Testimony
of
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California[1]
Regarding
California’s
Colorado River Water Use Plan
California State Senate Committee
On
Sheila Kuehl, Chair
[1] Submitted by Jeffrey Kightlinger, Assistant General
Counsel, The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
This testimony contains two parts. The first part discusses the state fully protected species laws, and other endangered species and environmental issues related to implementing California’s Colorado River Water Use Plan, the associated Quantification Settlement Agreement, and the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program. The second part provides an overview of Metropolitan-specific efforts to increase its water supply reliability, diversify its sources of supply, reduce the region’s reliance on imported water, and improve the effective use of local water supplies.
Endangered
Species and Environmental Issues Related to
California’s
Colorado River Water Use Plan
The Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program (MSCP) is tasked with developing a species conservation and habitat restoration program covering the ecosystem of the Lower Colorado River. It is an enormously ambitious undertaking that includes representatives of the federal government; the three lower basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada; Indian tribes; recreation interests; and local governments. This diverse stakeholder group is preparing a program that will restore and develop new habitat, prevent future listings of species and work towards recovery for listed endangered species.
The MSCP will provide a 50-year environmental compliance program satisfying endangered species permitting requirements for existing water and power operations on the Colorado River, as well as for new programs that change deliveries of Colorado River water. These new programs include some of the projects in the California Plan that are designed to help California reduce its reliance on Colorado River water. Without a successful MSCP, the California Plan and the basic operations of the Colorado River will be in serious jeopardy.
The MSCP approaches species and habitat protection on an ecosystem-wide basis for the Lower Colorado River basin. However, there are specific endangered species of concern that will be immediately addressed as part of this program and the MSCP has in fact already implemented interim conservation measures for the razorback sucker, bonytail chub and southwestern willow flycatcher.
In addition to providing compliance with federal endangered species laws, the MSCP is intended to provide California water and power agencies with compliance under the California Endangered Species Act. It is in this area that a conflict has developed between the MSCP and the fully protected species provisions of California law.
The razorback sucker, a native species of fish to the Colorado River, is a federally listed endangered species that is also a California fully protected species. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that immediate action is needed to safeguard the continued existence of the species in the Lower Colorado River and recommended a series of conservation measures to be implemented for the species even before completion of the MSCP. The federal and state stakeholders agreed to cost-share these interim measures at the cost of several hundred thousand dollars; California’s share was 25% of this total which was funded entirely by contributions from the state’s water and power agencies.
As part of these interim measures, the MSCP has worked closely with various agencies to grow razorbacks in hatcheries and stock adult razorbacks throughout the Lower Colorado River. Other funded programs study razorback spawning areas, develop grow-out pond areas and collect wild larvae to diversify the gene pool of the hatchery stock. These measures have provided great benefit to the species and the MSCP plans to intensify these efforts in the future.
While California water and power agencies are participating in this effort through the MSCP, it is awkward since these types of activities can result in incidental take. The MSCP will help stock over 100,000 razorback suckers in the Colorado River, but in that process there will be some minimal losses in collection efforts, in the hatcheries or in transportation. Such incidental take is unavoidable and is far outweighed by the benefits to this species from this effort. Yet technically that take could be in potential violation of California law. Furthermore, the success of this effort places California agencies in the likely position of eventually violating the fully protected species laws because of the growing population of razorbacks near agency facilities.
These provisions of law actually work in a Catch 22 manner; they work to the detriment of the species by encouraging agencies to do nothing so as to avoid any possibility of incidental take.
The California water and power agencies in the MSCP have chosen to ignore this dilemma and instead have acted to fund efforts to protect the razorback sucker on the assumption that this problem will be corrected by legislation. It is in nobody’s interest to have a species become extirpated from an area while legislative details are worked out over time.
Although the razorback sucker is the best example of the problem the fully protected species law poses with regards to the Colorado River, it is not the only one by any means. There are 37 fully protected species in California and 12 of those are found within the planing areas of project components of the California Plan.
