Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Ms. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in support of the ``Canal Conveyance Capacity Restoration Act,'' which I introduced today. Representatives Jim Costa (D-CA) has introduced companion legislation in the House.

The bill has two major provisions, benefiting both drought resilience and the environment:

First, it would authorize more than $653 million to restore the capacity of three canals of national importance. Restoring these canals would improve California's drought resilience and help the nation's leading agricultural economy comply with limits on groundwater pumping under the state's Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

Second, the bill authorizes an additional $180 million to restore salmon runs on the San Joaquin River. The funding is for fish passage structures, levees and other improvements that will allow the threatened Central Valley Spring-run Chinook salmon to swim freely upstream from the ocean to the Friant Dam.

The bill authorizes a \1/3\ Federal cost-share for restoring the capacity of the Friant-Kern Canal, the Delta-Mendota Canal, and the California Aqueduct.

Coordinated legislation in the State legislature introduced by State Senator Melissa Hurtado would authorize a \1/3\ state cost-share for restoring the canals' capacity. Under the coordinated Federal and State legislation, the locals would also be responsible for a \1/3\ cost- share for the canal restoration projects.

This legislation would help California water users and California's nation-leading agricultural industry comply with a recent State requirement to end the overpumping of groundwater. The stakes are huge: bringing groundwater into balance will reduce the water supply of the San Joaquin Valley by about 2 million acre-feet per year.

Unless local water agencies and the State and Federal governments take action, a recent U.C. Berkeley study has projected severe impacts from these water supply losses:

798,000 acres of land would have to be retired from agricultural production, nearly \1/6\ of the working farmland in an area that produces half the fruit and vegetables grown in the nation; and

$5.9 billion would be lost in annual farm income in a region that is almost entirely reliant on agriculture and has been called ``the Appalachia of the West'' due to its severe economic disadvantage.

One of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to restore groundwater balance is to convey floodwaters to farmlands where they can recharge the aquifer. California has the most variable precipitation of any State. When we get massive storms from atmospheric rivers, there is plenty of runoff to recharge aquifers--but only if we can effectively convey the floodwaters throughout the San Joaquin Valley to recharge areas.

Here is where the challenge arises. For a variety of reasons, the ground beneath the major canals has dropped by as much as 10 to 20 feet, which has caused canals designed to convey floodwaters to buckle and drop in many places. Other parts of the canals have not subsided, so the amount of water that the canal conveys must be reduced so that the canals don't overrun.

As a result, these essential canals for conveying floodwaters have lost as much as 60% of their conveyance capacity. The bill I am introducing today would provide Federal assistance to help fix these Federal canals.

Specifically, the bill would authorize $653.4 million in a Federal funding-cost share for three major projects to repair Federal canals damaged by subsidence to achieve their lost capacity:

$180 million for the Friant-Kern Canal, which would move an additional 100,000 acre-feet per year on average;

$183.9 million for the Delta Mendota Canal, which would move an additional 62,000 acre-feet per year on average; and

$289.5 million for California Aqueduct repairs, which would move an additional 205,000 acre-feet per year on average. While parts of the California Aqueduct are state-owned, the majority of the repairs are on its federally-owned portion.

If the Federal government covers a portion of the cost of restoring these three essential Federal canals for conveying floodwaters, it will give local farmers a fighting chance to bring their groundwater basins into balance without being forced to retire massive amounts of land.

Critically, the ability to deliver floodwaters through restored Federal canals will allow the water districts to invest in their own turnouts, pumps, detention basins and other groundwater recharge projects. The South Valley Water Association, which covers just a small part of the Valley, provided my office with a list of 36 such projects for its area alone.

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) has determined that groundwater recharge projects are the best option to help the San Joaquin Valley comply with the new state groundwater pumping law. PPIC projects that the Valley can make up 300,000 to 500,000 acre feet of its groundwater deficit through recharge projects.

A study commissioned by the coalition group called the ``Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley'' estimates that required reductions in groundwater could cause a loss of up to 42,000 farm and agricultural jobs in the San Joaquin Valley. Another 40,000 jobs or more could be lost statewide each year due to reductions in Valley agricultural production, putting the total at approximately 85,000 jobs statewide. Most of these impacts will fall disproportionately on economically disadvantaged communities. These impacts will be significant unless we address them through collaborative planning, policies, infrastructure, recharge and necessary financial support.

Let me now turn to the three critical canals that the bill would authorize assistance to restore. The Friant-Kern Canal is a key feature of the Friant Division of the Federal Central Valley Project on the Eastside of the San Joaquin Valley. For nearly 70 years, the Friant Division successfully kept groundwater tables stable on the Eastside. This provided a sustainable source of water for farms and for thousands of Californians and more than 50 small, rural, or disadvantaged communities who rely entirely on groundwater for their household water supplies.

But unsustainable groundwater pumping in the Valley has reduced the Friant-Kern Canal's ability to deliver water to all who need it. Land elevation subsidence caused by over-pumping means that not all of the supplies stored at Friant Dam can be conveyed through the canal. In some areas, the canal can carry only 40 percent of what it's designed to deliver.

In 2017, a very wet year in which we should have been banking as much flood water as possible, the Friant-Kern Canal couldn't deliver an additional 300,000 acre-feet of water that it would have been able to convey had its capacity not been limited by subsidence. This significant amount of water would have been destined for groundwater recharge efforts in the south San Joaquin Valley, where the impacts of reduced water deliveries, water quality issues and groundwater regulation are expected to be most severe.

The California Aqueduct serves more than 27 million people in Southern California and the Silicon Valley and more than 750,000 acres of the Nation's most productive farmland. But despite its name, much of the California Aqueduct is owned by the Federal government and serves portions of Silicon Valley, small towns and communities in the northern San Joaquin Valley, and farms from Firebaugh to Kettleman City. The aqueduct represents a successful 70-year partnership between the Federal Government and the State of California.

In recent years, particularly recent drought years, the California Aqueduct has subsided. It has lost as much as 20% of its capacity to move water to California's families, farms and businesses. California is leading efforts to repair the aqueduct and is working to provide its share of funding, but the Federal government will also need to pay its fair share. The bill I am introducing today would authorize $289.5 million toward restoring the California Aqueduct.

The Delta-Mendota Canal stretches southward 117 miles from the C.W. Bill Jones Pumping Plant along the western edge of the San Joaquin Valley, parallel to the California Aqueduct. The Delta-Mendota Canal has lost 15% of its conveyance capacity due to subsidence. The bill I am introducing today would authorize $183.9 million toward restoring its full ability to convey floodwaters to farms needing to recharge their groundwater, and to wildlife refuges of critical importance for migratory waterfowl along the Pacific Flyway.

This bill responds to a potential crisis that very possibly could cause the forced retirement of nearly 1/6 of the working farmland in an area that produces half of America's fruits and vegetables.

These are Federal canals, and the federal government must help give these farmers and communities reliant on the agricultural economy a fighting chance to keep their lands in production.

In addition, this legislation helps to restore an historic salmon run on California's second-longest river, the San Joaquin.

I hope my colleagues will join me in support of this bill. ______

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