[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
A ROADMAP FOR INCREASING OUR WATER AND HYDROPOWER SUPPLIES: THE NEED
FOR NEW AND EXPANDED MULTI-PURPOSE SURFACE STORAGE FACILITIES
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER
of the
COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-51
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov
or
Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
DOC HASTINGS, WA, Chairman
PETER A. DeFAZIO, OR, Ranking Democratic Member
Don Young, AK Eni F. H. Faleomavaega, AS
Louie Gohmert, TX Frank Pallone, Jr., NJ
Rob Bishop, UT Grace F. Napolitano, CA
Doug Lamborn, CO Rush Holt, NJ
Robert J. Wittman, VA Raul M. Grijalva, AZ
Paul C. Broun, GA Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU
John Fleming, LA Jim Costa, CA
Tom McClintock, CA Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan,
Glenn Thompson, PA CNMI
Cynthia M. Lummis, WY Niki Tsongas, MA
Dan Benishek, MI Pedro R. Pierluisi, PR
Jeff Duncan, SC Colleen W. Hanabusa, HI
Scott R. Tipton, CO Tony Cardenas, CA
Paul A. Gosar, AZ Steven A. Horsford, NV
Raul R. Labrador, ID Jared Huffman, CA
Steve Southerland, II, FL Raul Ruiz, CA
Bill Flores, TX Carol Shea-Porter, NH
Jon Runyan, NJ Alan S. Lowenthal, CA
Markwayne Mullin, OK Joe Garcia, FL
Steve Daines, MT Matt Cartwright, PA
Kevin Cramer, ND Vacancy
Doug LaMalfa, CA
Jason T. Smith, MO
Vance M. McAllister, LA
Vacancy
Todd Young, Chief of Staff
Lisa Pittman, Chief Legislative Counsel
Penny Dodge, Democratic Staff Director
David Watkins, Democratic Chief Counsel
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON WATER AND POWER
TOM McCLINTOCK, CA, Chairman
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, CA, Ranking Democratic Member
Cynthia M. Lummis, WY Jim Costa, CA
Scott R. Tipton, CO Jared Huffman, CA
Paul A. Gosar, AZ Tony Cardenas, CA
Raul R. Labrador, ID Raul Ruiz, CA
Markwayne Mullin, OK Alan S. Lowenthal, CA
Doug LaMalfa, CA Peter A. DeFazio, OR, ex officio
Vacancy
Doc Hastings, WA, ex officio
------
CONTENTS
--------
Page
Hearing held on Tuesday, October 29, 2013........................ 1
Statement of Members:
Costa, Hon. Jim, a Representative in Congress from the State
of California.............................................. 12
DeFazio, Hon. Peter A., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Oregon............................................ 9
Hastings, Hon. Doc, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Washington........................................ 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 8
Huffman, Hon. Jared, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 15
Mcclintock, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 2
Napolitano, Hon. Grace F., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California.................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Tipton, Hon. Scott R., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Colorado.......................................... 11
.............................................................
Statement of Witnesses:
Barcellos, Tom, Dairy Farmer, Porterville, California, on
Behalf of Barcellos Farms, Lower Tule River Irrigation
District and the Family Farm Alliance...................... 34
Prepared statement of.................................... 36
Sandison, Derek, Director, Office of Columbia River,
Washington State Department of Ecology, Yakima, Washington. 23
Prepared statement of.................................... 24
Shibatani, Robert, CEO and Principal Hydrologist, The
Shibatani Group, Inc., Sacramento, California.............. 17
Prepared statement of.................................... 19
Valadao, Hon. David G., a Representative in Congress from the
State of California........................................ 14
Ziemer, Laura S., Senior Counsel and Water Policy Advisor,
Trout Unlimited, Bozeman, Montana.......................... 27
Prepared statement of.................................... 29
Additional Material Submitted for the Record:
Hydrogeologist Urges Underground Storage of Water, from the
Medesto Bee, October 25, 2013, by Garth Stapley............ 5
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON A ROADMAP FOR INCREASING OUR WATER AND HYDROPOWER
SUPPLIES: THE NEED FOR NEW AND EXPANDED MULTI-PURPOSE SURFACE STORAGE
FACILITIES
----------
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Water and Power
Committee on Natural Resources
Washington, DC
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:24 p.m., in
room 1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Tom McClintock
[Chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives McClintock, Lummis, Tipton,
LaMalfa, Hastings, Napolitano, Costa, Huffman, Cardenas, Ruiz,
Lowenthal and DeFazio.
Also Present: Representative Valadao.
Mr. McClintock. The committee will come to order.
I would like to apologize to our witnesses for the late
beginning, but I do not think we will be interrupted by votes
before 4:30 today. So that is the consolation on the late
start.
Before we begin with statements from Members and witnesses,
I would ask unanimous consent that Mr. Valadao be allowed to
sit with the subcommittee and participate in today's hearing.
Without objection.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. TOM McCLINTOCK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. McClintock. The purpose of today's hearing is to
identify the current impediments to increasing water storage
and hydropower capacity, and to look at new concepts on the
construction of smaller high elevation dams.
During the first two-thirds of the 20th century, local,
State and Federal Governments devoted themselves to the
development of the vast untapped water resources of the Western
United States. Yet in the 1970s, this positive and forward
looking policy was abandoned in favor of increasingly
restrictive environmental demands.
We have now lived under these policies for more than four
decades, and as a result, we face increasingly severe water and
electricity shortages, spiraling water and electricity prices,
devastated farms, and a chronically declining economy. It seems
we have lost sight of several self-evident water truths.
First, more water is better than less water. That is about
as self-evident as it gets. Yet we often hear that instead of
producing new storage, we should resign ourselves to chronic
water shortages and manage those shortages through increasingly
severe conservation measures.
But conservation does not add more water. It merely manages
a water shortage.
Second, cheaper water is better than more expensive water.
If we agree on this, then it naturally follows that before we
employ more expensive sources of water, like desalinization and
recycling, we should first be sure we have exhausted the less
expensive alternatives like water storage.
Third, water is unevenly distributed over both time and
distance. If we want to have plenty of water in dry periods, we
have to store it in wet ones, and if we want to have plenty of
water in dry regions, we have to move it from wet ones. Mother
Nature produces about 45,000 gallons of fresh water each day
for every man, woman and child on this planet. The problem is
not supply. It is distribution. That is why we build dams and
aqueducts.
Fourth, we do not need to build dams and aqueducts if our
goal is simply to let the water run into the ocean. Water tends
to run downhill very well on its own. It does not need our help
to do so. We build dams and aqueducts to put surplus water to
beneficial human use before it runs into the ocean.
Now, if we agree on these self-evident water truths, then
why are we not approaching our policies in concert with those
truths?
In the 20th century, the Bureau of Reclamation built more
than 600 dams and reservoirs. Yet today two-thirds of them are
more than 50 years old, and with the exception of the Animas-La
Plata Project in southwestern Colorado, Reclamation has not
built a large multi-purpose dam in an entire generation.
We will hear that California's water system was built for
22 million people, but it is now struggling to serve 38
million. The last major water project in California over a
million acre-feet was the new Melones Dam in 1979. Yet with
water supplies strained to the breaking point, the left sees no
problem committing billions of gallons of precious water for
the care and amusement of the Delta smelt.
The status quo is simply not working, and the purpose of
today's hearing is to chart a path that leads us to a new era
of abundance.
We are fortunate to have Mr. Robert Shibatani before us
today. His ground breaking high elevation storage concept
avoids many of the obstacles to traditional on-stream
downstream storage projects.
There is no shortage of water and no shortage of economical
storage sites. Financing has never been a problem for projects
that produce abundant water. Experience shows us that such
projects pay for themselves many times over. What we suffer is
a super abundance of bureaucracy and a catastrophic shortage of
vision and political will. That is what has to change.
I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today as
we chart a course away from past policies of paralysis,
shortage, rationing and decline toward a new era of action,
abundance and prosperity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McClintock follows:]
Prepared Statement of The Honorable Tom McClintock, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Water and Power
The purpose of today's hearing is to identify the current
impediments to increasing water storage and hydropower capacity and to
look at new concepts on the construction of smaller high-elevation
dams.
During the first two thirds of the 20th century, local, State and
Federal Governments devoted themselves to the development of the vast
untapped water resources of the Western United States.
Yet, in the 1970s, this positive and forward looking policy was
abandoned in favor of increasingly restrictive environmental demands.
We have now lived under these policies for more than four decades,
and as a result face increasingly severe water and electricity
shortages, spiraling water and electricity prices, devastated farms and
a chronically declining economy.
It seems we have lost sight of five self-evident water truths:
First, More water is better than less water. That's about as self-
evident as it gets, yet we often hear that instead of producing new
storage, we should resign ourselves to chronic water shortages and
manage those shortages through increasingly severe conservation
measures. But conservation doesn't add more water or give you the
multi-purpose benefits that dams give communities
Second, Cheaper water is better than more expensive water. If we
agree on this, then it naturally follows that before we employ more
expensive sources of water like desalination and recycling, we should
first be sure we've exhausted the less expensive long-term and multi-
purpose alternatives like surface water storage projects.
Third, Water is unevenly distributed over both time and distance.
If we want to have plenty of water in dry periods we have to store it
in wet ones, and if we want to have plenty of water in dry regions we
have to move it from wet ones. Mother Nature produced 45,000 gallons of
fresh water each day for every man, woman and child on the planet. Our
problem is not supply--it is distribution. That is why we build dams
and aqueducts.
Fourth, we don't need to build dams and aqueducts if our goal is to
let our water run into the ocean. Water tends to run downhill very well
on its own and doesn't need our help to do so. We build dams and
aqueducts to put surplus water to beneficial human use before it runs
into the ocean.
Fifth, water is valuable, which allows the market to assign a price
to it that can account for its scarcity, availability, storage,
transportation, demand and substitution costs, and which in turn tells
us which projects are viable and which are wasteful.
If we agree on these five self-evident water truths, then why
aren't we proceeding on policies in concert with them?
In the 20th century, the Bureau of Reclamation built more than 600
dams and reservoirs. Yet today, two-thirds of them are more than 50
years old and with the exception of the Animas-La Plata Project in
southwestern Colorado, Reclamation has not built a large multi-purpose
dam in an entire generation. We will hear that California's water
system was built for 22 million people, but is now struggling to serve
38 million people. The last major Federal, multi-purpose water project
in California was the New Melones Dam in 1979. Yet with water supplies
strained to the breaking point, the left sees no problem committing
billions of gallons of precious water for the care and amusement of the
Delta Smelt.
The status quo is simply not working and the purpose of today's
hearing is to chart a path that leads us to a new era of abundance.
We are fortunate to have Mr. Robert Shibatani before us today. His
ground-breaking high-elevation storage concept avoids many of the
obstacles to traditional on-stream downstream storage projects.
There is no shortage of water and no shortage of economical storage
sites. Financing has never been a problem for projects that produce
abundant water and power--experience shows us that such projects pay
for themselves many times over. What we suffer is a superabundance of
bureaucracy and a catastrophic shortage of vision and political will.
That is what has to change.
I am looking forward to hearing from our witnesses today as we
chart a course away from past policies of paralysis, shortage,
rationing and decline toward a new era of action, abundance and
prosperity.
______
Mr. McClintock. And with what, I will yield to the ranking
member, my colleague from California, Mrs. Napolitano, for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
the witnesses for being with us today.
I have no objection to the hearing and its emphasis, but
the concern, however, remains that this hearing only looks at
one side of the coin. It only looks at new surface storage. It
does not look at groundwater storage, efficiencies, water
recycling, desalination, and of course, education.
This is our second hearing specifically on this issue since
last February. We have not looked at any of the other options.
If we are looking for solutions to our water problems and for
certainty for our communities, then we must all have full
consideration of all other options, including storage and other
alternatives, such as desalinization and recycling. We cannot
just prioritize the option that is the most expensive, least
efficient, takes longer to create, and it creates the most
environmental conflict.
There is no argument about the impact reclamation projects
have had on the West. Nearly 40 million people now depend on
water from reclamation projects, but the enormous fiscal and
environmental cost of these projects as well as the development
of prime locations for surface storage projects has led us to
look at different alternatives.
Our Majority will argue that environmental regulations have
hindered construction of new facilities in the West. The
biggest issue to dam construction is, of course, cost. How can
Congress guarantee these communities billions of Federal
appropriated dollars that are necessary for construction?
It is also important to know that $22 billion reclamation
is already spent on major water projects. Only 25 percent, or
5.2 billion, has been repaid to the Federal Government. Any
authorization of new storage projects will have to compete for
funding in Reclamation's limited budget, which is probably a
billion-some, a billion and a half. I cannot remember the exact
amount, and after the Federal debt associated with the water
projects.
The biggest impediment to dam construction is limited
Federal funding. New storage when appropriate is not
impossible, and California has added 5.6 million acre-feet in
new groundwater and surface water storage in the last 20 years.
This includes new water, surface water storage, like Contra
Costa's Water District Los Vaqueros Project, which had 60,000
acre-feet of construction completed last summer on time, on
budget, and no litigation.
In my own district, the Metropolitan Water District
completed Diamond Valley Reservoir in 2003, adding 800,000
acre-feet of capacity to our local water supply system, and
they did so with no Federal funding and in compliance with all
environmental regulations.
However, water managers have already realized they cannot
wait to compete for limited Federal dollars or the 20 to 30
years or so it will take to construct a facility. They need to
solve problems now. Water managers are looking for projects
that involve limited Federal involvement and can produce water,
wet water, on a faster scale.
This can also be seen in the 53 water recycling projects
Congress has authorized since 1992. Health facilities,
Reclamation has already helped health facilities facilitate the
conservation of 616,000 acre-feet of water from 2010 to 2012
with title 16 Water Smart grants and other conservation
programs.
Reclamation's current goal is to conserve accumulation
totals since 2009 of 790,000 acre-feet of water by the end of
2014. The threat to our water supply is real. We have many
challenges like climate change, decreased snow pack, increased
demand and development of alternative water, intensive fuels
like oil shale. Not all of the water needs in the West can or
should be met by new dams or bigger dams. New storage is not
always the right answer or the only answer, and the same can be
said of water recycling or desalinization.
What works for one community may not work for others, and
we must select the most effective and affordable solution. To
know the right solution for the community is to have all
options on the table, and looking at surface storage does not
provide our water managers with the baseline data they need to
conserve for all our communities.
And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to introduce for the record
the ``Hydrologist Urges Underground Water Storage'' in the
Modesto Bees, October 25.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
[The Modesto Bees article ``Hydrologist Urges Underground
Water Storage'' follows:]
[From the Medesto Bee, October 25, 2013]
Hydrogeologist Urges Underground Storage of Water
(By Garth Stapley)
``Groundwater, Wealth, Contentment, Health'' read words
superimposed onto a picture of Modesto's beloved arch, in a slide
splashed on a huge lecture-hall screen. It was the last in Friday's
presentation by an expert suggesting how Modesto and Turlock might
solve emerging problems of too much pumping.
``Modesto, consider the possibilities,'' hydrogeologist Chris
Petersen said as he clicked to the clever slide, drawing laughter from
the standing-room-only crowd of about 300 crammed into a Modesto Junior
College auditorium.
Petersen, who was raised in Ripon and attended MJC for 3 years
before going on to graduate degrees and gaining a reputation for water
expertise, said this area could learn much from others that have
gathered stakeholders, approached State government for grant money and
formed cooperative water districts. He focused on those that inject and
store water below the Earth's surface, a fairly untried strategy in
these parts.
``I believe we here in Modesto are pretty darned smart and can
figure this out and can be an example to the rest of the world,''
Petersen said.
The cost of underground storage isn't as bad as people might think,
he said: as little as $110 per year for an acre-foot of water, or about
what two small families use in a year. That's compared with as much as
$1,000 per acre-foot for above-ground reservoirs, or $2,000 for
desalinization--taking salt out of sea water, he said. ``It's not that
bad,'' Petersen concluded. ``This is the way to go.''
The cost of doing nothing is worse: Wells continue to go dry--as
many already have in the Denair area--water quality degrades, farmers
quit growing and lawsuits mount.
``You're going to be fighting your neighbor and making the lawyers
rich. Who wants to do that?'' Petersen said. ``Either come together and
work together and solve it yourselves--go to the State and ask for
money; they'll willingly give it to you--or you do nothing and the
State will step in and take control.''
He said he was ``stunned'' that so many would give up Friday night
social activities to hear him speak about a subject that many consider
dry. In his 26 years as a water expert, he never had appeared before a
crowd so large, he said.
About half of those in Friday's audience were students, judging by
a show of hands, and maybe a third were property owners concerned for
their wells. They could be jeopardized by neighbors' pumps, which can
suck from aquifers laterally without anyone seeing it from the surface.
Growers have sunk gigantic wells to nourish millions of new almond
trees on previously marginal rangeland lining the east side of the
Valley. That area does not seem able to replenish its groundwater
basins, compared with that under the Modesto area, which relieved
aquifer stress after the city quit pumping so much when its canal water
treatment plant began operating in the mid-1990s.
Other regions are much worse off than this, Petersen said, pointing
to San Joaquin County, the region from Merced to Bakersfield, and
India.
In a question-and-answer period after Petersen's slide show,
Oakdale Irrigation District board member Frank Clark challenged his
principal suggestion for recharging aquifers, asking why anyone would
want to give wealthy nut investors even more to pump. ``It's just
corporate greed,'' Clark said. "They're going to keep pumping more and
more, and you can't put water in the ground fast enough to compensate
for them pulling it out."
______
Mrs. Napolitano. And I will be submitting other information
for the record in regard to the storage, the Bureau studies,
the 17 programs they have, where they are at, and the funding
they have, who is online, who is not online.
Mr. McClintock. Without objection.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you. With that I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Napolitano follows:]
Prepared Statement of the Honorable Grace F. Napolitano, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Water and Power
Thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you for the witnesses for being
here today.
I have no objection to this hearing and its emphasis. My concern,
however, is that this hearing only looks at one side of the coin-it
only looks at new surface storage. It does not look at groundwater
storage, efficiencies, water recycling or desalination. This is our
second hearing specifically on this issue since last February, and we
still have not looked at all of our other options.
If we are looking for solutions to our water problems and for
certainty for our communities, then we must have a full consideration
of all other options--including storage or other alternatives like
water recycling. We cannot just prioritize the option that is the most
expensive, least efficient, and creates the most environmental
conflict.
There is no argument about the impact Reclamation projects have had
on the West. Nearly 40 million people now depend on water from
Reclamation projects. But the enormous fiscal and environmental cost of
these projects, as well as the development of prime locations for
surface storage projects, has led us to look at different alternatives.
The majority will argue that environmental regulations have
hindered construction of new facilities in the West. The biggest issue
to dam construction is cost. How can Congress guarantee these
communities the billions of Federal appropriated dollars that is
necessary for construction?
It is also important to note that of the $22 billion Reclamation
has already spent on major water projects--only 25 percent or $5.2
billion has been repaid to the Federal Government.
Any authorization of new storage projects will have to compete for
funding in Reclamation's limited budget AND add to the Federal debt
associated with water projects.
the biggest impediment to dam construction is limited federal funding
New storage when appropriate is not impossible, and California has
added 5.6 million acre-feet in new groundwater and surface water
storage in the last 20 years.
This includes new surface water storage, like Contra Costa Water
District's Los Vaqueros Project. The Los Vaqueros' 60,000 acre-feet
construction was completed last summer, on time, on budget and no
litigation. In my district, the Metropolitan Water District completed
the Diamond Valley Reservoir in 2003, adding 800,000 acre-feet of
capacity to our local water supply system. They did so with NO Federal
funding and in compliance with all environmental regulations.
However, water managers have already realized that they cannot wait
to compete for the limited Federal dollars or the 10, 20, or 30 years
it will take to construct a facility. They need to solve their problems
now.
Water managers are looking for projects that involve limited
Federal involvement and can produce water on a faster scale. This can
also be seen in the 53 water recycling projects Congress has authorized
since 1992. This can also be seen in the leveraging of Federal funds
through the WaterSMART program.
The threat to our water supply is real. We have many challenges
like climate change, decreased snowpack, increased demand and the
development of alternative water intensive fuels like Oil Shale. Not
all of the water needs in the west can or should be met by new dams or
bigger dams. New storage is not always the right answer, and the same
can be said of water recycling or desalination. What works for one
community may not work for others, and we must select the most
effective AND affordable solution.
To know the right solution for the community is to have all the
options on the table. Looking at just surface storage does not provide
our water managers with the baseline data they need to serve our
communities.
______
Mr. McClintock. The Chair is now pleased to recognize the
Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, The Honorable Doc
Hastings of Washington.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DOC HASTINGS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman for holding
this hearing, and thank you for the courtesy of allowing me to
make a statement.
I believe that America needs an ``all of the above'' water
supply strategy. Today's hearing, I think, is a step in the
right direction. Water storage has been the key to economic
prosperity and a way of life in my Central Washington District,
which is home to two large Federal water projects and an
integral part of the Columbia River power system.
Together these two projects irrigate more than a million
acres of farmlands, make possible a vital navigation link for
millions of tons of grains and commodities annually. It
provides numerous recreation and flood control benefits, and
these projects, not wholly within my district, but these
projects provide over 21 billion kilowatt hours of carbon-free,
renewable hydroelectric power to customers throughout the
Pacific Northwest.
Before these projects were constructed, this area was an
arid desert where there was little but tumbleweeds and
sagebrush. Today it is one of the most productive and diverse
agriculture areas in the world. As we will hear later today,
Yakima County in my district is one of the top agricultural
areas in the Nation, ranking 12th nationally in total value of
agriculture products sold.
Without a doubt, this is possible because a prior
generation had the vision of capturing spring runoff to deliver
water during dry times. Surface storage continues to have
lasting and positive impacts not only in my Central Washington
District, but to the country in general. But these projects are
under constant assault by litigation and other pressures to
change their operations to other purposes.
I will continue to oppose these policies that change
existing projects and their historical mission, but, Mr.
Chairman, what is obvious is that it is necessary for us to
build more surface storage if we want to maintain our
prosperity. I am aware of those who say that conservation is
the only way to produce more water. Conservation can and should
play a role. However, it alone is not the answer.
After all, you cannot conserve water that has already been
lost to the ocean, and you cannot conserve water that does not
exist.
