-issued press release here.)
Last week, a bipartisan group of California’s lawmakers came together to urge the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to set aside notions of taking water conserved and paid for by Valley farmers to meet obligations the United States may not be able to fulfill in 2014. Senator Feinstein and Congressmen McCarthy, Nunes, Valadao, and Costa have shown great leadership. They immediately understood the profound injustice and devastating harm that would result if Reclamation’s idea was to occur and acted swiftly and together to bring about a better result.
Working together is how we will solve California’s water crisis. The need to fix these chronic regulatory problems is clearly understood though the paths to a solution vary. We applaud these leaders for taking on the challenge and encourage their diligence and creativity toward developing a workable solution to rebalance California’s regulatory environment and restore our once lauded water system.
It will be an inexplicable travesty to not act swiftly and cooperatively. We cannot work alone to fix these problems and we cannot allow the next storm, which will come one day, to simply flow into the ocean.