The takeaway:
- A state Senate bill directing money toward the repair of three major canals in central California gets gutted in an Assembly committee
- Friant Water Authority says a construction contract to repair a section of the Friant-Kern Canal will be issued, possibly this year
- Fresno drops a lawsuit bomb on Friant Water Authority
It seems that every time there’s a proposal in the Legislature to help repair the Friant-Kern Canal, something goes wrong. It happened again last month.
Senate Bill 559 would have directed state money toward repairing the Friant-Kern Canal, Delta-Mendota Canal and the California Aqueduct, which are sinking due to land subsidence. The damage is hurting their ability to move water.
But the bill got tripped up in the Assembly.
The committee gutted it and substituted its own language calling for multiple state agencies to get involved in allocating money. The new language also called for reducing reliance on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta for water supplies.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Melissa Hurtado, D-Sanger, pulled the legislation last month on grounds that the revisions would delay or even derail repairs.
“It is unfortunate,” Hurtado said in a statement, “but I will not add further pain to struggling farmworkers and communities.”
Hurtado could try to amend the bill next year, but insiders say they doubt that will happen. The bill’s fate shows just how difficult it will be to upgrade aging water infrastructure in California.
Despite the setback in Sacramento, there’s cause for optimism. Friant Water Authority said a construction contract for repairs could be issued by the end of the year.
Who should pay?
The Friant-Kern Canal is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It’s part of the Central Valley Project, and delivers water from the San Joaquin River/Millerton Lake near Fresno to irrigation districts and cities from Fresno to Bakersfield.
The 152-mile canal is operated by the Friant Water Authority, a public entity controlled by irrigation districts.
Due to land subsidence caused by over pumping of groundwater, the Friant-Kern Canal, built in the 1940s, is buckling in places, impeding water movement. There’s a major pinch point in southern Tulare County where flows have been reduced by up to 60%.
Repairing the canal involves building a new conveyance around the chokepoint. The Middle Reach Capacity Correction Project is estimated to cost $500 million.
How much the state should contribute for the repairs remains an open question. As outlined in the Senate Floor Analyses of Hurtado’s bill, there are three ways of thinking about it.
One theory holds that the owner of the asset should pay. The federal government owns the Friant-Kern Canal, so it should pay for repairs.
Another theory holds that those who use the canal are the ones who benefit, so they should pay. This is the “beneficiaries pay” concept. That would be the water users who hold federal contracts for water deliveries.
The third theory is that those who caused the harm should pay, sometimes called “polluter pays.” Over pumping caused the land subsidence, so those who did the over pumping – farmers – should pay. To that end, the Friant Water Authority worked out a deal with the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability Agency to contribute $125 million to the repair project.
But assigning blame and getting the problem solved is often difficult, so sometimes the government will step in.
Skepticism by Assembly leaders about who should pay for the repairs is the main reason Hurtado’s bill collapsed, said Louie Brown, a lawyer and lobbyist in Sacramento.
“They’re more favorable on ‘beneficiary pays’ or ‘polluter pays,’ ” Brown said. “They see it as a federal project, and ag caused it, and ag and the feds should pay for it.”
The Fresno problem
The concern about who should pay has also echoed locally.
The city of Fresno – a Friant-Kern Canal user – said it would sue Friant Water Authority over being charged for its share of the Middle Reach project. The city said it does not benefit from repairs to a section of canal far downstream from Fresno.
This view violates the so-called “family plan” principle in which all who benefit from the Friant-Kern Canal, regardless of where they are, should chip in a proportional share of the local repair costs.
After Fresno lobbed the lawsuit bomb, Friant Water Authority said in response that it has been working with Fresno for a year on the issue. “The City of Fresno’s obligation on this $500 million project is currently only $2.8 million, of which they have already paid more than $500,000 over the past several years,” a statement said.
Then the Bureau of Reclamation sent Fresno a letter saying its water contract with the Bureau required it to pay for operations and maintenance of the canal.
On the last day of September, the Fresno City Council voted to drop the lawsuit.
The three canals
In 2019, Hurtado succeeded in getting an earlier version of SB 559 bill through the Legislature, only to have the governor veto it. Because the bill was focused on the Friant-Kern Canal, the Governor’s veto message said it’s better to look at water conveyance as a whole, not just one project at a time.
This session, Hurtado added more canals – the Delta-Mendota Canal and the California Aqueduct – and added spending targets and caps.
It should be noted that the bill does not appropriate state money for repairs to canals damaged by land subsidence. Rather, it specifies how state dollars, once appropriated, would be distributed:
– $308 million to the Friant Water Authority for the Friant-Kern Canal
– $187 million for the Delta-Mendota Canal
– $194 million for San Luis Field Division of the California Aqueduct
– $96 million for San Joaquin Division of the California Aqueduct
But the bill has been left for dead, so now what?
It’s time to repair the Friant-Kern Canal, the Friant Water Authority said.
The state budget
Crucially for the Friant-Kern Canal, the state budget already has $100 million for canal repairs in the San Joaquin Valley, and another $100 million has been promised next year.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is credited with putting that initial amount into the budget and promising more, and a portion – $67 million in total – would go toward the Friant-Kern Middle Reach project.
Exactly how the money would be distributed and with what strings isn’t yet known, but there’s no question the Friant-Kern project is ready to move.
“We’ve had conversations with the Department of Water Resources on how to implement the program,” said Alexandra Biering, Friant Water spokeswoman. “They’ve been very responsive.”
A good deal of federal money has been secured, Friant said. There’s more than $200 million in federal appropriations to the Bureau of Reclamation, and $41 million from the San Joaquin River Restoration Program. The latter means water users will, in effect, be getting back some of the surcharge money they’ve been paying for years.
Irrigation districts and cities are in for $50 million. As mentioned, a Groundwater Sustainability Agency has pledged $125 million in mitigation funds. Adding the state money, the total is nearing $500 million.
When the construction contract is signed and ready to go, Friant Water Authority said it will host an event. Expect the Department of Water Resources to be there, and given the canal’s importance to the San Joaquin Valley economy, maybe the Governor will be there too.
