Central Valley Project Fish and Wildlife Act of 1992

Central Valley Project Fish and Wildlife Act of 1992 - 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 certain contracts.

Requires the Secretary to renew any existing long-term repayment or water service contract for the delivery of CVP water for a period of 25 years, with additional 25-year renewals, subject to reclamation law pricing requirements.

Authorizes the Secretary to enter into contracts with: (1) the Tuolumne Regional Water District for delivery of water from the New Melones project to the county's water distribution system; (2) the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for the delivery in perpetuity of water to meet the needs of the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery; and (3) the Watsonville subarea of the San Felipe Division of the CVP upon completion of a specified plan of study.

Requires all CVP repayment contracts providing for water service and water service contracts for agricultural, municipal, or industrial purposes that are renewed after this Act's enactment date to make water available to contracting entities pursuant to a system of tiered water pricing. Sets forth requirements for such system.

Directs the Secretary to develop, select, and implement specified actions with respect to fish and wildlife habitat issues in the California Central Valley.

Includes among initial actions that the Secretary shall take by specified dates: (1) negotiation and execution of agreements with the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) to mitigate the direct fishery losses associated with the operation of the Tracy Pumping Plant and the Contra Costa Canal Pumping Plant numbered one and to eliminate, to the extent practicable, losses of salmon and steelhead trout due to flow fluctuations caused by the operation of Keswick, Nimbus, and Lewiston Regulating Dams; (2) installation and operation of a structural temperature control device at Shasta Dam and development and implementation of modifications in CVP operations to allow for control of water temperatures in the upper Sacramento River sufficient to protect salmon; (3) rehabilitation and expansion of the Coleman National Fish Hatchery; (4) development and implementation of a gravel replenishment program to restore and replenish spawning gravel lost due to the construction and operation of Shasta, Folsom, and New Melones Dams, bank protection programs, and other actions that have reduced availability of spawning gravel in the upper Sacramento River and the American and Stanislaus Rivers; and (5) development and implementation of a Delta Cross Channel monitoring and operational program to protect striped bass eggs and larvae as they approach the Delta Cross Channel gates.

Directs the Secretary to establish an assessment program to monitor fish and wildlife resources in the Central Valley and to assess the biological results of restoration and enhancement actions.

Requires the Secretary to develop, evaluate, select, and implement, by specified dates, actions that address specified fish and wildlife protection, restoration, and enhancement issues, including: (1) developing and implementing programs to eliminate the need to reduce Keswick Dam releases every Spring to place the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District's Diversion Dam into operation and every Fall to take the Dam out of operation to minimize fish passage problems for salmon at the CVP Red Bluff Diversion Dam and to augment natural production of salmon and steelhead trout population levels in the San Joaquin River system in above-normal water years through means of artificial production; (2) constructing and operating a new satellite hatchery to augment the single and dual purpose channels at the Tehama Colusa Fish Facility and to further mitigate the impact of Shasta Dam on fishery resources; (3) constructing a salmon and steelhead trout hatchery on the Yuba River; (4) negotiating and executing an agreement with the CDFG that requires the release of the minimum flows necessary to take full advantage of the spawning, incubation, rearing, and outmigration potential of the Upper Sacramento River and the Lower American River for salmon, subject to the physical capabilities of the CVP facilities involved; (5) providing flows to allow sufficient spawning, incubation, rearing, and outmigration conditions for salmon and steelhead trout from Whiskeytown Dam and a new fish ladder constructed at the McCormick-Saeltzer Dam; (6) evaluating and implementing a program to correct a defective fish screen at the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District's Sacramento River diversion; (7) assisting in the funding of enforcement measures to reduce the numbers of striped bass illegally taken from the San Francisco Bay Estuary and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; (8) participating in a program to mitigate for fishery impacts associated with operations of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District's Hamilton City Pumping Plant; (9) providing such assistance as may be requested by the State of California to develop and implement fishing regulations that protect the older, more productive striped bass females in order to maintain a viable reproducing striped bass population; and (10) developing and implementing measures that will provide additional dependable water supplies of suitable quality.

Directs: (1) the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to expedite, and complete by December 31, 1995, efforts to clean up mines causing intermittent releases of lethal concentrations of dissolved metals from the Spring Creek Debris Dam; and (2) the Secretary, in the interim, to provide water from the Keswick Dam sufficient to dilute the Spring Creek Debris Dam discharges to concentration levels that allow survival of fish life below Keswick Dam, except when the U.S. Corps of Engineers flood control criteria for Shasta Dam limits that capability.

Authorizes the Secretary to construct, in partnership with the State of California, a barrier at the head of Old River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by December 31, 1995, to partially mitigate the impact of the CVP and State Water project pumping plants in the south Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on the survival of young outmigrating salmon that are diverted from the San Joaquin River to the pumps.

Directs the Secretary to: (1) participate in the San Joaquin River Management Program; and (2) evaluate in-basin needs in the Stanislaus River basin and investigate alternative storage, release, and delivery regimes for satisfying both in- and out-of-basin needs.

Authorizes and directs the Secretary to provide firm water supplies to improve wetland habitat areas on National Wildlife Refuge System units in the Central Valley of California; the Gray Lodge, Los Banos, Volta, North Grasslands, and Mendota State wildlife management areas; and the Grasslands Resources Conservation District, subject to certain requirements.

