Central Valley Project Reform Act

Central Valley Project Reform Act - Prohibits the Secretary of the Interior from entering into any new short-term, temporary, or long-term contracts or agreements for water supply from the Central Valley Project (CVP), California (a Bureau of Reclamation facility) for any purpose other than fish and wildlife before certain requirements have been met. Provides an exception to such prohibition for long-term contracts for the sale of CVP water to California water agencies for municipal and industrial purposes. Requires the revenues from such long-term contracts to be covered into the Restoration Fund established by this Act.

Authorizes the Secretary to renew any existing long-term repayment or water service contract for the delivery of CVP water for up to 20 years, provided that the Secretary has analyzed such contract's impact pursuant to Federal and State environmental laws. Requires the Secretary to prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement on CVP water contract renewals. Makes the provisions of any such contract renewed subject to further modifications by the Secretary based on such environmental impact statements. Specifies that any CVP water service or repayment contract entered into, renewed, or amended under these provisions shall provide that the Secretary may, under procedures specified in this Act, allocate a portion of the water supply contained in such contract for fish, wildlife, and habitat restoration purposes.

Makes the provisions of the Act of July 2, 1956, inapplicable to any CVP water service or repayment contract entered into, renewed, or amended under any provision of the Federal reclamation law after December 31, 1995. Specifies that, after such date, the Secretary shall not be under any obligation to enter into, renew, or amend any water service or repayment contracts in the CVP with any district or individual who has previously had such a contract prior to the enactment of this Act. Requires any CVP water service or repayment contract entered into, renewed, or amended after such enactment and prior to December 31, 1995, to contain the renewal provisions of the Act of July 2, 1956, for the term of the contract and any additional renewals.

Establishes the terms and conditions for all new and newly renewed or amended CVP water contracts. Places restrictions on the transfer of water under contract to users in California. Requires contractors to: (1) meter surface water; (2) ensure that drainage discharges meet all applicable State and Federal water quality standards; and (3) make all CVP water subject to contract available pursuant to a specified system of tiered water pricing.

Directs the Secretary: (1) to establish and administer an office on CVP water conservation best management practices that develops criteria for evaluating the adequacy of all water conservation plans developed by CVP contractors; (2) to periodically review and evaluate all existing conservation plans submitted by contractors to determine whether they meet conservation and efficiency criteria; and (3) in developing criteria, to grant substantial deference to the recommendations of the Final Report of the San Joaquin Valley Drainage Program. Provides that all increased revenues received by the Secretary shall be covered to the Restoration Fund.

Authorizes and directs the Secretary to operate CVP so as to: (1) protect, restore, and enhance affected fish, wildlife, and related habitat; and (2) permit the use of CVP water for power and fish and wildlife purposes. Directs that mitigation for fish and wildlife losses incurred as a result of construction, operation, or maintenance of the CVP be concurrent with such activity and be based on the replacement of ecologically equivalent habitat.

Authorizes and directs the Secretary to: (1) develop within 18 months and implement a program which makes all reasonable efforts to ensure that, by the year 2002, natural production of anadromous fish in Central Valley rivers and streams will be sustained, on a long-term basis, at levels not less than twice the average levels attained during the period of 1981-1990; (2) make available CVP water, upon enactment of this Act and after implementing a specified operational changes, for the primary purpose of implementing the fish, wildlife, and habitat restoration purposes and measures authorized by this Act, subject to specified requirements; (3) develop and implement a program for the acquisition of a water supply adequate to met the purposes and requirements of this Act; to mitigate fully for fishery impacts associated with operations of the Tracy Pumping Plant; and to mitigate fully for fishery impacts resulting from operations of the Contra Costa Canal Pumping Plant No. 1; (4) install and operate a structural temperature control device at Shasta Dam to control water temperatures in the Upper Sacramento River; (5) meet flow standards and objectives and diversion limits set forth in all existing State regulatory and judicial decisions which apply to CVP facilities; (6) investigate the feasibility of using short pulses of increased water flows to increase the survival of migrating juvenile anadromous fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Central Valley rivers and streams; (7) develop and implement a program which, to the extent possible, will eliminate losses of anadromous fish due to flow fluctuations caused by the operation of any CVP storage facility; (8) develop and implement measures to correct fish passage problems for adult and juvenile anadromous fish at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam; (9) develop and implement a program to restore the natural channel and habitat values of Clear Creek, construct new fish passage facilities at the McCormick-Saeltzer Dam, and provide flows in Clear Creek to provide optimum spawning, incubation, rearing, and outmigration conditions for all races of salmon and steelhead trout; (10) develop and implement a program for the purpose of restoring and replenishing, as needed, spawning gravel lost due to the construction and operation of CVP dams, bank protection programs, and other actions that have reduced the availability of spawning gravel in the rivers impounded by CVP facilities; (11) develop and implement a program which provides, as appropriate, for closure of the Delta Cross Channel and Georgiana Slough during times when significant numbers of striped bass eggs, larvae, and juveniles approach the Sacramento River intake to the Delta Cross Channel or Georgiana Slough; (12) construct a barrier at the head of Old River to be operated on a seasonal basis to increase the survival of young outmigrating salmon that are diverted from the San Joaquin River to CVP and State Water Project pumping plants; (13) deliver firm water supplies of suitable quality, in support of the objectives of the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture, to maintain and improve wetland habitat on units of the National Wildlife Refuge System in the Central Valley of California, the Gray Lodge, Los Banos, Volta, North Grasslands, and Mendota state wildlife management areas, and the Grasslands Resource Conservation District in the Central Valley; (14) establish a comprehensive assessment program to monitor fish and wildlife resources in the Central Valley and to assess the biological results of actions implemented pursuant to this Act; (15) develop and implement a plan to resolve fishery passage problems at the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District Diversion Dam; (16) assist, if requested by the State of California (the State), in developing and implementing management measures to restore the striped bass fishery of the Bay-Delta estuary; (17) evaluate and revise, as appropriate, existing operational criteria in order to maintain minimum carryover storage at Sacramento and Trinity river reservoirs sufficient to protect and restore the anadromous fish of the Sacramento and Trinity rivers; (18) participate with the State and other Federal agencies in the implementation of the on-going program to mitigate fully for the fishery impacts associated with operations of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District's Hamilton City Pumping Plant; and (19) install a temperature control device on Lewiston Dam to converse cold water for fishery protection, subject to specified cost limitations.

