U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) joined his home-state GOP colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to request that California Gov. Gavin Newsom reconsider a newly finalized water permit that allows the state to take over long-term operations of the State Water Project (SWP).
Rep. McCarthy, along with five lawmakers, including U.S. Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA) and Paul Cook (R-CA), expressed concerns with the new Incidental Take Permit (ITP) issued on March 31 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to the state Department of Water Resources (DWR) to operate the SWP. The permit covers four species protected under the California Endangered Species Act: Delta smelt, longfin smelt, winter-run Chinook salmon, and spring-run Chinook salmon, according to the DWR.
Under the law, DWR is required to obtain an ITP to minimize, avoid and fully mitigate impacts to threatened or endangered species as a result of SWP operations. In February 2019, state agencies announced for the first time that they would pursue a separate state permit to ensure SWP’s compliance with the law to enable the state to avoid relying on federal permits and providing it the opportunity to utilize transparent, science-based guidelines to establish rules to protect endangered fish, according to DWR.
But the lawmakers called the ITP action “unprecedented,” saying it threatens to send the operations of the SWP and the federal Central Valley Project (CVP) “into a downward spiral of conflict, confusion, and litigation,” according to an April 7 letter they sent to the governor. “It also virtually eliminates the possibility of finding a lasting peace to California’s never-ending water wars and effectively kills negotiations on Voluntary Agreements.”
Rep. McCarthy and the representatives think that actions taken to protect both state and federally listed species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and surrounding ecosystem must be based on the best science.
“However, on November 21, 2019, the California [DWR] stated its intent to refrain from seeking ‘to increase SWP exports’ in its application to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) for an incidental take permit,” they wrote. “This demonstrates that DWR, DFW, and your administration never intended to follow the best science if it ultimately allowed increased exports on the SWP. Notably, the state’s new ITP goes even further than the status quo by limiting SWP exports to an arbitrary amount of water.”
Cooperative and coordinated operations of the SWP and CVP are needed to ensure a reliable water supply exists to “grow the food that feeds our nation and the world,” Rep. McCarthy and his colleagues wrote.
The lawmakers requested that the State of California drop its recently filed litigation against the 2019 Federal Biological Opinions and issue a consistency determination under the California Endangered Species Act “so the SWP and CVP can operate in a coordinated manner, as they have for decades.”