Anyone monitoring recent attempts by the U.S. Congress to enact meaningful water legislation may have suffered a serious case of whiplash. For the moment, at least, the matter seems to have been resolved. Reporter David Haldane has more…
California’s two Democratic senators faced off on water over the weekend, and Diane Feinstein won.
The issue was the Water Resources Development Act, a bill designed to improve the nation’s water infrastructure to help places like Flint, Michigan, recover from contamination. The bill had been supported by California Senator Barbara Boxer until Feinstein attached a rider allowing rivers in Northern California to be diverted to Central Valley farmlands hit by drought.
Boxer argued that such a diversion could endanger the wild salmon populations found in those rivers.
In the end, the bill passed the Senate 78-21 despite Boxer’s vow to block it. “It’s going to result in pain and suffering among our fishing families,” the outgoing Senator said. “It’s ugly, and it’s wrong, and it’s going to end up at the courthouse door.”
FEDERAL WATER BILL COULD CHANGE HOW WATER FLOWS IN CALIFORNIA