We will hear testimony today, particularly from Mr. Derek
Sandison of the Washington State Department of Ecology, that
conservation has its limits and that more storage is necessary
to account for lost water and potentially drier times.
And we will also hear that Federal rules and regulations
make any such individual projects' costs prohibitive and
sometimes infeasible. Amidst the painfully long permitting
process and the uncertainty associated with it, most of these
projects and the investments that they attract are negatively
compromised before they can even get off the ground. This is a
paradigm that must change because the supply and demand numbers
simply do not add up.
Again, in the Yakima River Basin alone over 450,000 acre-
feet of additional storage is needed for multiple human and
species needs. This is not a new discovery. Yakima has been in
need of additional water storage for many decades, and
achieving this goal has been and is a top priority of mine. Yet
I am concerned that our existing Federal regulatory framework
may not allow this to happen and that without action drought
and dry years would again bring economically devastating
rationing of water supplies.
Conservation and construction of storage must go hand in
hand for this to work. Real credit, again, goes to Mr. Sandison
and the local group of all stripes who came together in the
working group on the Yakima Basin, and they have stayed at the
table to seek a truly collaborative approach to solving
Yakima's waters needs. Real demonstrable progress has already
been made and while it will take time, patience and creativity
to achieve, building new storage is absolutely critical.
It is this generation's turn to recognize our Nation's
growing water needs and to take steps to meet it. For us to
have another water supply renaissance, we must embrace new or
expanded storage so we can truly have ``all of the above''
water supply strategy well into the future.
We have the power to make that happen, and we will push
legislative reforms to bring regulations back to reality.
Once again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for having this
hearing, and I look forward to hearing what the witnesses have
to say, and I will yield back my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Hastings follows:]
Prepared Statement The Honorable Doc Hastings, a Representative in
Congress From the State of Washington
Thank you, Chairman McClintock, for holding this important hearing
today. I firmly believe that America needs an ``all-of-the above''
water supply strategy. Today's hearing is a step in that direction.
Water storage has been the key to economic prosperity and a way of
life in my Central Washington District, which is home to two large
Federal water projects and the Columbia River power system. Together,
these two projects irrigate more than a million acres of farmland, make
possible a vital navigation link for millions of tons of grain and
commodities annually, provide numerous recreation and flood control
benefits and provide over 21 billion kilowatt hours of carbon-free,
renewable hydroelectric power to customers in the Pacific Northwest.
Before these projects were constructed, this area was an arid
desert where little but tumbleweeds would thrive. Today, it is one of
the most productive and diverse agricultural areas in the world. As we
will hear later today, Yakima County is one of the top agricultural
areas in the Nation, ranking 12th nationally in the total value of
agricultural products sold. Without a doubt, this is possible because a
prior generation had the vision of capturing spring runoff to deliver
water during dry times.
Surface storage continues to have lasting and positive impacts not
only in Central Washington but to the country in general. Yet, these
projects are under constant assault by litigation and other pressures
to change their operations to other purposes. I will continue to oppose
these policies that change existing projects and their historical
mission. What is obvious is that it is necessary for us to build more
surface storage if we want to maintain our prosperity.
I'm aware of those who say that conservation is the only way to
produce more water. Conservation can and should play a role; however,
it alone is not the answer. After all, you cannot conserve water that
has already been lost to the ocean or simply doesn't exist.
We will hear testimony today--particularly from Mr. Derek Sandison,
from the Washington Department of Ecology--that conservation has its
limits and that more storage is necessary to account for lost water and
potentially drier times. Yet, we will also hear that Federal rules and
regulations make many such individual projects cost prohibitive and
infeasible. Amidst the painfully long permitting process and the
uncertainty associated with it, most of these projects and investment
interest are negatively compromised before they even get off the
ground.
This is a paradigm that must change because the supply and demand
numbers simply don't add up. In the Yakima River Basin alone in my
district, over 450,000 acre feet of additional water storage capacity
is needed for multiple human and species needs.
This is not some new discovery. Yakima has been in need of
additional water storage for many decades, and achieving this goal is a
top priority of mine.
Yet, I am concerned that our existing Federal regulatory framework
may not allow this to happen and that without action, drought and dry
water years could again bring economically devastating rationing of
water supplies.
Conservation and construction of storage must go hand-in-hand for
this to work. Real credit is owed to Mr. Sandison and the many local
partners of all stripes who came to the Working Group table--and have
stayed at the table--to seek a truly collaborative approach to solving
Yakima's water needs. Real, demonstrable progress has already been made
and while it will take time, patience and creativity to achieve,
building new storage is absolutely critical.
It's this generation's turn to recognize our Nation's growing water
needs and to take steps to meet it. For us to have another water supply
renaissance, we must embrace new or expanded storage so that we can a
truly have an all of the above water supply strategy well into the
future. We have the power to make that happen and we will push
legislative reforms to bring regulations back to reality.
In closing, I again want to thank Mr. Sandison and other witnesses
for their leadership and for being here today. You are the ones on the
ground who deal with water supply uncertainty every day. Your stories
and needs will help guide this committee in bringing about resolution
to these pressing issues.
______
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
The Chair is now pleased to recognize the Ranking Member of
the House Natural Resources Committee, Mr. DeFazio for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. PETER A. DeFAZIO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman, and I thank the full
committee Chairman for his statement.
This is another area where I think there are substantial
grounds for agreement between the majority and the minority in
terms of our objectives. But perhaps the path there that we
envision is maybe a little more complicated, maybe a lot less
expensive, and something that has not been talked about much.
I mean, we are living off of a 19th and 20th century
infrastructure as relates to water storage in the Western
United States for the most part. There are areas where we have
just ditch systems that can be improved at a very low cost and
deliver additional water.
There are other innovative things that could be done. What
we need is to take a really comprehensive look at all the
factors that are playing in here. We have a system that is in
places deteriorated and needs restoration and repair. We have
some that needs upgrading. There certainly are places where we
could look at new infrastructure.
The major impediment, however, is the same impediment that
we have on roads, bridges, highways, and transit, the same
impediment that we have on the Corps of Engineers' projects
across the United States of America, and that is we are not
investing in America's infrastructure the way our competitor
nations are around the world. We are simply not doing that.
I have spent a lot of time on this, particularly on the
Transportation Committee, but it applies over here, too. We are
not investing as has been pointed out here in water
infrastructure. We need to make a commitment, and we need to
determine that there are investments, and there are simple
expenditures of government funds. We do not discriminate in
that way, and in fact, we have tied our hands even further by
saying, ``Well, we cannot have any of those earmarks.''
That means if you want to deal with a project in a State, a
new irrigation project, a storage project, you are probably
going to get hung up by the rules.
So, we have to take an approach that is, I think, more
comprehensive, look at changes in population, look at changes
in the weather, look at new technologies that are out there or
improvements that are out there for the existing system; how
much can be gained then; what is the cost-benefit analysis that
relates there, and then, yes, we can look at additional storage
as needed.
But massive new storage projects, particularly storage
projects that would employ 20th century engineering techniques,
are not the long-term solution to the western problems. We are
looking at major problems even in the Northwest where people
make jokes about our rainfall on the west side, docks on the
east side where they don't get that much rain, but even there
we're seeing major changes in patterns that are going to
overwhelm or under-whelm our existing system potentially
because of early snow melt, patterns in the last few years of
very heavy rains and warm weather well into the winter season
which leaves less snow pack, which leads to higher flows, new
challenges to the system, so the major systems like the
Columbia Basin system to the Willamette system and others, and
we simply need to take a comprehensive approach.
I am pleased we are having this hearing here today, and I
believe at least one witness, I think, maybe two will touch a
bit on those themes.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mrs. Napolitano. Mr. Chairman, would you yield?
Mr. DeFazio. Yes, certainly I would yield.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
And you talk about it, and that is why I believe we need to
look at the infrastructure because some statistics prove that
we lose about something like 22 percent of the actual water to
water main breaks, and that's investment in infrastructure that
is aging.
So you are right. We need to do a very comprehensive look
at it. So hopefully we will be working on that.
Thank you, and I yield.
Mr. DeFazio. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. McClintock. The gentleman yields back.
The gentleman from Colorado.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. SCOTT R. TIPTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Mr. Tipton. Thank you, Chairman McClintock, for convening
today's hearing to pursue innovative ways to be able to promote
new water storage while also examining different obstacles that
are impeding that construction.
Last month a deadly storm struck my home State of Colorado
causing unprecedented lethal flooding that damaged over 16,000
homes, destroyed hundreds of local businesses. My heart, as
does everyone, goes out to all the families and business owners
who are still struggling to be able to recover from this tragic
event.
But as the Chairman noted, with the exception of the
Animas-La Plata Project in southwest Colorado, the Bureau of
Reclamation has not built any new large multi-purpose dams or
reservoirs over the last generation. Preventing all the damage
from a storm of this magnitude in Colorado is impossible.
However, our Nation's failure to develop new surface storage
projects only continues to amplify the devastating results of
storms like this one.
Increasing water storage is critical. It is the natural
cycle of rivers in the West, which is one of boom and bust,
surplus and drought. Streamlining the regulatory permitting
process is just one way to be able to reduce the ills
associated with this cycle and can help better prepare those
communities that rely on snow pack to support local economies.
Colorado is a headwater State, and as the water information
program in southwest Colorado reports, more than 10 million
acre-feet of water flows out of Colorado watersheds annually.
Thanks to the foresight of previous generations, water storage
infrastructure was built throughout the West to be able to
capture this vital resource. This infrastructure helped reduce
the threat of catastrophic flooding and provided a secure and
stable source of water.
Many western cities have grown and prospered in part thanks
to that water that originates in Colorado. Without the ability
to be able to store water that falls on Colorado's slopes, the
West as we know it would not exist. The Colorado Water
Conservation Board has estimated by the year 2050, Colorado
will need an additional 1 million acre-feet of water to be able
to meet projected demands. This figure accounts for water saved
through conservation.
But water conservation is something all westerners know and
the importance of it. Conservation is not enough. New water
storage will play a role in meeting future demand and can also
be utilized to be able to meet environment and species
protection goals, support our farm and ranch communities, and
ensure recreational opportunities that are consistent and
address the reducing of destruction by wildfires as well as
caused by drought conditions.
Unfortunately, we have many groups that have failed to
recognize the potential environmental benefits of increased
storage, and they have held up development of new projects with
endless litigation and a variety of other tactics. Rather than
increasing storage capacity, some of these groups have instead
focused on efforts to redistribute water from rural to urban
areas.
This is frightening not only from the perspective of water
rights, but in terms of our Nation's food supply. This problem
is exacerbated by the fact that Colorado farmers and ranchers
have been enticed to sell over 190,000 acre-feet of water from
municipal and industrial use since 1987.
To make matters worse, the Greeley Tribune recently
reported that in most years many of Colorado's farmers lease
extra water from neighboring cities to maximize production, but
this year cities concerned with refilling their depleted
reservoirs leased far less water than normal to farmers,
forcing some crop growers to plant less acres or plant crops
that require less water.
The growing West needs new water projects, and the Federal
Government should be fostering a regulatory environment that
encourages new surface storage production rather than stifling
these efforts. Unfortunately, in too many instances, this is
not the case. The Grande-Mace Water Conservancy District had
planned to rehabilitate the breached reservoirs in the fall of
2008, but cited various regulations as the reasons preventing
them from moving forward on these projects.
Even more troubling is an example from 2011 where the
Bureau of Reclamation sent nearly $30,000 in cash for one
survey to entice responders to go on record supporting the
physical removal of four dams in California and Oregon. My hope
is that today's oversight hearing will shine a light on some of
the obstacles that are preventing the construction of new
Federal and non-Federal water storage projects, as well as
explore some innovative options, some technologies that will
increase the capacity.
Water is one of the most important natural resources in
Colorado and a main driver of economic growth. Prudent supply
management and the ability to be able to store much needed
water will allow communities to support jobs that depend on the
availability of water to protect food security, control
flooding, ensure continued recreational opportunities, provide
water for the development of hydropower, and meet environmental
protection needs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding today's important
hearing, and I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
The Chair is pleased to recognize Mr. Costa of California
for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JIM COSTA, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Chairman McClintock and
Ranking Member Napolitano for holding this hearing.
Title, road map for increasing our water and hydropower
supplies, the need for new and expanded multi-purpose surface
facilities. I concur on all of the above, but that is, I think,
part of the story. The other part is using all of the water
tools that are in our water management toolbox.
And I think we made this overly complicated. Frankly, we
know that particularly in the West, but certainly throughout
the world, the climate is changing, and reservoirs that were
based upon 100-year record of recordkeeping with snow packs
receding, that those reservoirs have to be operated differently
than they were in the past.
And we know that we are going to need to capture additional
water because when we do have that additional rainfall, we need
to try to make sure that we can conserve it not only for the
existing use, but for conjunctive use to make groundwater banks
work because you can't inject that water in groundwater banks
unless you have the surface supply to keep it when you get the
rain.
And so I really believe that we're kind of going about this
all wrong in the sense that we've all got our favorite
projects. I don't care if they're in California or if they're
in Colorado or Washington. You go on, you know. You have your
list of favorite projects. They are part of many of our talking
points.
However, the fact is that we know that we have an existing
shortfall in Western States as we have around the world. We
ought to be able to come to some kind of conclusion as to what
that annual shortfall is in terms of acre-feet, and we ought to
look at the next long-term efforts over the next 20 or 40 years
as to what the additional need is notwithstanding the
implementation of conservation, groundwater baking, water
transfers, desalinization. All of these are part of the tools
that we have to use.
And then we ought to have one underlying guide that we all
subscribe to that is a good, conservative principle. What is
it? It is what is the most cost effective because
notwithstanding your favorite project or my favorite project,
at the end of the day, this water costs more than it did when
our parents and our grandparents developed the projects that
we're living off of today.
Yes, the new costs will have to be blended with the
existing old costs. That makes it more financially feasible,
and that is what we ought to be doing. So it seems to me that
in California, and I will be California-centric for a moment,
we have 38 million people. We have a water system designed for
20 million people. By the year 2030, we are going to have 50
million people.
If we are going to continue to economically be successful
in California, we are going to have to grow our water supply by
using all the water tools in that water toolbox, and we need to
do it in the most cost effective way possible. So we use
conservation. We use desalinization. We use groundwater
banking, and yes, we do additional reservoir surface supplies.
Raising Shasta is a good project. Temperance Flat I think has
merit. The States looking at site's reservoir is a potential,
and, yes, we could expand Los Vasqueros a second time. All of
those reservoir surface storage projects have multiple
benefits.
The trick, of course, is how you pay for them, and to that
end Senator Feinstein and I have asked the Bureau of
Reclamation to the extent that they're involved in High Shasta
and Temperance Flat to expedite studies that have been going on
for way too long. We need to get the feasibility studies
complete so we can then determine the cost feasibility and
whatever other potential challenges we face.
I mean, obviously, a number of these projects have
environmental opposition, and yes, that gets to the regulatory
aspect because, frankly, the Endangered Species Act passed
under and was signed into law by a good Republican
administration, I think, has gone in the directions that many
of us would not like to see it today. Ever since Tennessee
Valley Authority v. Yale, we have aspects of the Endangered
Species Act that I think have been used in ways that are
counterproductive.
Therefore, we need to look at how we deal with that. In
California, we have a real challenge there, but I will continue
to support the Governor in his efforts with the Bay Delta
Conservation Plan that includes adding additional surface
storage along with using the other water management tools in
our water toolbox.
If we are going to agree on what our deficits are, whether
it is in California and whether in other Western States, and
what we need to add in terms of acre-feet, and then figure out
what is the most cost effective to develop that additional
water supply, I mean, wet water is wet water, and frankly, the
water that takes us to a population of 50 million people for
our urban population to maintain our agriculture economy and to
deal with the environmental issues is what I support.
Thank you very much for listening to me.
Mr. McClintock. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Valadao of
California.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. DAVID G. VALADAO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening this subcommittee
today to discuss the important issue of water storage and for
your continued leadership on this subject.
My congressional district includes some of the most
productive and diverse farmland in our Nation. We are proud of
our agriculture heritage and the crops we produce, but we know
that we would not be where we are today without previous
generations' decisions to invest in water infrastructure.
Reservoirs and dams play an important role by capturing
water in wet years, protecting families from flooding and
giving water managers the ability to provide a regular flow of
water in times of drought.
In addition, dams and reservoirs provide nearly 15 percent
of all electricity in our home State of California and account
for well over half of all renewable energy produced nationwide.
Unfortunately, the investments in water storage made by
previous generations have not continued into the modern day.
Today over two-thirds of all Bureau of Reclamation facilities
are over 50 years old. In my home State, the Central Valley
Project, designed to provide critical water delivery for 22
million families and farmers, is now stretched thin, and the
same system now serves over 38 million individuals.
Restricted by heavy-handed regulation and litigated by
environmental activists who have turned suing the government
into a multi-million dollar taxpayer funded industry, our
Nation's water systems have failed to keep up with today's
demands. Today farmers and families across the district are
feeling the real impacts of restricted infrastructure growth.
The most unfortunate part of the recent water shortages is
that it does not have to be this way. It is not that we are a
society that uses too much water or that we have become more
efficient. Rather, the investment in our water infrastructure
has failed to keep pace with our growing population and
economy.
In 2009, Federal regulations magnified the impacts of the
drought to leave Central Valley Project farmers with a 10
percent water allocation. As a result, thousands of acres of
farmland were fallow and more than a billion in income and
20,000 jobs in the region were lost. The impacts are still
being felt today.
This year, because of onerous regulation under the
Endangered Species Act, over 800,000 acre-feet of water was
allowed to flow out to the sea rather than be delivered to
farmers and families in my district who need it most. Today
water shortages and environmental red tape are forcing
California farmers to deal with 20 percent of their water
allocation.
Next year, because of the same bureaucratic overreach,
farmers--and this very well may be a 0 percent year for us, for
individuals, economies and civilizations--the same truths hold
true. Without water you die.
Although there are many factors that contributed to the
2000 water crisis, one thing is clear. The ability to store
more water in wet years could have guarded against the 2009
crisis and the new one we are facing in 2014. Water storage
provides many benefits, but the most important benefit it
provides is the assurance that when times are dry, water will
be there for families, to water crops, to protect jobs, and to
continue to fuel our economy.
We must invest in our water infrastructure today so we can
be assured for our tomorrow. I thank the Chairman for this
opportunity to be here to discuss this important water topic.
Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Huffman of California.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. JARED HUFFMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I look forward very much to this discussion today, and in
terms of my opening remarks, I guess I want to respectfully
push back a little bit against the idea that it is somehow
environmental regulations or environmental standards that are
holding up the possibility of constructing lots of new dams.
I am not aware of a single dam, at least in California,
maybe throughout the West, that actually has the financing in
place to happen and is being held up because of environmental
requirements. If somebody here today knows of such a project, I
would love to know that.
I am aware of a lot of new dam proposals that are being
held up because of feasibility studies and the basic
requirement that beneficiaries find a way that they can
actually pay for these things before we start to build them.
That is common sense, and that is sort of the law of reality
and financing. That is not any particular environmental
standard.
The fact is the most cost effective dams in California and
in other parts of this country were built a long time ago. The
remaining dam sites that are under consideration are far more
expensive and far less productive because the biggest dam in
the world doesn't make it rain or snow anymore. You are talking
about managing the same increment of water.
There was a statement made at the outset that conservation
does not add more water. I think if we had a few of the water
managers from southern California and other parts of California
here today, they would tell you that is absolutely false. There
are so many conservation strategies that we have pioneered in
recent decades that do produce more water.
We need to hear that perspective. We need to hear how
evaporative losses and other losses have been dramatically
reduced by pioneering conservation strategies far cheaper, by
the way, than the tremendous price tag of building new surface
storage.
We need to hear how transmission losses and efficiencies in
the actual water infrastructure, as the Ranking Member likes to
talk about, can dramatically increase the amount of available
water, wet water for beneficial uses throughout the system.
It is sort of assumed and was assumed in the opening that
cheaper water is better than more expensive; therefore, we
should be moving to surface storage before recycling and
desalination. Well, there is a reason why new dams are
generally not being constructed. There are some exceptions. Los
Angeles and others have found a way to find the money, and they
have been able to move forward with their surface storage, but
there is a reason why you are seeing more recycling and
desalination starting to happen. That is because people are
willing to pay for them.
These are not projects that are carrying with them huge
Federal subsidies like the kind of new surface storage projects
that we like to talk about in these discussions. These are
projects that San Diego and other places have decided are
important enough to them that they are willing to actually pony
up their own money and make them happen.
The statement that the last major surface storage in
California was New Melones in 1979 is not correct. That was the
last Bureau of Reclamation Central Valley Project surface
storage, but as the Ranking Member pointed out, there have been
huge new surface storage projects that have come on line in
California, but again, the secret to making them happen is that
people did not put their hand out and ask for huge Federal
subsidies. They actually found beneficiaries that were willing
to pay for those projects, and guess what. The environmental
laws did not stop them. They actually happened: Los Vaqueros,
Diamond Valley. There are lots of other local surface storage
projects that they have been able to find a way to actually
make happen.
So it is really important, I think, as we move forward with
this discussion to sort of tease out the religion of surface
storage from the actual facts on the ground. It would be nice
to hear from more water managers that have actually found ways
to build these projects because there is another story to be
told here, and there is all sorts of water that we can be
making available for all the beneficial uses that I know we all
care about if we focus on creative strategies and the realities
and the finances of water management instead of bringing out
the old dogma about environmental laws and new dams being
something that would happen in the absence of the Endangered
Special Act.
So I look forward to our discussion, and I will try to
bring it back to those realities whenever I can.
Mr. McClintock. I think we will now hear from our panel of
witnesses. Each witness' written testimony will appear in the
hearing record. So I would ask that you keep your oral
statements to 5 minutes.
The timing light is pretty simple. Yellow means you have 1
minute left. Red means stop, and that is all you need to know
about the timers. With that I am pleased to recognize Mr.
Robert Shibatani. He is the CEO and Principal Hydrologist of
the Shibatani Group from Sacramento California. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT SHIBATANI, CEO AND PRINCIPAL HYDROLOGIST,
THE SHIBATANI GROUP, INC.
Mr. Shibatani. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee.
After what appears to be several decades of relative
idleness, if you want to put it that way, water managers, water
practitioners across the Nation are now realizing that we are
embarking upon a new era of dam and reservoir revitalization
and one that is quite different than what we experienced in the
past. I would like to spend a few moments with all of you this
afternoon talking about one specific aspect of that discussion/
debate, and that is related to some of the opportunities
emerging related to high elevation and new storage.
