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John Duarte thinks the water troubles bedeviling California’s Central Valley are human-caused. But he doesn’t blame climate change. “No, I think the water strains in the West are completely tied to policy choices we’ve made,” says the farmer and freshman Republican.

Riparian rights, water allocations and reservoir capacity are all big issues in the 13th District, home to some of the most productive agricultural land in the nation.

Earlier this month, he brought other members of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries to his district for a field hearing focused on California’s water challenges.   

“That’s why I’m here in politics, here in Congress, because I want to change those choices,” Duarte says. 

After winning his recently redrawn swing district in 2022 by fewer than 600 votes, he is facing a tough rematch this fall against former Democratic state Assemblyman Adam Gray. 

He spoke to Roll Call on a sunny summer day about infrastructure, dredging, flood control and “what happens when the mud hits the fan.” This interview has been condensed and edited.

Q: You’re new to elected office. What has surprised you so far?

A: Really, it sounds corny, but how decent so many people in Congress are, how many just good, decent people there are here doing their best.

Q: Meteorologists say the Southwest has been in what they call a megadrought for the last couple decades or so. Do you think this is a product of climate change?

A: No, I think the water strains in the West are completely tied to policy choices we’ve made. 

If you look at the outflows from the Delta to save the salmon, which haven’t recovered, and the volumes of water that we’ve released and moved from farms and communities to environmental goals that, again, haven’t been accomplished — these are clearly choices we’ve made. If you look at our lack of infrastructure to add more flexibility and resilience to our water systems, those are choices we’ve made. 

That’s why I’m here in politics, here in Congress, because I want to change those choices. I think different choices can have very, very different outcomes for water abundance, affordability, opportunity and housing costs in California. And if California does a better job resolving its own water issues, it takes strain off the Colorado River system and really resolves issues for the entire Southwest.

Q: But what about changes in rainfall and snowpack? 

A: I can tell you this way. We had a torrential flooding season in 2022–2023. We had a very robust rain season in the winter of 2023–2024. Yet the Bureau of Reclamation allocated farmers just a fraction of their full water deliveries after two wet years. 

The dams are full. The snowpack was there. The watershed was abundant. And we’re still not delivering full allocations to farms and cities in California. So yeah, this is not about climate change as much as it is about policy choices, and I can prove that today.

Q: Setting aside political realities, what’s one thing you would do to address that?

A: There’s several things we can do that I call easy water fixes. One is we can change the way we manage our reservoirs. 

If you look at some of the independently managed reservoirs like Don Pedro Reservoir that’s managed by Turlock Irrigation District, it’s had an excellent job in holding water correctly, and then releasing it and managing flood control. If you look at the Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs and the Army Corps of Engineers reservoirs, their management has been far inferior. They’ve released too much water, they’ve caused a lot of droughts and strains that weren’t necessary. So we need to operate our reservoirs better. 

Q: What are some other things you would do?  

A: We can add flexibility to those reservoirs by dredging some of the sediment out of the drainages. If you look at the San Joaquin River system, the Delta, we’re letting it fill up with silt. Well, flood management, flood control is always a function of what happens when the mud hits the fan, and what are you going to do about it? How fast can you get rid of the water? If you dredge these river channels where there are constraints and constrictions, you can change your flood control procedures, you can hold more water in the dams and sustain it over, and that’s more water that can go to environmental uses, farms, homes, businesses, and give us abundance in California. 

And then there’s infrastructure. One project we’ve identified specifically is the Folsom South Canal. You’ve probably heard of the Auburn Dam conflict over the decades. We never built a 2.5 million acre-foot reservoir for the American River Watershed, which is a giant watershed near Lake Tahoe. We didn’t build that. So we have Folsom down below, but it’s a small dam for a huge watershed. The Folsom South Canal is half built. We need to build the other half, about 40 or 50 miles of construction, and take it straight to the pumps. That takes a lot of water that’s otherwise inundating the Delta at peak pressure times and gets it into the system and uses that water. 

And then raise Shasta [Dam]. We can raise Shasta and add 635,000 acre-feet of storage in that alone. 

Quick hits:

Last book you read? “Cobalt Red,” about cobalt mining in the Congo and child slave labor, horrific conditions.

In politics, can the ends justify the means? No, we’ve got a constitutional process here. The Constitution is what sustains the government. You can’t undermine it.

Your least popular opinion? I think the Endangered Species Act needs a major overhaul.

As a farmer, you know about manure. Did you deal with more BS as a farmer or as a politician? Well, I dealt with some pretty epic BS as a farmer.

Who is your best friend across the aisle here in Congress? Probably Jimmy Panetta or Jonathan Jackson.

‘When the mud hits the fan’: Rep. John Duarte talks water - Roll Call