Congress may make it for easier Central Valley water transfers

A measure that would help ease the effects of severe drought in the Central Valley by allowing new voluntary water transfers of roughly 250,000 to 300,000 acre-feet of water, depending on rainfall that year, has been introduced in Congress by Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. The legislation would grant new authority to the Bureau of Reclamation to approve water transfers between sellers and buyers in the San Joaquin Valley. The measure also would streamline environmental reviews for Central Valley water transfers by ensuring that they occur on a programmatic basis, instead of project-by-project basis as is current practice. The measure should reduce unnecessary delays in water transfers at a time when Central Valley farmers have been hard hit by a three-year drought, the senators say...read more