Let me perhaps begin by defining what that is. High
elevation storage in California represents new facilities above
existing State, Federal and local agency impoundments that
currently ring or circle the Central Valley and what we
operationally label as terminal or rim reservoirs.
So given their location, there are a number of
distinguishing factors that make these facilities quite
different than their historic counterpart. For one, they are at
high elevation, which means that they are at the source area of
both snow accumulation and the potential effects of climatic
forcings brought upon by climate change, and we are observing
some of those effects today.
Number two, because of their remote location, some of the
potential population displacement risks are largely
marginalized relative to other facilities.
Number three, the construction related effects associated
with their development, things such as sensitive receptors to
such things as noise, air quality, traffic disruptions,
possibly even land use conflicts, are largely marginalized
relative to reservoir sites more closely situated near high
population centers.
Fourth and finally, their distal proximity to the
downstream outflow locations, either the Pacific Ocean or some
estuary--California is a good example, the Bay Delta--along
with the interceding reservoirs between them in the Pacific
Ocean largely mean high elevation storage facilities are
largely immune or unaffected by downstream delta water quality
requirements.
Now, functionally, hydrologically, capturing new upstream
precipitation provides a downstream flood control benefit at
the point source of runoff generation. So it is the first line
of defense for flood control, very, very different from levy
management, which is the last line of defense for flood
control.
Now, the additional storage developed in these upstream
reservoirs also provides a number of environmental benefits,
such things as habitat protection flows, fish attraction flows
for journeying adult spotters, pulse flows or downstream water
quality control, including estuaries that have salinity as a
major issue. And the last issue, of course, is dilution
potential for the many thousands of NPDES and waste discharge
requirements that are currently in existence today.
Significantly, high elevation storage also provides
operational flexibility for those jurisdictions that enjoy
joint Federal water project operations, local and regional
water supply sustainability, and the support for a very robust
and active water transfer market.
From an endangered species perspective, high elevation
storage provides additional cold water pool reservoir assets
that are very, very important for in-stream thermal management.
New dams and new reservoirs, as we all know, there are many
emerging studies that are confirming that those facilities
provide an effective adaptation to the effects of climatic
change brought about by either warming temperatures or a change
of precipitation form.
So such things as a shifted hydrograph in upstream
watersheds, things such as annual yield differentials, things
such as extreme event probabilities associated with climatic
forcings are all each accommodated through new high elevation
storage.
Now, I get the question asked quite frequently whether new
dams are even possible in this contemporary context, and I
usually answer that query with a flip question in return, and I
approach this from a hydrologic perspective only because that
is the limitation of my expertise. So I ask the prescient
question: does a watershed experience at any time of the year
uncontrolled releases (a) or surplus flows (b) during any given
water year?
Typically, in the Western States, in the Mountain States,
that answer is yes. That uncaptured flow is the water that I
want to serve as a foundational basis for new water storage
development across the Western States.
Now, Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by saying that there are
a number of challenges that lay ahead of us clearly. Many of
them in my view are regulatory driven, and in my experience in
the work that I have done on water supply development for the
last 30 years, there has never been a more pressing and
prescient time for new storage development in the United States
today.
There are a number of growing concerns, demands associated
with new supply security, water quality control, including
protection from saline intrusion associated with sea level
rise. All of these, Mr. Chairman, can be accommodated by new
high elevation storage potential adaptations across the Western
and Mountain States.
With that I want to thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Shibatani follows:]
Prepared Statement of Robert Shibatani, CEO and Principal Hydrologist,
The Shibatani Group, Inc., Sacramento, California
Good morning Mr. Chairman; distinguished members of the
subcommittee.
I want to thank you for the opportunity of appearing before you
today. I appreciate your indulgence in allowing me to share with you
what I feel are prescient opportunities in improving U.S. water supply
security and resiliency. These same opportunities also allow us to
address the chronic need to improve ecosystem functionality and species
recovery, and reassess the persistent dichotomy between long-standing
flood control management and water supply development. The
opportunities I speak of are related to new water storage and, in
particular, high elevation storage.
Such facilities in my view, can serve as an effective new platform
to directly meet the challenges posed by a growing population, refocus
attention on retaining a larger portion of a valuable public trust
resource for a wide variety of beneficial uses, encourage a broader
commitment to improving the Nation's aging water infrastructure, and
provide direct climate change adaptation. Ensuring water security can
provide a vital foundational basis for robust national economic
recovery.
By way of brief background, I am physical hydrologist and current
CEO of The Shibatani Group, an international climate change hydrology,
water governance, and water resources development advisory firm based
in Sacramento, California. I have been working exclusively in the
fields of hydrologic research and applied water resources management
consulting for 30 years. While my technical specialties are in snow
hydrology and climate change watershed functionality, my applied
specialties are in new water storage and water supply development.
The focus of my testimony this afternoon centers on the current new
era in dam/reservoir revitalization, particularly those elements
associated with what I term high elevation storage, and some of the
factors that are making this contemporary era of dam/reservoir planning
quite different than those of past eras. I draw upon examples from
California, but the principles are consistent wherever unattenuated
surplus flows exist and, particularly, under climate change, to snow
dominated watersheds.
To be sure, new dams and reservoirs evoke strong emotions and in
many ways represent an identifiable icon in the long-standing polarity
between environmental and development interests. Yet, the functional
basis for this polarity is diminishing even if perhaps the rhetoric is
not.
Changing hydrologic conditions in many of our Nation's watersheds
are compelling water managers to look at long-term water management
quite differently than they ever have before.
To begin my testimony, let me start by defining high elevation
storage. High elevation storage includes primarily, those new on-stream
dams and reservoir sites above existing or terminal reservoirs. So,
taking the expansive Central Valley of California as an example, it
includes new reservoirs that would be constructed above the existing
Federal, State, and local agency impoundments that circle the Central
Valley, and are known as the ``terminal'' or ``rim'' reservoirs.
Given their location, there are numerous factors that distinguish
these types of reservoirs from others and provide certain advantages
relative to their historic counterparts. They are located at high
elevation and so, are at the source areas of snow accumulation and the
areas where the effects of climatic forcings are first being observed.
They are typically in remote areas so population displacement risks are
minimized. Moreover, typical construction-related effects such as
sensitive receptors to noise, air quality, traffic disruptions, and
land use conflicts are significantly reduced, relative to those closer
to more populated areas. Their proximity to the Delta and the presence
of intervening reservoirs means that they are largely unaffected by the
regulatory impositions for Delta water quality.
Hydrologically, their location above existing terminal reservoirs
provides several benefits. By capturing precipitation at its upstream
source, downstream flood protection is addressed at the point of runoff
generation. Retaining additional water in high elevation upstream areas
provides relaxation of the flood encroachment rules in the downstream
terminal reservoirs. This of course has positive implications to water
supply and other later season environmental water uses since the
terminal reservoirs would not have to be drawn down as far during the
winter season as they are now. The risk of non-refill, therefore, is
reduced relative to the size of the new reservoir and overall annual
yield of the watershed.
To be candid, this is where I have often run counter to levee
proponents in the flood control debate who posit that levees by
comparison represent the first line of defense in flood protection.
While commonly stated, this thinking ignores the truism that flood
risks result from unattenuated high flows from upstream areas. The
first line of defense is more aptly represented by eliminating or at
least reducing the upstream flood release in the first instance.
Additional storage does just that.
New high elevation storage reservoirs offer significant additional
operational flexibility for water resource managers in many other
areas. The premise is really quite simple. Capturing a larger portion
of water that would otherwise be lost during the rainy season provides
the additional assets that water managers can then put to direct
beneficial use later on. In many ways, it converts what can be viewed
as wastage and simply holds it in reserve until it can be used more
beneficially later in the year.
One of the significant advantages of high elevation storage is the
conversion of energy from potential to kinetic. By simply running water
through turbines along its natural oceanic migration we generate a
natural and highly reliable energy source based on the facts that (1)
it rains every year and (2) water always runs downhill.
The resulting higher carryover storage in those downstream
reservoirs also provide many environmental benefits including habitat
flows, side channel/pond replenishment, fish attraction flows, pulse
flows for maintaining downstream water quality (particularly important
where estuarine salinity is an issue), and dilution potential for the
thousands of NPDES permits and waste discharge allowances in existence.
Moreover, in the upstream areas, which are traditionally dry after the
spring melt period, additional storage provides enhanced opportunities
to maintain instream wetted perimeters and reduce upper basin
desiccation.
Anything requiring instream flow augmentation will benefit from new
storage and high elevation storage maximizes the potential for those
many benefits.
This added storage also provides significant improved flexibility
for water supply deliveries; both locally and regionally, as well as
helping to enhance local water-related recreation, tourism, and local
small businesses.
At the Statewide level, additional storage provides enhanced
opportunities to improve overall CVP/SWP operational flexibility.
Moreover, it provides increasing capabilities to offset recurring
shortages imposed by the Federal/State water projects through an active
and robust water transfer market. This is an important consideration
since water transfers serve as a significant revenue source to several
local special districts based on (A) a commodity that is replenishable
annually; (B) would have otherwise been ``lost'' to the ocean, and (C)
can provide concurrent environmental benefits in its carriage water
function.
From an endangered species mitigation perspective, high elevation
storage can provide direct hydrologic benefit to a major stressor that
has contributed to the threatened state of listed anadromous fish
species along the west coast.
NOAA's Biological Opinions for Central valley steelhead and the
various runs of Chinook salmon associated with the long-term operation
of the Federal/State water projects in California identified water
temperature as a critical issue. It is not the only issue, as invasive
species, exports, water quality, genetic alteration, and ocean
conditions all play a role, but water temperature is a significant
issue.
Instream water temperature is largely controlled by releases from
the terminal reservoirs. Again, with additional high elevation storage,
the need to maintain existing flood encroachment in the downstream or
terminal reservoirs is reduced. If then, greater refill is allowed to
occur then, on average, we can expect higher carryover storage as we
enter into the irrigation or high demand season. If we make the
assumption that there is a linear relationship between reservoir total
volume and the hypolimnitic volume, that is, the coldwater pool at the
bottom of reservoirs, then additional coldwater can be generated by the
mere existence of new high elevation storage reservoirs. Such coldwater
pool assets for ESA-related anadromous fishery protection--covering
thermally sensitive life-cycles of these listed fish species would
provide significant benefit to NOAA's mitigation actions. This would
help improve, protect or otherwise restore vulnerable salmon and
steelhead populations within our freshwater systems.
In other words, with new high elevation storage, we can, through
coordination operations, significantly improve the ability to address a
major stressor that has contributed to the decline of these federally
listed endangered species.
As with dams, climate change is also a subject that in contemporary
discourse possesses passionate responses. We have all seen plenty of
examples of this.
As a hydrologist, as with most applied practitioners I hope, I tend
to strip climate change of all the political rhetoric and focus solely
on its physical implications. Climate change adheres to the same
physical laws as the hydrological environment for which it is imposing
an effect.
The fact remains, regardless of the causation debate, our
hydroclimatic regimes here in the United States and indeed across the
globe are changing and, in many cases, changing rapidly. As the recent
IPCC WGI Report released earlier this month in Stockholm confirmed,
anticipated climatic forcings will continue (and more aggressively)
affect our watersheds. How, where, and when to apply new physical and
operational prescriptions to accommodate such changes are only just
beginning. And new storage will play an important role in this managed
adaptation.
But how does climate change factor into the discussion regarding
new dams? New dams, as numerous studies are now demonstrating, provide
an effective adaptation measure to the effects of climatic shifting on
hydrologic regimes. How? By providing attenuation capability of
additional water made available within high elevation watersheds.
Runoff response will be more instantaneous as more precipitation will
fall as rain as opposed to snow, thus eliminating a natural storage
reservoir we have relied on for decades. With increased early season
runoff, the antecedent moisture within most watersheds will also
increase leading to earlier saturation and accentuating the runoff
response later in the season.
As water practitioners increasingly accept the hydrological
realities of these changing conditions, many have accepted the
necessity of new storage as an effective means of preserving our
control over this vital resource. New high elevation reservoirs provide
that first line of management control. Focus is centered on the exact
areas where climate change will first affect a region's entire water
availability.
A common argument against new dams is the blockage of historic fish
passage; most notably the listed anadromous fish species that have had
their original spawning ranges significantly curtailed with the
construction of today's existing dams. High elevation storage, however,
are proposed to be situated in locations well above existing dams and,
in many cases, above a series of already existing impoundments. Fish
passage is not an issue. To be sure, programs such as the Interagency
Fish Passage Steering Committee are looking at re-introducing listed
species above the terminal reservoirs, but again, in many areas,
several existing impoundments already exist before we get to those high
elevation areas.
A prescient question today is--are new reservoirs even possible? To
answer that query, I typically ask a very fundamental question; does
the watershed experience uncontrolled releases or surplus flow
conditions at any time of the year? Typically, the answer is yes. It is
that yield that I propose to capture with new high elevation storage
facilities.
Taking California as an example, it is not difficult to see why
this makes sense. On average, we receive about 200 MAF of precipitation
each year. Of that, we ``manage'' about 40 percent or 80 MAF. By
``manage'' I am referring to water that is allocated and prescribed for
beneficial use--it is our ``dedicated'' yield. This includes urban,
residential, M&I, and Ag water as well as that water prescribed for
environmental flows purposes--including instream flows, Wild & Scenic
Rivers, and managed wetlands and wildlife refuges.
That leaves the majority, or 120 MAF that is unavailable or lost.
While much of that loss is uncontrollable, namely through direct
evaporative or transpirative loss and deep percolation to the salt
sinks, a large portion is also lost as outflow to the Pacific.
As we all can appreciate, all rivers must maintain a minimum
baseflow condition. There has to some water in the rivers--we cannot
store all of it. But therein lies the test, how much water is
appropriate in rivers in order to maintain all of the instream
functions necessary to serve natural ecosystem and societal needs? On
the one extreme of course is the flood season when most reservoirs are
evacuating large quantities of water both before and during rain
events. This is water that, but for perhaps 4 or 5 months, changes from
a threat to an absolute necessity.
This is where, in my view, there must be a concerted effort to
``close the flood control and water supply gap''. It is an irrefutable
edict of hydrology that says you cannot have a flood control and water
supply issue in the same water year unless, the infrastructure is
inadequate. That certainly seems to be the case today as we commonly
experience flood control issues in mid-winter, only to turn around and
cut water contractor deliveries several months later because our
reservoir carryover storage is too low.
The inconvenient truth is that we are today still relying on 20th
century infrastructure and the assumptions attached to those early
facility designs and yet are faced with 21st century issues.
The population of California back in the early 1940s when many of
the Federal water projects in the State were being planned and designed
for example was less than 9 million. Today, 70 years later, our
population exceeds 38 million. Leaving aside the increase in
consumptive demands, original design capacities could not account for
the growing and complex yield needs that have evolved over time; those
of endangered species, wildlife refuges, and water quality control. All
of this has led to an overall diminishment of available water supplies
to water users since the total available yield has not changed, only
its apportionment across a wider array of uses.
Add in the hydrologic timing shifts associated with climate change,
and it becomes essential that we look at water yield management with
new eyes--ones that take seriously the reality that our static (and
aging) infrastructure is increasingly being asked to accommodate
changing hydrologic conditions and provide water to an ever increasing
number of uses and increasingly complex timing modes. We have a
continually migrating environmental baseline--yet our infrastructure
has remained static. This goes against the widely accepted and
fundamental hydrologic principle that states--stationarity is dead. In
other words, we cannot rely on fixed infrastructure or historical
assumptions given the rapidly changing and dynamic nature of our
environment.
In my view, I feel that we have emerged, perhaps by necessity, into
a new era of water storage development. In fact, I have never seen such
interest in new storage development as I am seeing today. Federal,
State, and local/regional initiatives as well as urban water purveyors,
power interests, and Ag districts are increasingly supporting the need
to new water storage. That, together with a new player; private
investor interests are making new storage a dynamic new reality.
A growing number of Americans are slowly realizing the value of
water, the increasing need to serve multiple beneficial uses, and the
urgent need to move away from entrenched 20th century dogma regarding
water infrastructure functionality--and take a refreshing new look at
how we manage water under these rapidly changing circumstances. Closing
the flood control--water supply gap is the first step toward this new
charter--and high elevation storage is an effective means of
accomplishing these new objectives.
Mr. Chairman, let me close by saying that there are indeed many
continuing challenges ahead. But never has there been a more pressing
need for new storage than what exists today. Its ability to proactively
meet the growing demands and concerns associated with water supply
security, the need for clean energy, fish habitat enhancement, instream
thermal refugia for listed fish species, downstream water quality
protection, including protection against saline intrusion associated
with SLR, improved flood control, and source area adaptation to the
effects of climate change in our mountain regions are just some of our
growing contemporary needs. In fact, for once, there almost appears to
be bi-partisan acceptance between environmental and water development
interests--one that did not exist even a few years ago, but now seem
jointly accepting of this vital necessity for long-term societal
health. High elevation storage is emerging as a critical facet in
future water sustainability and an inimitable prerequisite for any
national economic recovery mandate.
New high elevation storage across the Western and Mountain States
can help provide many of those benefits.
I want to thank you Mr. Chairman and the subcommittee members for
your time today. Hopefully, I have been able to shed light on some of
the contemporary thinking in water resources management and am more
than happy to answer any questions.
______
Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you very much.
Now I would like to recognize Mr. Derek Sandison, Director
of the Office of Columbia River for the Washington State
Department of Ecology, from Yakima, Washington, to testify.
STATEMENT OF DEREK SANDISON, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF COLUMBIA
RIVER, WASHINGTON STATE DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY
Mr. Sandison. Chairman McClintock and Congresswoman
Napolitano and members of the committee, my office is
responsible for water supply development in the eastern half of
our State, what we refer to as the dry side of Washington,
where average precipitation is often less than 10 inches a
year. Management of water supply in this semi-arid part of the
country has been typically contentious and often litigious.
In 2006, the Washington State legislature passed landmark
legislation known as the Columbia River Water Supply Management
Act to improve water supplies in the eastern part of Washington
State. That act directed my department to aggressively pursue
development of new water supplies for both in-stream and out of
stream uses and created a $200 million water supply development
account.
Our office estimates that the demand for additional out of
stream water in the Columbia River main stem and tributaries is
about 900,000 acre-feet, and unmet tributary in-stream flow
needs are about 500,000 acre-feet. About one-half of the out of
stream demand and about one-third of the unmet in-stream needs
are in one tributary basin, the Yakima River Basin, which will
be the focus of the latter portion of my presentation.
Since its beginning 7 years ago, our office has initiated
nearly 40 water supply projects under the 2006 legislation, and
we estimate that by the end of this year we will have made
about 300,000 acre-feet of additional water supplies available
in our project areas.
However, the on-the-ground efforts to address the serious
water resource and aquatic resource problems of the Yakima
Basin are just getting underway. The Yakima Basin is an
approximately 6,000 square mile drainage basin in south central
Washington. It supports a population of about 360,000 people,
and it is the home to the Yakima Nation.
The Yakima River Basin contributes over $3 billion annually
to the agricultural economy of the State, and on the fish side
historically the basin was the second largest producer of
salmon and steelhead run in the entire Columbia Basin, second
only to the Snake River.
The Bureau of Reclamation operates five existing surface
water reservoirs with a total capacity of about a million acre-
feet. It is about one-third of the annual runoff in the basin.
The basin is heavily dependent on east slope cascade range snow
path to supply water in the semi-arid lower basin during the
summer months. Surface water resource at the basins are over-
appropriated and frequent droughts over the past several
decades have demonstrated the vulnerability of the basin's
water supplies.
In-stream flows and aquatic resources of the basin have
suffered as well. Runs of salmon and steelhead that once
numbered at least 800,000 fish were reduced to about 8,000 fish
by 1980. Three stocks of salmon have been extirpated and our
steelhead and bull trout are ESA listed.
In 2009, the Office of Columbia River and Reclamation
started collaborating with the Yakima Nation and basin
stakeholders to formulate a comprehensive strategy to address
critical resource needs. That collaboration focused on
expanding the work of the 1979 Federal Yakima River Basin Water
Enhancement Project or YRBWEP and the 1994 congressional
amendments that created Phase 2 of the YRBWEP.
In April of 2011, consensus was reached on the Yakima Basin
integrated water resource management plan, which we hope will
become Phase 3 of the YRBWEP. The integrated plan proposes
major ecological restoration of the Yakima River Basin,
including providing for fish passage at all in-basin
reservoirs, providing main stem and tributary habitat
enhancements, and restoration of substantial portions of the
upper watershed for both terrestrial and aquatic species.
The integrated plan also calls for improvements in water
supply through fostering expanded water markets, enhancing
agricultural conservation, modifying existing storage
facilities and constructing new storage facilities. The
additional supply will provide drought relief to existing
irrigators, water supply security to municipalities, water for
fish out-migration, and water to mitigate the predicted loss of
snow pack associated with climate change.
It is recognized that implementation of the surface water
storage elements will be difficult and expensive, but there is
really no other sources of water available, size storage, that
will be capable of meeting the full needs of the basin.
Earlier this year the Washington State legislature with
bipartisan support passed and Governor Inslee signed into law
legislation authorizing our department to begin implementation
of the integrated plan. At the Governor's request, the
legislature also provided $131 million in appropriations to
initiate implementation of the plan.
However, to fully advance the integrated plan, the State of
Washington will need congressional authorization and continued
Federal financial participation as we move forward. So we look
forward to continuing our longstanding partnership with the
Federal Government, and thank you very much for the opportunity
to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sandison follows:]
Prepared Statement of Derek Sandison, Director, Office of Columbia
River, Washington Department of Ecology, Yakima, Washington
When most people think of Washington State, they visualize an area
with a wet climate. While that perception is at least partially
accurate, the rain forests on our Olympic Peninsula receive on average
about 140 inches of rainfall a year, much of the east half of the
State, which lies in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains, has a
semi-arid climate. The total annual number of inches of precipitation
in some portions of eastern Washington is measured in single digits.
For example, in the lower Yakima River Valley of Washington, the annual
precipitation is less than 9 inches. It is eastern Washington, the dry
side of the State including most of the Washington portion of the
Columbia and Snake River basins, for which my organization is
responsible for management and development of water supplies.
