Water and ESA

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the need to fix California's broken water system, a broken water system that no longer can provide for the needs of the State of California, designed years ago for a population of 20 million and the agriculture that we had in the sixties. Today we have 41 million people. By the year 2030, it is estimated California will have 50 million people.

The water system we have today cannot sustain a growing State. As solutions are offered, I believe amending the Endangered Species Act to more effectively protect species while minimizing the harm to California communities should be a part of this conversation.

The ESA has an important role in ensuring species protection, but it is clear that there are major challenges with its implementation. In California, one of those challenges is the Act's implementation limits on the ability to move water from north to south when we have an excess of water in the system, as we have had over the last 5 months.

Simply put, California faced 4 record dry years, which was noted throughout the country and throughout the world; and, this year, we had El Nino conditions that gave us average and above average rain and snow in northern California.

Now, I don't believe anybody thought that 1 year of good rainfall would completely dig us out of the devastating circumstances that California farmers, farmworkers, and farm communities have faced; but, last December, I was hopeful because the rain and snow conditions that were occurring, coupled with the weather forecasting, indicated that there was a high likelihood that there would be enough water in the system to help recover--but not end--the devastating drought conditions that the San Joaquin Valley faced as well as other parts of California. However, as a result of what I believe are flawed biological opinions that govern the operations of the water projects that move water from north to south, we failed to pump over 244,000 acre-feet of water that would have been very helpful today in areas that were most impacted by the drought conditions and still are.

Some farmers, this year, are receiving only 5 percent of their total allocation. It is made worse because, over the last 2 years, they received a zero water allocation because of these conditions that I am stating. To put it in perspective, this year, 7 million acre-feet of water flowed through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta system out to the ocean, and only 963,000 acre-feet were pumped for human and agricultural use. Seven million acre-feet went through the delta out to the ocean, and we pumped less than 1 million acre-feet for human and agricultural use.

This is unconscionable in a State that has been ravaged by drought for the last 4 years. It also was avoidable. There is a host of technical reasons as to why this water flowed into the ocean, but the simple fact is that conservative decisionmaking, enabled by inflexible provisions in the biological opinions that were promulgated under the Endangered Species Act, led to this avoidable outcome.

Therefore, it is time to reform the Endangered Species Act because it needs to be more flexible in order to provide adaptability to changing conditions. It is time to reform the Endangered Species Act because it must effectively recover species, which it doesn't do, and not simply maintain an unsustainable status quo like that in California, especially when you have a drought crisis. Finally, it is time to reform the Endangered Species Act because both people and our environment deserve better.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to update the Endangered Species Act for today's conditions and not for those of the past.

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