Linda Satchwell
Staff Writer
10/28/2009

Brian Morris, Plumas County’s water conservation district manager, received the supervisors’ approval to send a letter to state Senator Dave Cox and Assemblyman Dan Logue strongly objecting to parts of the pending “Delta policy bills” and the most recent version of the new water bond.
The Central Valley Project (1933) and the California State Water Project (1960) aimed at bringing water from the rain drenched north to the thirsty central and southern parts of the state, respectively, for agricultural and municipal uses.
Inherent in both of these projects was a recognition of “area of origin” rights. That is, the people who live and work where the water falls have perpetual first rights to its use. The recent water bond and Delta legislation give the nod to these rights, but Morris believes that the legislation will, in a roundabout way, “eviscerate” them.
The bills, wrote Morris, “promise new fees and the confiscation of water from users throughout the Sacramento River watershed in order to support higher levels of Delta export pumping.”
In fact, the strategic plan that is part of the Delta water bill package directs that all Delta policies be integrated and controlled from the Delta out, as it were. A portion of this management proposal would directly affect the Sierra Nevada region and the people who live here.
A key to the added control by statewide water managers is oversight of “water-use reporting requirements/changes.”     Currently, people living along the water’s route can divert water for their own use. Under the new plan, however, water users in the area of origin would have to fill out reports and pay fees in order to continue using their water. Since these fees will go to help pay for upgrades and changes necessary down in the Delta, locals aren’t taking this lightly. As board chairwoman Sherrie Thrall put it, “It’s not just that water runs downstream.”
Worse, the Delta plan gives Delta managers the power to determine whether they feel an applicant has a “valid” request for the water—this, presumably, in light of downstream needs.
Under “Statewide Water Management,” the Delta legislation asks several questions: “Should the new Delta Stewardship Council oversee efforts for regional water self-sufficiency and water-use reduction contingency plans? What water-use reporting requirements/changes, as recommended by the Delta Vision Cabinet Committee, should the Legislature adopt?” Such language lends credence to Morris’ fears that the rights and needs of Plumas County might get trampled underfoot.
In addition, the proposed legislation calls for increased control by the State Water Resources Control Board, allowing it to “collect and disseminate accurate information on all surface water diversions in the state … initiate stream adjudications and collect adjudication costs from the parties diverting water.”
Morris, on the other hand, wants the Delta water users to focus on other supply alternatives, such as use reduction, recycling, desalination and urban stormwater capture. He doesn’t want the “area of origin” to get stuck paying for the Delta’s problems.
Finally, in the letter to Cox and Logue, Morris requested that a significant portion of bond funds be invested in watershed restoration projects in the Sierra Nevada, if “our constituents are placed in the position of paying for a water bond.”
Currently, wrote Morris, “all parts of California except the Sierra Nevada—the region that is the single largest source of water for California’s urban and agricultural water users” are listed to receive bond funds for habitat restoration.”