Republican lawmaker seeks to undo Central Valley Project environmental protections
More than 30 years ago, a piece of federal legislation dropped like a bomb on California’s Central Valley farmers. Reverberations from that legislation continue through today. Just last month, a San Joaquin Valley congressman added language to an appropriations bill that would unwind a key portion of the 1992 Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA). … One of its cornerstones was that 800,000 acre feet of water per year would be carved out of supplies that had been sent to towns and farms and redirect it to the environment instead. Specifically, the legislation hoped to save salmon populations, which had been crashing. Thirty-one years later, salmon are still on the brink. Now, Republican lawmakers are trying to get rid of the environmental protections in the CVPIA for good.
Related article: