Tuesday September 10, 2024
Modesto Bee —
A congressional panel wants to know why water is short in parts of the San Joaquin Valley despite above-average reservoir storage this year.
Six Republican lawmakers, and zero Democrats, took part in Friday’s hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries. It happened in a conference room at the Hotel Mission de Oro in tiny Santa Nella, Merced County.
The members criticized fish protections that reduce pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to as far south as Kern County. They also urged new and enlarged reservoirs to store more water from wet years for use in dry ones.
“We are not going to solve our water shortages until we build more reservoirs,” Rep. Tom McClintock said, “and we won’t build more reservoirs until we fundamentally change our laws and the policymakers who are responsible for them.”