Santa Margarita River, California, Construction Authorization

Floor Speech

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on behalf of my bill H.R. 29. the Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project. I would like to thank Chairmen Nick Rahall and Ike Skelton for quickly moving this bill through their respective committees. This is now the third Congress in which this bill has passed the house, and I hope the Senate will act just as quickly.

The Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project is very important to U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and the city of Fallbrook. In 1966 the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California entered a stipulated judgment in U.S. v. Fallbrook P.U.D. directing the Department of the Interior to provide a ``physical solution'' to the 60/40 allocation of the Santa Margarita River. Since then, previous legislative efforts to authorize a project carrying out the Federal judge's mandate have not been successful despite past support of Members of the California Congressional delegation. Finally, through a long process of negotiation between the Marine Corps and the city, this conjunctive use project was agreed upon. This design was deemed to fully implement the court's directive at far less than half the cost of previous proposals with no environmental degradation.

Furthermore, passage of this authorization for the conjunctive use project is essential to giving Camp Pendleton access to the San Diego Aqueduct. Since its completion, the aqueduct has provided ample access to Southern California's regional water supply system for nearly all of San Diego County, except for Camp Pendleton. A key benefit of H.R. 29 will be the construction of a water system physically connecting Camp Pendleton to the San Diego Aqueduct, thereby making it possible to use imported water as needed, including emergency mobilization in time of conflict.

The conference report for the Fiscal Year 2003 Omnibus Appropriations Act directed the Bureau of Reclamation, under the Santa Margarita River feasibility authorization, to ``..... perform the studies needed to address current and future municipal, domestic, military, environmental, and other water uses from the Santa Margarita River.'' Funding for Reclamation's feasibility study of the Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project has been provided in each subsequent fiscal year up to the present, and its work is more than 90 percent complete. When signed into law, this project will be funded by the Department of Navy and Department of the Interior. This project is essential to ensure that Camp Pendleton has a larger water supply to meet the current and future needs of the base.

This project has been vetted by multiple committees over a number of years and found to be of the utmost importance to the Marines at Camp Pendleton, while also benefiting the city of Fallbrook. It will provide for enhanced recharge and recovery from the underground basin on Camp Pendleton to provide a constant water supply for the base, along with a safe, reliable, drought-and earthquake-proof water supply for more than 35,000 families.

Again, I thank my colleagues for working with me and my constituents to move H.R. 29 through the legislative process.

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