217 



CVPIA was drafted and debated we were assured that only CVP water would be 

 implicated. In particular, we were concerned that the rights of those with state- 

 created water rights which pre-date the water rights acquired by the CVP would 

 not be affected by the legislation. In its implementation of the CVPIA the Bureau 

 of Reclamation has indicated that it will treat Settlement Contracts on the 

 Sacramento River the same as CVP water service and repayment contracts. 

 Sacramento River Settlement Contracts, however, are not water service or 

 repayment contracts. These Settlement Contracts were entered into with the 

 Uiuted States as a means to address and resolve the protests of those with water 

 rights on the Sacramento River to the granting of water rights to the Bureau of 

 Reclamation for the CVP. These contracts were, in every sense of the word, a 

 "settlement^' of protests made by those with prior water rights on the Sacramento 

 River. At no time was there any intent, nor can the contracts themselves be 

 construed as simply converting those prior water rights to Reclamation contract 

 rights. The base rights to water were never compromised as part of the 

 settlements. 



Sections 3(b) and (c) of H.R. 1906 address this issue by providing 

 appropriate clarification that the terms "Central Valley Project water," 

 "repayment contract" and "water service contract" do not include water right 

 setUement contracts such as those on the Sacramento River and that the only 

 water that Reclamation can exercise control over is water that has been acquired 

 by it. Water rights acquired by others, including Sacramento River Settlement 

 Contractors, are not for the United States to control. 



As noted e«urlier, these provisions should not be viewed with concern by 

 anybody. They merely confirm what was the intent, if not the letter, of the 

 CVPIA. 



In the Sacramento Valley, on the Tehama-Colusa Canal, there are CVP 

 water contractors who have never been provided adequate water supplies. This 

 \mit of the CVP was authorized with Congress providing a priority in 

 contracting. Before contracting was completed, however, then Interior Secretary 

 Andrus declared a contracting moratorium associated with environmental 

 concerns in the Bay and Delta. As a practical matter, this moratorium has never 

 been lifted with the enactment of the CVPIA serving as a further obstacle to the 

 United States providing to these contractors what had been promised. 



The CVPIA also aeated additional practical problems wJiich did not serve 

 to advance any particular environmental purpose and which, in fact, have 

 sapped the Bureau's limited resources to the extent that we believe progress 

 under the more critical provisions of the CVPIA has been prejudiced. For 

 exa m ple, it established a destabilizing interim contracting procedure which 

 provides that interim contracts must be entered into for terms of three years, 

 then two years, until certain illusory events occur in the future. H.R. 1906 

 provides that only one interim contract need be negotiated with regular long- 



