09/02/2009 GAAS:498:09 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Print Version |
Gov. Schwarzenegger Sends Letter Demanding Obama Administration to Intervene in Water Crisis
Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger today sent the following letter to U.S. Secretary of the
Interior Ken Salazar and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke demanding action
on state and federal water projects.
Full text of the
letter is below:
September
1, 2009
The
Honorable Ken Salazar
Secretary of the Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
The
Honorable Gary Locke
Secretary of Commerce
1401 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20230
Dear
Secretary Salazar and Secretary Locke,
California's
water crisis continues to grow. Three years of drought continue at
serious cost to our farms, our people and our economy. As reservoirs
remain low and water deliveries unreliable, those costs increase daily.
Water
deliveries by the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project to the
two-thirds of California's population south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
are just 40 percent and 10 percent of normal, respectively. Sixty-four
water agencies throughout the state have implemented mandatory rationing to
respond to shortages and, on the agricultural front alone, we estimate that
these reduced deliveries will result in a Central Valley farm revenue loss of
as much as $710 million and cost 35,000 jobs. This
cannot and must not go on. For the past four years, my administration has
been working on solutions to California's water supply and the environmental
crisis in the Delta. However, I am concerned that the catastrophic
impacts of the current crisis on our economy and environment could take decades
to reverse and significantly hamper any long-term solutions.
The
recent biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to protect threatened fish
species in the Delta include overlapping and conflicting actions and
restrictions that provide little or no fisheries benefit but do come at a high
cost to the economy. The opinions cover both the state and federal water
projects but were developed separately, by separate agencies. Ironically,
these opinions work against each other, especially in wet years, which may lead
to species conflict and devastating water shortages in following dry years.
It
is clear that we are trapped in an outdated and rigid bureaucratic process that
dictates fish protection actions one species at a time rather than evaluating
the entire ecosystem and addressing its many stressors. State and federal
water pumps clearly impact the Delta, but regulating as though they are the
only influences ignores the complexity of the situation and creates new
problems while failing to solve others.
On
May 7 of this year, my Director of Water Resources, Lester Snow, wrote to the
USFWS requesting re-consultation on Delta smelt and the operations of the state
and federal water projects. On August 10, Director Snow sent a similar
letter to the NMFS asking for re-consultation on salmon and green
sturgeon. These letters remain unanswered. If the federal
government believes that re-consultation is the wrong path, then we need to
know how to proceed, and we need to know now. We have entered an endless
cycle of consultation that is guaranteed to reduce water supplies and water
supply reliability, but is not guaranteed to recover or even reduce damage to
endangered species. This cyclic regulatory process is not working for
people, and it has not worked for fish.
The
Delta's water supply is of state and national significance, and the so-called
"reasonable and prudent alternatives" included in the two biological opinions
impose significant water supply and economic impacts without demonstrating
assured benefits for the environment.
Thirty-eight
million Californians stand waiting for your formal response.
Sincerely,
Arnold Schwarzenegger