The IID-SDCWA Water Transfer has to deal with potential impacts to fully protected species such as the Yuma clapper rail and the brown pelican, among others. These laws add another layer of complexity to the immensely complicated task of developing project permitting for a transfer with potential Salton Sea impacts. The draconian requirements of the fully protected species provisions place so much risk on agencies that in many cases it makes projects untenable, even in cases such as here where all parties agree that encouraging agricultural to urban water transfers is the environmentally preferred method of increasing water supply reliability.
In addition to the fully protected species quandary, there are many other environmental compliance issues that must be resolved to bring the California Plan on line within the necessary time requirements. The Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Game have been very supportive and enormously helpful in resolving these issues as they arise. With their help and the ongoing commitment of Metropolitan, the Coachella Valley Water District, the Imperial Irrigation District and the San Diego County Water Authority, we are confident that California can stay on track to complete the California Plan and reduce California’s reliance on Colorado River water.
Metropolitan’s
Water Supply Reliability and Management Efforts
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a public agency established under a legislative act in 1928 to secure supplemental water supplies for its member agencies. Metropolitan’s 5,200-square mile service area stretches some 200 miles along the coastal plain of southern California and encompasses parts of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, and Ventura Counties. More than 17 million people reside within Metropolitan’s service area.
Today, Metropolitan provides over 50 percent of the water used within its service area. Metropolitan receives water from two principal sources, the Colorado River, via the Colorado River Aqueduct, and the State Water Project (northern California water), via the California Aqueduct. To further help meet the water needs of member agencies, Metropolitan assists in the development and effective use of local resources, beginning in the late 1950s with cooperative groundwater recharge programs and evolving over time to member agency partnerships for water conservation, water recycling, groundwater recovery, and water storage and conjunctive use programs.
The 444-mile State Water Project (SWP) is owned by the State of California and operated by the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP transports water released from Oroville Dam and flows that have traveled into the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay/Delta), south via the California Aqueduct to four delivery points near the northern and eastern boundaries of Metropolitan. Metropolitan is one of 29 agencies that have contracts for water service with the California Department of Water Resources.
Metropolitan’s SWP contract is for a total of 2,011,500 acre-feet per year. The contracted amount was increased in 1964 from 1,500,000 acre-feet per year principally to offset the impending loss of a portion of Metropolitan’s Colorado River supply resulting from the 1963 United States Supreme Court decision in Arizona v. California. Improvement of the supply reliability of the SWP and the development of comprehensive long-term solutions to the environmental problems in the Bay/Delta system are the focus of the CALFED process and legislation.
Under “The Law of the River”, California is apportioned the use of 4.4 million acre-feet per year from the Colorado River each year plus one-half of any surplus water that may be available for use in the Lower Basin. Metropolitan has a legal entitlement to Colorado River water under a permanent service contract with the Secretary of the Interior.
The Colorado River Aqueduct, which is owned and operated by Metropolitan, transports water from the Colorado River approximately 242 miles to its terminus at Lake Mathews in Riverside County. It has the capability to divert up to 1.3 million acre-feet per year. Under the priority system that governs the distribution of Colorado River water made available to California, Metropolitan holds the fourth priority right to 550,000 acre-feet per year. This is the last priority within California’s annual basic apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet. Metropolitan holds the fifth priority right to 662,000 acre-feet of water per year, which is in excess of California’s annual basic apportionment. Historically, Metropolitan has been able to take advantage of its fifth priority right entitlement as a result of the availability of surplus Colorado River water and Colorado River water apportioned but unused by Arizona and Nevada.
Over the last ten years, California entities have diverted 4.5 to 5.2 million acre-feet annually from the Colorado River, relying on system surpluses and apportioned but unused waters of the other Lower Basin states that will not be available in the future. The Colorado River Board of California, in consultation with the California Department of Water Resources, Metropolitan, CVWD, IID, Palo Verde Irrigation District (PVID), SDCWA, the City of Los Angeles, and others, has developed California’s Colorado River Water Use Plan (California Plan).
The California Plan is the key to managing our use of Colorado River water. It provides a framework and timetable for the reduction of California’s use of Colorado River water to its annual basic apportionment through reallocation of water supplies among the involved water agencies (voluntary water conservation/transfers), cooperative water storage and conjunctive use programs, and by other means. In order to meet its Colorado River water needs from within its available apportionment, California must put in place reductions in California’s use of Colorado River water.
