By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

The wildfires in California provided a backdrop amd key argument for bills protecting the water supply at a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday. Officials from southwestern states addressed different water-related problems when testifying in support for bills affecting California, Oregon and Colorado.

“This [hearing] couldn’t come in a better time: if we look at California and what’s going on with the fires, water becomes so critical. We have abundance of water, but we need to conserve it now and supply it to everyone,” Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif., said.

Water and tribal officials from southwestern states described the different needs of their districts: water treatment facilities maintenance, loss of water because of geological characteristics of the land, aging infrastructure and lack of funds for new projects.

Gary Kennedy, superintendent of the Water Conservancy District in Mancos, Colo., explained how fire aggravates the drought situations. Fires affect the quality and quantity of water, increasing erosion and sedimentation. “Water treatment facilities cannot handle the increase of sedimentation, so fire only exacerbates the problem if we don’t have treated water storage,” Kennedy said.

“The fires in California have burned an area 10 times the size of the District of Columbia. The amount of land burned in my district so far this year is 11 times the size of D.C.: we have to change the federal policy to protect our watersheds and get ahead of climate change,” Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said.

“Some of our water facilities out there have that problem: aging infrastructure. We are concerned about this issue, but we are also concerned about the costs,” said Bob Johnson, Commissioner of the Bureau or Reclamation.

In addition to insuring water supply to all citizens, the projects are facing funding problems. Deschutes County, Ore., or Goleta Water District, Calif., are still paying back previous projects to the United States and cannot afford the funds of a new one.

Rep. Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., said that the Bureau of Reclamation is at a crossroads, when explaining that the agency is trying to meet national needs like lack of water supplies in the West and the military costs abroad.

“Republicans and Democrats are always accusing each other of not fixing the funding problem, but the truth is that, when they are in power, they find it difficult to meet all the needs,” McMorris said.

The Jackson Gulch Rehabilitation Act of 2007 was one of the bills discussed Wednesday. The project wants to implement a rehabilitation program for the Jackson Gulch Canal and related infrastructure. However, Johnson explained that the Administration cannot support it because it requires that 80 percent of the costs are held by taxpayers.

In a different approach to the problem, the Goleta Water District has proposed to transfer the Distribution System control from the secretary of interior to the district. This would be the “solution for more than 80,000 people. The district will have more local control, there will be one less administrative layer where changes and facilities are needed and private citizens won’t be dealing with federal government,” Kevin Walsh, General Manager of Goleta Water District, said.

Rep. John T. Salazar, D-Col., sponsors the project for the State of Colorado. In order to address the local concern on water supplies in the West, he read a letter he received from a fifth grade student in California saying “we need the bill, but we need the money.”