Native American tribes are pushing for more status in California’s water laws to better protect cultural and subsistence practices. Irrigation districts are crying foul, claiming the real intention of the new legislation is to block a set of voluntary agreements for river flows.
The debate in the Capitol is an extension of one that has played out for more than a decade as the state attempts to reconcile the historic displacement of indigenous peoples with a complex water rights system that serves 28 million people and provides irrigation water for three million acres of land.
“When California's first people are not at the table when these discussions are being had, the cultural impacts sometimes are irreversible,” said Assemblymember James Ramos of Highland, who is the first Native American to serve in the Legislature.
Ramos has filed Assembly Bill 2614 to add tribal cultural uses of water to the existing state water code, protecting those uses in the same manner as all other water rights. He said the addition would enable the state to build a closer partnership with tribes and “fully protect the cultural resources that are important to their survival.”
“California tribes since time immemorial have been stewards of their environment. Waterways and bodies of water have been an important cultural aspect and must be protected,” Ramos said during a recent committee hearing on AB 2614. “Water is life and must be treated as such in the state of California.”
The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians is sponsoring his measure. Vice Chairperson Malissa Tayaba described the current efforts to protect tribal beneficial uses (TBUs) as insufficient.
“Our people have relied upon these waterways and the cultural landscapes connected to them since long before European colonization,” said Tayaba. “In recent years, we have been increasingly concerned about the degraded conditions in our rivers, which impact the ability of our people to maintain culture, tradition and food sovereignty.”
Aware of the need for policies to drive the issue, the State Water Resources Control Board adopted a resolution in 2016 directing staff to develop TBU definitions. The following year the board incorporated three TBUs, which now serve as a foundation for regulatory programs at the state board and its nine regional bodies.
Asm. Diane Papan, D-San MateoTayaba pushed for elevating the TBUs to an equal footing with other beneficial uses to ensure regulators understand and protect them.
“It's now been 18 years since California tribes first requested tribal beneficial uses to be included in basin plans at the regional board level—while state agencies expedite water projects and regional boards continue to move TBUs slowly,” added Sherri Norris, executive director of the California Indian Environmental Alliance.
To expedite the timeline for TBUs, AB 2614 would require the water board to adopt by 2026 an update to its Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan that includes TBUs. The provision repurposes an aggressive mandate proposed in a 2022 bill, which unsuccessfully sought to block the board from approving permits for projects like the Sites Reservoir unless it began implementing a Bay-Delta Plan update by 2024.
The water board, meanwhile, hosted a nearly 30-hour workshop last month to review various technical aspects of the voluntary agreements proposal as part of the plan update. They expect to vote on the proposal at some point next year.
The process for updating the plan has taken more than a decade, and irrigation districts warn the mandates in AB 2614 would restart that process from scratch.
Bob Reeb, lobbying on behalf of a coalition of about 40 agricultural water suppliers in the San Joaquin Valley, acknowledged the importance of clean and abundant water for Native American tribes, along with the “atrocities that were visited upon the native peoples when California started developing and settling and the subsequent marginalization and displacement.” He had no objection to those aspects of the measure.
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“The critical part of this bill, however, is that it upends 50 years of water quality control law in California,” he told lawmakers. “We can't accept placing one beneficial use of water over all other competing beneficial uses.”
Reeb said AB 2614 would “place the hand of the Legislature on the scale” that the water board depends on for balancing the many needs. He acknowledged that stakeholders on all sides are frustrated with the board’s pace.
“It's really not their fault. It's like putting together a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle and all the pieces are opaque gray,” he said. “But the process needs to play out.”
He also said the bill would require the board to return to the beginning of the process to reestablish beneficial uses, then identify water bodies related to those uses, adopt new water quality objectives and incorporate them into the plan.
“This bill is going to insert all manner of chaos into that process,” he said.
Reeb noted the bill sponsors have staunchly opposed the voluntary agreements approach, as part of a broader environmental justice coalition, and have pushed for dedicating as much as 60% of the flows to run unimpeded through the Delta to protect endangered and threatened fish populations.
The Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians were also the lead petitioner in a civil rights complaint filed last year with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency against the board’s voluntary agreements approach.
While agricultural groups and other water interests have remained on the sidelines of the debate, the Association of California Water Agencies has engaged in discussions and voiced its skepticism of the bill.
“The fact of the matter is this bill goes far beyond what the stated intent of it is,” said ACWA state relations advocate Kris Anderson. “We're really at the 11th hour of trying to resolve [the Bay-Delta Plan]. This bill is going to cause a significant delay.”
Asm. Mia Bonta of Alameda accepted that risk.
“If what we are being asked to do right now is to put a hand on the scale toward protection of tribal water usage, then count my hand in, please,” said Bonta.
While AB 2614 has garnered bipartisan support through two committees, Asm. Diane Papan of San Mateo, who chairs the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, has reservations about the measure. She is concerned about the scope of the bill and about setting a precedent by defining beneficial uses in statute for the first time, issues raised by committee staff. She abstained from voting in both hearings.
“Your goal is both laudable and just—no question about it,” Papan told Ramos. “For me, the issue is not whether to consider tribal benefits, but rather how to consider them.”
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