Environment
Newsom seeks peace with Trump in California water wars. Enviros are ready to fight
Two months ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom seemed poised to file yet another suit against President Donald Trump — this time, over a federal plan to pump more water to Trump’s farming allies in the San Joaquin Valley.
Instead, Newsom announced a compromise this week that aims to avoid another protracted legal battle. The Democratic governor outlined a sweeping, $5.2 billion water-sharing agreement that Newsom’s team hopes will put an end California’s never-ending tension’s between shipping river water to farms and cities and protecting critically endangered fish species.
A year into his administration, Newsom is grappling with forces nearly every California governor has struggled to control: powerful water interests in Southern California, wealthy farmers in the Valley, entrenched environmentalists and, this time, a combative Republican administration in Washington.
The governor’s newest proposal signals Newsom may be softening his fight against Trump, but opening another battle. Newsom may have traded a court fight with Trump for a legal battle with the very environmentalists the Democratic administration has seen as allies.
“This is a bear hug of the Trump administration extinction plan by the Newsom administration,” said Jon Rosenfield, senior scientist with San Francisco Baykeeper.
Newsom, though, sees his plan as a blueprint for a new way forward in California water — something he’s been aiming for since taking office. “We have to get past the old binaries, like farmers versus environmentalists,” he said at his first State of the State address last February.
Although the state hasn’t been shy about suing the Trump administration over environmental issues — notably air pollution and climate change — Newsom has made a point of reaching out to the Valley farm community and is trying to find a middle ground on water policy.
Broadly, the proposal Newsom outlined this week has something for each side. It would set aside up to 900,000 acre-feet of additional water in California’s mightiest rivers each year — enough to fill Folsom Lake — for the benefit of struggling fish populations such as Chinook salmon and the Delta smelt.
It calls for state taxpayers to pay some $2.2 billion, the federal government to pay $740 million and state agricultural and urban water agencies to kick down an additional $2.2 billion. The funds would go primarily to fund habitat restoration projects and to pay farmers to fallow some of their land and to buy irrigation and drinking water to be used for environmental flows, according to Newsom’s proposal.
The agreements also would need to be signed by the various water agencies that would have to commit to surrendering water and spending billions on restoring habitat.
Newsom’s top environmental aides insisted their new plan is based on rigorous scientific analysis and would restore fish populations through a mix of increased river flows and habitat projects — projects paid with state and federal tax dollars and money kicked in by agricultural and urban water agencies across California.
“It’s very defensible, scientifically and legally,” said Jared Blumenfeld, Newsom’s secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency. “There’s folks who don’t want a voluntary approach no matter what the scenario. No matter what we do there are people who are going to say we should just regulate. I think those folks are out of step with the realities we face today.”
Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, said the Newsom plan still faces plenty of legal and regulatory hurdles before it can get finalized. “It’s going to need to stand up to significant scientific scrutiny,” he said.
Newsom vs. Trump, so far
The state has filed more than 60 lawsuits against the Trump administration over air pollution, immigration and other issues. It’s been mostly successful; a tally by the website PolitiFact last fall showed the state winning 16 cases and losing two. Dozens of cases are still pending.
Water would seem to be an obvious topic for another lawsuit. Trump has pushed his administration to streamline environmental protections to deliver more supplies through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta — the fragile hub of the state’s convoluted water network — to farms and cities in the south state. He’s mocked California for letting water bypass the Delta pumping stations and flow out to the Pacific in order to protect the nearly-extinct Delta smelt and other endangered fish.
“What’s happened there is disgraceful,” he said in late 2018 as he signed a presidential memorandum directing an overhaul of environmental protections in California. “There’s so much water, they don’t know what to do with it, they send it out to sea.”
Last fall, the White House unveiled its most concrete plan yet for accomplishing Trump’s vision — a rewrite of environmental rules to allow more water to get pumped south through the Delta.
Newsom’s administration initially vowed to sue to block the plan. That was in November. But instead of rushing to the courthouse, state officials have been talking with their federal counterparts about what the Newsom administration believes are flaws in the Trump administration’s plan.
This week, top officials in Newsom’s administration defended their cautious approach.
“The goal of any lawsuit would be settlement,” Blumenfeld said. “Our goal is to settle these issues out. The goal isn’t to have a fight with the Trump administration. ... An all-out fight with the Trump administration ... is not our intention. Our intention is to solve these issues.”
The effort to find a compromise is driven in part by pressure from agricultural forces. Westlands Water District, the politically influential farm-irrigation agency in Fresno and Kings counties, threatened in December to withdraw from negotiations over Newsom’s water-sharing plan if the governor sued Trump over the Delta.
“The state’s threat of litigation (against Trump) places those far-reaching changes at risk,” Westlands general manager Tom Birmingham said in an email to Blumenfeld and Crowfoot.
This week, Newsom’s administration said it isn’t backing down against Trump.
“We’ll be very clear and have been very clear that we’ll stand up to the federal agencies when we need to and work with them when where we can. If needed, we will file a legal complaint,” Crowfoot said.
Seeking compromise on California water
Newsom’s new plan expands a tentative water-sharing agreement brokered by his predecessor, Jerry Brown, in late 2018.
But Brown’s plan was met with considerable skepticism from some environmentalists who said the endangered fish species need — and are legally entitled to — considerably more water as well as protection from the harms caused by Central Valley dams and the Delta water-export pumps.
So far, most environmentalists are finding fault with Newsom’s plan as well.
Kim Delfino, the California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, said the voluntary agreements Newsom’s administration outlined Tuesday lack the necessary teeth to ensure the environment is protected.
“An essential ingredient of any successful compromise is that the deal meets existing environmental protection laws,” she said. “This deal will not and therefore will fail.”
Not all environmentalists are opposed to Newsom’s plan. Maurice Hall, of the Environmental Defense Fund, gave the plan tentative support.
“Additional analysis is still needed and many hurdles still must be overcome before we can support a final agreement,” he said in a joint prepared statement Newsom’s administration released Tuesday. “That said, we are cautiously optimistic ... EDF is willing to stay at the negotiating table for now.”
When it comes to water, Newsom has shown a willingness to rile up his traditional allies in the environmental community.
Not long after his election, Newsom ousted Felicia Marcus, the longtime chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. That was after the board moved ahead with regulations to allocate much more water for fish, instead of waiting for the warring factions to sign the earlier compromise plan brokered by Brown.
Newsom then vetoed a bill designed to overturn all of Trump’s environmental initiatives — after key water agencies threatened to pull out of Brown’s settlement plan.
At an environmental conference in Sacramento last week, while his aides continued negotiations on the expanded settlement plan that was just unveiled, Newsom reiterated his desire to find common ground with the Trump administration on water.
“Give us a chance. I don’t need to be told we need to be tough against the Trump administration .... I know that,” he said. “But give us a chance.”