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Floor Speech
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Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, I rise to speak in support of the Canal Conveyance Capacity Restoration Act, which I introduced today. Representative Jim Costa has introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives.
The bill authorizes one-third cost-share totaling $653 million 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 has led to a downpayment on a State cost-share for restoring the canals' capacity. Local water districts would be responsible for the remainder of the cost not covered by the State or Federal governments.
In addition, 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.
My bill would help California water users and California's Nation- leading agriculture industry comply with a recent State requirement to end the overpumping of groundwater. The stakes are huge: If we don't bring groundwater into balance, then the San Joaquin Valley will lose access to about 2 million acre-feet of water per year.
Unless local water agencies and the State and Federal governments act, 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 one-sixth 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.
One of the most economical and efficient ways to restore groundwater balance is to convey floodwater to farmland where it can recharge the aquifer. California has the most variable precipitation of any State. When massive storms from atmospheric rivers occur, there is runoff to recharge aquifers--but only if we can effectively convey the floodwaters throughout the San Joaquin Valley to recharge areas.
However, the major canals are in desperate need of repair and have lost as much as 60 percent of their 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 restore Federal canals damaged by subsidence to their former 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.
This will give local farmers a fighting chance to bring their groundwater basins into balance without being forced to retire vast 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 Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley estimates that 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.
Let me now turn to the three critical canals that the bill would help 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 overpumping 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 is designed to deliver.
In 2017, a very wet year in which we should have banked as much floodwater as possible, the Friant-Kern Canal delivered 300,000 acre- feet of water less than it would have conveyed before subsidence. This water would have helped recharge groundwater 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 percent 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 percent 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 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 one-sixth 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 agricultural communities a fighting chance to keep their lands in production.
Lastly, this legislation helps to restore a 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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