Management of water in the Columbia River and Snake River basins
during the 1980s and 1990s was highly contentious and marked by
protracted legal battles. Many of the tributary basins were and still
are closed to further appropriation and dry year stream flows in many
portions of eastern Washington have been seriously diminished,
contributing to substantial reductions, and in some cases extirpation,
in salmon and steelhead runs. In 2006, the State of Washington
determined that it was time to take another tack.
In that year, with strong bipartisan support, the Washington State
Legislature passed and former Governor Gregoire signed into law
landmark legislation known as the Columbia River Water Supply
Management Act (chapter 90.90 RCW). The act directs the Washington
State Department of Ecology to ``aggressively pursue'' development of
new water supply for both instream and out-of-stream uses and created a
$200 million water supply development account (bond fund) to support
our water supply development activities. Expenditures from the account
may be used to assess, plan, and develop new storage; improve or alter
operations of exiting storage facilities; implement conservation
projects, develop pump exchanges; lease or acquire water; or undertake
any other actions designed to provide access to new water supplies
within the Columbia River basin of Washington for both instream and
out-of-stream purposes. The legislature made it clear that in meeting
the water needs of the basin, we were expected to use all options at
our disposal, or use what we term, a big tool box.
The legislation required that two-thirds of water supplies
developed through new storage and funded by the water supply
development account be committed to out-of-stream uses. The remaining
one-third would be allocated for instream uses.
In implementing the legislation, our department was directed to
focus on the following needs:
Finding replacement water for irrigators in the central
portion of the Columbia Basin, known as the Odessa Subarea,
where aquifer levels are rapidly declining;
Developing sources of water supply for the roughly 600
pending water right applications, some of which were 15 to
20 years old;
Finding an uninterruptible supply of water for a class of
water right holders whose water use is curtailed in drought
years; and
Developing sources of water to meet future municipal,
domestic, industrial, and irrigation needs within the
Columbia River and Snake River Basins of Washington State.
To guide our water supply development investments as well as to
define the extent of the water supply problems that we are required to
address, the legislature required that a Supply and Demand Forecast be
prepared every 5 years beginning in 2006. In 2011, the Department of
Ecology's Office of Columbia River, in collaboration with Washington
State University and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife,
released the second Water Supply and Demand Forecast prepared under the
2006 legislation. Preparation of the forecast involved a rigorous
examination of instream and out-of-stream water needs and water
availability for both the Columbia River and Snake River mainstems as
well as all tributary basins. The forecast concluded that total out-of-
stream mainstem and tributary demand for additional water supply is
about 900,000 acre-feet and unmet tributary instream flow needs are
about 500,000 acre-feet. About one-half of the out-of-stream demand and
about one-third of the unmet instream needs is in one tributary basin,
the Yakima River basin, and will be the focus of the latter portion of
my testimony.
To address regional water needs, the Department of Ecology's Office
of Columbia River has initiated nearly 40 water supply projects under
the 2006 legislation. It is important to note that our partner in many
of our water supply development activities, including the Odessa ground
water replacement efforts and addressing the needs of the Yakima River
basin, has been the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation). That
collaboration has proven to be a valuable asset to the State of
Washington.
By the end of this year, we anticipate that we will have been
successful in developing and making available about 335,000 acre-feet
of additional water supply for instream and out-of-stream uses. We have
developed that supply primarily through modifications to existing
surface storage reservoirs, conservation and conveyance system
improvement projects, and acquisitions. We are in the process of
developing aquifer storage capacity at a number of locations and expect
that the next increments of additional supply will come from those
sources. By the end of our current biennial budget cycle in June 2015,
the projects we have progress or completed will have expended about
$175 million of the original $200 million water supply development
account.
However, on-the-ground efforts to address the serious water
resource and aquatic resource problems of the Yakima River basin are
just being initiated. The Yakima River basin is an approximately 6,000
square mile drainage basin in south central Washington. It supports a
population of about 360,000 people and is home to the Yakama Nation.
The Yakima River basin contributes over $3 billion annually to the
agricultural economy of the State of Washington. Yakima County ranks
12th nationally in the total value of agricultural products sold.
Yakima County ranks first nationally, in apple, mint, winter pears, and
hop production. The Yakima Basin exports around $1.8 billion in farm
products through the ports of Seattle and Tacoma annually.
Historically, the basin was the second largest producer of salmon and
steelhead runs in the entire Columbia River system.
Since 1905, when the State granted rights for all unappropriated
surface water in the basin to Reclamation, surface water flows in the
basin have been managed by Reclamation. Reclamation operates five
existing reservoirs with a total capacity of about 1,000,000 acre-feet,
which is about one-third of the annual runoff in the basin. The basin
is heavily dependent on east-slope Cascade Range snowpack to supply
water to the semi-arid lower basin during the summer months.
Water users in the basin are a combination of the pre-1905, senior
surface water right holders, direct customers in of Reclamation served
water under Reclamation's 1905 water right, a small number of post-
1905, junior surface water right holders, and ground water right
holders, mostly with post-1905 priority dates.
The surface water resources of the basin are overappropriated, and
a State court adjudication of those water rights has been ongoing since
1977. The State closed the basin to additional ground water rights in
the 1990s. Recently, the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that the
basin's ground water aquifers are in continuity with surface waters.
Thus, rights for ground water, on which most of the basin's
municipalities depend, are likely to be determined to junior to the
1905 water rights of the Bureau of Reclamation.
Frequent droughts over the past several decades demonstrated the
vulnerability of the basins water supplies. During droughts in 2001 and
2005, the irrigation districts served by Reclamation, referred to as
the ``proratable'' irrigation districts, received only about 40 percent
of their water supply.
Instream flows and aquatic resources of the basin have also
suffered. Out-of-basin and in-basin factors, including diminished
stream flows and lack of fish passage at existing reservoirs, have
combined to drastically reduce the numbers of salmon and steelhead.
Runs of salmon and steelhead the once numbered at least 800,000 fish
declined to about 8,000 fish by the 1980s. Sockeye, coho, and summer
Chinook salmon have all been extirpated; although efforts are underway,
led by the Yakama Nation, to reintroduce new stocks of those species.
The basin's steelhead and bull trout are Endangered Species Act listed
threatened species.
Water supply shortages coupled with severe reductions or
elimination of major salmon and steelhead runs makes the need for
drastic improvements to water resources and aquatic resources of the
Yakima River basin imperative. Thus, since 2009, the Office of Columbia
River and Reclamation have been collaborating with the Yakama Nation
and basin stakeholders to formulate a comprehensive strategy to address
critical resource needs. That collaboration focused on expanding the
work of the 1979 Federal Yakima River Basin Water Enhancement Project
[YRBWEP] and the 1994 Congressional Amendments that created Phase 2 of
YRBWEP. That strategy took shape by mid-2011 when consensus was reached
on the on Yakima River Basin Integrated Water Resource Management Plan
(Integrated Plan). The Integrated Plan is being proposed as Phase 3 of
YRBWEP. Development of the Integrated Plan was facilitated by
additional Federal support resulting from the Yakima River basin being
selected as the recipient of Reclamation's first Basin Study grant.
The Integrated Plan proposes a major ecological restoration of the
Yakima River basin. In addition to providing for fish passage at all
major in basin reservoirs to open high basin spawning and rearing areas
that have been blocked for a century and to providing substantial
mainstem and tributary habitat enhancements, the Integrated Plan will
involves restoration of substantial portions of the upper watershed for
both terrestrial and aquatic species. It provides for operational
modifications to improve operational efficiency and flexibility.
The Integrated Plan also calls for substantial improvements in
water supply. As noted previously, about one-half of eastern
Washington's out-of-stream water needs and one-third of our unmet
instream flow needs are in the Yakima River basin. The water supply
improvements will come in several different forms. Efficiency of
existing use of water will be improved through reducing barriers to the
transfer of water between willing buyers and willing sellers. Municipal
and agricultural conservation efforts will be enhanced. For example,
the plan calls for supplementing the 72,000 acre-feet of conserved
irrigation water achieved as part of the 1994 YRBWEP Phase 2 efforts
with another 170,000 acre-feet of conservation savings. Studies are
also underway to better understand the potential role of aquifer
storage in providing passive recharge to the mainstem of the Yakima
River in targeted locations.
However, the objectives of the Integrated Plan cannot be met
without significant improvements in surface water storage. The Office
of Columbia River and Reclamation determined based on an analysis of
water supply needs that development of additional 450,000 acre-feet of
additional water storage capacity, in the form of modified and new
surface storage facilities, will be needed to provide:
Drought relief to existing irrigators in the basin;
Secure water supplies for our municipalities with junior
water rights and to meet their future needs; and
Adequate water for fish outmigration and pulse flows in
all years.
In addition, climate modeling by the University of Washington
Climate Impacts Group and the Federal River Management Joint Operating
Committee predict that substantial reductions in snow pack depth and
duration are likely as we move toward mid-century. The Integrated Plan
recognizes that the only effective means of offsetting snowpack
reductions in the Yakima River basin are improving flood plain aquifer
storage potential and increasing surface storage capacity. Sensitivity
analysis modeling of the Integrated Plan indicate that at buildout,
about 500,000 acre-feet more water will be available under drought
conditions by mid-century with the Integrated Plan than without.
There are no other sources of water supply available besides
storage capable of meeting the needs of the basin. Conservation is
often suggested as a substitute for water storage; however, there are
severe limitations to the role of conservation as a source of water
supply. As noted previously, the Integrated Plan proposes to accomplish
another 170,000 acre-feet of irrigation conservation savings. Those
savings will provide valuable flow improvements in targeted stream
reach where those flow benefits will improve conditions for fish.
However, it must be remembered that most conservation efforts focus on
reducing the amount of water that leaks from conveyance systems (for
example, canals or ditches) or from irrigation practices that result in
more water being applied than is needed by the crops being grown. The
leaked water returns through runoff or through ground water to the
river at a point downstream of where it was diverted. Along the Yakima
River mainstem, return flows rejoin the river within days or a few
weeks after diversion and contribute to downstream river flows. If
through conservation measures, the leakage or overapplication of water
is reduced or eliminated, the amount of water diverted can be reduced.
Those diversions savings add more flow to the river, but only between
the point of diversion and the point at which return flows rejoined the
river. Below the return flow point, there is no residual benefit to the
river. If the conserved water described in the preceding example was
used for some out-of-stream purpose, flow below the return flow point
would be permanently diminished. The surest way to dry up the river
would be to employ such a practice on a widespread basis.
Additionally, the amount of conservation savings that could be
captured through conservation is greatly reduced under drought
conditions, because, simply put, you can't conserve water that doesn't
exist. The Office of Columbia River and Reclamation estimate that of
the 170,000 acre-feet of average year conservation called for in the
Integrated Plan, only about 50,000 acre-feet of savings would be
captured in drought years like 2001 and 2005.
Earlier this year, the Washington State Legislature passed and
Governor Inslee signed into law legislation authorizing the Washington
State Department of Ecology to begin implementation of the Integrated
Plan. At the Governor's request, the legislature also provided a
substantial capital budget appropriation to initiate implementation.
The State of Washington welcomes a continued Federal partnership in
this effort.
______
Mr. McClintock. Thank you very much for your testimony.
The Chair is now pleased to introduce Ms. Laura Ziemer,
Senior Counsel and Water Policy Advisor for Trout Unlimited,
based in Bozeman, Montana, to testify.
Welcome.
STATEMENT OF LAURA S. ZIEMER, SENIOR COUNSEL AND WATER POLICY
ADVISOR, TROUT UNLIMITED
Ms. Ziemer. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Napolitano, members of the committee.
Thank you for the invitation to testify today on behalf of
Trout Unlimited and its 150,000 members from Maine to Alaska
who are working to restore local trout streams.
I myself work and live in Montana and have experienced
firsthand the devastation of prolonged drought, and that is why
I have dedicated the last 15 years of my professional life to
finding innovative solutions to water scarcity. In my
experience on the ground throughout the West, diverse partners
are coming together to find the innovative solutions to water
scarcity at a variety of scales by rethinking old
infrastructure and repairing natural systems.
Trout Unlimited is not opposed to new storage. We believe
it has a role to play in modern water management, and to this
end I have learned a couple of things over walking irrigation
districts for the last 15 years that I would like to share
today.
First, I have learned that the largest and cheapest
reservoir of new storage and new water lies in the miles of
irrigation canals and laterals dug by shovel and plow over 100
years ago. For example, my colleagues in Eastern Washington
have worked with the Wenatchee Water Users to upgrade
irrigation works to now the most advanced system in the State.
By doing so, they returned almost 8,000 acre-feet of new water
to the flow limited Wenatchee River for imperiled spring
Chinook salmon, and not only that but helped secure the city of
Wenatchee's municipal water supply.
Another example comes from the southwest corner of Wyoming.
There to use partnership with Julian land and livestock to
upgrade a flood irrigation system to gated pipe not only
increased hay production, but also improved stream conditions
for Bonneville cutthroat trout.
Finally, I have personally worked with large irrigation
districts across Montana's Rocky Mountain front. There I have
worked with districts that have canals that hold more water
than the rivers they are diverting from, and in there we found
tremendous water savings by making those canals more efficient.
In the one project that we have just finished implementation
on, we returned 5,000 acre-feet of water, new water, saved
water back to the Sun River while at the same time making that
delivery system more secure and ensuring more reliability of
irrigation water.
In that same context we looked very carefully at both new
storage in the basic as well as expanding existing storage, but
the infrastructure projects were 21 times cheaper than either
the new storage or expanded storage. So those are the ones that
we proceeded with.
And Congress can encourage these kinds of cooperative
solutions by funding farm bill and Bureau Reclamation
competitive grant programs.
Second, I have learned it can be a lot cheaper, faster, and
smarter to expand on existing reservoirs than build a new one,
and new storage can be used in a variety of ways to optimize
water supply. For example, the Chatfield Reservoir in Colorado,
we are looking at that for reallocating storage water to new
supply for both municipalities and irrigation. That is the kind
of solution that does not require new concrete but just new
thinking.
Finally, I have learned over the years that the best
solutions are usually not the easiest ones. The innovative work
I have done with Trout Unlimited has involved a lot of
listening over the time to what other people need water for.
New storage likewise is best planned and carried out in a
multi-stakeholder basic study process and imbeds storage into a
multi-pronged approach for addressing water scarcity, and
certainly the Yakima River Basin plan that my colleague Mr.
Sandison just described is an excellent example.
When we invest in the river basin's natural infrastructure,
it becomes a highly cost effective way to buffer the effects of
both floods and drought. The Yakima Plan recognizes this and
proposes an ambitious plan of headwater protection, flood plain
restoration and tributary flow enhancement. Trout Unlimited has
found that over the years these are the kinds of solutions that
allow communities, fish, and farmers to thrive in an arid land.
I hope my testimony today has been helpful in charting a
road map to water security in the West, and I thank you for
your invitation to testify.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Ziemer follows:]
Prepared Statement of Laura S. Ziemer, Senior Counsel and Water Policy
Advisor, Trout Unlimited, Bozeman, Montana
Dear Chairman McClintock and Ranking Member Napolitano,
Thank you for the invitation to testify today on behalf of Trout
Unlimited [TU] and its 150,000 members nationwide. I have had the
privilege to work for many years with TU's volunteers to restore local
streams, and engage young people in TU's work to conserve, protect and
restore our Nation's watersheds. I live and work in Montana, and have
experienced first-hand the devastation of prolonged drought in an
already-arid land.
Westerners experience water scarcity at a number of different
levels. Extended drought creates problems for individual rancher and
farm operations struggling to find enough river flows to irrigate
crops, and for the fish that find that their habitats have heated up,
shrunk, or just plain dried up. Swings and cycles in regional weather
patterns create basin-level scarcity that affects not only irrigation
districts, but also municipalities worried about meeting water demands.
At the largest scale, whole sections of the West can experience such
dry conditions that fires compound the problem of not enough water to
go around, and whole assemblages of aquatic species are pushed to the
brink of extinction. In the past year alone, blue-ribbon trout rivers
in Montana have been closed to fishing due to low river flows; drought
has continued more years than not in the Colorado River basin since
1999, causing a razor-thin margin between water supplies and demand
within the basin; and, in August the Bureau of Reclamation announced
that it would cut releases from Lake Powell by 750,000 acre feet next
year--a first since the construction of Glen Canyon Dam created Lake
Powell over 40 years ago.
The seriousness and scale of these problems is why I've dedicated
the last 15 years of my professional life to finding collaborative
solutions to water scarcity in the West. I've pioneered collaborative
approaches to creating new water supplies with Montana ranchers,
created working architecture for drought response plans that operate at
the basin scale, and assembled diverse coalitions of interests to come
together around innovative changes to water management across multiple,
large river basins. Although these approaches vary in scale and focus,
the one thing they have in common is building the trust to apply
creativity to difficult, long-standing problems born of too many
demands and too little water in arid lands. I have learned a couple of
things over the past 15 years of walking irrigation ditches and
listening to ranchers' needs that I would like to share today.
My message is simple: On the ground throughout the West partners
are coming together to find innovative solutions to water scarcity
challenges at a variety of scales. Congress should encourage
cooperative stakeholder processes to solve storage challenges, and
provide adequate funding for cost-effective programs that catalyze
cooperative solutions, such as key Farm Bill programs, and the Bureau
of Reclamation's competitive grant and basin study programs.
1. upgrading irrigation infrastructure: a cost-effective source of new
supply
First, I've learned that the largest and cheapest reservoir of new
water lies in the miles of irrigation ditches and laterals dug with
shovels and plows over 100 years ago. TU has worked with individual
ranchers, farmers, and large irrigation districts to design, fund, and
upgrade irrigation infrastructure to salvage this new water supply and
apply it to multiple uses: irrigation, municipal, and restoration of
river flows. TU has worked in partnership with ranchers and farmers
across eastern Washington's Methow, Wenatchee, Yakima, Entiat, and
Okanogan river basins, in Idaho's Salmon, Little Lost, and South Fork
Snake river basins, Utah's Bear River, Colorado's Gunnison River basin,
and in Wyoming's Bear, Big Horn, Green, North Platte, Snake, and Wind
river basins. TU has also worked with California's wine growers to
improve their irrigation practices while improving stream flows.
Personally, I've worked with individual ranchers across Montana's upper
Missouri, Yellowstone, and Clark Fork river basins on dewatered
tributaries to upgrade headgates, convert long, leaky ditches to pipes,
and replace flood irrigation with pivots. I've also worked with large
irrigation districts on the Rocky Mountain Front to line canals holding
more water than the river from which they're diverting, in order to
turn some of that water back to the river--the Sun River.
Montana's Sun River Irrigation Infrastructure Upgrade. On the Sun
River, the Bureau of Reclamation's WaterSmart competitive grant program
helped cost-share these large-scale infrastructure improvements. This
program is an excellent example of successfully getting Federal dollars
to the ground to solve water scarcity conflicts in a cost-effective
way. Prior to embarking on the WaterSmart projects, those of us working
collaboratively in the Sun River basin conducted a multi-year,
comprehensive inventory of potential new sources of water to make
irrigation supplies more secure and provide instream flow benefits to
the chronically dewatered Sun River. The Sun River flows 70 miles
across Montana's Rocky Mountain Front to the Sun's confluence with the
Missouri River near the city of Great Falls, and irrigates 117,700
acres. The Sun River supplies two irrigation districts serving hundreds
of water users and the Broken O Ranch--the largest irrigated ground
under a single ranch in Montana (17,000 irrigated acres). We
investigated: new storage, adding storage capacity to existing
Reclamation reservoirs, pump-back systems, lining canals, converting
from flood to pivot irrigation, and replacing aging siphons and turn-
outs. For each of these approaches, we conducted a preliminary
feasibility review and cost estimate, and after this initial screening,
narrowed the focus down to 14 alternatives for a more detailed
feasibility analysis and cost comparison.
The projects emerging from this comprehensive, comparative analysis
ranged from adding capacity to an existing storage project to upgrading
irrigation water conveyance systems. New storage options did not pass
the initial feasibility screening based on their high cost per acre-
foot of water. The most cost-effective storage option analyzed in depth
was adding 26,000 acre-feet to the existing Pishkun Reservoir. This had
an estimated cost of $29 million, providing new water supply at $1,115/
acre-foot. On the other hand, one of the conveyance system projects
that we ultimately pursued with Reclamation's WaterSmart funding
converted 4,860 feet of leaky ditch to PVC pipe, producing 4,158 acre-
feet of water for a project cost of $222,367. This provided new water
supply at $53/acre-foot (21 times cheaper than adding storage capacity
to Reclamation's Pishkun Reservoir). Three more infrastructure projects
are in various phases of development and construction that will provide
even more water savings.
Washington's Wenatchee River Irrigation Upgrade. It was about 1866
when the Pioneer water users first began diverting water from eastern
Washington's Wenatchee River--the Civil War had just ended, and the
West was opening up. Pioneer services 107 water users on over 375
irrigated acres. TU worked with Pioneer to change their point of
diversion from the flow-limited Wenatchee River to the Columbia River,
thereby protecting over 38 cubic feet per second [cfs] in the Wenatchee
River, improving habitat for imperiled spring Chinook, steelhead and
bull trout. Pioneer Water Users benefited by adopting the most
sophisticated irrigation system in Washington State that will last
through the next century: the whole system is managed by a ``brain''
that dictates how the pressurized system rotates water use among five
pumps, which manages use from 10 gpm to 3,000 gpm. The instream benefit
to the Wenatchee is complemented in the Columbia by the fact that the
system is based on demand. Withdrawal from the Columbia River only
occurs when and at the volume that water is needed by the agricultural
users, creating additional water savings. This collaboration between TU
and Pioneer also increased the water security for the town of Wenatchee
by transferring saved water to their municipal supply. Although not a
simple project--17 separate permits were obtained and 12 funders
contributed to the project--its $3.4 million total cost for 7,823.5
acre-feet provides municipal, irrigation, and habitat benefits for
imperiled species at $435 per acre-foot of water savings--not to
mention also creating over 40 jobs during 6 months of construction
during the recession. This project demonstrates the effectiveness of
leveraging Bureau of Reclamation funding with State and Federal salmon
recovery funds, along with county, conservation district, and water
users' contributions, that were all key to the success of creating
multiple benefits.
