The House has approved a $33.3 billion water and energy bill that includes provisions to ease the strain on drought-stricken Westside farmers, according to Westlands Water District officials. The district includes about 30,000 acres of land in Kings County.

Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno, successfully added amendments designed to speed irrigation transfers to parched farmers. The proposed legislation now moves to the Senate for consideration.

One of the amendments is supposed to make it easier to transfer water from wetter parts of the San Joaquin Valley to the Westside.

The other amendment directs $10 million toward projects that would increase pumping and build infrastructure.

Some of the money would go toward the Two Gates project, a proposed plan to put underwater gates in front of pump intakes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River delta.

The idea is to keep the endangered delta smelt fish away from the pump intakes and potentially increase the amount of water sent south to millions of urban residents and dozens of Westside farms.

Officials are limiting the pumping in an effort to protect the smelt and other fish species such as Chinook salmon and steelhead.

Other money would help finish a canal linking the state-run Delta -Mendota Canal and the federal Central Valley Project, according to Sarah Woolf, Westlands spokeswoman.

The project delivers water to several Westside farms in Kings and Fresno counties, but water allocations are only 10 percent of the contracted amount this year because of drought and pumping restrictions designed to protect endangered species.

The amendments are too late to help this summer, but could add 100,000 acre-feet of water to Westside agriculture by next year, according to Woolf.

An acre-foot of water is enough to cover an acre of land to a depth of 12 inches.

The Associated Press contributed to this story. The reporter can be reached at 583-2432.

(July 18, 2009)