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THE VOICE OF THE WEST 



lOJfORIAU 





breaking the Peace 

 In the Water Wars 



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THE LONG aod destructive California 

 water war, miilch was quieted by a 

 sensible legldatlve cease-fire three 

 years ago, Is on the verge of fuU-scale re- 

 sumption, thanks to ti^e unquenchable 

 £e«d and incurable myopia of Central Val- 

 y agricultural interests and their water 

 calTlers in Congress. Unless Senators Di- 

 anne Feinsteln and Barbara Boxer take a 



firm stand against 



■■■'■^^■~ these troublemak- 



The state's ers when their leg- 



^^^^^^,. islatlve assault 



economy reaches the upper 



could be house, Calif omla 



. , , . could be swept 

 swept OaCK back into a poUti- 



■ will threaten not 



dangerous only the environ- 



polttUal fSS, A £l 



whirlpool nomlc recovery. 



• The new decla- 



ration of war 

 .comes in the form of legislation introduced 

 this week by Representative John DooUttle 

 and other Central Valley representatives 

 that seeks to overturn the 1992 Central Val- 

 ley Project Implementation Act, signed into 

 law by PrKident Bush. That law brought 

 badly needed reform to an archaic and ex- 

 pensive system of subsidized farm irriga- 

 tion that had wreaked disaster on the aquat- 

 ic environment and nearly destroyed the 

 commercial fishing indust^. 



r^)oollttle's rear-guard atuck would "re- 

 form" those reforms by, among other 



things: stripping them of virtually' uTtbe^' 

 additional water that had been prdffilsed 

 for fish and wildlife restoration; eliminat* 

 Ing a study of fisheries in the 3an Joaquin 

 River, restoring overly generous, stwdiz*.. 

 ed, 40-ye8r water delivery contracts to 

 growers; reducing fees for an enviroiainen- 

 tal fund; scrapping a requirement for dou< 

 bling the salmon populations; and turning 

 fish restoration programs over to the state. 

 Save San Francisco Bay Association di- 

 rector Barry Nelson called the DooUttle bill 

 "the legislative equivalent of a drtve-by 

 shooting," a statement that reflei9tf:cthe»;. 

 depth of dlvlsiveness this legislation'tould 

 re-engender. Indeed, until the Republicans 

 captured Congress last November, a pro- 

 ductive if fragile process of cooperation 

 was growing among the state's competing 

 water interests — farmers, environmental- 

 Ists and urban users. 



The main fruit of that consensuSisililhast 

 fall's voluntary Bay-Delta i^Qord. 

 which dealt with Improving watef '$ulity 

 standards for fish and wiliUlf e in the delta 

 and bay in order to meet Clean WaMr Act 

 and Endangered Spades Act requlfm^ts. 

 But the Bay-Delu Accord was built on the 

 framework of the Central Vallev Project 

 reforms of 1992. If those are gutted, the 1994 

 water quality accords and the state water 

 board's brand new water allocation plans 

 would become virtually meaningless. 



Senators Feinsteln and Boxer rq>resent 

 the best hope for disarming these unrecon- 

 structed water warriors so that, 'Ail 'Oa^',' 

 sensible policies and predictably ;^jppUas. 

 may prevail in California. 



•S 