Wyoming's Rock Creek (Bear River Basin), Infrastructure Upgrade. In
Wyoming, TU has worked across six river basins with Wyoming ranchers
and farmers to find ways to improve irrigation infrastructure while
also creating benefits for wild and native trout. TU's work with
Wyoming rancher Truman Julian illustrates our approach. In the
southwest corner of the State, TU and Julian Land and Livestock found
common ground around upgrading a flood irrigation system to gated pipe.
This increased the yield on the ranch's grass hay while benefiting
Bonneville cutthroat trout. The project also included the installation
of new diversion structures to eliminate annual maintenance
requirements, improve riparian conditions, and allow upstream fish
passage throughout the year. The partnership with Julian Land and
Livestock led to partnerships with other landowners in the drainage.
Irrigation efficiency projects are now complete on every ranch from
Rock Creek to the confluence of the Bear River to improve flows and
habitat conditions for native fish.
On the ground throughout the West, ranch and conservation partners
are coming together to find innovative solutions to water scarcity
challenges that modernize infrastructure, benefit producers, and
restore fisheries. Congress can help encourage this collaborative work
by passing a 5 year Farm Bill so that conservation programs like the
Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the new Regional
Cooperative Conservation Partnership program, which is included in both
the House and Senate versions of their Farm bill, will be available to
irrigators. Please note the attached letter from a diverse group of
agriculture and conservation groups urging Congress to pass a 5 year
Farm bill reauthorization. Other programs which Congress should provide
adequate funding for include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Fish
Passage Program so that it can help with irrigation infrastructure
upgrades that benefit fish and water users. Finally, real, on-the-
ground progress is made through funding the Bureau of Reclamation's
WaterSmart grants, Cooperative Watershed Management grants,
Reclamation's funding through Cooperative Agreements, and the Bureau's
Basin Study programs. These programs support not only individual
projects, but also multi-faceted, collaborative approaches being
developed at the basin scale, such as the Yakima River basin process
described below.
2. cost-effective new storage in expanding or re-allocating colorado
projects
TU is not opposed to new storage. New, small-scale storage can
implement water supply strategies that TU supports, such as water reuse
and flexible water sharing arrangements between agriculture and
municipalities. In other cases, new storage projects can be designed
and operated to deliver multiple benefits--to irrigation,
municipalities, and to stream flows. Finally, it can be a lot cheaper,
faster, and smarter to re-allocate or expand an existing reservoir than
build a new one. In fact, TU, working with other conservation partners,
have together identified 102,000 acre feet of new, potential water
supply in Colorado to meet the Front Range's growing water demand,
across an array of expansions and re-allocations of existing projects,
as well as other strategies such as water re-use.
Rio Grande Reservoir. The Rio Grande Reservoir in southern Colorado
delivers irrigation water to the farmers and ranchers of the San Luis
Valley Irrigation District. The project is over 100 years old, and the
State of Colorado has placed it under storage restrictions because the
structural integrity of the dam is in question. The district is in the
process of rehabilitating the dam which will allow for increased
storage in the existing reservoir. Much of the added capacity at the
Rio Grande Reservoir will serve the purpose of making more reliable
deliveries to the farmers and ranchers of the San Luis Valley
Irrigation District. The district, however, is also in discussions with
the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, TU, and others about the
possibility of allocating some of that new capacity to meet other
purposes, namely interstate compact delivery requirements and
improvement of stream flows in the Rio Grande River. As such, the
project has the potential to provide multiple benefits, including
recreational and environmental purposes that are important to TU and
the local community.
Windy Gap. For a decade, the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy
District has proposed to ``firm'' the yield of its existing Windy Gap
Reservoir by increasing the amount of water the project delivers from
the Colorado River to the Front Range. TU had opposed the proposal
because of our serious concerns about its impacts on the already-
stressed Colorado River. Earlier this year, however, after many years
of discussion, TU and the northern district reached an agreement. Under
the agreement, the northern district will: curtail diversions as needed
to avoid high stream temperatures caused by low flows; release water
from storage as needed to create high spring peaks flows to flush
sediment on a prescribed schedule; put several million dollars on the
table to construct a by-pass channel around the Windy Gap Reservoir,
which currently is a source of whirling disease and dangerously high
stream temperatures; and, has offered up several million more dollars
to restore Colorado River habitat. With these conditions implemented,
TU believes the project will leave the Colorado River healthier than it
is today. The success of the Windy Gap firming project is its dual
benefits: an increase in 32,000 acre-feet annual yield of water supply
and environmental benefits to the Colorado River.
Chatfield Reservoir. On Colorado's South Platte River flowing north
through Denver, TU has weighed in as supportive in concept of the Army
Corps of Engineers' plan to re-allocate 26,000 acre-feet of storage
water in the Chatfield Reservoir from flood-control to provide 8,000
acre-feet of annual yield for irrigation and municipalities. Although
TU has concerns that the currently proposed operation of the new
capacity could deplete flows downstream, thus damaging the health of
the urban reach of the South Platte River, TU is working with project
proponents and regulators to address these concerns. Although still in
process, the Chatfield Reservoir re-allocation is an example of a water
supply solution that doesn't require new concrete, just new thinking.
3. multi-stake holder, basin-study collaborative planning produces the
best proposals for new storage
Finally, I've learned over the years that the best solutions are
usually not the easiest ones. The innovative work I've done with TU has
involved a lot of listening to what other people need water for. New
storage, likewise, is best planned and carried out in a multi-
stakeholder, basin-study process that considers a variety of
alternatives, looks carefully at hydrology and future water supply
forecasts, and embeds storage into a multi-pronged approach for
addressing water scarcity. The Yakima River basin study and resulting
collaborative plan, completed as one of the Bureau of Reclamation's
Basin Studies, is one example of this process. The Yakima plan
recommends new storage as one solution among a range of other
approaches.
Yakima River Basin Plan. In fact, the Yakima River Basin Integrated
Water Resource Management Plan has seven distinct elements, all
designed to allow communities, fish, and farming to thrive in an arid
land. The Plan's seven different approaches are: (1) open fish passage
at six existing dams; (2) structural and operation changes to existing
dams to add storage capacity, increase water use efficiency, and
improve salmon habitat; (3) increase new surface water storage; (4)
groundwater recharge and storage; (5) investment in irrigation
efficiencies and water conservation; (6) promote water transfers
through water markets and water banks; and, (7) habitat enhancement and
watershed protection through headwaters habitat acquisition, floodplain
restoration, and other tributary improvements. This suite of
alternatives to draw from in moving forward with Plan implementation
underscores that no one, single approach can address water scarcity in
the Yakima basin. Rather, it is the multiplicity of approaches--from
new surface storage to investing in the basin's ``green and blue''
infrastructure--that provides resiliency to water scarcity in the
basin.
Climate Change Will Bring New Challenges to the West's Water
Supply. The strongest expression of climate change predicted for the
West will be through water. This makes the kind of comprehensive,
collaborative planning process exemplified by the Yakima basin
especially important. The only thing we know for sure about the West
and climate change is that the weather is going to get more
unpredictable. With less snow, more rain, and more frequent droughts
and storms predicted, if you plan on building a bigger bathtub, you
want to know that you'll be able to fill it, given predicted changes in
precipitation. In addition, Yakima's proposed investments in floodplain
restoration, headwaters habitat preservation, and tributary restoration
mean that the basin will be more resilient to both droughts and storms,
able to soak up high storm flows while slowly releasing water during a
drought. A multi-stakeholder, basin-study process looking at a whole
range of alternatives stacks the deck in favor of coming up with
solutions to water scarcity that will be more resilient to predicted
climate change impacts. The approach taken in the Yakima River basin
plan to pursue seven distinct pathways toward water security means that
agriculture, fisheries, and communities will all be more resilient to
the impacts of climate change, and better prepared to adapt to the
changes it brings.
Hydropower Also Faces Challenges and Opportunities from Climate
Change. Just as with storage facilities, changes to timing and
magnitude of streamflow will have an impact on hydro operations and in
the cost-benefit calculation for new hydro development. The benefit of
adding hydro at existing projects is that it can and should help to
provide a revenue stream for re-investment in project upgrades and
enhancements to aquatic ecosystem functioning. Such investments will
help keep hydro production viable even in a changing climate. A roadmap
for increasing hydropower supplies should focus first on existing
infrastructure. This focus would prioritize power gains through
efficiency improvements--improvement and modernization of existing
resources and equipment--and adding or expanding production at
existing, well-maintained infrastructure, like Federal storage
facilities. A good pathway for such work is contained in section 2009
of the Senate Water Resources Development bill, S. 601, which would
authorize and promote development of hydropower at existing Army Corps
facilities where no hydropower now exists.
In addition to adding hydro to existing Federal storage dams,
opportunity also exists to expand hydropower development in irrigation
delivery systems, where water is already in motion for another
important use. This type of energy development has the potential to be
particularly beneficial for rural agricultural communities as in-
conduit energy development can bring in rural, dispersed sources of
power to irrigation districts and water users whose power needs are
often far from the grid. That is why we were pleased to work with
Representative Tipton and this committee to assist with passage of H.R.
678, Mr. Tipton's small hydro bill.
Congress can help by supporting multi-use authorizations at Federal
facilities. Such action would add power production and fish and
wildlife as authorized purposes consistent with existing and primary
project purposes. This would enable flexible management and allow for
more creative solutions. Hydropower is a perfect addition to the
discussion of water storage and supply--because anywhere water is
moving, there is opportunity for power generation. The challenge is for
hydro to remain an incidental benefit, not a primary driver, of out-of-
river water use. Hydro additions to water delivery infrastructure can
be used to help fund project improvements and aquatic restoration needs
at the point of diversion. Just as new storage is best achieved in the
context of a multi-stakeholder, collaborative, basin-scale approach,
hydro is most successful when analyzed at the system level and power
benefits are balanced against the cost of providing for multiple uses.
I'd like to close by describing a recent experience from Bozeman,
Montana--my hometown. Our city, while less than 50,000 people, has
nevertheless experienced some of the highest population growth rates in
the entire country in the last decade--in some years growing at an
astonishing 28 percent. Faced with a predicted water supply gap, the
city engineers began moving forward with a large dam proposal in our
municipal watershed. City leaders wisely decided to initiate a multi-
stakeholder, long-range planning process before committing to the dam.
As a participant in the process, we looked at a whole range of
alternatives that were consistent with community values and
preservation of important agricultural lands within our mountain
valley. What we found was that on a 30-to-50-year planning horizon,
there are a whole range of smaller, scalable water supply alternatives
that were cheaper to bring on line than one big investment in new
storage.
4. conclusion
While the magnitude, variety and scale of these water scarcity
challenges are daunting, I remain both optimistic and inspired that we
can find solutions that work. Every time I work with a Montana rancher
who finds a new way to deliver water to his crops that will also leave
a stream healthier, I am inspired by those who are true stewards of the
land. As you will often hear them say, we are only here for a little
while, but the land and the rivers remain. It is our challenge to work
with the West's rivers and the abundance of life that they provide, so
that they in turn can continue to provide for future generations.
Thank you again for the invitation to testify on Trout Unlimited's
experience regarding the need for new surface storage.
______
Mr. McClintock. Thank you very much.
And the Chair is now pleased to recognize Mr. Valadao to
introduce our final witness.
Mr. Valadao. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's my distinct pleasure to introduce a good friend of
mine, Tom Barcellos. I got to know Tom quite a few years ago as
my counterpart at Land O' Lakes and another dairy farmer.
Tom is an interesting person because he is a farmer in the
district in the Central Valley, but he was actually named in
2006 as a conservation tillage farmer Innovator of the Year by
University of California and the USDA Natural Resources
Conservation Service, Conservation Tillage Work Group, and he
has been a leader in our valley and an innovator with many
different ways to conserve water and still grow food for the
world.
So thank you, Tom Barcellos.
STATEMENT OF TOM BARCELLOS, DAIRY FARMER, PORTERVILLE,
CALIFORNIA
Mr. Barcellos. Thank you, Congressman.
Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member Napolitano, and members
of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today.
My name is Tom Barcellos, and I am a family dairy farmer
from Tipton, California on the east side of the San Joaquin
Valley. I serve on the board of directors of Lower Tule River
Irrigation District, which is a member of the Family Farm
Alliance. I also represent both of those organizations here
today.
Like many water users represented by the Family Farm
Alliance, I rely upon a combination of surface and groundwater
supplies managed through a variety of local, State, and Federal
arrangements. Like me, many family farms, as well as the
communities that they are intertwined with, owe their existence
in large part to the flood control safety and certainty
provided by water stored behind dams.
Nowhere is the uncertainty of water supplies greater than
in California's San Joaquin Valley. We faced incredibly complex
Federal regulatory structure, the very expensive and lengthy
processes we face to make obtaining and sustaining water
supplies increasingly difficult on both agricultural and
municipal users. For the farmer, the current water allocation
and reallocation schemes offer us a sense of disillusionment
and economic uncertainty.
Severe water shortages caused by the combination of Federal
fisheries restrictions and drought on water supplies to the
western side of the valley forced hundreds of thousands of
acres of farmland to be fallowed in 2009 and beyond, costing
Central Valley agriculture nearly $1 billion in lost income and
more than 20,000 lost jobs. In 2009 also, the Central Valley
Project received only 10 percent of the water they contracted
for, the lowest allocation in the history of the project.
This year, 20 percent; next year, these water users face
zero allocation at this point. Implementation of Federal laws,
such as the ESA, is the primary reason for this grim scenario.
Expanded storage in California would be hugely beneficial
right now. The Family Farm Alliance in 2005 launched a project
that pulled together a master data base of potential water
supply enhancement projects from throughout the West. That
effort showed that there are now feasible studies on new
surface storage projects in the Central Valley and elsewhere.
That same year the Bureau of Reclamation identified nearly
1,000 potential hydroelectric and water supply projects in the
Western United States that had been studies but not
constructed. Water resources are available to be developed.
Demand management is often seen as a solution to water
supply issues. For example, between 2003 and 2010, San Joaquin
Valley farmers invested almost $2.2 billion to upgrade
irrigation systems on over 1.8 million acres of farmland. Those
investments helped improve water use efficiency and food
production and helped fuel the rural economy at a time when
water supply cuts were increasing unemployment. Although
production was maintained through efficiencies, groundwater
levels suffered for the lack of recharge supplies.
Little progress has been made on the supply management end
of things. While development has occurred on conjunctive
management and groundwater banking projects, development of new
surface storage projects have virtually ground to a halt in the
past 30 years, especially in areas where any sort of Federal
nexus exists for proposed projects. Farmers will continue to do
all they can to save water.
However, water savings cannot be expanded indefinitely
without reducing acreage and production. At some point the
growing water demands of the West, coupled with the omnipresent
possibility of drought, as we have seen must be met or it will
be taken from agriculture.
We cannot continue to downplay or ignore the negative
implications of reallocating more agricultural water supplies
to meet the new urban energy and environmental water demands.
Solutions will require workable policy that emphasizes the
development of new storage projects. To make that happen,
existing procedures for developing additional supplies need to
be revised to make project approval less burdensome.
The Federal Government really needs to adopt a policy of
supporting new efforts to enhance water supplies and
encouraging State and local interests to take the lead in
formulation of those efforts.
For example, the Tule River's Success Reservoir Enlargement
Project is a Corps of Engineers and locally sponsored flood
control project that involves raising and lengthening the
existing spillway of Success Dam to increase the storage space
in Success by 34 percent. The additional storage space of this
proposed project more than doubles the flood protection for the
city of Porterville and downstream lands.
No better example of what new storage capacity provides can
be seen than in the watershed directly north of where I farm,
where the Lake Kaweah enlargement terminus dam spillway has
already demonstrated its effectiveness. The new project has
raised the level by 21 feet, increasing the storage capacity by
a third. This project has generated many environmental benefits
and is a key component in local conjunctive use equation. The
relatively simple and inexpensive project took over 20 years to
complete, and that was without any environmental opposition.
We continue to push for improved water storage and
conveyance infrastructure to mitigate for water that has been
reallocated away from agriculture. Without water supply
liability, irrigated agriculture through a combination of new
infrastructure and other supply enhancements, efforts and
demand management, our country's ability to feed and clothe
itself and with the world will be jeopardized.
My written testimony expands on details on these topics.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Barcellos follows:]
Prepared Statement of Tom Barcellos, Dairy Farmer, Porterville,
California, on Behalf of Barcellos Farms, Lower Tule River Irrigation
District and the Family Farm Alliance
Chairman McClintock, Ranking Member Napolitano and members of the
subcommittee:
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the
need for new water storage projects and examine regulatory and
bureaucratic challenges that delay or halt the development of new water
supply enhancement projects in California's Central Valley and the rest
of the Western United States. My name is Tom Barcellos, and I am the
owner of Barcellos Farms and T-Bar Dairy in Tipton, California and a
partner in White Gold Dairy and LGT Harvesting. My dairy operation and
custom farming business employs two of my son-in-laws in the family
operations.
I serve on the board of directors for the Lower Tule River
Irrigation District, who I am representing here today. I am also an
alternate director on the board of the Friant Water Users Authority.
Both the District and the Authority are members of the Family Farm
Alliance, who I am also representing at today's hearing.
The Family Alliance advocates for family farmers, ranchers,
irrigation districts, and allied industries in 17 Western States. The
Alliance is focused on one mission--to ensure the availability of
reliable, affordable irrigation water supplies to western farmers and
ranchers.
Many of us in western agriculture have a strong water, soil and
land conservation ethic. In fact, in 2006, I was named the 2006
Conservation Tillage Farmer Innovator by the University of California
and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Conservation Tillage
Workgroup. However, those of us familiar with water management know
that increased water conservation and efficiency can help, but they are
only part--a small part--of the solution. And buying and bullying water
away from farmers isn't the solution either. Meeting the current and
future water needs of the West will require a thoughtful combination of
means, not the least of which is the creation of new storage.
Like many water users represented by the Family Farm Alliance, I
rely upon a combination of surface and groundwater supplies, managed
through a variety of local, State, and Federal arrangements. Like me,
many western family farms and ranches of the semi-arid and arid West--
as well as the communities that they are intertwined with--owe their
existence, in large part, to the flood control safety and certainty
provided by water stored and delivered by Bureau of Reclamation
(Reclamation) and Corps of Engineers (Corps) projects.
The topic of this oversight hearing is tremendously important and
immediately relevant to me and other California water users, and to
farmers, ranchers and rural communities all over the West. I would like
to start my testimony with an overview of the big-picture challenges
western farmers and ranchers face as they strive to feed our country
and the appetite of a rapidly expanding world population. I will
explain why it is preferable to develop new water infrastructure to
protect our diminishing farm population over policies that encourage
competing demands to transfer water away from agriculture. Certainty in
western water policy is essential to the farmers and ranchers I
represent, and that is why a suite of conservation, water transfers and
other demand reduction mechanisms must be balanced with proactive and
responsible development of new water infrastructure. This testimony
will point out that typical westerners are strongly supportive of new
projects, especially if those projects can minimize moving water away
from farmers and ranchers. And finally, I will conclude with a
discussion that suggests the proper role for the Federal Government to
play when it comes to participating in new storage projects in these
cash-strapped times.
western family farmers and ranchers support water supply enhancement
projects
Central Valley farmers and ranchers and others throughout the West
rely on traditional water and power infrastructure to deliver
irrigation supplies. Many of us have been advocating for new storage
for decades, and we have provided specific recommendations to Congress
and the White House on how to streamline restrictive Federal
regulations to make these projects happen. Water conservation and water
transfers are important tools for improving management of increasingly
scarce water resources. However, these demand-management actions must
be balanced with supply enhancement measures that provide the proper
mix of solutions for the varying specific circumstances in the West.
Supply enhancement should include rehabilitation of existing
facilities and construction of new infrastructure. Rehabilitation
measures should focus on maximizing the conservation effort through
increased delivery efficiencies, construction of re-regulation
reservoirs to minimize operational waste, and construction of new dams
and reservoirs in watersheds with inadequate storage capacity to
increase beneficial use and provide operational flexibility. Additional
groundwater supplies should also be developed, but in a manner where
groundwater use falls within the safe yield or recharge parameters of
the aquifer. Conjunctive management of surface water and groundwater--a
key component of water management where I live--should be encouraged.
We know there are opportunities to develop new projects in the
Central Valley and elsewhere. The Family Farm Alliance in 2005 launched
a project that pulled together a master data base of potential water
supply enhancement projects from throughout the West. The Alliance's
goal was to gather together ideas from around the West and put them
into one master data base. That effort showed there are some very
feasible new surface storage projects, in the Central Valley and
elsewhere. The benefits from these projects include providing certainty
for rural family farms and ranches, additional flows and habitat for
fish, and cleaner water and energy. That same year, the Bureau of
Reclamation submitted a report to Congress that identified nearly 1,000
potential hydroelectric and water supply projects in the Western United
States. that have been studied, but not constructed. The 2005 Alliance
and Reclamation efforts show that, in most areas of the West, water
resources are available to be developed. Environmentally safe and cost-
effective projects exist. They await the vision and leadership needed
to move them to implementation.
the uncertain nature of california's central valley water deliveries
The increasingly complex Federal regulatory structure, and the
increasingly expensive and protracted processes which this structure
encourages, makes obtaining and sustaining water supplies increasingly
difficult on both agricultural and municipal users alike. For the
farmer or rancher, the current water allocation and reallocation
schemes often create economic conditions, a sense of disillusionment
and resignation, and uncertainty. Nowhere is the uncertainty of water
supplies greater than where I live, in California's San Joaquin Valley.
Severe water shortages caused by the combination of Federal
fisheries restrictions and drought on water supplies to the western
side of the valley forced hundreds of thousands of farmland to be
fallowed in 2009. University of California experts estimate that the
combined effects of these restrictions on the water supply have cost
Central Valley agriculture nearly $1 billion in lost income and more
than 20,000 lost jobs. In 2009, water users that depend on the Federal
Central Valley Project [CVP] received only 10 percent of the water they
contracted to receive, the lowest allocation in the history of the
project. Without these Federal restrictions, the allocation would have
been 30 percent. The U.S. Department of the Interior provided
allocation of water for south-of-delta CVP agricultural water service
contractors in 2010 to a whopping 25 percent of their contract. This
year, that same allocation was 20 percent of their contract. Next year,
even with average hydrologic conditions this winter, those water users
face a ZERO allocation, and implementation of Federal laws such as the
Endangered Species Act and Clean Water Act is a primary reason for this
grim scenario.
the importance of protecting and enhancing reliable agricultural water
supplies
Agriculture holds the most senior water rights in the West and is
considered a likely source of water to meet growing municipal and
environmental demands. Unfortunately, severing water from agricultural
land makes the land less productive. Period. Policy makers should be
wary of putting additional, focused emphasis on agricultural water
transfers, particularly in the context of growing domestic and global
food security and scarcity concerns.
