Beauty Can Be Deceiving
Context: The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s water contractors have not been able to find the “faucet” connecting California with the Columbia River. So for now, the contractors have returned to their traditional agenda of seeking free taxpayer cash for more reservoir storage and some canals to move water from the Delta and the San Joaquin River to new and traditional supplicants.
On July 4, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed his long-coveted “one, great, beautiful bill.” Giant in scope, it provides for enough tax cuts to add trillions to the national debt while at the same time slashes and terminates many government services.
But among the ugliness buried in the bill is a subsidy long-sought by Central Valley Irrigators — free taxpayer financing of their favorite federal dam and canal projects.
The spendthrift House version generously ladled out (the technical term is appropriates) two billion dollars for expansion of federal dams and a half billion for canals. The Senate version, the version that became law, still offered one billion for federal dams and/or canals.
Each version of the “beautiful bill” waived the traditional (1902) requirements that the federal water projects be paid for in rates charged by the federal government to water and power buyers. Both versions also waived any cost-sharing requirements, a modest requirement of Dianne Feinstein’s 2016 “drought” bill that tripped up the Westlands Water District’s abortive 2019 Shasta Dam environmental impact report, which drew lawsuits from the CA Attorney General and Friends of the River et al.
The bills provide the Secretary of the Interior with the power to spend these windfall FY2025 appropriations until 2034 on these types of federal projects of his or her choosing. And no doubt the Congress will be encouraged to add more to add to this little Secretarial slush fund.
But what might it mean for California rivers? There will be competing supplicants vying for the Secretary’s favors, but here are some of the projects:
The $2-billion-dollar Shasta Dam raise (illegal under the CA Wild & Scenic Rivers Act): In 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Reclmation spun some tales to make it eligible for a billion dollars in pure taxpayer subsidies). The Secretary is but one signature (his) away from completing the environmental impact statement process for this project long sought by the Westlands Water District, the largest agricultural water district in the U.S.
The 130,000-acre-foot expansion of the San Luis Reservoir.: This combined seismic rehabilitation and water supply project is already slated to receive around $1.3 billion in federal taxpayer subsidies, and the project partners (mostly the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Westlands Water District) are trying to find a way to rely on the kindness of strangers (state or federal taxpayers) to pick up the remaining tab of $600 million that they would be responsible for under Reclamation law.
The San Joaquin Valley Blueprint: The centerpiece of these projects would be the proposed Mid-Valley Canal (voted down in the 1982 statewide Peripheral Canal referendum), but it would also include other cross-valley canals and the expansion of Reclamation’s San Luis and Delta-Mendota Canal. The purpose would be to begin deliveries to the Friant Unit and east-side state and non-federal southern San Joaquin Valley service areas. (target: formerly a frightening two million acre-feet and now 9 million acre-feet of more Delta diversions). Back in 1981, the federal proposal’s estimated costs were $656,723,000 in 1977 dollars. No doubt costs have escalated some in the last half century. Also, I won’t mention that there is already a lot of competition for Delta Water.
The Friant-Kern Canal: The Friant Authority, presumably, wants several hundred million dollars to pay for planned and future work on the Friant Kern Canal as its supporting ground sinks from its members excessive groundwater removals. (The Authority has the maintenance responsibility for the canal.)
The Westlands Irrigation District and the Santa Clara Valley Water District have some ideas on refurbishing the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Canal, a project that they assumed the maintenance cost for. No doubt they will be seeking federal and state taxpayer assistance. Costs are unknown to me, but they won’t be cheap.
The Corps of Engineers will soon be starting a three-foot dam raise of Reclamation’s Folsom Dam. Federal taxpayers are already picking up 65% of the tab, but if more subsidies are being offered, why not join the competition?
There are a small handful of other Reclamation projects in other states, some expensive, some not so much, which also could compete for the Secretary’s attention. Regardless, the bill is creating what could be the first big tranche of unprecedented taxpayer gifts for Reclamation projects in California and the Reclamation states — just one more example of gifts from a grateful Congress and President to western state Reclamation water contractors. (And yes, small armies of the irrigator supplicants have been seen in the halls of power in our nation’s capital for months. Our army was much smaller.)
