Comments on Federal Drought Legislation Oct 12, 2016 Comment Letters To: California Congressional Delegation Subject: Federal Drought Legislation Letter excerpt: This letter is a plea for action from a large and diverse association of public water agencies in California. The Association of California Water Agencies serves approximately 430 public water supply agencies that span northern and southern California and supply water to both our agricultural and urban economies. We believe that the entire state of California would benefit from action by this Congress in passing overdue drought legislation before the end of the year. The 2016 water year has just come to a close. As we look back a year ago, we recall the anticipation that an El Nino condition in the Pacific Ocean would give rise to winter storms and provide relief to California’s drought‐depleted water supplies. The winter came, and with it some of the most significant storms of recent years. But, those storms provided little water supply benefit for the California economy due to federal decision‐making. At crucial times, decisions made by federal regulatory agencies severely restricted the operations of the federal Central Valley Project and State Water Project, even when Delta outflows were substantial. Even with the storms of the past year, ACWA recognizes that California remains in the grip of an historic drought. We would expect that federal policies should provide assistance in meeting water supply needs during drought conditions, but instead at almost every turn federal decisions restricted project operations, preventing water during storm events from being put into storage south of the Delta for later delivery to our farms and cities. During 2016, these restrictive federal policies had a far greater negative impact on water supply than did the drought. Download ACWA’s comment letter