Two years ago, the Global Harvest Initiative [GHI] released its
Global Agricultural Productivity [GAP] Report, which measures ongoing
progress in achieving the goal of sustainably doubling agricultural
output by 2050. For the first time, the GAP Report quantifies the
difference between the current rate of agricultural productivity growth
and the pace required to meet future world food needs. The report
predicts that doubling agricultural output by 2050 requires increasing
the rate of productivity growth to at least 1.75 percent annually from
the current 1.4 percent growth rate, a 25 percent annual increase.
The Family Farm Alliance and the Irrigation Association recently
completed a white paper that was specifically drafted to be read by
policymakers seeking to better understand the economic impact of
western irrigated agriculture. This report stems from an earlier
effort, prompted in 2012 to address strategic policy questions about
water resources economics raised by senior staff from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. The White Paper--which was peer-
reviewed by the Farm Foundatio--summarizes basic economic information
current to irrigated agriculture and quantifies what many policymakers
view as a critical indicator of economic significance--irrigated
agriculture's impact to annual household income in the Western United
States. The full magnitude of the Irrigated Agriculture Industry's
contribution to the economy is rarely, if ever, quantified in terms of
total household income for the western region. Real household income is
the contribution to actual dollars in the pocket. It takes the form of
wages, salaries, and products sold, both directly and indirectly.
According to the Paper, the annual direct household income derived
from the irrigated agriculture industry--which is made up of direct
irrigated crop production, agricultural services, and the food
processing and packaging sectors--is estimated at $64 billion in the
Western U.S. region. After further analysis of the total direct,
indirect and deduced impacts, researchers determined the total
household income impact to be an estimated $156 billion annually (based
on 2011 commodity prices). The report also clearly shows that the
affordability of U.S. household food purchases affecting discretionary
income, over time, have contributed substantially to the national
economy, since it allows more household income to be devoted to
consumer goods and services.
These issues and other growing domestic and global food security
and scarcity concerns must be considered as Federal water policies are
developed and implemented. We cannot continue to downplay or ignore the
negative implications of reallocating more agricultural water supplies
to meet new urban, energy, and environmental water demands. It is clear
that greater recognition should be given to western irrigated
agriculture's direct contribution to the U.S. economy, and that water
policy actions are integral to the broader economy's well-being.
America's low-cost access to safe, high-quality food and fiber is
critically important and is made available in large part by Western
irrigated agriculture.
We can find solutions to water conflicts that protect our ability
to feed ourselves, export food to others, and continue to lead the
world in agricultural production, all the while finding ways to
accommodate the water supply needs of continued urban growth, energy
needs, recreational demands, and environmental requirements. Fair,
balanced, and long lasting solutions will not come easily. They will
require visionary leadership and a firm commitment to a sensible,
workable policy. And that policy must include an emphasis on developing
new storage projects.
demand management vs. supply enhancement
We often see bold general statements of water transfer proponents
about the potential for agricultural water use efficiency to free up
water that can be used for in-stream flows. However, those statements
are usually followed up by a list of the factors that make it a
difficult proposition. Those include re-use deficiencies when water is
removed upstream in the system, water rights that protect water users
from water being taken away if they conserve water, and transactions
that move water between presumably willing buyers and willing sellers,
but have the effect of taking land out of production. All of those
issues are dealt with directly in a report developed by the Center for
Irrigation Technology [CIT] at Fresno State. The report, ``Agricultural
Water Use in California: A 2011 Update''4, refutes some long-standing
beliefs about agricultural water usage and confirms others. The full
report is available at http://www.californiawater.org. The CIT report
and others have reached a similar conclusion: the only large potential
for moving water from agriculture to other uses will come from
fallowing large swaths of farmland.
If we don't find a way to restore water supply reliability for
irrigated agriculture through a combination of new infrastructure,
other supply enhancement efforts, and demand management--our country's
ability to feed and clothe itself and the world will be jeopardized.
Water conservation (i.e. ``demand management'') is often seen as
the solution to water supply issues. In fact, in the past 15 years,
tremendous agricultural conservation efforts have been undertaken
throughout the West, including widespread installation of high
technology drip irrigation systems in the Central Valley, where I farm.
On the other hand, relatively little progress has been made on the
``supply management'' end of things. While development has occurred on
conjunctive management and groundwater banking projects, development of
new surface storage projects have virtually ground to a halt in the
past 30 years, especially if any sort of Federal nexus exists for
proposed projects.
Western farmers and ranchers have long taken a progressive approach
to water management. Farmers are already investing in upgraded
irrigation systems. For example, between 2003 and 2010 San Joaquin
Valley farmers invested almost $2.2 billion in upgraded irrigation
systems on over 1.8 million acres of farmland. Those investments helped
improve water use efficiency and food production and helped fuel
portions of the rural economy at a time when water supply cuts were
increasing unemployment. And, these sorts of efficient farm practices
have led to increased economic value and production. A report by the
California Department of Water Resources \1\ shows that the value of
California farm products doubled during the 40-year period from 1967
and 2007 while at the same time, applied water decreased by 14 percent.
Other research by the California Farm Water Coalition showed that the
volume of farm production between 1967 and 2000 rose approximately 89
percent with only a 2 percent increase in applied water per acre. These
indicators support assertions that farmers in general are improving
water use efficiency in significant ways over time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The DWR report is available at: www.farmwater.org/
DWR_Econ_Efficiency.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While conservation is surely a tool that can assist in overcoming
water supply problems, it cannot be viewed as the single answer to
water shortages. For example, conserved water cannot always
realistically be applied to instream uses, as it will more likely be
put to beneficial use by the next downstream appropriator or held in
carryover storage for the following irrigation season. Also, in urban
areas, further tightening of water conservation measures, in essence,
``hardens'' those urban demands. Some degree of flexibility must be
embedded in urban water conservation programs to allow these areas to
employ more restrictive water conservation measures during drought
periods. Without having the ability to save water during drought
periods via drought conservation measures, the resulting hardened
demand will force urban water managers to more quickly look to secure
water from other areas; namely, agriculture and the environment. So,
clearly, mandated or ``one size fits all'' conservation programs are
doomed to failure in light of the drastically different circumstances
of water users across the West.
Farmers and ranchers will continue to do all they can to save
water. However, water saving cannot be expanded indefinitely without
reducing acreage in production. At some point, the growing water
demands of the West--coupled with the omnipresent possibility of
drought--must be met. The members of the subcommittee must understand
that in the West, the water needed to meet these demands will either
come from developing new water supplies . . . or it will be taken from
agriculture.
political support for new water projects
Colorado State University [CSU] in 2009 completed a west-wide (17
States) survey that found--throughout the West--strong citizen support
for water going to farmers and also strong support for building new
water infrastructure. The report provides very interesting findings
that underscore western householders support for water storage projects
and irrigation over environmental and recreational water needs in times
of shortage. Three focus groups were used to develop a multi-faceted
questionnaire. An Email invitation to an Internet survey yielded 6,250
municipal household respondents in 17 Western States. Among western
respondents to the CSU poll, the most popular strategies for meeting
long-term needs are to build reservoirs and reuse water, whether it is
on private lawns or public landscapes. The least popular alternative is
to buy water from farmers. When addressing long-term scarcity,
respondents preferred reservoir construction and reuse systems over
other acquisitions and, in particular, are not in favor of water
transfers from agriculture.
These findings fly in the face of arguments made by some
environmental activist groups and editorial boards of certain western
urban newspapers, who insist that the public shares their view that
dams are outdated, monstrous aberrations that should be destroyed. The
findings in this report should further convince our political leaders
to ignore the naysayers and stand up for farming and new water supply
enhancement projects.
appropriate role of the federal government in these endeavors
Federal water agencies' (like the Bureau of Reclamation) once
active role in building new dams and reservoirs has diminished
significantly over the last three decades. Construction of large dams,
in general, has become virtually impossible in recent decades due to
new societal environmental priorities, and related passage of numerous
Federal laws that create litigious uncertainty and tremendous
regulatory obstacles for proponents of new dams. Given this current
political reality, the Federal Government should instead adopt a policy
of supporting new efforts to enhance water supplies and encouraging
State and local interests to take the lead in the formulation of those
efforts. Local problems call for local solutions, and local interests
have shown enormous creativity in designing creative water development
projects, as I will discuss later in this testimony.
Even before the advent of the challenging economic times we now
live in, we witnessed a progressive cutback in Federal water supply
funding. We understand that those who benefit from new water supply
infrastructure should help pay for that infrastructure. However,
policymakers need to understand that, for the most part, new water
supplies are not being proposed to meet the expanding needs of
agriculture. On the contrary, we are seeing a move in the opposite
direction, where agricultural lands are going out of production and
being lost to expanding urban development. Water that was originally
established for agriculture and the communities it supports is now
being reallocated to meet new growing urban and environmental water
demands. The growing number of urban water users in the West and the
public interest served through improved environmental water supplies
should naturally be part of equitable financing schemes.
The President and Congress will prioritize whatever Federal funds
are available to meet existing and future needs. As for the rest of the
capital, it must come either from State and local governments or from
the private sector. If the Federal Government cannot fund the required
investments, it should take meaningful steps to provide incentives for
non-Federal entities to fill the void, and remove barriers to the new
ways of doing business that will be required. In this time of tight
budgets and huge overseas spending, the Federal Government must adopt a
policy of supporting new projects to enhance water supplies while
encouraging State and local interests to take the lead in the
implementation of those projects.
problems with existing regulations and permitting of new projects
The often slow and cumbersome Federal regulatory process is a major
obstacle to realization of projects and actions that could enhance
western water supplies. Here are just a few reasons why Reclamation and
other Federal agencies (particularly fisheries agencies) need to find
ways to streamline regulations and permitting requirements:
Planning opportunities and purposes for which a project
may be permitted are restricted, which narrows the planning
horizon, and makes it impossible to plan for projects with
long-term benefits;
The alternatives proposed for assessment by the National
Environmental Protection Act regulators are frequently
inappropriate, unrealistic, difficult-to-implement, and
often in conflict with State law. The permitting process
stalls, and costs increase to the project applicant;
Federal regulators take a long time making decisions on
projects, and at times they seem unable to even make
decisions. As a result, projects are postponed and money is
wasted as additional studies and analyses are conducted;
Applicants end up spending tremendous amounts of money for
potentially uncertain mitigation;
Rather than doing things concurrently, conflicting agency
permit requirements can add time to the project planning
and implementation process and increases greatly the
potential for last-minute surprises that could endanger the
proposal or require significant additional work.
We pledge to continue our work with Federal agencies and other
interested parties to build a consensus for improving the regulatory
process.
three general recommendations
It is clear that the existing procedures for developing additional
supplies need to be revised to make project approval less burdensome.
By the time project applicants approach Federal agencies for
authorization to construct multi-million dollar projects, they have
already invested extensive resources toward analyzing project
alternatives to determine which project is best suited to their
budgetary constraints. However, current procedure dictates that Federal
agencies formulate another list of project alternatives which the
applicant must assess, comparing potential impacts with the preferred
alternative. These alternatives often conflict with State law.
Opportunities should be explored to expedite this process--perhaps
through a ``one-stop permitting shop'' approach--and reduce the costs
to the project applicant.
Improved and accessible mitigation banking would also help matters
in some areas. Under such an approach, applicants faced with excessive
mitigation costs would be allowed to pay a reasonable sum per acre to a
regional mitigation bank or set aside mitigation lands as a condition
to implementation of their project. The Federal Government should
encourage the creation and more widespread use of public and private
mitigation banks.
Most water supply entities are willing to make investments to meet
human and environmental needs, but they need to know up front that the
Federal Government will honor its part of the bargain. This means that
the Federal Government should enter into meaningful contracts that
protect the expectations of the non-Federal parties, and concepts like
the ``No Surprises Rule'' under the Endangered Species Act must be
validated and expanded.
benefits of new storage in the san joaquin valley
Local and State interests have shown enormous creativity in
designing creative water development projects. For example, the Tule
River Success Reservoir Enlargement Project [SREP] is a Corps of
Engineers flood control project that involves the raising of the
existing spillway of Success Dam 10 feet and lengthening the spillway
165 feet to obtain 28,000 acre-feet of additional flood control and
water conservation storage space. The enlargement project increases the
storage space in Success Reservoir by 34 percent. The additional
storage space improves the flood protection for the city of Porterville
(45,000 population) and the highly developed agricultural lands from a
return period flood event occurring once in 47 years to a return period
flood event occurring once in 100 years. In other words, the proposed
project more than doubles the flood protection for the city of
Porterville and downstream lands.
The Preconstruction Engineering and Design (PED) phase of the SREP
by the Corps of Engineers, at a cost of $2 million, was scheduled to be
complete in 2003, but remains in progress as of this date. The Congress
and California State Legislature have appropriated funds for
construction of this project in the past decade. The local non-Federal
sponsors, composed of the city of Porterville, the Tule River
Association, the Tulare Flood Control District, the County of Kings and
the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, have agreed upon an
apportionment of the local non-Federal cost share and provide the funds
as required for the design and construction of the SREP.
If SREP were in place now, we would have a valuable management tool
that would better help us address the water resources challenges we
face in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The conjunctive management of
surface and groundwater--in its broadest definition, the coordinated
and combined use of surface water and groundwater to increase the
available water supply of a region and improve the reliability of that
supply--is an essential component of water use where I farm. Storage of
surface water is a vital part of utilizing water conjunctively; you
cannot manage water conjunctively with groundwater recharge basins,
alone. In recent years, farmers in the Valley have been forced to do
more with less water, in large part due to recent reallocations of
water away from agriculture and toward the perceived needs of fish
protected by the Endangered Species Act [ESA]. Having the enhanced
ability to store surplus water derived in wet years for use in dry
years and those times when environmental demands further restrict our
available supplies provides additional management flexibility and
multiple benefits.
No better example of what new storage capacity provides can be seen
in the watershed directly north of where I farm, where the Lake Kaweah
Enlargement/Terminus Dam Spillway has already demonstrated its
effectiveness. Lake Kaweah was originally created in 1962 with the
completion of Terminus Dam. Built by the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in
cooperation with local sponsors, the main dam is 250 feet high, 2,375
feet long and was designed to provide a 60-year level of flood
protection. After tremendous flooding in 1955 wreaked over $20 million
in flood damage to downstream areas, the cost/benefit ratio of building
a dam became too great to ignore any longer. The dam was built for
approximately $24 million. Ever since, Lake Kaweah has been a key to
the urban and agricultural development that has occurred in the Kaweah
Basin area. Its three main functions include:
Flood control for over 300,000 citizens and approximately.
500,000 acres of land.
Storage that provides irrigation water for much of one the
most important agricultural counties in the country.
Improved water conservation options in a basin where the
groundwater is severely over-drafted.
Even though the dam has been extremely beneficial, over 10
additional flooding events have occurred since 1962, which led to the
planning and eventual construction of the new Terminus Dam Spillway.
This construction raised the lake level by 21 feet, increasing the
storage capacity by about \1/3\ to store a total of 185,600 acre-feet.
The enlargement project has had a ripple effect, as well. Not only does
it provide for more flood control and increased water storage, but it
also has benefited numerous road and bridge improvements in the
vicinity of the lake. Further, this project has generated many
environmental benefits, including flora and fauna areas that cover over
5,700 acres.
It is very important to note that this project took over 20 years
to complete, and that was without any environmental opposition. That
should provide the Subcommittee with a sense of what a huge undertaking
such a project like this is. What made this project possible was the
incredible support--via coordination and financial resources--between
the Federal, State and local entities who participated in this. It is
difficult to envision a project getting built today without it. Success
simply will not occur if all three levels--local, State and Federal--do
not step-up and commit to the long haul.
Local interests believe that completion of SREP will provide
similar, measurable benefits to many sectors. We continue to work with
the Corps of Engineers to collaboratively address dam overtopping,
seismic and seepage concerns and move this project forward to
construction.
conclusion
We believe that it is possible to meet the needs of cities and the
environment in a changing climate without sacrificing western irrigated
agriculture. To achieve that goal, we must expand the water supply in
the West. There must be more water stored and available to farms and
cities. Maintaining the status quo simply isn't sustainable in the face
of unstoppable population growth, diminishing snow pack, increased
water consumption to support domestic energy, and increased
environmental demands. Modern, integrated water storage and
distribution systems can provide tremendous physical and economic
flexibility to address climate transformation and population growth.
However, this flexibility is limited by legal, regulatory, or other
institutional constraints, which can take longer to address than
actually constructing the physical infrastructure.
The organizations I represent want to work with the administration,
Congress, and other interested parties to build a consensus for
improving the regulatory process. The real reason we continue to push
for improved water storage and conveyance infrastructure is not to
support continued expansion of agricultural water demand (which is NOT
happening in most places). Instead, we seek to mitigate for the water
that has been reallocated away from agriculture toward growing urban,
power, environmental and recreational demands in recent decades. If we
don't find a way to restore water supply reliability for irrigated
agriculture through a combination of new infrastructure, other supply
enhancement efforts, and demand management--our country's ability to
feed and clothe itself and the world will be jeopardized.
I close this testimony with a final reference to the dire situation
that is facing California's San Joaquin Valley now, and the potential
disaster it faces next year. With normal hydrology this winter, and
with minimal to moderate water being dedicated to ESA-``protected''
fish, water managers are expecting a 0-10 percent water allocation for
2014 under the existing ESA paradigm that has been imposed on the
California Bay-Delta. That translates to 300,000-500,000 acres of prime
Central Valley Project irrigated farm land--the fruit and vegetable
basket of America--laying fallow next year.
My fellow farmers and I in the San Joaquin Valley are businessmen,
and those of us that grow permanent crops must make 30-year decisions
to plan for land use, plantings, debt, and infrastructure in order to
help produce food for a global exploding population. The uncertainty to
their water supply--in large part caused by litigation and Federal
implementation of antiquated laws--makes long-term planning impossible,
as they try their best to stay in business. And, remarkably, the water
cutbacks that have already occurred are not increasing the populations
of salmon and smelt. Further cutbacks will only serve to harm
agriculture and other water users. San Joaquin Valley farmers cannot
afford any more cutbacks in their water deliveries, which will also add
to unemployment that already has reached Depression-era levels in
agricultural towns up and down the Valley.
There is actually considerable discretion in HOW Federal laws like
the ESA are implemented. Given the significant scientific uncertainty
with many of these species and the ecosystems in which they reside and
the failure of the ESA regulators to look at the host of stressors
affecting them, the agencies need to step back and rethink the
consequences of their actions. Even though the ESA does not require the
human consequences of their decisions to be considered, it does not
prohibit such consideration. We need to clearly determine how much new
water is needed for new uses, and then find ways to support those uses
in a sustainable way that doesn't hurt irrigated agriculture.
Certainly, the proper use of discretion by Federal agencies as they
administer Federal laws is critical toward this end. However, new
infrastructure is another such way; the construction of additional
water supply and conveyance infrastructure may allow more efficient
management and enable greater cooperation between traditional and non-
traditional water users.
Western irrigated agriculture is a strategic national resource, and
the role of the Federal Government in the 21st century should be to
protect and enhance that resource. Federal agencies have a role to play
in infrastructure development, but interference with or duplication of
State authorities must be minimized.
Thank you for this opportunity to present my testimony today.
______
Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you for your testimony.
We will now move to questions by Members, and the Chair
will defer to the Chairman of the Natural Resources Committee,
Doc Hastings, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hastings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me make an observation here. This discussion, I think,
has been very good on both sides. I was kind of struck by what
Mr. Costa said earlier. He said in California that the system
that is supplying 38 million people was built when California
had about 20 million people, roughly half the population.
The Yakima River Basin was brought up here as being
something that is good, and I very much am in support of that
effort, but the last time there was storage built in the Yakima
River Basin was 80 years ago. Mr. Sandison mentioned that now
that system currently supplies about 300,000 people. I
guarantee you it was probably one-third of that 80 years ago.
The reason I simply bring this up is that if these systems
that are I will not say ``antiquated,'' but that old, clearly,
clearly new technologies had to be used to conserve water to
still supply a growing population to that point, and I think
that at some point you have to recognize, especially with the
growing population and growing demands, that at the end of the
day you have to have more storage. And that is really what this
hearing, I think, is all about.
I mentioned in my opening statement that conservation ought
to be part of that, but it cannot be the only tool. Now, to
that end, Mr. Sandison, you have been working obviously in the
Yakima River with a diverse group of people. In your written
statement, you did mention that conservation is important, but
not the only answer.
So let me just ask this question straightforward. If you do
not have more storage, what would be the future of the Yakima
River Basin, given the demands on that system right now?
Mr. Sandison. Mr. Chairman, we would fall well short of our
objectives by almost any measure in terms of our ability to
deal with current shortfalls during droughts, our ability to
deal with the impacts of climate change going down the road. I
mean, the quantities of water, particularly for out-of-stream
use, that we need in the basin can only be developed through
surface water sources.
So conservation, as I indicated, plays an extraordinarily
important role in this, but the primary use of that particular
tool in the Yakima is for stream reach flow augmentation. So we
can do a lot in terms of improving stream flow in critical
segments of the Yakima through conservation, but it is not
going to supply water that is going to be available to use for
out-of-stream uses, for agriculture, for cities water.
Mr. Hastings. One other issue, too, and it has been alluded
to by several Members, and I think you alluded to it in your
testimony regarding regulations and what that does to, hurdles,
if you will, to building these projects. Could you just
elaborate a bit on some of the potential Federal regulations
that are in place that at least need to be addressed?
I am not going to put it necessarily in a negative light,
but need to be addressed.
Mr. Sandison. Well, of course, as we move through
feasibility analysis of any of the major projects that we are
proposing, we also are subject to the requirements of the
National Environmental Policy Act, and so we have been doing
detailed environmental analyses on all the projects we do.
We, of course, are facing concerns about Endangered Species
Act nexus or the nexus with the Endangered Species Act, and it
is a little bit interesting because one of the primary purposes
that we are trying to do is to de-list steelhead. I mean, we
have a listed species, a threatened species in the basin. We
think we can go a long way toward improving the populations.
