Rep. Mike Thompson, who represents California’s 5th District, and Rep. Jared Huffman, who represents California’s 2nd District, held a press conference in Santa Rosa Monday celebrating the success of their co-authored Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2013 (WRRDA), which is now under consideration by the president after passing in both the House and Senate.
President Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law.
The bill authorizes spending on a variety of water projects that fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers civil works division, supporting the construction and maintenance of many dams, levees, harbors, ports and river ways nationwide. The last time Congress passed a WRRDA law was in 2007.
As a federal agency, the Corps of Engineers must follow laws set forth by Congress and cannot deter from their governance.
That rule can cause complications in the management of the nation’s increasingly tenuous water supply.
“This has been a surprisingly good Water Resources Development Act,” Huffman said, touting the Dry Creek habitat enhancement act and adding, “It has a very specific provision that will enable the Corps of Engineers to do their work.”
Among the legislation’s provisions, WRRDA allows the Corps to continue its work with Sonoma County Water Agency to enhance six miles of habitat along Dry Creek, between Warm Springs Dam and the Russian River near Healdsburg, in an effort to revitalize the endangered coho population. This restoration project is required under the 2008 Russian River Biological Opinion formulated by the National Marine Fisheries Service to protect endangered and threatened fish populations in the area.
“Moving forward (with habitat restoration) without authorization language would make this (work) almost impossible,” Sonoma County 2nd District Supervisor and SCWA Chairman David Rabbitt said.
Thompson explained how the legislation will help Sonoma save money and restore habitats.
“A few words and a few sentences in a long, complicated congressional bill will mean a lot to our water customers,” Sonoma County 5th District Supervisor and SCWA Director Efren Carrillo said, alluding to the millions of taxpayer dollars saved with the prevention of the Russian River pipeline project as set forth in the bill.
By enabling the Army Corps to continue its habitat restoration efforts, the bill relieves Sonoma County of the sole responsibility to fulfill the work by 2016, and prevents the construction of the $300 million pipeline on the Russian River that would mitigate habitat impacts as outlined in the biological opinion.
In addition, the legislation includes a requirement that the Government Accountability office study invasive aquatic species to prevent spreading and mitigate their impacts on water infrastructure, fisheries and the environment.
Aquatic mussels, such as quagga and zebra mussels, have cost U.S. communities more than $5 billion since their introduction in the 1980s, and Lake Sonoma, Clear Lake and Lake Berryessa are rated at the highest risk for quagga invasion, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars annually and be detrimental to the local water supply.
Carrillo said this provision, and the representatives’ effort to bring invasive species to national attention, was “paramount to (local) water systems.”
The bill also includes a provision allowing the Contra Costa Flood Control and Water Conservation Districts to directly perform flood control and habitat restoration on the 22-mile Walnut Creek Project.
Huffman said he and Thompson are also working together on legislation that would expand the purview of the Army Corps to allow the agency to chart weather patterns, specifically atmospheric rivers – large storm systems – and use that data when deciding whether to store or release water from area reservoirs. He is hopeful that the passage of this bill will set the tone for future bills on how the Army Corps manages the water system.
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