After small victory, Gray pulled from water committee

Adam Gray on Wednesday was booted off the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, one day after an unlikely victory when the committee narrowly approved his legislation aimed at protecting communities near the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers.

Gray was reluctant to characterize as punitive his sudden removal from a committee on which he had served since his election to the California Assembly three years ago. However, he called the move “rare,” “unusual” and an “overreaction” to the surprising success, however small, of a water bill he considers crucial to the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

“(Water) is really the No. 1 issue for my district,” which covers Merced County and part of Stanislaus, Gray said. When called into the Assembly speaker’s office for a 10-minute sit-down Wednesday, where he was informed that he was no longer welcome on the water committee, Gray said he “stood my ground pretty forcefully.”

“I said I’m going to vote for my district, first and foremost,” Gray, a Merced Democrat, said he told party boss Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, the speaker of the Assembly.

Calls placed Thursday to Atkins’ press office, with specific requests for comment on Gray’s committee removal, were not returned.

Atkins made several other moves affecting four committees at the same time, according to her letter, dated Thursday, to the Assembly chief clerk. Both members removed from the water panel – Gray and Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, D-Los Angeles – had voted for Gray’s Assembly Bill 1242 on Tuesday, as did two other Democrats who were not shown the door, and four Republicans.

Atkins replaced Gray and Ridley-Thomas on the water panel with Matthew Dababneh, D-Encino, and Rudy Salas, D-Bakersfield. Although Salas also hails from the San Joaquin Valley, his district is far from the area affected by Gray’s bill, which stretches from Manteca and Escalon in the north to Merced in the south.

Rivers flowing through the region – the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced – have been singled out by the State Water Resources Control Board, which wants to keep salt water from intruding in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and to help restore fish habitat by boosting flows. That would leave less in foothill reservoirs for recreation, irrigation districts and the thousands of farmers they serve, as well as people getting drinking water from the city of Modesto.

Gray calculates the combined loss at 350,000 acre-feet per year. By comparison, the Modesto Irrigation District expects to deliver less than 140,000 acre-feet of river water to its customers in this drought year.

To keep fields and orchards from dying, growers will rely heavily on groundwater, further reducing what experts already describe as potentially catastrophic overpumping of Valley aquifers. AB 1242 seeks to prevent further harm by requiring that the water board fix any “significant adverse impacts” resulting from proposed flow changes.

Gray was ecstatic when the bill passed out of committee with eight “yes” votes, the slimmest possible margin on a panel of 15 voting members. Several cities throughout Stanislaus and Merced counties and dozens of community and business groups had supported the legislation.

“We are absolutely so right on this issue,” he told Modesto Bee editors Thursday. “It’s an utterly common-sense, reasonable approach.”

But it runs counter to the will of commercial fishing interests and powerful environmental advocates who have the ear of many legislators from other areas, including those ruling Gray’s party, and he was quickly dispatched from the water panel. The bill will face uphill fights in other committees, he acknowledged.

Gray called the meeting with Atkins “cordial” but said “the decision was clearly made” before he stepped foot in her office.

“It’s wholly within the speaker’s authority to make committee assignments” for all 39 Assembly panels, Gray said. “It’s her prerogative.”

This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 6:37 PM with the headline "After small victory, Gray pulled from water committee."