Expedited Water Agreement Urged : Resources: Gov. Wilson says new law makes speedy transfer of the Central Valley Project essential. But Clinton could overturn the accord.

SACRAMENTO —  Gov. Pete Wilson has asked the Bush Administration to expedite a preliminary agreement to transfer the federal Central Valley Project to state control, saying a new law makes it crucial that California operate the huge water project.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., Wilson said the law signed by President Bush last week places additional environmental responsibilities on the massive Central Valley Project system and gives the federal government an intrusive role in the management of California’s water supply.

Wilson and former Sen. John Seymour opposed the landmark Central Valley Project legislation, which was favored by environmental and most urban interests but opposed by agricultural businesses.

“I am more than ever committed to the proposition that critical decisions about the future of California’s water supply should be made by Californians, in California,” Wilson wrote.

A Wilson official said the Republican governor’s appeal for a speedy resolution should not be seen as an attempt to complete the deal before President-elect Bill Clinton takes office.

Environmentalists, who opposed Wilson in the battle over passage of the legislation, said the transfer of the project was, in theory, a good idea but they could see little value in having a lame-duck Administration sign a non-binding preliminary agreement. Anything endorsed by the outgoing Republican Administration, they said, could easily be overturned by the Clinton Administration, or by Congress, which ultimately must approve any transfer.

“The reality is that this agreement is going to be worthless unless Wilson negotiates with the new Administration,” said Patricia Schifferle, a spokeswoman for Share the Water, an environmental coalition. David Behar, executive director of the Bay Institute of San Francisco, said: “I’m not sure that anything George Bush is going to do right now is going to be very relevant.”

Karen Garrison, senior project scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Counsel, said new Central Valley Project legislation removed environmental opposition to the transfer because the law mandates certain fish and wildlife protections no matter who controls the project.

The landmark legislation signed into law by Bush last week makes radical revisions in the operation of the Central Valley Project, a system of reservoirs and canals that controls 20% of the developed water in California and has been providing cheap water to Central Valley farms for about half a century.

The new law makes protection of threatened fish and wildlife species a top priority by requiring that 800,000 acre-feet of Central Valley Project water be set aside each year for the environment and establishes an annual $50-million restoration fund to be financed by fees on water deliveries and power sales. It also permits Central Valley Project water to be sold anywhere in California and slashes government water subsidies to farmers by establishing a three-tier pricing system that encourages conservation.

The law was vigorously opposed by Wilson, who predicted that it would cause great harm to the agricultural sector of California’s economy. He had argued that the federal project should be transferred to state control so that all of California’s large water systems could be centrally managed and their operations coordinated. The Department of Water Resources already operates the state water project that primarily serves urban interests in Southern California.

Some of Wilson’s critics have suggested he was using the transfer proposal to delay or kill the Central Valley Project legislation.

But on Thursday, less than a week after the measure became law, the Wilson Administration insisted that it was more determined than ever to see the transfer accomplished.

Wilson’s resources secretary, Douglas Wheeler, said the governor hoped the preliminary transfer agreement would be signed by the end of the year, before the Bush Administration leaves office.

He quickly added that Wilson was acting in the interests of water users and was not trying to speed up the process just to head off involvement by Bush’s successor. He noted that in any event the agreement would be non-binding and Clinton could “renege on the whole thing.”

The preliminary agreement would only provide a broad outline for accomplishing the transfer and would not solve any of the knotty questions--such as the price to be paid for the Central Valley Project--that are involved in such a complicated transaction.

Wheeler said earlier values placed on the project may have to be revised because the passage of the legislation attaches new costs to the operation of the project. Federal estimates had given the project a depreciated value of $1.9 billion.

Garrison, who is a member of Wilson’s advisory committee reviewing the transfer negotiations, said that Clinton aides have given no indication how the new Administration will view the transfer and that it would probably be months before it has a chance to focus on the issue. Emphasizing that it was only her opinion, Garrison predicted that the new Administration would eventually favor the idea, seeing it as a more efficient way to manage California’s water resources.