Letter to Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, and Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of California Natural Resources Agency - Costa, Garamendi, Harder lead letter to preserve the Valley's water supply

Letter

Dear Secretary Haaland and Secretary Crowfoot:

We write to express our strongest concerns over new court filings in the State of
California's lawsuit challenging the 2019 Biological Opinions for the continued
coordinated operations of the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water
Project.

We understand the new filings include an unprecedented operations plan for the
coming water year, submitted by the State with the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
Amid ongoing extreme drought conditions facing California and across the West, a
court-ordered water management plan for a single water year, which has not been
subject to adequate scientific or public review, is the worst possible outcome.

The recently concluded water year was the worst drought year since 1976-1977.
Lack of water has brought hardship and lost jobs to farms, farmworkers, and
communities in the Central Valley. We must do all we can to provide reliable
water supply to our communities, safeguard our environment, and to ensure that
we grow the food needed to feed our nation. The drought has had equally
devastating impacts on protected fisheries in the Central Valley, which the interim
water operations plan would not fix but, instead, undercut any continued voluntary
habitat restoration efforts for protected species.

When the State of California and federal government began developing different
water project operation requirements, we warned in April 2020 that protracted
litigation was likely to occur that would have dire impacts for California. We fear
that is now becoming reality.

The interim operations plan submitted to the court seemingly reverts to a calendarbased approach using historical averages predating 2009, which neither account for
changing hydrological conditions due to climate change nor conditions on the
ground for protected fish species such as habitat restoration efforts. It simply
makes no sense and is both bad public policy and a backslide to an outdated
approach.

Moreover, the interim water operations plan prevents progress on reaching
voluntary agreements that most agree would improve California's water system and
sustainability. Governor Newsom committed to finalize such voluntary agreements
in his 2020 California Water Resilience Portfolio. This court filing by the State and
federal government undermines that commitment.

A sustainable operations plan needs to incorporate real-time monitoring, adaptive
management, and other flexibility so that water can get to areas experiencing
extreme drought and water supply shortages. Any such water operations plan also
needs to account for the needs for fisheries as determined by conditions in real
time, not calendar-based flow averages. The interim operations plan falls flat on
both accounts.

If the federal court process continues to unfold as we expect, we foresee more
lawsuits driving operational decisions, which are best left to operations,
environmental, and water professionals, not judges and attorneys. Court-ordered
management throws California's water supply into chaos, ignoring an already
punishing drought year. Simply put, it would inflict avoidable harm on our state's
economy, people, and the environment.

We urge you to commit to resolving operational differences through compromise
instead of prolonged litigation detrimental to the people we all serve. Thank you
for your consideration.

Sincerely,

JIM COSTA
Member of Congress

JOHN GARAMENDI
Member of Congress

JOSH HARDER
Member of Congress

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