Directs the Central Valley Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee to investigate and provide recommendations to specified congressional committees concerning: (1) alternative means of improving the reliability and quality of water supplies currently available to privately owned wetlands in the Central Valley and the need, if any, for additional supplies; (2) water supply and delivery requirements necessary to permit full habitat development for water dependent wildlife on 120,000 acres and feasible means of meeting that water supply requirement; (3) measures to maintain suitable temperatures for anadromous fish survival in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, by controlling or relocating the discharge of irrigation return flows and sewage effluent, and restoring riparian forests; (4) opportunities for additional hatchery production to mitigate the impacts of water development on Central Valley fisheries where no other feasible means of mitigation is available; (5) measures to eliminate losses of juvenile anadromous fish resulting from unscreened or inadequately screened diversions on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, their tributaries, and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; (6) measures to eliminate barriers to upstream and downstream migration of salmonids in the Central Valley; and (7) construction of temperature control structures on Trinity, Lewiston, and Whiskeytown dams to conserve cold water for fishery protection.

Requires the Secretary to: (1) investigate and report to specified congressional committees on all effects of the CVP on anadromous fish populations and the fisheries, communities, tribes, businesses, and other interests and entities that have now or in the past had significant economical, social, or cultural association with those fishery resources; and (2) develop readily usable and broadly available models and supporting data to evaluate the ecologic and hydrologic effects of existing and alternative operations of public and private water facilities and systems in the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and Trinity river watersheds.

Establishes the Central Valley Project Restoration Fund for the receipt of revenues and funds provided by this Act.

Directs the Secretary to impose an annual operations and maintenance charge on CVP power and water sales. Specifies that the amount of the charge, paid by CVP water and power users shall be assessed in the same proportion as their cost allocation.

Authorizes the Secretary to provide funding to non-Federal entities to implement actions authorized by this Act and for specified purposes. Bars the Secretary from expending any funds on construction of capital facilities as to which the State is required to contribute a share of total costs until the State has agreed to meet such cost-sharing requirement.

Outlines additional authority granted to the Secretary by this Act with respect to CVP.

Specifies that this Act does not and shall not be interpreted to authorize construction of water storage facilities.

Sets forth reporting requirements.

Authorizes the Secretary to purchase: (1) from willing sellers at fair market value land and associated water rights and other property interests which receive CVP water under a contract executed with the United States; and (2) land which, in the Secretary's opinion, would, if permanently retired from irrigation, improve water conservation by a district or improve the quality of an irrigation district's agricultural wastewater and assist the district in implementing the provisions of a water conservation plan approved under the Reclamation Reform Act of 1982 and specified agricultural wastewater management activities, or which are no longer suitable for sustained agricultural production.

Authorizes the Secretary to undertake water conservation projects or measures (projects) needed to meet the requirements of this Act. Requires the Secretary to execute a cost-sharing agreement for any such project undertaken, under which the Secretary is authorized to pay up to 100 percent of the costs of such projects. Requires that any water saved by such projects be made available to the Secretary in proportion to the Secretary's contribution to the total project cost and be used to meet the Secretary's obligations under this Act, and that such projects be fully implemented by the end of FY 1999.

Permits civil citizen suits for alleged failures of the Secretary to perform specified non-discretionary acts or duties under this Act. Sets forth provisions regarding the award of litigation costs, litigation costs, limitations on relief, jurisdiction, and venue.

Establishes: (1) the Central Valley Project Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee (to make recommendations with respect to fish, wildlife, and environmental restoration actions identified in this Act); and (2) the Central Valley Project Transfer Advisory Committee (to report to the Congress and the President on all issues associated with the transfer of CVP facilities and assets to California).

Directs the Secretary to investigate and, if feasible, develop and implement a program using dredged material to restore, protect, and expand San Francicco Bay and Delta wetlands.

Authorizes appropriations.

Finds that the prestressed concrete pipe siphons installed in the Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct portion of the Central Arizona project designed and constructed by the Secretary pursuant to the Colorado River Basin Project Act have been determined to be defective, inadequate, and unsuitable for aqueduct purposes and must be replaced or substantial repairs completed for the transfer of the operation of the Project to its local sponsor. Directs that all costs incurred in the repair, modification, or replacement (together with associated costs) of the Aqueduct siphons at Salt River, New River, Hassayampa River, Jackrabbit Wash, Centennial Wash, and Agua Fria River be borne by the United States.

Authorizes appropriations of sums due to increased construction cost attributable to delays in enactment of any additional authorizations of appropriations for the construction of the Buffalo Bill Dam and Reservoir modifications and recreational facilities.

Authorizes and directs the Secretary to undertake a demonstration project in the city and county of San Francisco to examine the feasibility and effectiveness of using advanced ecologically engineered technology for water reclamation and reuse in accordance with standards of the California Water Code.

Amends the Act of August 27, 1954 (CVP reauthorization) to provide for recreational uses of CVP water.