California Farm Water Coalition objects to Interim Operations Plan for the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project

Statement by Mike Wade, Executive Director of the California Farm Water Coalition on the Interim Operations Plan for the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project:

“The proposed interim operations plan by State and Federal agencies alters the 2021-2022 coordinated operations of the State Water Project (SWP) and the federal Central Valley Project (CVP). If adopted, the new plan would throw collaboration out the window, abandon the holistic approach to managing our environment that the latest science tells us we need and remove operational flexibility that is critically needed, especially in a drought. What the new plan would do, is guarantee decades more conflict and litigation. 
 
“The proposed plan is a potential disaster for thousands of California farmers who grow a significant portion of the food America depends on because it further reduces the water available for farms at a time that they are facing drought conditions of historic proportions. The proposed plan also undermines the voluntary work that has been providing valuable water supplies and habitat improvements for threatened and endangered species and showing real results.
 
“The proposed plan rejects a science-based approach to habitat and species protections by ignoring the legal and scientific reviews required to meet California’s co-equal goals of protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Bay-Delta and creating a more reliable water supply for millions of acres of farmland and tens of millions of Californians.
 
“The current 2021-2022 coordinated operations plan incorporates adaptive management based on real-time monitoring of conditions in the Delta and provides a more robust and science-based set of protections for threatened and endangered species. The backwards-looking, proposed plan turns the clock back over a decade to a time when decisions were made based on arbitrary dates on a calendar. This proposed plan ignores the fact that fish respond to actual water conditions, not the date on a calendar in an office in Sacramento or a legal brief in a courtroom.
 
“The long-term solution is to finalize and adopt the Voluntary Agreements, a set of actions designed by biologists, water users, public water agencies, and members of the conservation community, that will provide positive benefits from the outset instead of wasting another decade on lawsuits that delay California’s ecosystem and water supply recovery.”