80 



Mr. Farr. And yet that is not built into the formula? It is not 

 built into the Secretar/s in the bill, is it? 



Mr. Miller. Would the gentleman yield? 



Mr. Farr. Certainly. 



Mr. Miller. The way the bill is written because it has nothing 

 to do with what is going on in the farmland or what needs to hap- 

 pen or not happen. For the most part, people will need a restricted 

 amount of water to support what we anticipate for the particular 

 year at that time. 



Mr. Farr. Well, that is the point I am getting at, and I am 



Mr. Miller. I would say share of the burden, but the language 

 is not relevant 



Mr. Farr. Well, what I am suggesting for all of us is that per- 

 haps there may be a more sophisticated formula than we have used 

 to date rather than this sharp percentage of water allocations. 



Mr. Gaines. Right. That is exactly what one of our major points 

 at this stage of the game is, that somehow we need to get the dis- 

 cretion back with the Secretary, that in a year when we have — 

 typically, what happens, and I am not a weather guy, but from 

 what I understand, when we typically have a dry year down here, 

 for some reason it is wet up in the Canadian prairies and so forth 

 where the bulk of these birds breed. 



And 60 percent of the Pacific Flyway, that is 20 to 25 percent of 

 the continental waterfowl population, depends upon wintering 

 habitat in the Central Valley. We had 4 million acres historically. 

 Now we have got about 300,000 to 350,000 acres. It is critical that 

 we manage those as best as we can to maximize their wetlands val- 

 ues and functions. 



When we have got large populations of birds coming down in a 

 year when it has been a dry year down here in the Central Valley, 

 it is critical that somehow somewhere in this CVPIA or the CVPRA 

 legislation that the Secretary has the discretion to beef up water 

 supplies up to 100 percent even in a dry year if, biologically, that 

 is something that we need to do. There has to be some science in 

 the equation. There is no question about it. 



Mr. Farr. And how much does agriculture have to give up on 

 that? 



Mr. Gaines. Level two supplies, as most of you I am sure know, 

 are historical water deliveries. They are not firm water rights. 

 They are historical water deliveries. Level one is firm water rights. 

 So that water has always been with the refuges. There is no ques- 

 tion about that. So the real question here is the difference between 

 level one and level two water. 



Now, the Service, as a result of the environmental assessment 

 that was required due to the Westlands lawsuit last year and some 

 other instances, has gone back and taken a look at what was called 

 out in the refuge water supply investigation as level one water. It 

 turns out that that level one requirement or that the level one 

 quantity I should say is a lot higher than it was actually depicted 

 back in 1989 when the refuge water supply investigation was com- 

 pleted. 



At that stage in the game, the incremental water to get you from 

 level one to level two, which would be the CVP water that would 

 have to be reallocated from other uses, in a worst case I believe the 