Directs the Secretary to: (1) identify additional actions that would provide mitigation of CVP impacts on, protect, and restore Central Valley fish and wildlife habitat; (2) develop the information needed to evaluate such actions technically, determine the economic and biological feasibility using specified criteria, determine appropriate cost allocations specific to each action, and select actions to recommend to the Congress for authorization to implement; and (3) report to the Congress according to a specified schedule until the year 2010.

Sets forth fish and wildlife habitat issues to be evaluated by the Secretary, including: (1) determination of the flows and habitat restoration measures needed to protect, restore, and enhance salmon and steelhead trout in parts of the San Joaquin River; (2) investigation of actions allowing closure or screening of the Delta Cross Channel and Georgiana Slough to prevent the diversion of out-migrating salmon and steelhead trout through those facilities; (3) as a means of increasing survival of migrating young fish, investigation of the feasibility of using short pulses of increased water flows to move salmon, steelhead trout, and striped bass into and through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; (4) investigation of ways to maintain suitable temperatures for young salmon survival in the lower Sacramento River and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by controlling or relocating the discharge of irrigation return flows and sewage effluent; (5) investigation of the need for additional hatchery production to mitigate the impacts of water development on Central Valley fisheries where no other feasible means of mitigation is available or where hatchery production would enhance efforts to increase natural production of a particular species; (6) investigation of measures available to correct flow pattern problems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta created by the operation of the CVP and the California State Water Project; (7) evaluation of measures to avoid unqualified losses of juvenile anadromous fish due to unscreened or inadequately screened diversions on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, their tributaries, and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta; and (8) elimination of barriers to upstream migration of salmon and steelhead trout adults to spawning areas downstream of existing storage facilities in the Central Valley caused by agricultural diversions and other obstructions.

Directs the Secretary to consider specified criteria and factors and issue findings thereon when determining which alternate programs, policies, or procedures should be implemented to protect and restore fish and wildlife conditions.

Sets forth provisions with respect to: (1) cost allocations; (2) additional authorities; and (3) funding to carry out the purposes and provisions of this Act.

Establishes the Central Valley Project Restoration Fund and authorizes appropriations from the Fund to carry out this Act.

Directs the Secretary to collect an annual fee from CVP beneficiaries to recover costs of fish, wildlife, and habitat restoration programs.

Authorizes the Secretary, subject to specified limitations, to approve all transfer agreements: (1) among CVP contractors and between CVP contractors and noncontractors involving CVP water within the authorized CVP service area; (2) between CVP contractors and parties outside the CVP service area upon the determination that as a result of the proposed transaction over the term of the agreement there is no net export of water out of the CVP service area of the transferor; and (3) between CVP water contractors and parties outside the CVP service area where the Secretary determines that as a result of the proposed transaction over the term of the agreement there will be a net export of water out of the service area of the transferor, provided that the water being transferred would not otherwise be available to other consumptive beneficial uses absent implementation of the program and that, over the term of the agreement in question, the transfer will have no significant, long-term adverse impact on groundwater conditions in the transferor's service area.

Sets forth provisions with respect to transfers of water developed through temporary or permanent land fallowing.

Specifies that: (1) all existing and future contracts for CVP water shall be deemed to allow for the transfers and exchanges provided for within this Act; and (2) specified agreements entered into under this Act shall provide that, during the years of actual transfer, CVP water subject to transfer shall be repaid at full cost.

Requires all existing CVP agricultural contractors, within two years after the enactment of this Act, to submit a report to the Secretary which identifies water conservation practices and analyzes the cost and benefits to that entity and its customers of implementing each of such practices and any additional practices the Secretary determines should be analyzed.

Requires all CVP agricultural contractors to develop a plan for implementation of such practices determined by the entity within the required water conservation report to be financially and otherwise feasible for the specific entity. Requires the entity to complete the plan for implementation within one year after completion of such report. Specifies that financially feasible conservation practices that will cause environmental harm or that are inconsistent with other legal requirements shall not be required to be implemented.

Establishes a Water Conservation Incentive Program which shall be administered by the Secretary to encourage and assist with the on-farm implementation of the water conservation practices set forth in this Act.

Directs the Secretary to require all CVP municipal and industrial water users, to the extent they provide retail, municipal, and industrial water service, to comply with the provisions of a specified memorandum regarding urban water conservation in California. Requires the Secretary to evaluate the benefits and cost analysis for each of the water conservation practices found by the specific water user preparing the required reports not to be feasible and to determine: (1) which practices would make additional water available to Central Valley streams or to a usable ground water basin that would not otherwise be available; and (2) for each of specified practices, the benefit/cost ratio of implementation if that water were used to fulfill wildlife refuge water supply obligations or made available to other water agencies through the transfer provisions established by this Act.

Authorizes the Secretary to implement those water conservation practices identified which conserve water, are economically feasible, and are prudent, with the entity holding the contractual right to the water conserved and then make that water available for use by Central Valley refuges as required by provisions of this Act, subject to specified requirements.

Directs the Secretary to negotiate for, and report to the Congress on, the transfer of the CVP to the State of California.

Requires the Secretary to credit any expenditures by the State in this Act for fish and wildlife mitigation, protection, and restoration to the purchase price negotiated for the sale of the CVP.