So, on the one hand, we are trying to solve an Endangered
Species Act problem and, on the other hand, we bump up against
spotted owl issues, and that sort of thing as we look at some
of the projects.
So, we have to deal with that. I think the Clean Water Act
is another area of concern with respect to the surface storage
proposals because of primarily the difficulty in managing
temperature impacts associated with surface storage. And there
are always the Federal trust responsibilities with the tribes
that we are trying to work with Bureau of Reclamation to
fulfill.
So we manage through a very complicated array of not only
Federal requirements but State requirements as well.
Mr. Hastings. Let me just make an observation, if I can,
Mr. Chairman, regarding that. There has been discussion here by
Members, frankly, on both sides about the regulations, and I am
not necessarily convinced that the regulations themselves stop
projects, but what concerns me is the threat of litigation that
slows down the process. When it slows it down, you have less
certainty with maybe an investment that needs to be made,
whether you are a farmer that is going to make an investment
off an irrigation canal.
All of those things are not because the regulation has been
strictly enforced, but it is the threat of litigation that
slows the whole process down.
And finally, I just want to mention since Mr. Sandison
mentioned fish. I want to make this observation. The Columbia
River system now is experiencing the greatest run of fall
Chinook ever since we started keeping records going back to
1938, and there are a number of dams on those rivers that I
know some critics think ought to be torn down.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your courtesy.
Mr. McClintock. It is called the Pacific decadal
oscillation.
The Chair recognizes the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And to Ms. Ziemer, would you discuss the cost effectiveness
of multi-stakeholders and the funding most available for multi-
purpose use?
Ms. Ziemer. Yes, thank you.
What is interesting in my experience about multi-
stakeholder multi-purpose projects is that they include often a
substantial or at least a partial investment in the natural
infrastructure of places, and what is interesting about that
investment compared to, say, investments in built
infrastructure is that with built infrastructure, as soon as
you build them they start to depreciate, but with investments
in natural infrastructure, those investments are like interest
bearing accounts, and over time they become stronger, more
robust, and more valuable.
So with multi-purpose, multi-benefit projects, those
investments in the natural system continue to earn interest
over time and over the period of plan and implementation, and
they actually enlarge the natural capital.
Mrs. Napolitano. And can you maybe explain a little bit of
what role the Endangered Species Act or the National
Environmental Policy Act has played in the various water
projects you have worked on?
Ms. Ziemer. Thank you.
Yes, I can. In my home State of Montana, we are a rural
population and a headwater State, and so complying with
environmental regulations in the ESA has been relatively
routine. But, of course, we only have a handful of listed
species. In places like where Mr. Barcellos is from, I think
those ESA conflicts are much more difficult to handle, and they
require a lot more time and creative thinking to come to
resolution on.
That said, I think that that kind of difficulty in finding
the way through Endangered Species Act complications
underscores the need for multi-stakeholer, multi-benefit
projects so that those kinds of concerns can be addressed in
both the concept and design stage in order to facilitate
getting through the regulatory permit stage.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
Mr. Sandison, will the integrated plans for water storage
projects provide a benefit-cost ratio on a stand-alone basis
without the conservation and restoration measures?
Mr. Sandison. Congressman, sort of the basic premise of an
integrated plan is the whole is greater than the sum of the
parts, and so a disaggregated analysis of the components of an
integrated plan typically would fail to capture the synergies
among the component parts of the program.
Having said that, I mean, the formal benefit cost analysis
has not been done on either the entire project or on any of the
individual storage projects. We have done a first cut at the
benefit-cost associated with the entire project and sort of a
back-of-the-envelope associated with some of the larger
individual parts.
With respect to a storage reservoir like one we are looking
at called Wymer Reservoir where about half of the water in the
reservoir, well, half of the water exactly, half of the water
in the reservoir would be for providing fish flows and half for
out-of-stream supply.
When you look at the fish flow side, it is difficult to,
when you look at the total benefits to fish associated with the
integrated plan, to allocate the benefit to the various parts
of the plan that would aid in salmon recovery. For example,
what portion of the total fish benefit could you attribute to
the passage, which allows fish access to cold upper basin
spawning and rearing grounds?
How much of it is allocated to the habitat improvements
along the streams, and how much is allocated to the storage
which provides the flows needed to allow the fish to move from
the mouth of the Yakima River to the headwater areas?
So it is hard to do that, and then on the out-of-stream
side, we have a project that is not looking at expanding
irrigated agriculture or really trying to drought-proof a basin
with an existing agricultural economy. It is harder to capture
the benefits when you are trying to sort of preserve an economy
than when you are trying to grow an entirely new one.
Mrs. Napolitano. My time is running short, sir, but have
you considered the evaporation rate?
Mr. Sandison. Yes. That is factored into our demand
calculations, and we have also factored that into the climate
change analyses that we have done in sort of sensitivity
analysis of how the plan will perform under climate change
conditions.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Because we talk about climate change,
but we do not talk about the actual loss of above ground
storage evaporation rates, and I think that should be part of
the equation when we talk about that.
Mr. Sandison. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Napolitano. And the fact that NOAA is even stating
that we may have a dry year in 2014.
Mr. Sandison. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Shibatani, what percentage of Sacramento runoff is
utilized for all purposes, including environmental?
Mr. Shibatani. For the Sacramento region in general?
Mr. McClintock. Yes.
Mr. Shibatani. Well, let me just start with the overall
State perspective, Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. Well, just quickly. I mean, what percentage
of our runoff is controlled? What percentage is uncontrolled?
Mr. Shibatani. There is about 80 percent of total
precipitation that comes in that is managed for use, and that
is sort of divided through ag., M&I, environmental flows. The
rest of the 120 million acre-feet Statewide or 60 percent of
that available water is just simply not touched by our
management prescription.
Mr. McClintock. So that is 120 million acre-feet a year?
Mr. Shibatani. Statewide, yes.
Mr. McClintock. Statewide.
Mr. Shibatani. Eighty million acre-feet.
Mr. McClintock. Not required for environmental flows.
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. McClintock. And it simply runs off into the ocean.
Mr. Shibatani. Well, there are three factors of losses.
That is water that is not touched by our management
prescriptions. So it is water that is either lost directly
through evaporative losses, transferred losses through
vegetation and soil, or losses to the deep salt sink or runoff
to the Pacific Ocean. So that is the yield differential.
Mr. McClintock. What would be required to harness more of
that surplus water?
Mr. Shibatani. Well, for the direct evaporative water and
the transferred water, there is not much you can do. For the
deep loss into the salt sink there is not much you can do. But
for the amount of water that actually leaves through
channelized outflow is what, 15 million acre-feet that leaves
through the north coast? There is about 7 million acre-feet a
year that leaves through the Golden Gate. So we have 22 million
acre-feet of outflow. That is riverine outflow that is going
out to the ocean as lost runoff.
And just to add a point, Mr. Chairman, we talk about many
operators and engineering operators for reservoirs. We talk
about how much water is actually released through reservoir
spills. Now, spill water is water in excess of a flood
encroachment curve. Each reservoir has an encroach curve.
Folsom happens to have a very, very deep encroachment curve.
My contention has always been those encroachment curves are
very, very deep because of the size of the actual----
Mr. McClintock. If I could cut to the chase, the point is
that there is a great deal of water that could be stored for
future use that right now is going into the Pacific Ocean.
Mr. Shibatani. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. Is there any shortage of geologically
suitable sites to store that additional water?
Mr. Shibatani. In watersheds that I have seen, and just to
give one quick example, think of the American River Watershed
as a watershed that would have most of its facilities built. We
did a study with some various partners just a couple of years
ago called the Joint Benefits Investigation Study. We
identified 30 sites in the American River Basin Watershed that
had potential for feasibility studies for new----
Mr. McClintock. Just in that single watershed, 30 potential
sites. So suitable geological sites are not in short supply.
How about financing? We have heard a lot about that.
Now, I seem to recall in 1960 California undertook the
State Water Project. It produced 700 miles of canals, 5.7
million acre-feet of water storage, 10 major storage dams, 11
secondary dams, nearly 3,000 megawatts of generating capacity,
and as I recall, that was financed almost exclusively by either
revenue bonds or self-liquidating general obligation bonds
repaid by the beneficiaries of these projects in proportion to
their use; is that correct?
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. McClintock. Well, should an economically viable water
project not pay for itself?
Mr. Shibatani. Absolutely.
Mr. McClintock. And have the projects that we saw, for
example, in the State Water Project not done precisely that?
Mr. Shibatani. I am not sure. If you take the Federal
projects as an example, there is still large repayment debt on
the Federal projects, but I think just getting back to one of
the first points----
Mr. McClintock. Well, the Federal projects are Federal
funds funded for these projects. They are being repaid slowly.
The revenue bonds and self-liquidating general obligation bonds
for the State Water Project have been paid back on schedule. I
am not aware of any of those bonds defaulting.
Mr. Shibatani. Right.
Mr. McClintock. And when you have a multi-function dam, you
not only have water sales but power, flood control, and
recreation; is that correct?
Mr. Shibatani. Correct, with power sales being the primary
revenue generating source.
Mr. McClintock. Now, has dam engineering changed radically
over the past generation, I mean, just the process of building
a safe dam?
Mr. Shibatani. I think dam safety has improved
considerably. I think dams in this contemporary context have to
look at more modified components to meet some of the many
environmental issues associated with damn operations. I know
that when we did the Folsom modifications 10, 15 years ago, we
developed the first temperature control device for Folsom. We
regained the shutters on the power penstock intakes. There are
a lot of new additions going into new dam facilities these
days, Chairman, that are quite different than what we had 20,
30 years ago.
Mr. McClintock. We will pick up on that point on the second
round.
And with that I am pleased to recognize Mr. Huffman.
Mr. Huffman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to start with Mr. Shibatani. I found your
testimony interesting about all that outflow that escapes the
dams.
Mr. Shibatani. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Huffman. And that it conceptually could be captured at
a high elevation storage point. But that outflow actually
serves some purposes, does it not, when it escapes those dams?
Mr. Shibatani. It does serve a purpose, yes.
Mr. Huffman. Well, not just a purpose, but let's talk about
the many purposes that it serves. I mean, there are entire
municipalities whose waste water discharge programs would not
exist if they did not have dilution ratios based on that
outflow. That is one thing that comes to mind.
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. Huffman. So you may have some municipalities all over
the State of California that might object to you shutting down
their waste water treatment operations.
Those outflows that some might take as wasted also help
juvenile salmon out-migrate. They help migrating salmon spawn.
They provide water quality benefits that are essential to
maintaining beneficial use. There are riparian users downstream
from those dams that have priority water rights----
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. Huffman [continuing]. To use it for irrigation, for any
number of other purposes. They provide all sorts of system work
for riparian ecosystems. They mobilize gravels. They do things
that an ecosystem cannot even function without.
Have you looked at how much of that water is actually doing
something important versus how much could sort of
conceptually--I am sure it is fun to run these hydrological
exercises--but that you could actually take away into the
system through these high elevation storage systems.
Mr. Shibatani. You raise a very good point, Congressman,
and I think one thing that is unique about California, and you
are well aware of this, we live in a Mediterranean climate
where our precipitation occurs 4 months of the year.
Mr. Huffman. But my question is: have you analyzed how much
of it is actually available for the conceptual high elevation
storage that you are talking about today?
Mr. Shibatani. We have done some preliminary assessments
just because we know----
Mr. Huffman. Have you looked at water rights? Have you
looked at downstream beneficial uses?
Mr. Shibatani. We have not looked at the actual water right
tagging.
Mr. Huffman. Then how can you know how much is actually
available for this hydrologic exercise?
Mr. Shibatani. Well, we do it from a mass balance
perspective first so when we know that precipitation is coming
in November through March, we look at that volume. We say how
much are the reservoirs evacuating (a).
Mr. Huffman. What is the number? You said there is 18
million in outflow, 18 million acre-feet in outflow. How much
do you think you could actually capture in upstream?
Mr. Shibatani. Well, let's see.
Mr. Huffman. Without impacting other water users.
Mr. Shibatani. Depending on which waters you are talking
about, are you talking about the Sacramento-San Joaquin
watershed going out to Golden Gate?
Mr. Huffman. OK.
Mr. Shibatani. OK. There is 7 million acre-feet that goes
out per year.
Mr. Huffman. Well, let's talk about that watershed.
Mr. Shibatani. OK. Sure.
Mr. Huffman. I was interested that in your testimony you
did not identify a single river or a single location for these
facilities. You just testified generically that this
theoretically is possible to do all of this upstream high
elevation storage, but on every major tributary of that system,
you have existing high elevation storage, with the exception of
Wild and Scenic Rivers. They have their own legal impediment to
what you are proposing.
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. Huffman. But have you looked at the other hydro
projects, for example, in the San Joaquin, the Big Creek Unit
of Southern California Edison, the many dams that PG&E has
throughout the Sacramento system?
If you are going to start putting dams in upstream of them,
you are impacting their water rights, and you are impacting
their hydropower operations. Have you gotten blessings from all
of these different users?
Because California is a State that is already allocated all
of its water.
Mr. Shibatani. It has allocated its water during certain
times of the year.
Mr. Huffman. Yes.
Mr. Shibatani. So if you go to the State Board and say,
``Is that particular river over-allocated?'' they will say,
``From April through September, yes; November through March,
perhaps no.''
Mr. Huffman. OK.
Mr. Shibatani. So when you talk about allocation----
Mr. Huffman. I find it rather significant that you did not
identify any specific location where the theoretical high
elevation storage would happen. If you have some specific
sites, I would love to have you propose them. I do not have
enough time to go into it, but I would love to see it.
I want to ask Mr. Barcellos a question because of course it
was very alarming for me to hear you say that even with a
normal hydrology next year that you are anticipating a zero
percent water allocation.
I am aware of a Westlands Water District, and they have the
worst allocation. Everyone knows that. Their last notice
October 17 said that even at below normal year and with minimal
to moderate delta restrictions, which was your assumption as
well, therefore casting 25 to 30 percent or up to 35 to 40
percent allocation.
So I am confused about your testimony saying that you are
anticipating zero percent because that is very alarming, and
then I also want to ask you----
Mr. Barcellos. I was referring----
Mr. Huffman. Hold on. I am not finished with my question. I
want to also ask you to speak----
Mr. Barcellos. Well, I wanted to answer your question.
Mr. Huffman [continuing]. To the other water users in the
area because, of course, the Friant water users right next door
are going to get a significantly higher allocation. The
exchange contractors also on that same system are going to get
between 75 and 100 percent for free.
So I just want to ask you to maybe speak to those and how
do you justify telling the committee zero percent when
Westlands itself is saying much more than that?
Mr. Barcellos. I was referring to what the anticipated
allocation was going to be to Westlands. I am in the Friant
Unit, as I stated earlier. I am on the east side of the valley.
At this point we do not know what our current allocation is
going to be. On a normal year, if we can possibly anticipate 50
percent, I think we are going to be lucky.
If the exchange contractors do not get the water because we
have a short year, they can put a call on the water that Friant
has available. We have technical experts that work that out. I
work strictly from a board perspective on my farming operation,
but those numbers change, as you know, from month to month
depending on what precipitation is in those certain watersheds.
Mr. Huffman. All right. Well, thank you.
I just want to suggest that we need to be very careful when
we make representations like that in a congressional committee,
and I want to congratulate you for your record high ag.
production last year in 2012 for the State of California. That
is impressive.
Mr. McClintock. And the gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes our one non-Californian, Mr.
Tipton of Colorado.
Mr. Tipton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Shibatani, I think I would like to maybe bring
this a little bit back to my home State of Colorado.
Mr. Shibatani. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Tipton. We have had some devastating floods, as I am
sure you are probably aware of earlier just a month or so ago.
How could some of the high altitude storage benefit in terms of
being able to protect against some of the flooding like we saw
in Colorado?
Mr. Shibatani. I think, Congressman, the primary premise of
high elevation storage is essentially yield retention during
the periods of the rainy season, and to the extent that there
are additional facilities that we can put above existing or
terminal reservoirs in your State, it is almost a mass balance
exercise. If you have three 200,000 acre-foot reservoirs, one
single 1 million acre-foot reservoir, it is all a question of
attenuating that flood peak that the terminal reservoir
operators have to then release either through food encroachment
rules that they are mandated to release.
So to answer your question, it is a simple question of
retaining more yield upstream that we can then reserve for not
only flood control benefits during the time of the rainy
season, but also serve as a potential commodity asset that but
for 4 or 5 months that water could be used for a lot of
beneficial purposes, including water supply, ag., municipal
deliveries, as well as environmental flows, water quality
enhancement, and recreational benefits as well.
So I do not know if I am answering your question, but the
whole concept is to retain more supplies upstream during time--
--
Mr. Tipton. Well, I would like to follow up actually on my
good friend, Mr. Huffman, because in California, Colorado, we
have seen explosions in growth in population. If we look at the
entire country, 1960, the Census pointed out we had about 130
million Americans. Now we are at 300-plus million Americans.
You just described for me in Colorado we might be able to
save lives, save property, save a lot of damage to
infrastructure with high altitude storage.
Mr. Shibatani. Yes.
Mr. Tipton. Let's talk a little bit about hydro that he had
brought up. Would there be an opportunity to be able to have
hydroelectric power which is going to benefit all of those
communities as well, and as that drops down--you are the expert
in this--to be able to reuse that same water to generate
further hydroelectric power?
Mr. Shibatani. Absolutely, Congressman, and that is one of
the primary motivations of high elevation storage. I mean, the
standard rules are that it rains every year. We cannot
guarantee how much, but it does rain every year, and the water
always follows its national oceanic migration. If you put a
turbine in it, it is converting potential energy to kinetic,
clean----
Mr. Tipton. Chairman McClintock brought up that we have a
lot of projects that are apparently being able to be cash float
off of this. What do you see as the number one impediment to
developing some of these projects?
Mr. Shibatani. These storage projects?
Mr. Tipton. Yes.
Mr. Shibatani. I clearly feel today that the overlapping
and almost redundant layers in certain environmental
regulations that we are currently operating under are scaring
away a lot of investors. I know private sector investors that
are chomping at the bit to underwrite these facility projects.
The first question they ask me is, ``Have you secured your
permits?''
And my answer is always, ``No, not yet.'' They are going to
wait until all of those permits and approvals are in place
before they are ready to sign that check, and they will sign
that check fast and move these infrastructure projects forward.
So I do not have to leave the impression that I am not
supportive of these various environmental and very important
environmental regulatory oversight processes, but let's face
it, NEPA, CEQA, ESA, they were about 30, 40 years ago. Other
things have changed. These regulations have not.
And I have been doing environmental documents for 30 years,
and I just cannot seem to get them done fast enough to get some
of these major infrastructure projects moving forward.
Everything else is static except for the environment that is
moving forward. That has to change.
Mr. Tipton. So what you are pointing out, clarify it for me
if I am inaccurate on this. We have a regulatory process that
was established for the 20th century, maybe earlier on in the
20th century. We have now moved into the 21st century.
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. Tipton. And we have new processes, new technologies
which enable us to do it more efficiently and still be able to
respect the environmental concerns which we all share, and be
able to address Mr. Barcellos' point that rather than taking 20
years to be able to develop a project, we could actually do it
in a much more timely fashion just with cleaning up that
regulatory process.
Mr. Shibatani. You are absolutely correct, Congressman, and
the one point I would quickly add here is that the shelf life
for a lot of environmental documents is very, very short. The
private sector develops methodologies and metrics very quickly,
and so by the time I bring a project for certification, it
could be 10, 15 years old.
The easiest way to oppose that project is just to make the
claim that the best scientific information is no longer valid.
Ten years has gone by. That is a legitimate concern. We have to
re-circle and startup from the beginning again, and we never
get to that end point.
Mr. Tipton. So it is time for the regulatory process to
come out of the past, join us in the future, and to be able to
build for a more prosperous country; is that right?
Mr. Shibatani. At least stay on the same pace of change as
the environment. The environment is changing. Climate change is
pushing it a certain way. The regulatory environment has to
stay in pace with that.
Mr. Tipton. Right. Thank you so much.
Mr. Shibatani. Thank you.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Mr. Cardenas.
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much.
I would like to ask this question if either one of you can
point out a project that you are aware of where the Federal
Government actually participated in the financing and/or
bringing dollar resources to that project. I am from the State
of California. It seems like most of the recent projects in
California have been paid for by local State bonds and other
financing mechanisms, not necessarily Federal.
Can either one of you or each one of you think of a project
that actually is within your realm of what you do that actually
had Federal funds?
Ms. Ziemer. I will kick it off just with the Federal
funding through both Bureau of Reclamation's Water Smart Grants
as well as Farm Bill Equip Programs have been very important
for the investment in upgrading infrastructure for irrigation
districts and water users that leads to salvaged water for
multiple benefits: irrigation, environmental flows, as well as
municipalities. So certainly that has been very important.
Mr. Cardenas. And how about new projects, as in new
facilities? It seems like you just pointed out that the Federal
Government seems to be involved as far as you are aware in
helping with mitigations, helping with improvements, et cetera,
but how about specific new projects?
Ms. Ziemer. Well, other than the planning money that came
through Bureau of Reclamation's Basin Study Program to help
identify the Yakima storage, I am not aware of other new
storage.
Mr. Cardenas. And then that would have been a small
percentage or a large percentage of the overall cost of that
project?
Mr. Sandison. In the case of Yakima, we were the first
basin study grant recipient in the country, as I understand it.
Mr. Cardenas. How long ago roughly? How long ago was that?
Mr. Sandison. Oh, that was 2 years ago, I believe.
Mr. Cardenas. When you received that.
Mr. Sandison. So the Bureau of Reclamation has been a cost
share partner with us in Yakima actually since 2003, but when
we began this process of the integrated planning in 2009, we
had been roughly a 50-50 cost share partner, and the total
amount of money expended to this point is probably in the $12
million range in terms of getting us to a plan that is through
a programmatic environmental impact statement, and so on, and
have a planning report submitted to OMB.
In the Odessa Project, which is a groundwater replacement
project in the Federal Columbia Basin Project, we have been,
again, a cost share partner since 2005 with Bureau of
Reclamation, and again, about $6 million had been invested on
both sides on that, and we recently completed the environmental
impact statement, and the Federal record decision was entered
into.
We are about to issue the water right, the secondary use
permit to Bureau of Reclamation which would allow for that
project to proceed and to replace groundwater, on the ground
replacement of groundwater in what we call the Odessa area. So
in both cases we have been active cost share partners with
Bureau of Reclamation.
