California’s water future cannot be charted without an understanding of its past. This is particularly true of the Trinity River’s role in California’s water supply. 

When Congress approved the diversion of Trinity River water to the Central Valley in l955, Congressman Clair Engle promised that “not one bucket full of water,” would go into the Central Valley until the needs of the Trinity River were met. Congress promised enough water for Trinity basin fish and wildlife, and an additional 50,000 acre-feet of water for other uses in the watershed. But, for decades after the Whiskey Town and Lewiston reservoirs were complete, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation refused to honor its obligation to make the 50,000 acre feet of water available. Reclamation also diverted up to 90 percent of the Trinity River’s water for decades to the benefit of commercial water users. This diminished the Trinity’s fishery by 80 percent in 10 years. For more than half a century, those environmental costs were ignored and unpaid. 

In 1992, Congress established a new framework for the CVP called the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA). This was a radical change in reclamation law. The CVPIA’s Trinity River restoration program was produced collaboratively by California delegation members Republican Frank Riggs and Democrat George Miller. It was a bipartisan outcome for which we have long been grateful. It was enacted to contribute to California’s long-term efforts to protect the Bay Delta estuary while balancing competing demands for CVP water among agriculture, municipal and industrial uses, power development and fish and wildlife. Fish and wildlife protection was new to the list. For the first time in the 100-year history of the Bureau of Reclamation, Congress gave CVP water use for fish and wildlife equal status with traditional water uses. Congress also required water and power contractors to pay the cost of repairing decades of environmental damage caused by the CVP.   

As for the Trinity River, Congress authorized the Secretary of the Interior and the Hoopa Valley Tribe to adjust diversions of Trinity River water to the Central Valley, prepare a Trinity fishery restoration plan, and required water and power contractors to pay the cost of restoration. 

The Tribe and the then Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt agreed on a plan in 2000, the Record of Decision (ROD). The Hoopa Valley Tribe signed it in a ceremony at a site on the Trinity River that has been sacred to our people for thousands of years. Before the ink was dry, CVP contractors filed a lawsuit to stop the restoration efforts on the Trinity River. Westlands, SMUD and the Northern California Power Agency waged an ongoing battle ever since to prevent dedication of water use for fish and wildlife, not only for the Trinity River fishery that the United States holds in trust for our tribe, but also other Central Valley fishery restoration initiatives. Those contractors also fought to evade or eliminate their financial responsibility for environmental restoration. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2004 that restoration efforts were, “unlawfully overdue.” Trinity flows immediately increased, but restoration funding is still lacking.

 

Battles over the CVPIA have raged in one form or another for 17 years. The contractors insist restoration work in the CVP is complete and want to cut their payments for restoration. Even though the Bureau of Reclamation verifies it will take hundreds of millions of dollars and years more work to complete restoration, Reclamation still has not fully billed the contractors. Millions of dollars of that cost are being shifted to the federal taxpayer. In April, with the full support of California’s environmental organizations, the San Joaquin River settlement was enacted with an amendment to the CVPIA. The amendment obligations permanently cut 25 percent of the CVP contractors’ environmental restoration obligations to the Trinity River. The outcome is a financial break for the contractors and an environmental deadfall for fish and wildlife. 

The ongoing collapse of the Bay Delta’s ecosystem in this context is evidence of how far from Congress’ goals the CVPIA has been driven. Any solution to California’s water crisis has to be based on the principles of the CVPIA and not come at their expense.