"The Emergency Drought Relief Act" is headed to a vote any day in the Senate (possibly as early as Friday, May 23rd), and important river protections, restoration efforts and the Wild and Scenic Merced could get caught in the middle. Contact your Senator today and speak up for rivers in California and Wild and Scenic Rivers everywhere!
What's Happening?
As California and Southern Oregon face extreme drought conditions, legislators are looking for ways to bring more water to parched farms, ranches, and residents. Several drought-relief bills have been introduced in recent months, including Senator Dianne Feinstein's "Emergency Drought Relief Act" (S. 2198). It's up for a vote any day, and if it passes, the bill will go to the House where Republicans David Valadao, Devin Nunes and Kevin McCarthy are eager to see their emergency drought bill–"The San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act" (H.R. 3964)– become a reality. Although Senator Feinstein initially called H.R. 3964 disingenuous, irresponsible and dangerous, it's very likely that the two bills will merge in Committee.
Unfortunately, the end result may be in conflict with a provision in S. 2198 that calls for addressing the drought with "policies that do not pit stakeholders against one another, which history has shown only leads to costly litigation that benefits no one and prevents any real solutions."
S. 2198 requires the federal government to approve "any project or operations to provide additional water supplies if there is any possible way whatsoever…" The language of the bill does not specify whether these "water supply projects" include expanding storage. American Whitewater is concerned that this could open the door wide for efforts to de-designate the Wild and Scenic Merced River and flood it by raising New Exchequer Dam and expanding McClure Reservoir. H.R. 3964, on the other hand, does have explicit provisions for de-designating the Wild and Scenic Merced, and we're deeply concerned about where this is headed.
Take Action!
More storage is not the answer. Taller dams just become taller concrete walls in river beds when the rain doesn't come, and rolling back a Wild and Scenic River boundary won't change that. Instead, there are other ways to increase storage that should be considered before any dams in the state are raised or built. This includes re-evaluating existing reservoir project operations to balance the need for flood control while maximizing storage opportunities.
Contact your Senators today and ask them to keep the Wild and Scenic Merced out any future drought related negotiations. Contacting Senators across the country is helpful, with a focus on the Senators who introduced the bill (Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Harry Reid (D-NV), Dean Heller (R-NV), John Rockefeller (D-WV), Richard Dubrin (D-IL), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Robert Casey (D-PA).
Additional Concerns
American Whitewater has numerous additional concerns about both bills. They weaken or preempt significant environmental and fish protections for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, impacting the health of rivers and endangered fish populations, and placing over 35,000 people employed by the fishing industry in Oregon and California at risk. S. 2198 in particular permanently allocates more water to farmers south of the Delta, and neither bill has undergone a hearing. To learn more, visit Maven's Notebook.
We're not alone in our concern. Representative Mike Thompson (D-Calif) said that he didn't think there was a reason for the bill, and that House and Senate conferences will make a bad bill worse. Representative Jared Huffman also expressed concern about how moving forward with S. 2198 will open the door for only making the situation worse.
Environmental protections did not cause the drought, and rolling them back won't fix the problem. Take action today and speak up for healthy rivers!