If no new agreements were executed and no surplus water were available, Metropolitan’s annual supply of Colorado River water would have a shortfall of about 600,000 acre-feet per year. The statewide economic and environmental consequences of this short fall would simply not be acceptable. There is no substitute for success in implementing a plan for reducing California’s Colorado River water use that is acceptable to the Secretary of the Interior and the other Basin states.
Metropolitan is actively engaged with Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD), Imperial Irrigation District (IID), and San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) (collectively, the Agencies) in the implementation of California’s Colorado River Water Use Plan and the associated proposed Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA) to reduce California’s reliance on Colorado River water. The QSA, among other items, furthers quantifies California’s Colorado River water rights and interests, establishes Colorado River water budgets for some of the major California Colorado River water user agencies, and provides for the core transfer of about 500,000 acre-feet per year of Colorado River water from agricultural to urban use. Other critical features of the QSA are the Colorado River Interim Surplus Guidelines and the Colorado River water consumptive use Inadvertent Overrun and Payback Program.
The Department of the Interior’s Colorado River Interim Surplus Guidelines (Guidelines) provide a crucial transition to reliance on reduced Colorado River supplies. The Guidelines provide a 15-year period for California to transition to live within the state’s basic 4.4 million acre-feet annual apportionment of Colorado River water. During the transition period, the use of surplus water would transition down as the measures to reduce California’s use of Colorado River are implemented.
Continuation of the Guidelines for the full 15-year period is contingent on California making specific measurable annual progress in reduction of Colorado River water use to meet specific benchmarks at three-year intervals during the transition period. The first critical progress deadline is the execution of the QSA by December 31, 2002. The Guidelines specifically provide that unless the QSA is executed by that date, the Guidelines will be suspended until such time as California completes all required actions and complies with reductions in water use reflected in the Guidelines. If the QSA is not executed by this deadline, the additional surplus water provided under the Guidelines could be revoked as early as Calendar Year 2003, resulting in the loss of up to 700,000 acre-feet per year of water to urban southern California. Loss of the surplus water at that point would likely result in serious economic disruption, renewal of controversy among the Agencies, and an unraveling of the California Plan.
The first water use reduction benchmark occurs in 2003 and requires California to reduce agricultural Colorado River water use by 110,000 acre-feet. If California fails to meet these benchmarks; the Guidelines will be suspended.
Metropolitan, in coordination with others, is undertaking the development of the QSA core voluntary, cooperative water conservation/transfers, water storage and conjunctive use programs, other cooperative water supply programs, water exchanges, dry-year supply programs, and interim surplus guidelines’ agreements as part of the effort to reduce California’s Colorado River water use to its basic annual apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet. Figure 9, “Keeping the CRA Full,” illustrates this strategy.
In addition to these Colorado River related efforts, Metropolitan has undertaken major investments to lessen its demand for imported water, meet future demands, and improve supply water quality. This is being done through significant investments in increased water conservation, recycling, local projects, groundwater recovery programs, in-service area storage and conjunctive use projects, watershed management, source-water quality protection, and improved desalting and other water treatment technologies. Coordination of these efforts is carried out through Metropolitan’s Integrated Resources Plan and the Plan’s strategies of supply reliability and affordability, and water quality enhancement and protection.