Mr. Cardenas. However, when it comes to establishing, say,
a surface water storage project, say, a new dam or something
like that, you mentioned $12 million, which is nice to see that
there is participation there from the Federal level. Yet at the
same time what is a typical cost of a brand new facility if
something were to be cited and it would actually get past all
of the environmental requirements and then actually built?
Is it in the tens of millions or hundreds of millions or
does it possibly tip across a billion dollars?
Mr. Sandison. It is the latter. I mean, just for example,
the projects we are looking at in the Yakima Integrated Plan,
the most expensive project is 160,000 acre-foot off-channel
reservoir called Wymer. I mentioned it earlier. The cost
estimate on Wymer is $1.1 billion, with a B, and we have a
couple of other projects that are a little bit smaller scale
but are in the $280 million to $600 million range.
Mr. Cardenas. Is there any anticipation that in near future
projects that the Federal Government would be participating in
any semblance above $100 million or more per project, or is it
just mainly grants that help percolate the process of getting
it off the ground?
Mr. Sandison. Again, in the case of the Yakima Integrated
Plan, it is our expectation that there would be a Federal
partnership, a cost partnership, funding partnership on the
larger projects, which several of them would be over a $100
million investment.
Mr. Cardenas. If you will allow me time for one more
question, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. If it is a yes or no.
Mr. Cardenas. Never mind. Thank you.
[Laughter.]
Mr. McClintock. Mr. LaMalfa.
Mr. LaMalfa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This is always a very difficult issue, but I think we have
to acknowledge some positive strides have been made in
California. They are doing amazing things with conservation and
recycling in urban areas as well as in agricultural irrigation
and recycling Ag water and using it over and over again as
well.
But we keep coming back to the needs of a growing
population and a further shift and reallocation of existing
water that was built for other purposes at the time to
environmental uses. Millions of acre-feet have been shifted,
and when you talk about strategies and visions to even increase
more flows during the time of year, and speaking mostly of
California here again, but during the time of year where it
cannot be captured for Ag use or other use, strictly flows for
fish purposes as deemed by somebody, including ideas of
shifting so much of the flows to that. You would have
effectively a dead pool behind some of the dams, basically a
drop of water left behind that nobody can access.
So there are some pretty radical ideas out there on the
shifting of water use and supply that really put a chill on
current uses, Ag uses. So it exacerbates the need even more for
all types of water supply creation, more conservation, more
recycling, yes, more looking at desalination where you had that
unlimited water supply along the coast. Technology is getting
better to more cheaply do desalination, where urban use on a
one acre-foot or half acre-foot per household use is
affordable. It will never be affordable inland for Ag use on
desalination, but it can be used in those places.
So what I am getting at is that the need for more supply
inland for Ag use for those other long-term uses is greater,
but we hear thoughts in the committee that, well, the money is
not there. The desire is not there.
And, Mr. Shibatani, you talked about it is there, but when
you add a 10 to 15 or 20-year buffer of regulatory tangles and
permit tangles and lawsuits and all of that, of course the
money is scared away by that.
So how do you see us getting out of this? What do you see
is going to be the solution here to actually increase the
supply?
We are not going to do it all through conservation. We have
taken great strides, but do you think conservation totally is
the answer when we are talking about these other allocations
and shifting of water supplies that are currently happening
away from Ag and urban use toward the environment?
How are we going to do this?
Mr. Shibatani. Well, I think, Congressman, as my colleagues
have eloquently espoused, any one particular element in a water
supply portfolio cannot be the solving answer. So water
conservation, while important, certainly it has progressed
considerably over the last several decades. For the amount of
demands and concerns that we have facing us in the future and
the importance of having in-stream flows provide benefit,
thermal benefit, water quality benefits, protection against sea
level rise, we need to have additional assets in those storage
reservoirs. It provides a flood control benefit. It provides a
supply benefit. It provides an in-stream environmental
ecosystem functionality benefit.
But most importantly, what it does is that it takes
California's inherent hydrology, which is a 4-month based; it
puts it into storage and allows the resource managers then to
use their professional discretion rather than have that water
leave and run out to the Pacific Ocean, to then say, ``What do
we want to use or how do we want to allocate that as experts in
the system to then mete out the appropriate allocations?''
So my contention has always been, and I think the Chairman
mentioned this at the beginning, California has never been a
water short State. It has always been a State challenged by
moving water from Point A to Point B. If we have additional
supplies up in the source areas where that precipitation is
occurring and shifting under current climatic forcings, then it
is incumbent upon us.
Mr. LaMalfa. Let me touch on that. If there is a climate
force that is changing, then is it not even greater that during
that narrow window of time that we capture a greater amount of
that water that is no longer snow pack, if indeed we do play
that climate change game?
Mr. Shibatani. Well, that is true. That is true. If you
look at the hydrograph of California, we have always managed
for that spring freshet. That spring peak is dropping and
moving earlier to the season. So we are going to have more
water in our watersheds earlier in the season, and that would
just leave, unless we captured it.
So climate change----
Mr. LaMalfa. That, and we would have certainty of the
people that would invest in this that they can actually get a
project done. Otherwise they are going to stay away with their
money.
Mr. Shibatani. Correct. So when I talk to private investors
and say that we can expand our hydrogenating period time, they
start looking at climate change. It becomes a very enticing
character that you can throw in front of a private equity
investor to say that we can extend our hydropower generation
period by 2 or 3 months.
And to get back to your question, private investment or
private investors in the equity market, they know exactly
California's potential for hydropower, and they are just
waiting for us to do something on the regulatory environment to
make it a little more efficient, a little more judicious in
meeting its responsibilities to come up with some kind of
genuine expediency to get these longstanding infrastructure
projects built that, quite frankly, are decades overdue to
actually reinvest private sector money into this State.
Mr. LaMalfa. They know the potential. I have a book that
thick from 1957 of all the potential projects that could have
been done if the money and the willingness would be there.
Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
Wyoming has joined us. Mrs. Lummis.
Mrs. Lummis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
What happens in California is important to my State because
we are at the headwaters, and a lot of the water in the Green
River flows into the Colorado and ends up in your neck of the
woods, and of course, what happens below Lake Powell, the lower
Colorado River management and the upper Colorado River
management are supposed to be separate.
But we also recognize that as the demands of the larger
population areas downstream begin to demand more water, your
ability to store water in those higher elevation storage areas
protects our ability to use our own water in the upper
Colorado.
So what you do with regard to creating new storage,
especially in your high areas, is very much important to us as
we try to protect our own water uses for upper Colorado River
Basin States.
Question, Mr. Barcellos. If you listen to some of the
environmental groups, you would get the notion that
conservation and efficiency are the answers to water shortages,
but could you talk a little more about what the Ag community is
doing on the conservation front and what role conservation can
play in the future in addition to this other conversation we
are having about storage?
Mr. Barcellos. Well, conservation has allowed the expansion
of many of the communities because the agriculture has
conserved the water that made it available for communities to
expand their own water usage from groundwater pumping.
We have expanded some acreages and crops, feeding many,
many more people in the world and creating a large agricultural
economy, $12 billion in California on an annual basis. And the
fact that we are somewhat at the limit of conservation
practices, they have pretty well been developed with drip
tapes, with fan jets, and all of our irrigation practices.
We really have to work now on finding additional water
supplies to recharge groundwater for the communities that are
not alongside of a river or anywhere in that neck of the woods
because our groundwater recharge is what supplies all of the
communities in the area. So we have to work partnerships with
the communities and agriculture to manage those supplies.
But we have come a long way in water management.
Mrs. Lummis. Thank you.
Mr. Sandison, question for you. What would be the result of
conservation alone being used on a broad scale without the
construction of new surface storage?
Mr. Sandison. Well, again, specific to my testimony which
focused on the Yakima River Basin, in that basic the benefits
that would derive from conservation projects would, again, we
stream reach benefits so that you are actually improving flows
for a segment of stream.
However, because of the nature of the conservation savings,
which is basically capturing leakage, the water is diverted,
put into a canal. The water leaks out. That water gets back to
the river now, and so what the conservation projects do is give
you a stream reach benefit between the point of diversion and
the point at which the water would have returned under natural
conditions.
So, again, it is limited to stream reach benefits in the
Yakima, what will not supplant the water that would be provided
through storage or provide water for out-of-stream needs.
Mrs. Lummis. So it is a fair statement for me to say that
storage is needed in order to add more total water capacity to
conveyances.
Mr. Sandison. That is our position, yes.
Mrs. Lummis. A question for Mr. Barcellos.
How would you resolve the issue of addressing hurdles to
moving forward on new storage?
Mr. Barcellos. Well, I think we have heard today that
financing is a large part of it, but we have communicated with
larger communities that are willing and able to finance certain
projects that would allow conjunctive use through groundwater
banking, water transfer, and having additional storage would
facilitate that.
So there are financing issues there that we have discussed
and could be addressed, but you also have, as was stated
earlier, a lot of money does not flow until you have the
permitting processes done, and those are quite difficult. So we
need to find a way to make the permitting process a little more
practical.
Who do you go to? One group starts in one place with
environmental things. You have the Clean Water Act that
somebody has to go get permits and carry things over there. So
if we could centralize one place, it could actually give
permits based on need and overcome the threat of litigation,
then that would go a long way to solving that issue.
Mrs. Lummis. I see that my time has expired, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you very much.
We are going to go to a quick lightning round here just to
pick up a couple of final details.
Mr. Barcellos, you never had an adequate opportunity to
respond to Mr. Huffman's insinuation that you were throwing out
faulty numbers when it came to the west side of the San Joaquin
Valley. Is it not true that Westlands numbers show an initial
allocation of zero to 15 percent under normal conditions?
Mr. Barcellos. Yes, it is, and actually in my written
testimony, that is considerably expanded on some of the
projects that I did not have time to discuss in oral.
Mr. McClintock. Great.
Mr. Barcellos. So the written testimony is 12 pages. It is
pretty complete.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you, and that will be a part of the
record.
The rhetorical question was raised, well, what dams are
being stalled by environmental objections. Well, I can tell you
in my district alone we are running into a fusillade of
environmental opposition to a simple proposal by Merced to
raise the new Exchequer Dam at Lake McClure by a mere 10 feet,
which it was designed to be raised by.
So that will give you some idea of the problems that we are
facing.
Mr. Shibatani, you pointed out the difference between
allocated and non-allocated water. Water might be allocated
between March and November, but not allocated between December
and February, basically.
Mr. Shibatani. Correct.
Mr. McClintock. Is that not the time when we watch the
Sacramento River swollen with enormous flood runoff?
Mr. Shibatani. Absolutely.
Mr. McClintock. So that is what you are talking about
storing, is it not?
Mr. Shibatani. That is the uncaptured amount that we want
to store.
Mr. McClintock. And in order to store all of that
floodwater, we have to have a place to put it.
Mr. Shibatani. Absolutely.
Mr. McClintock. And that is the whole point.
If the climate continues to warm, as it has been on and off
since the last Ice Age, snow packs will not be holding water as
long. Does that not also argue for more water storage?
Mr. Shibatani. Absolutely. During that time of year, too,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McClintock. Now, we covered the fact there are plenty
of geologically adequate sites, particularly in the high
elevations. We have covered the fact that these projects should
be, can be, and if they are properly thought out are self-
financing, in fact, can produce revenues pretty much in
perpetuity.
And you have covered the point that one of the greatest
drawbacks to these projects is fear of regulatory delays that
simply make them no longer viable. What can you recommend to us
as changes that need to be made at the Federal level to bring
about this new era of water storage?
Mr. Shibatani. I think there are two facets there, Mr.
Chairman. One facet I think has to do with the actual
responsibilities and the accountabilities with those permitting
agencies that have to deal with the applications that come
before them. Now, they will come back and say that we are
resource constrained. We do not have enough staff. We have a
back log.
I would almost recommend, and I am going to throw this out
there just because it is the kind of stuff that I do, maybe
there is a situation where we can develop a new statute call
the Responsibility and Accountability Act of 2014 that compels
public trust resource agencies, compelled with the
responsibility of adjudicating on private proponent
applications to actually expedite those processes and put some
kind of accountability on timelines so that all parties,
applicants and the permitting agencies, can actually meet.
If we have that kind of assurance, I could go to the
private sector market and say at least in law, there is this
time period and some closure date. It gives them some assurance
that we have a target to reach. Without that, it is an open-
ended checkbook, and I cannot--not me personally--but we cannot
necessarily compel that kind of interest for private sector
investment.
Mr. McClintock. In fact, I am told if there was just some
certainty in outcome that private sector financing for these
projects would be abundant and there would be no need for
putting taxpayers at risk on any of this. The risk would be
borne by private investors.
Mr. Shibatani. That is correct, and that is one of the big
issues about why certain groups that I am associated with, Mr.
Chairman, were moving away from State and Federal fundings for
these major infrastructure projects. That is not going to get
done.
Private sector is chomping at the bit with all the pension
funds, waiting to reinvest in what they feel are very important
natural resource, public trust, needed infrastructure
improvement projects for the Nation. So the money is available.
Mr. McClintock. So it is not financing. It is not suitable
sites. It is not engineering. It is government regulatory----
Mr. Shibatani. Uncertainty.
Mr. McClintock [continuing]. Delays and uncertainty that
are the root of our problem.
I would be very interested in working with you on such
legislation.
Mr. Sandison, one quick question. The concerns over
conveyance were raised, particularly the loss of water through
seepage. For example, you mentioned in your paper that might
conserve water short range, but downstream it has no effect.
Would you very quickly?
Mr. Sandison. Yes, Mr. Chairman. The savings you capture
are in the reach between the point of diversion and where that
leakage would naturally return, and if you reduce the diversion
accordingly, you increase flow in that reach, but if you try to
take that same saved water and move it to another out-of-stream
use below that point of return, you would have a permanent loss
of low in the river. And if you compounded that by doing it
over and over again, you would simply de-water the river.
Mr. McClintock. Great. Thank you.
Ms. Napolitano.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Sandison, you mentioned in your testimony that
conservation will not solve the problems in the Yakima Basin,
but do you agree that conservation is key to the integrated
plan, which includes storage?
And would you agree that conservation might work for some
areas but not as well for others?
Mr. Sandison. Yes. Congresswoman, I do not want to over-
generalize here. So I keep my remarks kind of limited to the
Yakima Basin where what I have described as being the case, it
is a river system with old irrigation systems. It may be unique
to the area.
Yes, the conservation has been under the Yakima River Basin
Water Enhancement Project, Phase 2, an ongoing effort. We have
saved about 72,000 acre-feet of water, conserved about 72,000
acre-feet of water thus far under Phase 2. The integrated plan
calls for another 170,000 acre-feet of storage.
Mrs. Napolitano. So what do you need to move forward?
Mr. Sandison. Well, funding for those individual projects.
The YRBWEP Phase 2 projects in the past have been a combination
of Federal, State, and irrigation district funding. We are
looking at this new 170,000 acres to see how the funding could
be constructed for that.
Mrs. Napolitano. Do you see an impediment then in any of
the environmental issues or regs. or anything of that nature?
Mr. Sandison. As we move forward with conservation
projects, we do not typically have significant regulatory
hurdles to overcome in that regard.
Napolitano. So that would not be the impediment?
Mr. Sandison. No, not for the conservation project.
Mrs. Napolitano. Absent the funding.
Mr. Sandison. Yes, I mean, absent funding, right. It is not
an impediment.
Mrs. Napolitano. I just looked at and I introduced into the
record, but I did not indicate what it really did, but
hydrologist Chris Peterson recently in Modesto made a statement
that I found rather interesting, that it takes $110 per year
per acre-foot to underground store; 1,000 acre-feet for above
ground reservoirs, and 2,000--those are some old figures--for
desalination.
So, you kind of have to look at all the other types of
water conservation and water storage, et cetera, and everything
else.
Ms. Ziemer, the President in August signed the Small
Conduit Hydropower Act, and as stated before, and I do agree,
small scale projects have cumulative capacity of the Glen
Canyon Dam when constructed. Do you think large scale
hydropower is the only solution?
And what role do these small projects play and what is
their advantage?
Ms. Ziemer. In a State like mine, Congressman Napolitano,
the small and rural States like Montana, small scale hydro has
a huge potential to address energy demand because part of the
problem with rural needs and rural energy demand is the
conveyance or getting transmission lines out to these rural
locations.
With small in-conduit hydro we can produce the power in the
place where it is needed in order to pump water and to move
irrigation works without investing in the long conveyance in
transmission lines, and it is really actually a genius
solution, and I have to add Trout Unlimited was very proud to
work with Representative Tipton on that bill.
Mrs. Napolitano. Great. I was just checking some figures
with staff, and since 1992, the Bureau of Reclamation's title
16 has produced almost 800,000 feet of water, wet water.
The Diamond Valley Lake, Metropolitan owned and produced
started in 1995 and finished in 2003 with their own money. It
took 8 years, and it will store almost the same amount of
water.
So something that we need to start looking at is the
comparison of saving and being able to conserve, educate our
folks, and I commend Mr. Barcellos for being able to do a lot
more of the conservation both in farming and in the raising of
cattle and other dairy farms because those are important things
for California and for the rest of the Nation for that matter.
But I think we need to be able to work together and find
solutions that are going to be, as my colleague was stating,
the most effective and cost effective for the people, and being
able to work together to make the issues more clear to those or
clearer to those that have the ability to take into
consideration and to come up with legislation to fix problems
or help communities thrive.
So with that I yield back, and thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
And Mr. LaMalfa to close.
Mr. LaMalfa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I love this term of art, ``wet water.'' You know, is
there dry water or powdered water? Just add water?
Mrs. Napolitano. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. LaMalfa. Sure.
Mrs. Napolitano. I find that paper water and there are
allocations of percentages of water. It is called paper water.
So in other words, if you have 50 percent of the water
allocation, on paper, when there is not a full 100 percent
water, that is wet water.
Mr. LaMalfa. I was just having a little fun, ma'am.
Mrs. Napolitano. OK. Well, I just want it for the record.
Thank you.
Mr. LaMalfa. OK. Yes. Well, it is good. Now we have that
clarified.
Mr. Barcellos, now we were talking earlier about the
process of bringing something from idea to an actual project,
and the framework, if you can call it one, for permitting. So
could you walk through a little more specifically on what that
is really looking like these days?
How many different agencies are involved? Do they talk to
each other? I mean just for the record out loud so people can
hear. What agency has to talk to the other? Are you the middle
man or does anybody even have a chance to communicate?
Because this has all been done in many, many places around
this country with building projects in the past, and there
really is not anything that much newer under the sun, other
than a location where you have the usual concerns that a dam is
going to cause inundation of an area behind the dam, and then
you start getting into cost-benefit ratios.
Why is it so tough? Why is it so tough to get people to
communicate with each other?
We talked a little bit about having a template. Could you
just elaborate a little bit what that looks like for people who
might be watching or for the record on how frustrating that is?
Mr. Barcellos. Well, my expertise, as I said earlier, is
not in the technical aspect. I am a board member and a farmer
first.
But one example, when we were working with the seismic
remediation project on Success Dam, that is a Corps of
Engineers managed dam, and any time we had water elevations
coming up, we had a flood year sometime back, and the process
of getting permits even just to sandbag to raise the level
because of an elderberry bush that ultimately they spent tens
of thousands of dollars sandbagging around it to raise the
level. Ultimately the sandbags killed it because it did not let
the water free flow by, and it got too hot and that just took
care of that problem.
There were others they were unable to protect that survived
because the cooling water as it was flowing by once the water
level receded, it was fine. However----
Mr. LaMalfa. Did a study decide that the sandbags would
help the one and not hurt the other?
Mr. Barcellos. I am sure somebody did or somebody should,
but the fact is as we go forward--we have a little hydro plant
on our dam also--the regulations that you have to go through to
keep that going. If you want to build a new project, where do
you start? Do you start with ESA and you start looking at
endangered species? And then you are going to inundate an area
with water. So then all of a sudden now you have seepage so you
have to work with the Clean Water Act.
I do not know all of the different areas you would have to
go. So it would be nice to have a clearinghouse of one place.
Mr. LaMalfa. One-stop shopping though can lock them in a
room and make them decide what it all is, and then you apply,
right?
Mr. Barcellos. Yes, because what happens is one gets a
little bit of permission and says, ``Before we can go to the
next step, you have to get clearance from the other one, and
then when you get that come back and talk to us.''
Mr. LaMalfa. And pretty much all of these boil down to
environmental issues, don't they?
Mr. Barcellos. They are all directly related.
Mr. LaMalfa. Yes, even though we hear earlier it is an
environment and it is investors. I guess it is the chicken or
the egg because the investors are ready to go, but 10 or 15
years' worth of permits do not seem to allow it.
Down in the valley there, too, when we talk about
allocations where there is the threat or it might be 0 percent
for certain districts, certain areas in the Central Valley, and
I guess there is a problem that we accept that anywhere from 20
to 30 to 40 or maybe 50 is great, where in the past there were
allocations that at one point may have been 100.
And so do we just accept that these lowered standards,
these lower numbers are what it is going to be in perpetuity,
or do we do something about it with adding to the storage,
adding the supplies as environmental concerns become a greater
part of our reallocation?
Mr. Barcellos. We cannot continue on the way we are. The
Central Valley is in a groundwater overdraft. So any water that
has passed by that has gone to the ocean unabated and has not
served a reclamation use for trying to bring back fish, it has
not benefited the Delta because it flowed through too quickly,
because it was all flood releases.
There are factors that come into play that in those wet
years if we could capture water, we are not going to capture
maximum every year. Anybody who is a realist knows that. But if
we could catch them on those really wet years and have that
water to manage in conjunctive use for groundwater recharge,
groundwater banking, utilizing it for irrigation for farms, and
as I stated earlier, sometimes too much water conservation is
what is impacting the groundwater on communities that do not
have access to anything other than groundwater. So we have to
keep them in mind, too, and that is something that our district
works very hard at, is groundwater recharge to maintain water
available for those communities also.
Mr. LaMalfa. As do we in the North with a lot of acres of
rice, et cetera.
Thank you for your testimony. I yield back.
Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
I want to thank all of you for your testimony, for your
patience today and for your expert guidance on this important
issue.
The record will be held open for 10 days. So you may get
additional questions as a result of this hearing, and the
record will be kept open to receive your responses.
Again, many thanks to all of you. If there is no further
business and without objection, the subcommittee stands
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]