Number: 1991-07
WHEREAS, drought conditions persist in California, Utah, Florida and other areas, highlighting the need to improve the management of the nation’s water resources; and
WHEREAS, water management and use based on conservation principles instills the ethic of proper allocation of our resources rather than continued expansion and exploitation; and
WHEREAS, the Bureau of Reclamation continues to provide heavily subsidized irrigation water to approximately one-third of the irrigated lands in the West, including lands producing surplus crops and lands farmed by large operators, for whom federal water subsidies serve no discernible national social purpose; and
WHEREAS, the Bureau of Reclamation has continued to renew contracts for the delivery of irrigation water from the Central Valley Project in California, without first preparing an environmental impact statement, asserting that it may not alter the amounts of water delivered under such renewed contracts; and
WHEREAS, the 1986 Water Resources Development Act authorized the implementation of fish and wildlife mitigation plans for past environmental damage caused by large Corps of Engineers navigation projects on the Missouri, Tennessee-Tombigbee, Mississippi, White and Red Rivers and others, and the implementation of these plans has been subject to unnecessary delays; and
WHEREAS, over 170 applications for relicensing of federally-licensed hydroelectric projects will be submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by December 31, 1991, creating an opportunity for modifications to the operation of over 200 non-federal dams when the licenses for these projects expire on December 31, 1993; and
WHEREAS, in the 1980’s FERC has averaged less than two environmental impact statements annually, while licensing more than 60 hydroelectric development projects each year and relying on frequently inadequate environmental assessments; and
WHEREAS, the funding of environmental reviews for current hydroelectric applications pending before FERC, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and other state and federal resource agencies, has been woefully inadequate, and the unprecedented surge of relicensing applications threatens to overwhelm the agencies’ review capabilities with the likely result of poor decision making, litigation and costly delays; and
WHEREAS, the National Flood Insurance Program has largely failed to accomplish its original objective of reducing flood losses by guiding new development away from areas with flood hazards; and
WHEREAS, coastal area floodplains and related beach, wetland and other low-lying areas that provide important fish and wildlife habitat are experiencing high rates of building and development, causing enormous habitat losses and subjecting growing populations to risks of flooding and potentially catastrophic losses in lives and property;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the National Wildlife Federation in annual meeting assembled March 21-24, 1991, in Memphis, Tennessee, calls upon the states, communities and the federal government to eliminate unnecessary subsidies for water use and to undertake such measures as are cost-effective and environmentally sound to increase the efficiency of our nation’s water use; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the federal government should suspend all long-term water contract renewals for the Central Valley Project until it has completed a full environmental impact statement analyzing the cumulative impact of water development in the Central Valley of California and the possibility of reducing water deliveries from the Central Valley Project under renewed contracts; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all new or renewed long-term contracts for water from the Central Valley Project be conditioned upon the implementation of rigorous water conservation programs and the achievement of reasonable goals for the restoration of fish and wildlife populations in the Central Valley and the protection of wetlands necessary for the achievement of the goals of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Congress should provide funding and direction to the Corps of Engineers to proceed in an expeditious fashion to implement the fish and wildlife mitigation plans authorized in the 1986 Water Resources Development Act; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Congress and the states should anticipate and adequately fund the environmental review costs of FERC’s hydroelectric relicensing, and that relicensing applicants and state and federal regulatory agencies should fully capitalize upon this opportunity to modify operations at existing hydroelectric facilities in order to restore, protect, enhance and mitigate damage to fish and wildlife habitats and public recreation opportunities affected by these facilities; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Congress should expand the National Flood Insurance Program to encourage states and local jurisdictions to halt and discourage unwise development of flood-prone areas, including eroding coastlines and areas subject to damage from hurricanes and major storms and sea level rise, and to encourage the development and implementation of nonstructural plans to reduce flood damages and to protect the natural and beneficial values of floodplain areas.