Multi-billion investments and contributions that have been and are being made collectively by Metropolitan and others that are designed to provide supplies for the Colorado River Aqueduct while at the same time reducing California’s reliance on Colorado River water. Collectively, these are multi-billion dollar investments and include:
Investments in Colorado River Agriculture to Urban Water Conservation/Transfers
· December 1988 IID/MWD Water Conservation and Use of Conserved Water
Agreement and Associated 1989 Approval Agreement - yield of 100,000 to 110,000 acre-feet per year (QSA core transfer)
· April 1998 Water Conservation and Transfer Agreement between IID and SDCWA – yield of 130,000 to 200,000 acre-feet per year, and August 1998 Water Exchange Agreement between SDCWA and MWD (QSA core transfer)
· Coachella Canal and All-American Canal Lining Projects- yield of 94,000 acre-feet per year, including 16,000 acre-feet per year to facilitate implementation of the San Luis Rey Indian Water Right Settlement (QSA core transfer)
· IID/CVWD MWD Option Water Conservation and Transfer Agreement – yield 100,000 acre-feet per year (QSA core transfer)
· May 1992 PVID/MWD Land Management, Crop Rotation, and Water Supply Test Program - yield of 186,000 acre-feet from 1992 to 1994
Investments in Colorado River Water Storage Programs
· June 1984 MWD/CVWD/Desert Water Agency Advance Delivery Agreement – multi-year yield of 600,000 acre-feet based on total storage capability
· October 1992 MWD/Central Arizona Water Conservation District Demonstration Project on Underground Storage of Colorado River Water - yield of 81,000 acre-feet
Investments in Other Proposed Colorado River Cooperative Water Supply Programs
· Proposed PVID/MWD Land Management, Crop Rotation, and Water Supply Program - yield of up to 111,000 acre-feet per year
· Acquisition of San Diego Gas and Electric Company properties in the Palo Verde Valley area for inclusion in the PVID/MWD proposed program
·
Hayfield Valley
·
Chuckwalla Valley
·
Cadiz Valley
·
Lower Coachella Valley
·
Arizona
Storage
and conjunctive use programs in Lower Coachella Valley and Arizona would provide
the capability of storing Colorado River water when the Colorado River Aqueduct
is full.
Other
Colorado River Measures for Improved Reservoir System Operations and Water
Conservation
·
Secretary of the Interior’s Colorado River Interim Surplus Guidelines
·
Metropolitan Interim Surplus Guidelines Agreement with Arizona
·
Proposed Metropolitan Interim Surplus Guidelines Agreement with Southern
Nevada Water Authority
·
Secretary of the Interior’s Final Rule on Offstream Storage of Colorado
River
Water
(Interstate Banking)
·
Proposed Small Offstream Water Management Reservoirs and Associated
Facilities near the All-American Canal
Other
aggressive actions being taken by Metropolitan to lessen the demand for imported
water and increase water supply reliability include:
·
Southern California investments of more than $1.2 billion in water
conservation and water recycling (includes 1.6 million ultra-low-flush
toilets, 3.2 million low-flow showerheads, and 15,500 water efficient clothes
washers)
·
Metropolitan investments of over $226 million to help develop more than
151,000 acre-feet per year of additional water supplies from water recycling,
groundwater clean-up and water conservation programs
·
Metropolitan execution of 22 agreements to provide financial assistance
to projects that recover contaminated groundwater with total contract yields of
about 81,500 acre-feet per year
·
Metropolitan execution of 53 agreements to provide financial assistance
to projects that recycle water with total contract yields of about 233,400
acre-feet per year
·
Through the development of cooperative Local Groundwater Storage
Programs, Metropolitan currently has 370,000 acre-feet of water in storage
·
Water transfers with San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District,
Semitropic Water Storage District, and Arvin-Edison Water Storage District that
can provide about 90,000 acre-feet during a dry year period
·
Considering additional water transfer agreements with interested parties in the Central Valley
·
Construction of the $2.1 billion, 800,000 acre-foot Diamond Valley Lake
storage reservoir, doubling the amount of surface storage available in southern
California
·
Construction of the Inland Feeder Project at an estimated construction
cost of $1.2 billion to provide greater water supply management opportunities
These are only the highlights of the diverse program being carried out by Metropolitan to help meet its, the Agencies, and the State’s water supply needs. Metropolitan is committed to the proposed Quantification Settlement Agreement, maintaining the Colorado River Interim Surplus Guidelines for the full interim period, and implementing the California Plan to allow California to live within its basic apportionment of Colorado River water.
With respect to the current status of implementing the California Plan, we refer to a California Plan progress report given to the Committee by Maureen Stapleton, General Manager, San Diego County Water Authority, on behalf of CVWD, IID, Metropolitan and SDCWA. Also, the six other Colorado River Basin states have submitted letters stating both their support and concern for implementing the California Plan. These letters from the other Basin states relate to a congressional bill to help facilitate the implementation of the QSA and the California Plan.