Senior water rights in California are endangered by bad legislation in Sacramento | Opinion
A dangerous trio of bills winding through the Legislature would greatly expand the power of unelected water officials and bureaucrats by stripping authority from holders of senior water rights, most of whom have exercised these rights for more than a century. They include the Modesto, Turlock and Fresno irrigation districts, the city of Sacramento and the city and county of San Francisco.
Usurping these agencies’ control over water, and shifting authority instead to the appointed State Water Resources Control Board, represents an unwise and unnecessary power shift.
Opinion
Arguments favoring Assembly Bills 460 and 1337 and Senate Bill 389 generalize the existing water rights system as antiquated and broken. This is a narrative promulgated often by those who think they don’t have enough water and want to take it from those who do.
When it comes to water, it’s either feast or famine in California — feast this year, with full reservoirs and plentiful snowpack and potential for flooding, right on the heels of a blistering multiyear water famine, or drought. A coordinated push for water regulation reform this year is no reflection of current hydrologic conditions, but the result of decades of coveting water by those who don’t enjoy similar water rights.
Those holding senior water rights do so because their forebears a century ago captured in reservoirs the lifeblood trickling from mountain snowpack. There it is held for strategic release as needed for drinking water and crops throughout the rest of the year. California owes its bounty to that extraordinary insight and investment.
Thirsty interests, including those hoping to restore fish counts, have challenged this legacy. Courts have consistently defended the legitimacy of the state’s water rights system, particularly favoring those with claims predating the creation of the State Water Board in 1914. These holders of senior water rights include the cities and water districts listed above — public agencies all, mostly represented by elected office holders accountable to voters.
CA’s water rights system is working
The priority system is not perfect, but it justly rewards prescient investment and a century of stewardship with a valuable resource that should not be snatched away capriciously.
The State Water Board for years has tried to increase its authority over senior water rights holders, with limited success. This year, the struggle has shifted to the Legislature.
AB 460 would grant the State Water Board sweeping power to issue orders against agencies diverting water from California rivers without hearings, substantially weakening time-honored review standards. That’s why the Association of California Water Agencies and a coalition of business and agricultural interests and manufacturers all oppose the bill.
AB 1337 would give the board similar power in any year, wet or dry. Yes, illegal diversions deserve stiff punishment, but there is no justification for handing the state board unlimited authority without regard to conditions, and even water agencies with pre-1914 rights could be vulnerable. That’s why the California Farm Bureau and water agencies up and down the state, including the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts, are fighting the bill.
And any diverter would assume the legal burden of proving its claim to water under SB 389, which casts doubt on the validity of vested rights and makes the State Water Board the sole arbiter of disputes. Due process and transparency would actually be reduced. Joining builders, merchants and growers in opposition are local government leaders in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties as well as Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer.
The sea change to long-established rights represented in each of these bills is stunning. Fallout could threaten the California economy and would plunge water rights questions into a litigation morass.
This is not a matter of urban versus rural interests. It should not be subject to partisan bickering. Unfettered authority in the hands of an unelected panel never has been a good idea.
Cities and water agencies are more knowledgeable than Sacramento bureaucrats about local needs and conditions. They cannot expect to operate efficiently when subject to the whims of state government.
